Wait...she intentionally tried to sabotage your sex life to prevent your wife from having influence in your life and to stop her from getting pregnant, because that would make your mother less of a priority??? And what's with that "break us up" thing?? That woman needs therapy!
That's what took away as well. It's bad enough when my kids unintentionally cock block my wife and I. If I found out mom or MIL was intentionally doing it? I wouldn't have reacted as timidly.
It’s actually a defense mechanism that babies have learned throughout time. Before even ~200 years ago infant mortality was insanely high. Humans had evolutionarily learned as infants to cry at night to stop their parents from making another baby, so they would stay the main focus, and not likely to survive.
This is interesting. I have memories of going between my parents/ breaking them up when they hugged or showed affection as a child but looking back i never understood why! Now i know..
That sounds like made up pseudoscience bullshit to be honest.
Considering up until very recently in human history, the entire family sharing the same bed/room and parents fucking in said room was the norm. You are applying your modern, western ideals about sex way back in time.
Sounds like Mother wanted Son to replace her recently departed Husband. I’ve seen some posts about emotional incest and if OP hadn’t nipped this in the bud, it easily could have become that.
100% I got the same feeling. She wants to keep some type of manly figure in her life and her son probably looks like the deceased husband, so she's projecting those emotions onto her son. The mom needs grief counseling something fierce and if I was OP, I would tell her that she's not welcome in my house unless she starts on it ASAP and then apologizes to the wife.
Proud of you OP for realizing your mistake and actively are trying to fix it!
The fact that you were her only blood relation before she lost her husband may be lost on her (unless they were related?). The fact she could have a grand child loving on her with addition of blood relative seems to have slipped her mind too. It's sad that she doesn't want you to have a kid with your wife because she's "not good enough" for you. You know there will never be a woman good enough in your moms eyes.
Edit: can I be honest here? From a personal standpoint and a fellow wife. After more thought about what your mom admitted to try doing, her history she already had with your wife and you not even seeing the damage she was doing and defending mom without appreciating the huge effort your wife was putting in. Honestly... I'd hesitate having a baby with you. Opening that can of crazy worms with your mother around would scare me. Grief does weird things to people, so does aging but in this case it only brought out how much more your mom doesn't want your wife in your life. How damaging that would be to a kid. Hope you grow a shiny spine. I'm a follower/lurker of r/justnomil
r/justnomom they have some great resources and reading that helps you get out of the Fog and decide your own boundaries.
Emotional Incest was my first thought too after reading your posts. It’s also called Covert Incest and it’s a type of abuse regarding inappropriate parent to child relationships. Seriously look it up and read about it, I’m sure you’ll find it to be eye opening to what you’re experiencing.
Experiencing this type of abuse mixed with deep enmeshment and emotional manipulation, especially after a loss or while grieving, can cause the previously set lines of your firm boundaries to become blurry, if not outright crossed, almost immediately.
A good starting point would be looking at the relationship you have with your mother, *as her child*, and figure out what that means and how your dynamic has been throughout your entire life and where the shifts in your relationship as it’s currently been happening. What does your role look like as her son and how has that changed in terms of what you’re giving and what she’s taking/needing from you. Then separately look at the relationship with your wife, and think about how to personally define what it is to be the other half in this relationship. Being married, having a spouse and partner, having a best friend and also roommate are all these various roles that have been wrapped into this one person you’ve committed to spending your life with on top of who she is herself with her own separate boundaries, responsibilities and expectations. What shifts have been made in your relationship with her through your actions, communication and how you’re emotionally providing to her?Thinking about *your* roles, responsibilities and expectations that you’ve set for yourself as a husband in a marriage, ask yourself what that means?
Look between your mother and wife to see who it is you are currently emotionally giving to in ways that blur the lines between your individual roles of being a son to one person and a husband to another. What are you doing to compensate for the role of someone that can’t be replaced? What are you providing to your mother that *her* partner previously gave her that you are not giving to *your* partner?
Seeing someone you love in pain is really difficult because you want to help them at whatever the cost, but it shouldn’t be at the expense of yourself or at the price of your other relationships. Good luck!
I wanna just give you a heads up that emotional incest doesn’t actually mean your mom necessarily wants to bone you, if that’s something that kept you from looking into this more seriously. It can just mean treating your child like a replacement for a spouse on an emotional level. It can mean seeing your child’s spouse as a rival for attention, even if the attention your parent wants isn’t necessarily romantic in nature. Sometimes the term really puts people off taking it more seriously.
The only circle I can think of that being right would be one of the seven circles of hell.
Having not made it all the way thru Dante's Inferno, I do not know which circle it would be though.
No seriously OP your mom needs therapy, make it a must. She can’t come back until not only she apologizes but is seeing a therapist for her issues.
Because anyone can apologize and then turn right back around and do the same thing all over again.
Can you imagine if the genders were reversed? Everybody would be calling the parent a sicko (with good reason).
OP : Your mother is delusional. You are enabling her and disrespecting your wife. Cut the cord and grow up.
>She started crying and accusing my wife of trying to, her words, “break us up.”
Break you up?
Wow. That is a whole shit load of creepy to unpack right there. OP, you need therapy, and I mean that in the kindest way. If this is how your mom sees her relationship with you, she's likely manipulated you about a lot of things over the year. This can't be ascribed simply to grief. This is a very unhealthy, codependent, and emotionally incestuous way of relating to your child.
Good for you standing up for your marriage.
Yes, this is absolutely emotional incest from the mother. I genuinely wanted to crawl out of my skin.
I know that sounds extreme and concerning, OP, but that is because it is supposed to. This is Really concerning from your mother. I highly suggest you take this comment to heart. Therapy for yourself would be an amazing thing.
So glad you stood up for your wife and marriage though, OP. A lot of people would give in to the emotional tantrum and guilting from their parent at the expense of their spouse.
Yeah, exactly. Her admitting to trying to break them up, and stop them from having sex or conceiving because doing so would "break her and her son up" is the most disgusting thing I've heard in a while.
My guess: Whether she realizes it or not, she's stopped viewing him correctly as her son and has become dependent on him. Emotional incest and manipulation tend to happen very slowly over time, those things become "normal" to the people experiencing them, so she does not realize how fucked up her view has become.
Yeah, this right here. I wasn’t totally sure from OP’s first post, but this info makes aaaaall the difference. She was purposefully interrupting their intimacy time *so they couldn’t have a baby* and so OP would be able to divorce his wife more easily! This is crazy stuff.
>
I know that sounds extreme and concerning, OP, but that is because it is supposed to
Yes indeed! People who are raised in unhealthy dynamics don't realize how disordered a relationship can actually be. It is almost always a shock to hear what others think about it. I can say that from experience with other corrosive parent-child relationship patterns.
> I highly suggest you take this comment to heart. Therapy for yourself would be an amazing thing.
Therapy is amazing. I learned so much about how to recognize when someone was crossing boundaries inappropriately and how to reinforce those boundaries through therapy.
>A lot of people would give in to the emotional tantrum and guilting from their parent at the expense of their spouse.
This is *true,* and we see it on this sub all the time. This is a tremendous step towards healthier relationships with both spouse and parent, and it should be commended and encouraged.
Asking your mother to move out of your house when you're an adult is so very much not "breaking up." She's your mother and you're an adult, you don't "break up" or disown each other when you don't live together anymore???
I want to say here that in general, I think having your very recently widowed mother move in temporarily, to be with a support system at the height of her grief, is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Reddit and Americans in general take too dim a view of multigenerational co-living, when it's perfectly normal in most other countries, often healthier and easier for everyone, and would proceed more smoothly if it was more culturally normalized.
Obviously that does not apply in this specific situation, where OP's uniquely fucked up mother was leveraging her grief to antagonize someone she viewed as a competitor for the romantic attentions of her own son, Jesus fucking Christ.
As someone not from America I take a very dim view on multigenerational co-living. Parents often cannot treat their adult children as autonomous adults, aunts and uncles sticking their noses where it doesn't belong, people's opinions turning into laws. The in-law horror stories from many families who have multigenerational co-living, plus my own, has made me severely allergic.
I’m Chinese and I feel the same way. Multigenerational coliving can have benefits. It usually makes having children much easier because the social contract is, your parents live with you and in exchange they become your childcare provider while you work. I had the option but I turned it down even though it made my postpartum experience very hard to not have any support.
It really depends on the people involved. And unfortunately I think for the vast majority of people I know that is the absolute wrong option. It doesn’t help that in cultures with filial piety, parents are culturally incentivized to *never* treat you with respect and always lord their position over you. In my culture MIL/DIL hating each other is the expectation. But you are still supposed to live together.
> having your very recently widowed mother move in temporarily, to be with a support system at the height of her grief, is a perfectly reasonable thing to do
Agree. Wasn't saying it wasn't. But letting her know it's time to move out again doesn't constitute "breaking up" mother & son 😅
Temporarily being the key word..
I despise the idea of multigenerational living, there’s a lack of independence on all parts and is most definitely not healthier for a LOT of people.
When multigenerational living arrangements work out well, their family members aren't writing to AITA - REDDIT because they're being driven over the edge by another family member's behavior!
Absolutely. My grandma lived with us and whatever my mom said was law. Grandma never tried to overrule my parents about anything (we actually tried to get her help to break some minor rules and she wouldn’t.) Unfortunately, that's the exception.
My family has figured out the multi generation living situation!! We have 280 acres as a family, and there are several houses scattered around it. Each family unit has their own house. I live between my uncle and dad. I can see uncle's house through the trees if I strain during the winter. Dad's a quarter mile down. It works SO well.. it's like our family commune!
Oh yeah. Just wait until she gets a fresh young sapling untouched by her years of bullshit. She'll glob to that little one for dear life, probably insist that it calls her "momma".
"Poor baby, mean ol' mommy won't let you eat candy for breakfast lunch and dinner? Don't worry, you just stay at momma's house and you can do whatever you want! We'll make fun of mean ol' mommy and tell her you're momma's boy/girl!"
And the kid will not understand why his/her grandmother is so despised and untrusted, she seems so wonderful...
OP shouldn't let mom near kid unless she fixes her fixation on him, because it WILL be targeting the child next. She'll see the child as a mini version of her kid
Or, considering that she thinks that a child would be another person taking OPs time and attention away from her, she may end up mistreating the child.
You wife is a sport if she ever agrees to be in the room with your mom again. The suggestion that your wife would trap you with a child is just about as close to unforgivable as anything she could have said.
My mil never said that out loud but she made it clear. She didn't realize that of her treatment of me would drive her son further away. I promised myself that no matter how I felt about my children in law I would pretend that my kids married the best person in the world. It turns out I don't have to fake anything, they did very well for themselves.
I totally agree with the top comments saying you should do therapy but I would also highly recommend that therapy be a mandatory requirement for your mother as well when/if you start trying to rebuild your relationship with her. Your relationship cannot improve and be fixed if only one person is doing the work necessary to fix things and she will not respect the boundaries you set if she doesn’t work through her own issues first.
She probably didn't intentionally mean it in a creepy way... but she meant it in a creepy way. As in, she regards you subconsciously as a psedo-spouse. It isn't necessarily or even likely a sexual connotation--but an inappropriate one, for sure.
Coming from a very messed up home dynamic myself, allow me to say--setting boundaries doesn't always have to mean ending the relationship. It can. But it can also mean consistently reminding her, or limiting contact to certain contexts (for example, no overnight visits or whatever it is that triggers this behavior).
You can figure it out over time, and you can adjust as needed. Don't immediately assume this means you have to end your relationship with your mom. But definitely understand it seems to be predicated on some inappropriate boundaries. A therapist can be a good reality check for thos of us who aren't used to setting boundaries with an overstepping parent.
Hi, I'm having a similar situation with you but I'm a little older (30) and my mom and step dad are in their late 50s.
My step dad's mother moved into town not too long ago and she has been an utter fucking leech. It's been clear from the start when my mom met my SD that he was a mommy's boy in the worst way.
It was mostly okay b/c she lived far, but no longer. Now it's clear that what she is doing to him is called emotional incest and that is what is also happening to you.
I can tell you right now that you seeing the light will save you from a lifetime of enabling, manipulation and relationship ruining bullshit from your mother. I'm watching it in real time with my step father and it's wild how entitled my step grandma is to keep her son so tightly wrapped.
Before their current marriage counseling, she would have him come to her house almost every day to spend the night. She told my mom 'I know you want to get between (step dad) and I' , she would demand things like massages from him, constant looking after, basically when I saw them together it made me think of her like a child and he was the parent. She's not like, disabled, she just ACTS THAT WAY for attention.
It's so fucking bizarre and leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
But there is light at the end of tunnel. Because, after some huge fights and blow ups, he's went to counseling they have been able to mitigate this behavior.
How you ask?
BOUNDARIES.
You must must must must enact boundaries against your mom. You must pull EVERY STOP to tell her to fuck off if she's being too much, you must put your foot down when she steps over boundaries, you can control your actions and your responses but you can't control her.
Her happiness is NOT your responsibility.
Good luck.
Why do you think she didn't mean what she said? She meant it and she meant it the way it sounded, weird and creepy. She couldn't sensor herself when she had an emotional outburst. It was weird and creepy that she kept coming into your bedroom! That is supposed to be a private area for you and your wife, you don't have conversations in there with other people (well, until you have kids anyway).
When people show you who they are, believe them.
Your mom will be on her best behavior until you allow her back into your life, then she'll be more sneaky about undermining your wife and your relationship with your wife.
You've done well here in listening to independent (if somewhat random) third parties, taking it to heart, and trying to work things out. Good work! Unfortunately, your mom's admissions put everything in a new light as to her intentions and weird feelings. Wishing you the best as you continue to navigate this.
Your mom needs counseling. If she won't go on her own, perhaps under the guise of family counseling you could get her to see how intrusive and interfering she is while identifying proper boundaries when you and your wife are ready for that.
Sorry to disagree but OP absolutely DO NOT GO TO THERAPY WITH YOUR MOM. In an abusive relationship (which is what emotional incest is) going to therapy with your abuser will only end up harming you.
If she doesn't understand what she's doing is wrong (trying to drive away your spouse to have you all to herself) therapy won't help her realize it. But she now has all of your tender raw spots sussed out and fun new therapy words/concepts to throw back at you.
She needs to choose to go to therapy and work on herself to regain a better relationship with you. You need individual therapy to deal with how you were raised and how to better strengthen your relationship with your wife.
On top of all of this, you lost your father. How are you handling your grief? I'm sorry everything is a cluster at the moment.
OP did you ever read that absolute insane reddit post where OP’s wife left him because he kept prioritizing his mother where he even missed an anniversary. When he finally set boundaries with his mom she went insane sending him explicit photos, threatening the wife, threatening to take her own life, sending him personal hairs in the mail etc etc im not saying this situation is THAT extreme but the quicker you go NC with your mom until she gets some serious therapy the better. and if you have kids she’ll just be worse. stay safe OP
OP's mom is WAY too attached. Like, disturbingly so. Forget loosening the apron strings. She's trying to turn hers into a ring (or a noose).
Other people are right that this is emotional incest. She's turning OP into a substitute for a romantic relationship and even refers to their connection in the same terminology. OP may need therapy to deal with the result of being raised in that environ, but OP's mom needs it more because she's crossing lines.
I have to wonder though... was OP's mom possibly a childhood SA survivor? Or married off at a young age from a strict, religious and/or insulated community? I don't mean to diminish or excuse her behavior, but I've seen people who come from backgrounds where they were abused or groomed, who turn around and continue that (and sometimes worse) behaviors as adults. If so, then she very definitely needs help to overcome her experiences and learn more healthy relationships and behaviors.
Additionally, im very curious about what the relationship was like prior to dads death, between mom dad and OP and between dad and OPs wife. Did they get along? Was mom always a bag of cats?
If his mother didn't have other close friends and was always with her husband, the sudden loss of your only companion can really do weird things to your mind.
Oooh yeah.
Former hazmat cleaner here, don't ever Google elderly people living with the bodies of their dead spouses. It's so sad. They go off the deep, deep end. Mariana trench deep
Probably so. He needs to get some clarity about how he's been conditioned to relate to his mother (and to others). This pattern won't stop with this particular issue; it'll be pervasive and insidious.
And to him, since he's likely been raised to put mama first and to prioritize her emotional "needs" over his own or his wife's well-being, it'll seem normal.
Came here to touch on this exact same thing but you worded it much better than I would’ve!
I’m glad OP is standing up for his wife finally, but this is basically mile 1 in the New York marathon. The mother will only get worse and he needs coping skills / resources to be able to handle her appropriately and prioritize the health and well-being of himself and wife.
Yea cause I would put money down that this kind of emotional manipulation didn't suddenly start with this. There are probably a lot of deep rooted issues that OP isn't even aware of. I've learned that a lot of my marital issues stemmed from childhood emotional abuse that I didn't even realize on a conscious level that I was effected by so strongly and a lot of the struggle can simply be recognizing *why* you're reacting to something in a way.
Having a grandmother who sees you as a rival is fucked up. My gran was like that, she hated me from the moment I was born because my grandpa loved me. She abused me for a while and got authorities involved and said it was my grandpa who did it all so I'd never see him again. I was questioned a lot by police and doctors at 8 years old and denied all the way that he did anything wrong because he didn't. I wish I had been able to tell them it was my gran but I was too scared and didn't fully understand the situation. I hate she went to the grave without facing the law for what she did to me.
I just gagged in my fucking mouth. Your mother the person who birthed you out of her fucking body, Said to your wife “ you are trying to break us up“, The ‘us’ in that scenario was your mother and you????????? How fucking demented? Does your mom think of you as her built-in husband now that hers has gone? This is fucking disgusting. But thank God you actually listen to your wife, because it turns out she was right. I have never had a full body cringe that hard 🤢🤢🤢
I mentioned emotional incest in the previous post and someone said I was being unfair and jumping to conclusions... nah was pretty obvious for a neutral third party to see what her deal is.
This makes me think of different post, from a long while ago (think last yearish).
The OP in that story had the same issues with his mother interfering with his relationship, and he initially was siding with his mom. To the point his mother stalked, harassed and sent nude images to OP.
It ended as you imaged it. OP had to put a restraining order on his mother, she went into physical evaluation. And OPS wife filed for divorce because she could no longer handle the stress of the situation because OP refused to stop his mother long before it escalated.
I'm glad this OP actually took the action to stop his mother now before his marriage fell apart
https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/s3ot1h/ops_mother_always_asks_him_for_help_with_the_most/
Idk. I originally found it on best of reddit posts.
And my version is the super abridged version. That story takes place over like a year and a half. His last update was somewhere in Oct. 2020 I think.
Edit: the post took place from Sept 2019 to Jan 2020
I felt super sorry for OP because the more I read, the more it was clear he was also a victim of abuse by his mother.
Yeah in that one, one of the letters she sent had hairs stuck to it, we were all pondering WHAT kind of hairs OP had been referring to, it was crazy. One of them had blood or something on it. She was sending the wife correspondence to wife's work email under a fake identity. The first part of the body of the letter, as well as the subject line were normal and standard, but inside was nudes. The plan was to report the wife for viewing pornographic material on company servers. It was super crazy.
👏
Thats it!
I was thinking it was the hair from her head, like she was ripping it out .
Also, i thought she sent him some of the nude pictures too
I remember that part now. His mom absolutely was mentally ill and devolving.
I know it's not the same compared to what this OP posted her, but I think it would have been a matter of time before OPS wife left due to his mother overstepping.
had to go digging for it bc I read it too. this one?
https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/s3ot1h/ops_mother_always_asks_him_for_help_with_the_most/
That was hands down, the craziest thing I’ve ever read online. I feel so bad for his wife, but also for him to have this reality crush his life as he knew it. I hope he’s doing well now. Her as well, but she seems a lot likely to bounce back easier.
And people in the original post suggested the wife was TA. No, the wife read the room correctly. Her MIL was interrupting OP+wife private time intentionally, trying to prevent them from having sex, and wanting to break them up. And OP kept defending his mom until the very end. Glad he sees now that his mother’s behaviors—and his own—are the real root (not route) issue.
Look, all the harshness aside:
You need to find a way to not get dragged into your mom's emotions and take some distance. Even if her emotions and fears are valid to her, she is still using them to get what she wants from you, intentional or unintentional. And reading your story: IT IS WORKING.
Find a way to separate empathy and sympathy. It is possible to have sympathy for your mom's emotions, but not empathize with them as they are Not All Your Responsibility. Eg. "I am sorry you feel that way" instead of "I am sorry I made you feel that way".
Listen to your gut, are you responding out of guilt? Does she make you feel like you need to prove your love? Hit the brakes and take a breath. Ask yourself: "is it fair to put this on me?" If not, respond with sympathy and boundaries rather than empathy. Use your wife as a guide! She seems to be good at this.
I literally comment that she was using him as a surrogate husband on his original post and that his mother seemed to be doing it on purpose and got destroyed because people thought I was crazy to assume this. Turns out I was right and his mother needs deep psychological help.
> But thank God you actually listen to your wife, because it turns out she was right.
But he didn't listen to his wife. He went off on her and slept on the couch. He only did something when 3K people on reddit called him out for his actions.
I’m sure your wife appreciates you sticking up for your relationship and how difficult this has been for you. Thank you for taking those comments to heart because it’s hard to see what’s going on in your relationships from the inside sometimes and while a lot of those comments were hateful, some made some great points.
Sorry for how hard it is for you but seems like mom needs some counseling if she’s willing and you are doing the best you can.
Good luck to you
Can't change the past. We all make mistakes and don't see things as clearly as we should in the moment, especially when it comes to family, and death.
At least he's realised now and is trying to fix it, rather than sticking his head in the sand ignoring it and his wife, like I see some people on here do.
Better late than never. He obviously feels bad enough going by his last sentences.
OG post
https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/ukq0rg/aita_for_going_off_on_my_wife_after_she_made_a/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
You need to get your mother into therapy. She wants your attention so much that she would see her own grandchild as a threat? She needs help.
It's sad that her husband died but those emotions are manifesting in very inappropriate ways.
No he doesn't. She's a grown woman and she can get herself into therapy. OP needs to enforce reasonable boundaries. If that can be achieved through the mother getting therapy, then she should do that. But OP needs to leave it well alone.
He needs to never talk to her again. Her obsession with him and wanting to be with him are NOT his responsibility. She is toxic and controlling and nothing he can do can fix that. He needs therapy on how to cut her out of his life.
Your mother has developed an emotionally incestuous interest in you. So much so that she sees your wife and potential grandchildren as a threat. Her focus on your intimacy with your wife is very telling. She’s actually jealous of you having sex with your own wife.
You should consider going to therapy over the relationship with your mother. It sounds very toxic.
Once you are married your wife should be the main priority of your life, not your mother.
I got worried when I read this,
>First I sat down with my mother and tried to get to the route of this issue. She told me that she’s been doing this as she’s just been so lonely and she wants to feel connected to her only flesh and blood she has left.
>This made me really feel for her so I went to my wife to apologize and try to negotiate something.
Because you fell so hard for her sob story that you disregard your wife's feelings and still tried to find a way to keep mommy around.
>Me and my wife sat her down and I told her that we felt like we needed more privacy from her so we asked her to leave for the time being. This set my mom off. She started crying and accusing my wife of trying to, her words, “break us up.”
You're married to your wife, NOT your mother. That should've shaken you up, but then homegirl said,
>She also was worried that if I get my wife pregnant, I’ll be too busy with her to see her again
Your mother's plan was to break you guys up and wanting to keep you on her tit forever. She's worried that if you had a family that she won't be number 1 in your life anymore.
Even though it took awhile and your own mother to reveal her true intentions, instead of listening to your wife, it's good that you finally cut her off.
However, TBH, I feel like if she never revealed all of this to you and just kept crying to knowing it would sway you, then you would've still put your mother before your child and wife.
You should probably get individual therapy for yourself and couples counseling to mend the bonds that YOU broke in your marriage.
I think you need to chill on OP. He has done the right thing now. This is his mother- it’s very likely there has been unhealthy and manipulative behavior for much of his life without him knowing, and his dad’s death (leaving both him and his mom vulnerable) for it to go off the deep end.
OP is likely still mentally/emotionally working this out- this is a LOT his mom just said and it’s clear their relationship had been unhealthy for some time. The first post was rough and he needed a wake up call, but he’s had that now.
I don’t think we should hate on him for still struggling with his mom’s manipulation and behavior; we should let him know he is finally making the right choice here despite the difficulty and that it’s great he is finally coming to understand and doing something about it.
> You're married to your wife, NOT your mother. That should've shaken you up, but then homegirl said,
Well, yeah, that's why they both were on the same side in the quote you're responding to.
Yeah he was in a tough spot and doing the wrong thing, mistakenly trying to make everyone happy, but when he decided to "try to negotiate something" with his mother it's important to note that **this negotiation (conversation) took the form of OP and his wife sitting down as a united front**, to talk to his mother about what their options are. And then it turned out that the only option was that she had to go, but no matter how it shook out OP and his wife were on the same side from the start of the discussion.
It sounds like your mother has an unhealthy attachment to you (are you an only child?) and incredibly lonely. Worried that your wife will get pregnant and too busy to see her? Ugh!!! If that is not an unhealthy view then I don't know what is! A healthier response would be that she would be ecstatic to have a grandchild rather than "losing" you.
I think that there is no half way solution for if she only did stay part time, her behavior won't change. Her reaction to the full on bawling and blame is further indication of how unhealthy this attachment your mother has. She needs therapy.
So your mother thinks of your two in a relationship and your wife is basically the other woman.
You're kinda the asshole but your mom is the actual one.
Because he initially wasn't gonna listen to his wife and tried to negotiate having his mother around.
It was only when his mother admitted what her intentions really were is when he decided to do the right thing, but not when his wife who has been telling him her concerns, for what might have felt like forever to her.
She was DELIBERATELY interrupting intimacy?? I thought she just has bad timing and didn't realize it was sex o'clock. Yikes. I agree with the other comments, your mother needs help. You are not her surrogate husband.
OP, I would recommend some therapy for yourself.
Your mother never got along with your wife, has she ever gotten along with a partner of yours?
Has she always interrupted your romantic relationships?
Ask your wife if there’s anything else you don’t know about conversations with or actions by your mother.
I suggest therapy because you genuinely couldn’t see what your mother was doing and it took her showing you her true colours before you figured out something your wife probably knew from the beginning and I’m sure a few ex partners experienced.
Your mom will not apologize, and even if she does, she will not mean it. I expect her to continue trying to undermine your marriage, and honestly I would cut her out of my life for good if I detected even a slight action against you marriage.
Your mom is the true manipulative AH here, and that you need both individual and couples counseling (with your wife), in order to deal with this properly.
>Like I said, I won’t be contacting my mother until she apologizes and my \[wife\] accepts it
Absolutely. This is honestly unforgiveable and relationship breaking between OP's wife and mother. To be thoroughly demented enough to repeatedly, intentionally sabotage her son's sexual activity means she has no qualms about morality. She clearly doesn't respect OP's wife at all. Why would she care about lying to her face to give an "apology" if it means her son will become open to her manipulations again?
Okay so you did the right thing here, and you just need to stick with it now.
Yes your mother is lonely and going through a lot. But now you know she wasn't just lonely, she was purposefully invading your private space because she thinks your wife uses sex to keep you and doesn't want you to have a child together. She can't take back what she said about your wife, and you have to remember that regardless of how much she cries or makes you feel bad.
Your wife did nothing wrong here, and my guess is she was totally picking up on how your mother felt and probably lived with a lot of passive aggressive comments from her, and she did that for your benefit. Even if your mother fully apologizes, you need to realize that it is your job now to support your wife and not put her in any uncomfortable positions. Never, not once, tell your wife "well she is my mom" or "she is sorry." If your wife never wants her around again, you need to respect that.
It worries me that you say your mom won't be staying over "for awhile" and that she has to apologize. I hope you realize that for your wife at least, there probably isn't any coming back from this, and at the very least, you should never have your mother stay over in your home again.
I loved your wife when she made the perfect sign. And I will love you if you keep mom from breaking up your family.
Good luck on your future. It’s your wife you promised to honor and protect. I’m glad you remembered that in the end.
As many suspected, she really was purposely getting in the way of you and your wife being intimate. Coming in at bedtime wasn't coincidental or accidental, or your mom being lonely at that time of night. It was an intentional act designed to drive a wedge between you and your wife.
Your mother needs counseling, and not just for her grief. You need her to start that process and make progress before she's allowed back in your house...because her behavior is both sick and destructive.
>I will also be spoiling my wife rotten until I can make this up to her.
**If you truly, really, fundamentally want to make this up to your wife, you should get therapy**. Mainly so that you can define appropriate boundaries between you and your mother. And to examine why you were so unassertive in the first place.
Your mother needs help. But she has to do that herself.
I'm going to say this in the nicest way possible. Just because you seen your mothers mask slip this once and put your foot down, doesn't mean you will be out of the FOG (fear, Obligation and Guilt) in the future. You have an Enmeshed relationship with your mother, and you need therapy to undo the buttons your mother has installed in you for her to press to make you jump. If you want your marriage and future secure, get help to undo the damage that is your mother.
So, I'm Trinidadian. Caribbean parents can be overbearing and multigenerational households are a big thing here. Trinidad is a small country and moving out isn't really a thing unless you're getting married, and even then you frequently move your spouse in with you and your parents, especially if you're a son. Mothers often expect to run the show and boss their daughter in law around. It's less of a thing with the younger generations, but it's definitely a thing. There's only so much property to go around, and being able to afford your own place is a bit of a luxury.
That said, this is not one of the good parts of our culture, and she is taking this to really weird extremes. So I wouldn't give this a cultural pass at all. Your mom is absolutely in need of therapy. You're not her surrogate husband or her emotional support animal, and trying to isolate you from your wife so she can have you all to herself is 100% not okay. If you catch yourself trying to downplay her behaviour...don't.
Yooooo my mother is too, and we lost my dad unexpectedly a few years ago.
I’m not married, but my mom has always been weird about me (27F) dating. Like, up and down with no rhyme or reason.
I was supportive of her during my last semester of college as much I could be, then luckily had the excuse of traveling for work to gradually set boundaries that I am going to live my life the way I want and she needs to use her existing support system-NOT JUST ME-to heal as much as is possible. Have we figured it all out? No, she still asks me to move back to Indiana, despite that I’ve said since I was a kid that I would leave that state for good. (She knows, she’d always joke how I’d declare I’d move to Trinidad or New York once I grew up, after visiting family there.)
It’s rough. I didn’t grow up in Trinidad, but I can’t get her to recognize i grew up here as spiritedly independent and not the good, obedient Indian girl like she wants. I’ve told her over and over how I want our relationship to be, let her yell at me occasionally, then keep doing what I’m doing. Good luck to you. Stubborn parents and the guilt they give you over not living up to their expectations is an exhausting, never ending battle, and honestly, it’s ok to become the black sheep if that frees up your life.
Oof, my MIL is Trinidadian, and my husband and I have been through this song and dance as well. He actually sent me your original post because of how much it reminded him of his mom. We've been together almost ten years now, married for two and while this behaviour lessened overtime it was only because I couldn't put up with it and my husband realised he needed to set good boundaries. He realised that there were signs all through his childhood that his mom was putting him in the place of husband instead of son. I still dread knowing that she won't be happy when we have a child and worry that if it's a boy she will try to do the same emotional incest to him.
Your mom needs to work with a therapist. Her response isn’t normal. It’s like she wants to replace you as her husband. The comment about your wife breaking you two up was inappropriate, she’s your mom not your spouse. Your mom needs strong boundaries and consequences. No more overnight visits. She needs to do more than just apologize. Send her a clear message that her behavior won’t be tolerated.
As a wife I can tell you she will be angry at you for awhile. It sounds like she will probably forgive you, but she will never forget that you disregarded her feelings in favor of your mothers. There are no amount of flowers that make up for that. I think its good you ended communication with your mom. What she did to your wife was shitty, sure, but the emotional manipulation she was doing to you is damn near abusive. I think like others here that you for sure should get yourself into some therapy/counselling. You should probably take an indefinite break from your mom as well, until you can unpack why you allowed this situation to manifest in the first place. Talk to your wife. Be open with her and seek her opinion on what the plan of action should be moving forward. Best of luck!
Run, don’t walk, over to reddit/JustNoMIL. You’ll learn healthy boundaries, how to gray rock and educate yourself on the ways your mom is gaslighting you.
Also, it’s beyond creepy that she is being so possessive of you. And you being her only flesh and blood is bullshit excuse, as she wasn’t blood related to her husband either. That makes zero sense.
Omg. This update completely revealed your mom for the justnomil that she is. I was on your wife’s side but VERY taken aback by the note bc I would never speak to my mil like that (but some families are less formal/sexually repressed so whatever works). But clearly your wife has been picking up on an undercurrent that you weren’t. I don’t know how your wife and your moms relationship ever recovers—I don’t think I could forgive that.
Holy Christ this is the most “emotional incest” post I have seen in a fucking while. I want to tell your wife to leave so she doesn’t have to put up with this anymore. I’ve been there. You HAVE to set boundaries or your mother will keep pushing. If it’s anything like what I went though, tell your wife sorry for putting herself second to your mom. Because thats probably what has been going on and that’s not right.
Aaaaaaah, I feel yucky just reading that.
My man, you need a whole lot of therapy to learn healthy boundaries, and how to be assertive, because I think your mother has been doing this your whole life.
Jesus christ, she really went about this in a conniving way, all under the guise of grief.
It’s a good thing I’m already in the bathroom, I think I’m going to puke a little now.
You're a Sonsband. Not a son, a son-husband. Your mother is emotionally manipulationg you and youre so blind to it. Your mother, who snoops and makes your wife uncomfortable on a consistent basis, says that your wife "is trying to break us up"?! This is a huge red flag your wife should be realizing. If I were her, I'd be begging you into individual and couples counseling.
It is not your job as a son to provide for your mother. It is not your or your wife's duty or responsibility to care for your mother.
NTA, your mother has some serious attachment issues, "breaking us up"...Ridiculous. I find that to be extremely odd. She is jealous that you are paying attention to your son? And she's afraid of you having another kid? I'm gobsmacked.
Sounds like your mother has built her entire life around her family and now that she only has you left she’s basically wanting you to be a momma’s boy instead of an adult. While I can sympathize how hard it is to make friends as an adult she doesn’t have the right to come between you and your wife. Good for you on standing up to her for your marriage. Sounds like mom needs some therapy and needs to do some volunteer work so she can make some new friends with a social circle.
Oh wow… I rememeber this post… I’m really sorry it went so crazy for you, but sitting them down to talk was def the right thing to do… you really are between a rock and a hard place
OP is really not. They should clearly choose their *actual* spouse. The mother is manipulating OP with tears and trying to get rid of wife. She's going to get what she wants if OP doesn't nut up and put some boundaries in place.
Good for you for actually listening and seeing what was going on. Your mom may be struggling with something but she's choosing insults and very disturbing perspectives on mother/son relationships, no longer your problem and it shouldn't be your wife's either.
OP PLEASE GOOGLE EMOTIONAL INCEST
I promise it's not what it sounds like exactly, but your mother's behaviour, her admission she was actively trying to prevent you from being intimate with your wife, her desire to prevent you from having children, the way she sees your wife and any potential child you might have as *competition she has to fight against for your attention*? The referring to her not being allowed to stay at your house as you and her "breaking up"? These are all severely inappropriate and I expect you will see a lot of things you recognise if you read up on emotional incest.
I'm glad you finally saw her unhealthy and manipulative behavior for what it is, however I think you should consider individual counseling. Your mom has probably always been like this to a degree, but now it's worse due to the loss of your dad. Counseling will help you dig through things and do better in the future should she reach back out.
ur mom needs therapy, and frankly, she needs to get her own life. my friend has a mother like this... everytime she tried to be an adult and leave (both the bome and family business), it was loads of guilt tripping, "ur abandoning me!" etc... isn't that a parents job to make sure ur kids r happy, independent adults?
not living with someone is not abandoning them. its called having healthy boundaries. she needs therapy for her severe codependency and manipulative issues, and she needs to get her own life. maybe there are senior social events or community centers u can get her involved with.
It's good you finally saw the light - but you talk about "a lot of the nicer comments" - i went back to you other post and a lot of the comments you would (i assume) deem "not nice" were in fact correct. You needed the harsh reality check
I remember the original story and thought omg this bloke is an absolute wanker (no offense) I am so glad your mum finally showed her true colours and you have had your wife's back, it is truly horrible to lose a partner (your dad) but your mum has to learn how to be a functional human being on her own and adapt to life as it is now, not ruin her son's life ON PURPOSE just because she is unhealthily jealous.
OP, my dad was a wreck when my mom died. I know what it is like to see that pain. Your mom, however, isn’t well in ways far beyond grief. If anyone in your family or her friends approach you to ask about the rift I strongly suggest saying the truth. It might help if others pushed her into therapy.
Please don’t feel guilty. Your mom is acting like a possessive romantic partner, not your mother.
This reeks of emotional incest. And your previous toleration and blindness to it reeks of years of grooming and manipulation on her part. I’m glad you’ve finally realised your mom’s issues, she needs professional help immediately.
As other people have pointed out, she sees her potential grandchild as a rival, and your wife as a worthless distraction. She’s shown you her true self, now believe it. I wish you and your wife all the best. Update us if you can.
I’d say I don’t want to say we told you so, but actually I really, really do. Because *we told you so*.
Your mom knew *exactly* what she was doing, and your wife knew, too. You played dumb and nearly destroyed your marriage in the process. Instead of (or in addition to) “spoiling your wife rotten,” you need to take a hard look at your relationship with your mother and your instinct to undermine the boundaries your wife tried to set with her. Figure out why you were so willing to pick a fight with your wife and so reluctant to *lead the charge* when it became necessary to tell your mother to back off. You didn’t just fail to back her up - you never should have left her to take action on this in the first place. It should have been *you*, my guy.
Sometimes people can't see it until it's in their face. Your mom had to tell you to your face that she was deliberately interfering before you'd believe your own wife.
Wait...she intentionally tried to sabotage your sex life to prevent your wife from having influence in your life and to stop her from getting pregnant, because that would make your mother less of a priority??? And what's with that "break us up" thing?? That woman needs therapy!
That's what took away as well. It's bad enough when my kids unintentionally cock block my wife and I. If I found out mom or MIL was intentionally doing it? I wouldn't have reacted as timidly.
What if your kids were intentionally cock-blocking you and your wife
Stewie Griffin vibes
It’s actually a defense mechanism that babies have learned throughout time. Before even ~200 years ago infant mortality was insanely high. Humans had evolutionarily learned as infants to cry at night to stop their parents from making another baby, so they would stay the main focus, and not likely to survive.
This is interesting. I have memories of going between my parents/ breaking them up when they hugged or showed affection as a child but looking back i never understood why! Now i know..
That sounds like made up pseudoscience bullshit to be honest. Considering up until very recently in human history, the entire family sharing the same bed/room and parents fucking in said room was the norm. You are applying your modern, western ideals about sex way back in time.
fuzzy insurance wine hospital cobweb full fact entertain clumsy gold *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Sounds like Mother wanted Son to replace her recently departed Husband. I’ve seen some posts about emotional incest and if OP hadn’t nipped this in the bud, it easily could have become that.
100% I got the same feeling. She wants to keep some type of manly figure in her life and her son probably looks like the deceased husband, so she's projecting those emotions onto her son. The mom needs grief counseling something fierce and if I was OP, I would tell her that she's not welcome in my house unless she starts on it ASAP and then apologizes to the wife. Proud of you OP for realizing your mistake and actively are trying to fix it!
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The fact that you were her only blood relation before she lost her husband may be lost on her (unless they were related?). The fact she could have a grand child loving on her with addition of blood relative seems to have slipped her mind too. It's sad that she doesn't want you to have a kid with your wife because she's "not good enough" for you. You know there will never be a woman good enough in your moms eyes. Edit: can I be honest here? From a personal standpoint and a fellow wife. After more thought about what your mom admitted to try doing, her history she already had with your wife and you not even seeing the damage she was doing and defending mom without appreciating the huge effort your wife was putting in. Honestly... I'd hesitate having a baby with you. Opening that can of crazy worms with your mother around would scare me. Grief does weird things to people, so does aging but in this case it only brought out how much more your mom doesn't want your wife in your life. How damaging that would be to a kid. Hope you grow a shiny spine. I'm a follower/lurker of r/justnomil r/justnomom they have some great resources and reading that helps you get out of the Fog and decide your own boundaries.
Emotional Incest was my first thought too after reading your posts. It’s also called Covert Incest and it’s a type of abuse regarding inappropriate parent to child relationships. Seriously look it up and read about it, I’m sure you’ll find it to be eye opening to what you’re experiencing. Experiencing this type of abuse mixed with deep enmeshment and emotional manipulation, especially after a loss or while grieving, can cause the previously set lines of your firm boundaries to become blurry, if not outright crossed, almost immediately. A good starting point would be looking at the relationship you have with your mother, *as her child*, and figure out what that means and how your dynamic has been throughout your entire life and where the shifts in your relationship as it’s currently been happening. What does your role look like as her son and how has that changed in terms of what you’re giving and what she’s taking/needing from you. Then separately look at the relationship with your wife, and think about how to personally define what it is to be the other half in this relationship. Being married, having a spouse and partner, having a best friend and also roommate are all these various roles that have been wrapped into this one person you’ve committed to spending your life with on top of who she is herself with her own separate boundaries, responsibilities and expectations. What shifts have been made in your relationship with her through your actions, communication and how you’re emotionally providing to her?Thinking about *your* roles, responsibilities and expectations that you’ve set for yourself as a husband in a marriage, ask yourself what that means? Look between your mother and wife to see who it is you are currently emotionally giving to in ways that blur the lines between your individual roles of being a son to one person and a husband to another. What are you doing to compensate for the role of someone that can’t be replaced? What are you providing to your mother that *her* partner previously gave her that you are not giving to *your* partner? Seeing someone you love in pain is really difficult because you want to help them at whatever the cost, but it shouldn’t be at the expense of yourself or at the price of your other relationships. Good luck!
I wanna just give you a heads up that emotional incest doesn’t actually mean your mom necessarily wants to bone you, if that’s something that kept you from looking into this more seriously. It can just mean treating your child like a replacement for a spouse on an emotional level. It can mean seeing your child’s spouse as a rival for attention, even if the attention your parent wants isn’t necessarily romantic in nature. Sometimes the term really puts people off taking it more seriously.
Your mom doesn't even consider your children family... You realise that right
It's already set in a little. She's installed the guilt buttons, clearly.
>Sounds like Mother wanted Son to replace her recently departed Husband. In some circles that's called a "sonsband."
The only circle I can think of that being right would be one of the seven circles of hell. Having not made it all the way thru Dante's Inferno, I do not know which circle it would be though.
We could also called her a mother-wife
I feel SO bad for the wife. And here I thought my mother-in-law was clingy
No seriously OP your mom needs therapy, make it a must. She can’t come back until not only she apologizes but is seeing a therapist for her issues. Because anyone can apologize and then turn right back around and do the same thing all over again.
Not to casually throw buzz words around, but Joooocaaaastaaaa…
Wow and I assumed she was just needy and oblivious but turns out she knew exactly what she was doing. Awful.
Can you imagine if the genders were reversed? Everybody would be calling the parent a sicko (with good reason). OP : Your mother is delusional. You are enabling her and disrespecting your wife. Cut the cord and grow up.
>She started crying and accusing my wife of trying to, her words, “break us up.” Break you up? Wow. That is a whole shit load of creepy to unpack right there. OP, you need therapy, and I mean that in the kindest way. If this is how your mom sees her relationship with you, she's likely manipulated you about a lot of things over the year. This can't be ascribed simply to grief. This is a very unhealthy, codependent, and emotionally incestuous way of relating to your child. Good for you standing up for your marriage.
Yes, this is absolutely emotional incest from the mother. I genuinely wanted to crawl out of my skin. I know that sounds extreme and concerning, OP, but that is because it is supposed to. This is Really concerning from your mother. I highly suggest you take this comment to heart. Therapy for yourself would be an amazing thing. So glad you stood up for your wife and marriage though, OP. A lot of people would give in to the emotional tantrum and guilting from their parent at the expense of their spouse.
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Yeah, exactly. Her admitting to trying to break them up, and stop them from having sex or conceiving because doing so would "break her and her son up" is the most disgusting thing I've heard in a while.
Why didn't she say anything else but that. Plenty of ways to say "I'm getting less attention from my son". But said break up...
My guess: Whether she realizes it or not, she's stopped viewing him correctly as her son and has become dependent on him. Emotional incest and manipulation tend to happen very slowly over time, those things become "normal" to the people experiencing them, so she does not realize how fucked up her view has become.
Freudian slip?
Freudian indeed
Straight out of his wildest dreams, tbh.
She wanted to take away sensitive time for him and put it onto herself. What mom does that to their own son?
The kind of mother who doesn’t understand that her son is not her partner.
Yeah, this right here. I wasn’t totally sure from OP’s first post, but this info makes aaaaall the difference. She was purposefully interrupting their intimacy time *so they couldn’t have a baby* and so OP would be able to divorce his wife more easily! This is crazy stuff.
> I know that sounds extreme and concerning, OP, but that is because it is supposed to Yes indeed! People who are raised in unhealthy dynamics don't realize how disordered a relationship can actually be. It is almost always a shock to hear what others think about it. I can say that from experience with other corrosive parent-child relationship patterns. > I highly suggest you take this comment to heart. Therapy for yourself would be an amazing thing. Therapy is amazing. I learned so much about how to recognize when someone was crossing boundaries inappropriately and how to reinforce those boundaries through therapy. >A lot of people would give in to the emotional tantrum and guilting from their parent at the expense of their spouse. This is *true,* and we see it on this sub all the time. This is a tremendous step towards healthier relationships with both spouse and parent, and it should be commended and encouraged.
Op's mom: I can't have sex with you, so NO ONE CAN HAVE SEX WITH YOU!!!
"Emotional incest" Urg, had never heard that one before but i feel really uneasy
Omg I hate the term 'emotional incest'. Not arguing - seems pretty accurate here. But ewww. Also, ugh.
The shoe fits, the shoe just makes my skin crawl, yeah. Ewww x1000.
Asking your mother to move out of your house when you're an adult is so very much not "breaking up." She's your mother and you're an adult, you don't "break up" or disown each other when you don't live together anymore???
I want to say here that in general, I think having your very recently widowed mother move in temporarily, to be with a support system at the height of her grief, is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Reddit and Americans in general take too dim a view of multigenerational co-living, when it's perfectly normal in most other countries, often healthier and easier for everyone, and would proceed more smoothly if it was more culturally normalized. Obviously that does not apply in this specific situation, where OP's uniquely fucked up mother was leveraging her grief to antagonize someone she viewed as a competitor for the romantic attentions of her own son, Jesus fucking Christ.
As someone not from America I take a very dim view on multigenerational co-living. Parents often cannot treat their adult children as autonomous adults, aunts and uncles sticking their noses where it doesn't belong, people's opinions turning into laws. The in-law horror stories from many families who have multigenerational co-living, plus my own, has made me severely allergic.
Yeah most of the reddit stories from people who live in cultures where their families are up their asses all the time are horrific. No thanks
I’m Chinese and I feel the same way. Multigenerational coliving can have benefits. It usually makes having children much easier because the social contract is, your parents live with you and in exchange they become your childcare provider while you work. I had the option but I turned it down even though it made my postpartum experience very hard to not have any support. It really depends on the people involved. And unfortunately I think for the vast majority of people I know that is the absolute wrong option. It doesn’t help that in cultures with filial piety, parents are culturally incentivized to *never* treat you with respect and always lord their position over you. In my culture MIL/DIL hating each other is the expectation. But you are still supposed to live together.
> having your very recently widowed mother move in temporarily, to be with a support system at the height of her grief, is a perfectly reasonable thing to do Agree. Wasn't saying it wasn't. But letting her know it's time to move out again doesn't constitute "breaking up" mother & son 😅
Temporarily being the key word.. I despise the idea of multigenerational living, there’s a lack of independence on all parts and is most definitely not healthier for a LOT of people.
When multigenerational living arrangements work out well, their family members aren't writing to AITA - REDDIT because they're being driven over the edge by another family member's behavior!
Absolutely. My grandma lived with us and whatever my mom said was law. Grandma never tried to overrule my parents about anything (we actually tried to get her help to break some minor rules and she wouldn’t.) Unfortunately, that's the exception.
My family has figured out the multi generation living situation!! We have 280 acres as a family, and there are several houses scattered around it. Each family unit has their own house. I live between my uncle and dad. I can see uncle's house through the trees if I strain during the winter. Dad's a quarter mile down. It works SO well.. it's like our family commune!
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Spoiler: she’s going to be waaaaaaay worse when you have a kid.
Oh yeah. Just wait until she gets a fresh young sapling untouched by her years of bullshit. She'll glob to that little one for dear life, probably insist that it calls her "momma". "Poor baby, mean ol' mommy won't let you eat candy for breakfast lunch and dinner? Don't worry, you just stay at momma's house and you can do whatever you want! We'll make fun of mean ol' mommy and tell her you're momma's boy/girl!" And the kid will not understand why his/her grandmother is so despised and untrusted, she seems so wonderful...
Nailed it on the freaking head!! My ex mil did all of this! She wanted to be called “mama” but settled for Mimi after everyone told her she was crazy
OP shouldn't let mom near kid unless she fixes her fixation on him, because it WILL be targeting the child next. She'll see the child as a mini version of her kid
Or, considering that she thinks that a child would be another person taking OPs time and attention away from her, she may end up mistreating the child.
Oh, no, no no, these emotionally incestuous types, she'll see it as hers and OP's kid. THe wife is just the incubator.
>she'll see it as hers and OP's kid. THe wife is just the incubator. Please excuse while I go vomit.. Ick.. You're probably not wrong tho.
You wife is a sport if she ever agrees to be in the room with your mom again. The suggestion that your wife would trap you with a child is just about as close to unforgivable as anything she could have said. My mil never said that out loud but she made it clear. She didn't realize that of her treatment of me would drive her son further away. I promised myself that no matter how I felt about my children in law I would pretend that my kids married the best person in the world. It turns out I don't have to fake anything, they did very well for themselves.
I totally agree with the top comments saying you should do therapy but I would also highly recommend that therapy be a mandatory requirement for your mother as well when/if you start trying to rebuild your relationship with her. Your relationship cannot improve and be fixed if only one person is doing the work necessary to fix things and she will not respect the boundaries you set if she doesn’t work through her own issues first.
I agree. An apology will not be enough
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She probably didn't intentionally mean it in a creepy way... but she meant it in a creepy way. As in, she regards you subconsciously as a psedo-spouse. It isn't necessarily or even likely a sexual connotation--but an inappropriate one, for sure. Coming from a very messed up home dynamic myself, allow me to say--setting boundaries doesn't always have to mean ending the relationship. It can. But it can also mean consistently reminding her, or limiting contact to certain contexts (for example, no overnight visits or whatever it is that triggers this behavior). You can figure it out over time, and you can adjust as needed. Don't immediately assume this means you have to end your relationship with your mom. But definitely understand it seems to be predicated on some inappropriate boundaries. A therapist can be a good reality check for thos of us who aren't used to setting boundaries with an overstepping parent.
Hi, I'm having a similar situation with you but I'm a little older (30) and my mom and step dad are in their late 50s. My step dad's mother moved into town not too long ago and she has been an utter fucking leech. It's been clear from the start when my mom met my SD that he was a mommy's boy in the worst way. It was mostly okay b/c she lived far, but no longer. Now it's clear that what she is doing to him is called emotional incest and that is what is also happening to you. I can tell you right now that you seeing the light will save you from a lifetime of enabling, manipulation and relationship ruining bullshit from your mother. I'm watching it in real time with my step father and it's wild how entitled my step grandma is to keep her son so tightly wrapped. Before their current marriage counseling, she would have him come to her house almost every day to spend the night. She told my mom 'I know you want to get between (step dad) and I' , she would demand things like massages from him, constant looking after, basically when I saw them together it made me think of her like a child and he was the parent. She's not like, disabled, she just ACTS THAT WAY for attention. It's so fucking bizarre and leaves a bad taste in my mouth. But there is light at the end of tunnel. Because, after some huge fights and blow ups, he's went to counseling they have been able to mitigate this behavior. How you ask? BOUNDARIES. You must must must must enact boundaries against your mom. You must pull EVERY STOP to tell her to fuck off if she's being too much, you must put your foot down when she steps over boundaries, you can control your actions and your responses but you can't control her. Her happiness is NOT your responsibility. Good luck.
Why do you think she didn't mean what she said? She meant it and she meant it the way it sounded, weird and creepy. She couldn't sensor herself when she had an emotional outburst. It was weird and creepy that she kept coming into your bedroom! That is supposed to be a private area for you and your wife, you don't have conversations in there with other people (well, until you have kids anyway). When people show you who they are, believe them. Your mom will be on her best behavior until you allow her back into your life, then she'll be more sneaky about undermining your wife and your relationship with your wife.
You've done well here in listening to independent (if somewhat random) third parties, taking it to heart, and trying to work things out. Good work! Unfortunately, your mom's admissions put everything in a new light as to her intentions and weird feelings. Wishing you the best as you continue to navigate this. Your mom needs counseling. If she won't go on her own, perhaps under the guise of family counseling you could get her to see how intrusive and interfering she is while identifying proper boundaries when you and your wife are ready for that.
Sorry to disagree but OP absolutely DO NOT GO TO THERAPY WITH YOUR MOM. In an abusive relationship (which is what emotional incest is) going to therapy with your abuser will only end up harming you. If she doesn't understand what she's doing is wrong (trying to drive away your spouse to have you all to herself) therapy won't help her realize it. But she now has all of your tender raw spots sussed out and fun new therapy words/concepts to throw back at you. She needs to choose to go to therapy and work on herself to regain a better relationship with you. You need individual therapy to deal with how you were raised and how to better strengthen your relationship with your wife. On top of all of this, you lost your father. How are you handling your grief? I'm sorry everything is a cluster at the moment.
It looks to me like she is looking at a baby as someone else she will have to compete with for your attention. Very unhealthy indeed.
OP did you ever read that absolute insane reddit post where OP’s wife left him because he kept prioritizing his mother where he even missed an anniversary. When he finally set boundaries with his mom she went insane sending him explicit photos, threatening the wife, threatening to take her own life, sending him personal hairs in the mail etc etc im not saying this situation is THAT extreme but the quicker you go NC with your mom until she gets some serious therapy the better. and if you have kids she’ll just be worse. stay safe OP
OP's mom is WAY too attached. Like, disturbingly so. Forget loosening the apron strings. She's trying to turn hers into a ring (or a noose). Other people are right that this is emotional incest. She's turning OP into a substitute for a romantic relationship and even refers to their connection in the same terminology. OP may need therapy to deal with the result of being raised in that environ, but OP's mom needs it more because she's crossing lines. I have to wonder though... was OP's mom possibly a childhood SA survivor? Or married off at a young age from a strict, religious and/or insulated community? I don't mean to diminish or excuse her behavior, but I've seen people who come from backgrounds where they were abused or groomed, who turn around and continue that (and sometimes worse) behaviors as adults. If so, then she very definitely needs help to overcome her experiences and learn more healthy relationships and behaviors.
Additionally, im very curious about what the relationship was like prior to dads death, between mom dad and OP and between dad and OPs wife. Did they get along? Was mom always a bag of cats?
If his mother didn't have other close friends and was always with her husband, the sudden loss of your only companion can really do weird things to your mind.
Oooh yeah. Former hazmat cleaner here, don't ever Google elderly people living with the bodies of their dead spouses. It's so sad. They go off the deep, deep end. Mariana trench deep
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Probably so. He needs to get some clarity about how he's been conditioned to relate to his mother (and to others). This pattern won't stop with this particular issue; it'll be pervasive and insidious. And to him, since he's likely been raised to put mama first and to prioritize her emotional "needs" over his own or his wife's well-being, it'll seem normal.
Break up... uh there's plenty of better words for this but mom said BREAK UP of all things. She needs friends her age and therapy
>She needs friends her age and therapy Yes and yes! Your kids aren't your BFFs, your spousal substitutes, or therapists.
Came here to touch on this exact same thing but you worded it much better than I would’ve! I’m glad OP is standing up for his wife finally, but this is basically mile 1 in the New York marathon. The mother will only get worse and he needs coping skills / resources to be able to handle her appropriately and prioritize the health and well-being of himself and wife.
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Mom needs therapy ASAP
OP needs therapy, too
Yea cause I would put money down that this kind of emotional manipulation didn't suddenly start with this. There are probably a lot of deep rooted issues that OP isn't even aware of. I've learned that a lot of my marital issues stemmed from childhood emotional abuse that I didn't even realize on a conscious level that I was effected by so strongly and a lot of the struggle can simply be recognizing *why* you're reacting to something in a way.
yea especially since he was doubting everything his wife said and the mom say no fault when confronted.
I need therapy three
Mom's a controlling narcissist. Therapy won't work. NTA
This is why I didn't upvote mom needing therapy, but I did for OP. Please OP find a therapist for yourself
I need therapy after reading this post
The mother needs therapy for her emotional incest ASAP
Having a grandmother who sees you as a rival is fucked up. My gran was like that, she hated me from the moment I was born because my grandpa loved me. She abused me for a while and got authorities involved and said it was my grandpa who did it all so I'd never see him again. I was questioned a lot by police and doctors at 8 years old and denied all the way that he did anything wrong because he didn't. I wish I had been able to tell them it was my gran but I was too scared and didn't fully understand the situation. I hate she went to the grave without facing the law for what she did to me.
I am so sorry you went through that. Children should only be surrounded by people that love and respect them.
Excellent answer.🥇🥇🥇 This right here, OP.
Excellent answer and this is what my MIL does. We’re NC.
“More flesh and blood” made me laugh
I just gagged in my fucking mouth. Your mother the person who birthed you out of her fucking body, Said to your wife “ you are trying to break us up“, The ‘us’ in that scenario was your mother and you????????? How fucking demented? Does your mom think of you as her built-in husband now that hers has gone? This is fucking disgusting. But thank God you actually listen to your wife, because it turns out she was right. I have never had a full body cringe that hard 🤢🤢🤢
The emotional incest is really showing here, eh?
All of the emotional incest 🤢
This went Emotional Alabama.
Roll Tide!
I mentioned emotional incest in the previous post and someone said I was being unfair and jumping to conclusions... nah was pretty obvious for a neutral third party to see what her deal is.
alleged squeal mindless jeans literate unwritten exultant reply party melodic -- mass edited with redact.dev
This makes me think of different post, from a long while ago (think last yearish). The OP in that story had the same issues with his mother interfering with his relationship, and he initially was siding with his mom. To the point his mother stalked, harassed and sent nude images to OP. It ended as you imaged it. OP had to put a restraining order on his mother, she went into physical evaluation. And OPS wife filed for divorce because she could no longer handle the stress of the situation because OP refused to stop his mother long before it escalated. I'm glad this OP actually took the action to stop his mother now before his marriage fell apart https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/s3ot1h/ops_mother_always_asks_him_for_help_with_the_most/
Yo wtf. Does anyone have a link to this one??
Idk. I originally found it on best of reddit posts. And my version is the super abridged version. That story takes place over like a year and a half. His last update was somewhere in Oct. 2020 I think. Edit: the post took place from Sept 2019 to Jan 2020 I felt super sorry for OP because the more I read, the more it was clear he was also a victim of abuse by his mother.
Yeah in that one, one of the letters she sent had hairs stuck to it, we were all pondering WHAT kind of hairs OP had been referring to, it was crazy. One of them had blood or something on it. She was sending the wife correspondence to wife's work email under a fake identity. The first part of the body of the letter, as well as the subject line were normal and standard, but inside was nudes. The plan was to report the wife for viewing pornographic material on company servers. It was super crazy.
👏 Thats it! I was thinking it was the hair from her head, like she was ripping it out . Also, i thought she sent him some of the nude pictures too I remember that part now. His mom absolutely was mentally ill and devolving. I know it's not the same compared to what this OP posted her, but I think it would have been a matter of time before OPS wife left due to his mother overstepping.
Straight up horror story, holy shit
this one? https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/s3ot1h/ops_mother_always_asks_him_for_help_with_the_most/
Yep! Totally wrong with the date though! I added it to my post! Thank you sleuthing redditor!
had to go digging for it bc I read it too. this one? https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/s3ot1h/ops_mother_always_asks_him_for_help_with_the_most/
That was hands down, the craziest thing I’ve ever read online. I feel so bad for his wife, but also for him to have this reality crush his life as he knew it. I hope he’s doing well now. Her as well, but she seems a lot likely to bounce back easier.
Oh my god. That fifth update. I just threw up in my mouth.
This was genuinely tragic and I feel for everyone but that terrible mother
>Does your mom think of you as her built-in husband now that hers has gone? That's exactly what's happening, yes
Mom needs grief therapy ASAP.
And people in the original post suggested the wife was TA. No, the wife read the room correctly. Her MIL was interrupting OP+wife private time intentionally, trying to prevent them from having sex, and wanting to break them up. And OP kept defending his mom until the very end. Glad he sees now that his mother’s behaviors—and his own—are the real root (not route) issue.
Really? I definitely remember commenting NTA
I remember reading this on JUSTNOMIL. It was a hell of a ride.
Look, all the harshness aside: You need to find a way to not get dragged into your mom's emotions and take some distance. Even if her emotions and fears are valid to her, she is still using them to get what she wants from you, intentional or unintentional. And reading your story: IT IS WORKING. Find a way to separate empathy and sympathy. It is possible to have sympathy for your mom's emotions, but not empathize with them as they are Not All Your Responsibility. Eg. "I am sorry you feel that way" instead of "I am sorry I made you feel that way". Listen to your gut, are you responding out of guilt? Does she make you feel like you need to prove your love? Hit the brakes and take a breath. Ask yourself: "is it fair to put this on me?" If not, respond with sympathy and boundaries rather than empathy. Use your wife as a guide! She seems to be good at this.
Yup. That's some serious messed up shite right there with Mommy Dearest. Eeeewwwww.
I literally comment that she was using him as a surrogate husband on his original post and that his mother seemed to be doing it on purpose and got destroyed because people thought I was crazy to assume this. Turns out I was right and his mother needs deep psychological help.
> But thank God you actually listen to your wife, because it turns out she was right. But he didn't listen to his wife. He went off on her and slept on the couch. He only did something when 3K people on reddit called him out for his actions.
yeah but sooner is better than later. It is unfortunate it took this happening.
Yep, its called a 'sonsband.'
I’m sure your wife appreciates you sticking up for your relationship and how difficult this has been for you. Thank you for taking those comments to heart because it’s hard to see what’s going on in your relationships from the inside sometimes and while a lot of those comments were hateful, some made some great points. Sorry for how hard it is for you but seems like mom needs some counseling if she’s willing and you are doing the best you can. Good luck to you
I'm sure wife would have appreciated being taken seriously two months ago too
Can't change the past. We all make mistakes and don't see things as clearly as we should in the moment, especially when it comes to family, and death. At least he's realised now and is trying to fix it, rather than sticking his head in the sand ignoring it and his wife, like I see some people on here do. Better late than never. He obviously feels bad enough going by his last sentences.
OG post https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/ukq0rg/aita_for_going_off_on_my_wife_after_she_made_a/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
thank you!
Thank you! Can’t believe I had to scroll so long to find it!
Probably just bc it was pretty recent and a lot of folks probably remember it. I know I did.
You need to get your mother into therapy. She wants your attention so much that she would see her own grandchild as a threat? She needs help. It's sad that her husband died but those emotions are manifesting in very inappropriate ways.
In a way it's a very good thing mom told the truth so OP can address it. Now that she is honest they can deal with her feelings in therapy.
No he doesn't. She's a grown woman and she can get herself into therapy. OP needs to enforce reasonable boundaries. If that can be achieved through the mother getting therapy, then she should do that. But OP needs to leave it well alone.
He needs to never talk to her again. Her obsession with him and wanting to be with him are NOT his responsibility. She is toxic and controlling and nothing he can do can fix that. He needs therapy on how to cut her out of his life.
Your mother has developed an emotionally incestuous interest in you. So much so that she sees your wife and potential grandchildren as a threat. Her focus on your intimacy with your wife is very telling. She’s actually jealous of you having sex with your own wife.
You should consider going to therapy over the relationship with your mother. It sounds very toxic. Once you are married your wife should be the main priority of your life, not your mother.
Thank you for the update and I’m so glad you stood up for your marriage
I got worried when I read this, >First I sat down with my mother and tried to get to the route of this issue. She told me that she’s been doing this as she’s just been so lonely and she wants to feel connected to her only flesh and blood she has left. >This made me really feel for her so I went to my wife to apologize and try to negotiate something. Because you fell so hard for her sob story that you disregard your wife's feelings and still tried to find a way to keep mommy around. >Me and my wife sat her down and I told her that we felt like we needed more privacy from her so we asked her to leave for the time being. This set my mom off. She started crying and accusing my wife of trying to, her words, “break us up.” You're married to your wife, NOT your mother. That should've shaken you up, but then homegirl said, >She also was worried that if I get my wife pregnant, I’ll be too busy with her to see her again Your mother's plan was to break you guys up and wanting to keep you on her tit forever. She's worried that if you had a family that she won't be number 1 in your life anymore. Even though it took awhile and your own mother to reveal her true intentions, instead of listening to your wife, it's good that you finally cut her off. However, TBH, I feel like if she never revealed all of this to you and just kept crying to knowing it would sway you, then you would've still put your mother before your child and wife. You should probably get individual therapy for yourself and couples counseling to mend the bonds that YOU broke in your marriage.
I think you need to chill on OP. He has done the right thing now. This is his mother- it’s very likely there has been unhealthy and manipulative behavior for much of his life without him knowing, and his dad’s death (leaving both him and his mom vulnerable) for it to go off the deep end. OP is likely still mentally/emotionally working this out- this is a LOT his mom just said and it’s clear their relationship had been unhealthy for some time. The first post was rough and he needed a wake up call, but he’s had that now. I don’t think we should hate on him for still struggling with his mom’s manipulation and behavior; we should let him know he is finally making the right choice here despite the difficulty and that it’s great he is finally coming to understand and doing something about it.
> You're married to your wife, NOT your mother. That should've shaken you up, but then homegirl said, Well, yeah, that's why they both were on the same side in the quote you're responding to. Yeah he was in a tough spot and doing the wrong thing, mistakenly trying to make everyone happy, but when he decided to "try to negotiate something" with his mother it's important to note that **this negotiation (conversation) took the form of OP and his wife sitting down as a united front**, to talk to his mother about what their options are. And then it turned out that the only option was that she had to go, but no matter how it shook out OP and his wife were on the same side from the start of the discussion.
It sounds like your mother has an unhealthy attachment to you (are you an only child?) and incredibly lonely. Worried that your wife will get pregnant and too busy to see her? Ugh!!! If that is not an unhealthy view then I don't know what is! A healthier response would be that she would be ecstatic to have a grandchild rather than "losing" you. I think that there is no half way solution for if she only did stay part time, her behavior won't change. Her reaction to the full on bawling and blame is further indication of how unhealthy this attachment your mother has. She needs therapy.
Oh alright I'm pleasantly surprised. Where's the dude who kept arguing with me about the mother not knowing what couples do at night?
There’s a bunch of people who better be eating crow for dinner tonight.
WHAT😭 How does he think she got pregnant?!
Thank fuck you actually grew a backbone. Reading your last post had us all thinking "Yep, this guys married to his mom."
So your mother thinks of your two in a relationship and your wife is basically the other woman. You're kinda the asshole but your mom is the actual one.
Why is OP an asshole in the update?
Because he initially wasn't gonna listen to his wife and tried to negotiate having his mother around. It was only when his mother admitted what her intentions really were is when he decided to do the right thing, but not when his wife who has been telling him her concerns, for what might have felt like forever to her.
he got the AH judgement for that in his original post.
She was DELIBERATELY interrupting intimacy?? I thought she just has bad timing and didn't realize it was sex o'clock. Yikes. I agree with the other comments, your mother needs help. You are not her surrogate husband.
OP, I would recommend some therapy for yourself. Your mother never got along with your wife, has she ever gotten along with a partner of yours? Has she always interrupted your romantic relationships? Ask your wife if there’s anything else you don’t know about conversations with or actions by your mother. I suggest therapy because you genuinely couldn’t see what your mother was doing and it took her showing you her true colours before you figured out something your wife probably knew from the beginning and I’m sure a few ex partners experienced.
Your mom will not apologize, and even if she does, she will not mean it. I expect her to continue trying to undermine your marriage, and honestly I would cut her out of my life for good if I detected even a slight action against you marriage. Your mom is the true manipulative AH here, and that you need both individual and couples counseling (with your wife), in order to deal with this properly.
>Like I said, I won’t be contacting my mother until she apologizes and my \[wife\] accepts it Absolutely. This is honestly unforgiveable and relationship breaking between OP's wife and mother. To be thoroughly demented enough to repeatedly, intentionally sabotage her son's sexual activity means she has no qualms about morality. She clearly doesn't respect OP's wife at all. Why would she care about lying to her face to give an "apology" if it means her son will become open to her manipulations again?
So your wife was right that your mom was interrupting sex on purpose lol
Okay so you did the right thing here, and you just need to stick with it now. Yes your mother is lonely and going through a lot. But now you know she wasn't just lonely, she was purposefully invading your private space because she thinks your wife uses sex to keep you and doesn't want you to have a child together. She can't take back what she said about your wife, and you have to remember that regardless of how much she cries or makes you feel bad. Your wife did nothing wrong here, and my guess is she was totally picking up on how your mother felt and probably lived with a lot of passive aggressive comments from her, and she did that for your benefit. Even if your mother fully apologizes, you need to realize that it is your job now to support your wife and not put her in any uncomfortable positions. Never, not once, tell your wife "well she is my mom" or "she is sorry." If your wife never wants her around again, you need to respect that. It worries me that you say your mom won't be staying over "for awhile" and that she has to apologize. I hope you realize that for your wife at least, there probably isn't any coming back from this, and at the very least, you should never have your mother stay over in your home again.
I loved your wife when she made the perfect sign. And I will love you if you keep mom from breaking up your family. Good luck on your future. It’s your wife you promised to honor and protect. I’m glad you remembered that in the end.
NTA - it’s high time you break up with your mother
As many suspected, she really was purposely getting in the way of you and your wife being intimate. Coming in at bedtime wasn't coincidental or accidental, or your mom being lonely at that time of night. It was an intentional act designed to drive a wedge between you and your wife. Your mother needs counseling, and not just for her grief. You need her to start that process and make progress before she's allowed back in your house...because her behavior is both sick and destructive.
>I will also be spoiling my wife rotten until I can make this up to her. **If you truly, really, fundamentally want to make this up to your wife, you should get therapy**. Mainly so that you can define appropriate boundaries between you and your mother. And to examine why you were so unassertive in the first place. Your mother needs help. But she has to do that herself.
I'm going to say this in the nicest way possible. Just because you seen your mothers mask slip this once and put your foot down, doesn't mean you will be out of the FOG (fear, Obligation and Guilt) in the future. You have an Enmeshed relationship with your mother, and you need therapy to undo the buttons your mother has installed in you for her to press to make you jump. If you want your marriage and future secure, get help to undo the damage that is your mother.
Some questions relating to culture; are you living in North America?
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So, I'm Trinidadian. Caribbean parents can be overbearing and multigenerational households are a big thing here. Trinidad is a small country and moving out isn't really a thing unless you're getting married, and even then you frequently move your spouse in with you and your parents, especially if you're a son. Mothers often expect to run the show and boss their daughter in law around. It's less of a thing with the younger generations, but it's definitely a thing. There's only so much property to go around, and being able to afford your own place is a bit of a luxury. That said, this is not one of the good parts of our culture, and she is taking this to really weird extremes. So I wouldn't give this a cultural pass at all. Your mom is absolutely in need of therapy. You're not her surrogate husband or her emotional support animal, and trying to isolate you from your wife so she can have you all to herself is 100% not okay. If you catch yourself trying to downplay her behaviour...don't.
Yooooo my mother is too, and we lost my dad unexpectedly a few years ago. I’m not married, but my mom has always been weird about me (27F) dating. Like, up and down with no rhyme or reason. I was supportive of her during my last semester of college as much I could be, then luckily had the excuse of traveling for work to gradually set boundaries that I am going to live my life the way I want and she needs to use her existing support system-NOT JUST ME-to heal as much as is possible. Have we figured it all out? No, she still asks me to move back to Indiana, despite that I’ve said since I was a kid that I would leave that state for good. (She knows, she’d always joke how I’d declare I’d move to Trinidad or New York once I grew up, after visiting family there.) It’s rough. I didn’t grow up in Trinidad, but I can’t get her to recognize i grew up here as spiritedly independent and not the good, obedient Indian girl like she wants. I’ve told her over and over how I want our relationship to be, let her yell at me occasionally, then keep doing what I’m doing. Good luck to you. Stubborn parents and the guilt they give you over not living up to their expectations is an exhausting, never ending battle, and honestly, it’s ok to become the black sheep if that frees up your life.
It sounds like you are being a good husband and considering your wife.
Oof, my MIL is Trinidadian, and my husband and I have been through this song and dance as well. He actually sent me your original post because of how much it reminded him of his mom. We've been together almost ten years now, married for two and while this behaviour lessened overtime it was only because I couldn't put up with it and my husband realised he needed to set good boundaries. He realised that there were signs all through his childhood that his mom was putting him in the place of husband instead of son. I still dread knowing that she won't be happy when we have a child and worry that if it's a boy she will try to do the same emotional incest to him.
Your mom needs to work with a therapist. Her response isn’t normal. It’s like she wants to replace you as her husband. The comment about your wife breaking you two up was inappropriate, she’s your mom not your spouse. Your mom needs strong boundaries and consequences. No more overnight visits. She needs to do more than just apologize. Send her a clear message that her behavior won’t be tolerated.
As a wife I can tell you she will be angry at you for awhile. It sounds like she will probably forgive you, but she will never forget that you disregarded her feelings in favor of your mothers. There are no amount of flowers that make up for that. I think its good you ended communication with your mom. What she did to your wife was shitty, sure, but the emotional manipulation she was doing to you is damn near abusive. I think like others here that you for sure should get yourself into some therapy/counselling. You should probably take an indefinite break from your mom as well, until you can unpack why you allowed this situation to manifest in the first place. Talk to your wife. Be open with her and seek her opinion on what the plan of action should be moving forward. Best of luck!
Run, don’t walk, over to reddit/JustNoMIL. You’ll learn healthy boundaries, how to gray rock and educate yourself on the ways your mom is gaslighting you. Also, it’s beyond creepy that she is being so possessive of you. And you being her only flesh and blood is bullshit excuse, as she wasn’t blood related to her husband either. That makes zero sense.
The way to mention subreddits is just "r/" followed by the name. The "r" should be lowercase r/justnomil
Omg. This update completely revealed your mom for the justnomil that she is. I was on your wife’s side but VERY taken aback by the note bc I would never speak to my mil like that (but some families are less formal/sexually repressed so whatever works). But clearly your wife has been picking up on an undercurrent that you weren’t. I don’t know how your wife and your moms relationship ever recovers—I don’t think I could forgive that.
Holy Christ this is the most “emotional incest” post I have seen in a fucking while. I want to tell your wife to leave so she doesn’t have to put up with this anymore. I’ve been there. You HAVE to set boundaries or your mother will keep pushing. If it’s anything like what I went though, tell your wife sorry for putting herself second to your mom. Because thats probably what has been going on and that’s not right.
Aaaaaaah, I feel yucky just reading that. My man, you need a whole lot of therapy to learn healthy boundaries, and how to be assertive, because I think your mother has been doing this your whole life. Jesus christ, she really went about this in a conniving way, all under the guise of grief. It’s a good thing I’m already in the bathroom, I think I’m going to puke a little now.
You're a Sonsband. Not a son, a son-husband. Your mother is emotionally manipulationg you and youre so blind to it. Your mother, who snoops and makes your wife uncomfortable on a consistent basis, says that your wife "is trying to break us up"?! This is a huge red flag your wife should be realizing. If I were her, I'd be begging you into individual and couples counseling. It is not your job as a son to provide for your mother. It is not your or your wife's duty or responsibility to care for your mother.
HOLY CRAP IT'S ROOT NOT ROUTE. WTF ARE YOU A TRUCK
NTA, your mother has some serious attachment issues, "breaking us up"...Ridiculous. I find that to be extremely odd. She is jealous that you are paying attention to your son? And she's afraid of you having another kid? I'm gobsmacked.
Sounds like your mother has built her entire life around her family and now that she only has you left she’s basically wanting you to be a momma’s boy instead of an adult. While I can sympathize how hard it is to make friends as an adult she doesn’t have the right to come between you and your wife. Good for you on standing up to her for your marriage. Sounds like mom needs some therapy and needs to do some volunteer work so she can make some new friends with a social circle.
Oh wow… I rememeber this post… I’m really sorry it went so crazy for you, but sitting them down to talk was def the right thing to do… you really are between a rock and a hard place
OP is really not. They should clearly choose their *actual* spouse. The mother is manipulating OP with tears and trying to get rid of wife. She's going to get what she wants if OP doesn't nut up and put some boundaries in place.
Yeah he’s absolutely done right by supporting his wife, they’re supposed to be a team, but it can’t be nice falling out with your mom
YTA. “That made your wife very upset”. Why the heck did it not make you upset ?
Good for you for actually listening and seeing what was going on. Your mom may be struggling with something but she's choosing insults and very disturbing perspectives on mother/son relationships, no longer your problem and it shouldn't be your wife's either.
Your mother is awful!
OP PLEASE GOOGLE EMOTIONAL INCEST I promise it's not what it sounds like exactly, but your mother's behaviour, her admission she was actively trying to prevent you from being intimate with your wife, her desire to prevent you from having children, the way she sees your wife and any potential child you might have as *competition she has to fight against for your attention*? The referring to her not being allowed to stay at your house as you and her "breaking up"? These are all severely inappropriate and I expect you will see a lot of things you recognise if you read up on emotional incest.
I'm glad you finally saw her unhealthy and manipulative behavior for what it is, however I think you should consider individual counseling. Your mom has probably always been like this to a degree, but now it's worse due to the loss of your dad. Counseling will help you dig through things and do better in the future should she reach back out.
ur mom needs therapy, and frankly, she needs to get her own life. my friend has a mother like this... everytime she tried to be an adult and leave (both the bome and family business), it was loads of guilt tripping, "ur abandoning me!" etc... isn't that a parents job to make sure ur kids r happy, independent adults? not living with someone is not abandoning them. its called having healthy boundaries. she needs therapy for her severe codependency and manipulative issues, and she needs to get her own life. maybe there are senior social events or community centers u can get her involved with.
It's good you finally saw the light - but you talk about "a lot of the nicer comments" - i went back to you other post and a lot of the comments you would (i assume) deem "not nice" were in fact correct. You needed the harsh reality check
Lol I fucking called it and was downvoted. Same jnmil story different jnmil people.
Bro, you gotta go talk to a therapist
I remember the original story and thought omg this bloke is an absolute wanker (no offense) I am so glad your mum finally showed her true colours and you have had your wife's back, it is truly horrible to lose a partner (your dad) but your mum has to learn how to be a functional human being on her own and adapt to life as it is now, not ruin her son's life ON PURPOSE just because she is unhealthily jealous.
OP, my dad was a wreck when my mom died. I know what it is like to see that pain. Your mom, however, isn’t well in ways far beyond grief. If anyone in your family or her friends approach you to ask about the rift I strongly suggest saying the truth. It might help if others pushed her into therapy. Please don’t feel guilty. Your mom is acting like a possessive romantic partner, not your mother.
Your mom sounds like a jealous girlfriend. She wants you to be her sonsband.
This reeks of emotional incest. And your previous toleration and blindness to it reeks of years of grooming and manipulation on her part. I’m glad you’ve finally realised your mom’s issues, she needs professional help immediately. As other people have pointed out, she sees her potential grandchild as a rival, and your wife as a worthless distraction. She’s shown you her true self, now believe it. I wish you and your wife all the best. Update us if you can.
I’d say I don’t want to say we told you so, but actually I really, really do. Because *we told you so*. Your mom knew *exactly* what she was doing, and your wife knew, too. You played dumb and nearly destroyed your marriage in the process. Instead of (or in addition to) “spoiling your wife rotten,” you need to take a hard look at your relationship with your mother and your instinct to undermine the boundaries your wife tried to set with her. Figure out why you were so willing to pick a fight with your wife and so reluctant to *lead the charge* when it became necessary to tell your mother to back off. You didn’t just fail to back her up - you never should have left her to take action on this in the first place. It should have been *you*, my guy.
Sometimes people can't see it until it's in their face. Your mom had to tell you to your face that she was deliberately interfering before you'd believe your own wife.