My (35M) wife’s (40F) disabled mother (74F) is moving in with us and I’m afraid it is going to ruin our 10 year marriage. She’s not your typical annoying MIL, much worse.
A Reddit user, a 35-year-old man, shares his concerns about his disabled mother-in-law (74F) moving in with him and his wife (40F) after a series of challenging family dynamics.
The user’s wife has a toxic relationship with her mother, who has repeatedly been a source of emotional pain, including enabling abuse in the past and showing little gratitude for past sacrifices.
Now, due to her failing health and inability to care for herself, the mother must live with them, creating tension in the household. The user is struggling to manage the situation and is unsure how to navigate the difficult family dynamics. Read the original story below.
‘ My (35M) wife’s (40F) disabled mother (74F) is moving in with us and I’m afraid it is going to ruin our 10 year marriage. She’s not your typical annoying MIL, much worse.’
My wife and MIL have a toxic relationship. Most of it is related to my MIL allowing her ex husband to savagely beat my wife as a child and refusing to leave the realationship, even lying for her husband when my wife was finally old enough to tell someone.
It only stopped when he abandoned the family for a younger woman and eventually died. Despite this my wife has saved her mother time and time again. MIL had a Brain tumor when we first got married and her husband at that time wanted to refuse treatment.
We basically kidnapped her , took her to the best treatment center, paid thousands of dollars out of our pocket to ensure she got the best treatment and let her live with us for 6 months , my wife quitting her job to be her caretaker, getting her to rehab before moving her back home when she was well enough to be self sufficient.
She was given a second chance by my wife. Her husband never visited in that 6 months. How did she repay my wife? A few months later called her on her birthday and accused her of stealing $300.
Keep in mind she had lived with us for 6 months, we took care of everything, including thousands of dollars in medical bills but her husband had become enraged over a check she had written to my wife when she offered to help with some bills ONE time.
She actually threatened charges so my wife despondently hung up, I immediately wrote a check (it wasn’t about the money) and a letter about how much she had hurt my wife and they only spoke rarely for the next 5 years.
One of those conversations was an intervention to ask her mother to please pay for a long term care policy as now that we had children we couldn’t repeat the financial commitment we had made earlier. it was about $300 per month and we offered to pay half.
Her mother is high maintenance and spends quite a bit on herself but refused to pay anything so we didn’t do it. Fast forward to 6 months ago, MIL had a serious fall and her terrible husband let her lie on the driveway for 3 hours because he didn’t want to pay for an ambulance.
He got his redneck kids to pick her up and take her to ER further injuring her. She was completely unable to walk for 4 months and now is barely able, has trouble dressing herself and going to the bathroom. Of course my wife saved her again because her husband had her in a terrible facility and she was calling my wife begging to be saved.
We took her to a rehab place near us (we live 10 hours away from her home) her insurance paid for 90 days but the last 3 months we’ve been paying thousands out of pocket while hoping she can qualify for PACE.
She doesn’t qualify because she’s still married and her husband has plenty of assets. He refuses to visit or help out with bills. Her only option is to divorce him and sue him to sell the assets to get herself some sort of cash or at least qualify for Medicaid.
She’s been kicked out of her current assisted living for refusing rehab and berating staff (she’s r**ist) we simply can’t afford to put her somewhere else so until she is divorced she’s going to have to live with us.
This is a depressing reality and my wife has admitted she hates her mother, gets no joy from their realationship but feels responsible for her care. We have a two story home with our master on the bottom so we are having to make our kids share a room and sleep in a small guest room upstairs for the foreseeable future.
This would be easier to swallow if MIL was grateful or helpful in anyway. She’s bossy, entitled, horrible to our children, and just a weird petty person. This isn’t just my opinion, I’ve sat in my wife’s therapy sessions and heard her say all these things about MIL.
My wife knows how terrible she is, how much I dislike her (but don’t show it to MIL) but I understand how my wife has to do this. Any tips on making it work? I honestly don’t want to be at my home. I’d rather work late, travel more and be out of that place.
I love my wife and kids and would miss them terribly but MIL makes me miserable and my wife miserable abd she lashes out at me and the kids. Gonna try to s**k it up and deal with it but the future isn’t bright
Here’s the feedback from the Reddit community:
DrDouchebaggins − Your wife is going to live the next several years to possibly decades dealing with this terrible woman, and all because she feels guilty? That’s what abuse does. She’s feeding into the cycle. Your wife needs to break it.
The fact that she feels it’s her responsibility to give up her happiness for the sake of family is super unhealthy and I’d worry about how that’s going to impact any children you have.
Your wife needs to be able to set healthy standards, because people that don’t often end up showing signs of being negligent and a**sive, even if they are the sweetest people otherwise. Go to couples therapy. Ask your wife to go to therapy on her own too.
Bangbangsmashsmash − You can refuse to take her. No medical facility can force an unsafe discharge. Perhaps she becomes a ward of the state, and loses her assets.
ExceptoPetroleum − Say no. What if your MIL lives another decade or two and refuses to divorce? By taking this woman in, your wife is committing you, and your children until they flee from home as soon as they can, to living in a toxic environment for potentially 20+ years. This will ruin your marriage. There’s no way around it.
Get her an attorney who will sit down with her and explain her options — options that don’t include being “saved” again by a daughter she’s abused for her entire life.
Tenprovincesaway − First, come on over to r/JUSTNOMIL. Second — I will be blunt. This woman is neither of your responsibilities. She has a husband. Period. Drop the f**king rope, man.
Take her home, leave her there and leave the responsibility with the people who are actually responsible for her — herself and her husband. You and your wife are enabling her to abuse your children.
slytherinquidditch − She got kicked out due to her own actions. She is responsible for the horrible situations she gets into and expects your wife to save her. Let her reap what she sows. Look up FOG (fear, obligation, guilt) and post this in r/justnomil as they will have better advice on how to keep her out of your home.
greeneyedthrowaway5 − No. She cannot move in with you again. You need to stop providing for your ungrateful MIL. You need to put your foot down, for your family’s sake. You are teaching your children to be complacent with abuse.
It’s not fair for your children to have to live with this toxic person, nor is it fair for them to have to grow up with stressed-out, potentially divorced parents. You and your wife have done more than enough to help your MIL- cut them off and focus on your own lives.
If your wife refuses to stop enabling your MIL, get a divorce. You need to put your kids first and keep them away from this toxic, a**sive influence. You continue to enable your MIL’s bad behavior. She was in a care facility.
She was having a difficult time because she CHOSE to racially abuse staff and refuse rehab. If she continues this behavior, she will continue to get kicked out of assisted care homes. As this sub often says, stop setting yourself on fire to keep someone else warm.
[Reddit User] − Your responsibility is to your children, not to an aging mother who manipulated her way into living with you again.
She’s an adult. She needs to figure it out, and you can help when it doesn’t negatively impact your family.
SavealotSSS − I think it’s pretty terrible of you and your wife to prioritize the happiness of your horrible mother in law rather than your own kids. I feel sorry for them. You and your wife should go into therapy to figure out how to stand up for yourselves and say no.
Sally_Klein − Your wife is prioritizing her a**sive mother over her husband and children. This is incredibly unhealthy for everyone. If she’s allowed to stay, your kids will suffer immensely and your marriage will likely end. Think of your children for a minute – their lives have been disrupted and their home is no longer a safe place.
They will 100% resent you both if you allow them to grow up in this environment. You guys do NOT need to “s**k it up and deal” with being berated and taken advance of in your own house.
Please step up and take your family back. Get yourself a lawyer and figure out how to get her out of your home as soon as possible. Your MIL is a victim of her own choices, your wife has no reason to feel guilty. What does her therapist say about this situation?
miladyelle − You’re enabling your wife, and enabling your MIL. MIL had chosen to be a s**tty person—a**sive to her daughter, choosing a wealthy but a**sive husband, a**sive and r**ist to her paid caregivers. She chooses to have money for luxuries but not her care—and she gets what she wants because you and her wife *enable* it.
That 1k a month? That could go towards retirement, a college fund for your kids, vacations, a nicer home, it could go to individual therapy for your wife and couples therapy for the two of you—1k is half my monthly income,
and you and your wife are taking it from yourselves and your kids to give to a wealthy woman who wants to spend her money on toys rather than bills. Now you want to bring her into your home to abuse you, abuse your wife, and abuse your kids. 71 is not that old. This woman could live for another thirty years.
Do you want her in your home for another thirty years? You’d both be retired by then. The kids would be grown—and let’s be frank, will they come to visit after their childhood was spent being abused by their grandmother while their parents sat by and allowed it? No, they won’t.
Let me address something else: if you allow this n**ty woman into your home to abuse your kids, you had *better not work late to escape it, and leave your kids to be abused.* That is the c**ard’s way out, and that is the strategy of a p**s poor excuse for a father. You think your kids won’t notice that?
That you didn’t have the cahones to put your foot down and protect your own children, who are getting no voice in the matter, who have no choices here, and no way to escape, that you made this choice and then *ran away* rather than deal with the consequences?
If you don’t want her around you, then **don’t let her move in.** Your wife needs a therapist who specializes in a**sive, trauma, and addiction—therapists in these specialties will not push the idea of family above all, are very familiar with toxic family members, and know that sometimes the best thing to do is cut a family member off.
When your wife married you, and had your children, she committed to put her husband and her children first. Marriage made *you* her family and first priority, and having children means that both you, and your wife, have to act in the best interests of your children.
You are both putting a woman not in your immediate family above yourselves, above each other, and above your children. You’re not getting answers to the questions you’re asking because there’s no answer. There’s no way to be happy and abuse-free with an abuser in your home.
You, your wife, and your children **will** be miserable, it will do irrevocable damage to your marriage, and it will negatively impact your children, and do irrevocable damage to your relationship with your kids.
What you want and what you’re choosing to do here have outcomes that are completely opposed to one another. She’s not moved in yet, which means you still have a chance to make the choice that will give you what you want and will be the best for your family.
Do you think the user’s sense of duty to support his wife is admirable, or do you feel there are healthier boundaries to be set? How would you handle this situation if you were in their shoes? Share your thoughts below!