# Anyone gone no contact with MIL?



## peacem

I am 3 years no contact to this day. Without going into details it was very toxic and unhealthy relationship. Part of me feels rather guilty but I also feel very liberated. My husband sees her every month for a few hours and communicates via his personal phone. My adult daughter is considering no contact (nothing to do with me). 

Has this worked for others? Is this relatively normal for dysfunctional families?


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## Ynot

I have gone no contact with my ex wife for over three years. I have seen her three times during that period. The first two early on. The last one was about 4 months ago. I was pretty upset after the first two. The last one I dreaded, but in the end it was just another fear to face. She tried to start a conversation but I just told her "bye-bye" and walked away. This woman almost beat me down to nothing. Never again. I have no intention of ever gifting her with the appearance of civility.


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## minimalME

I think we might have discussed this before.

Yes. I did stop communicating with my former MIL.

It got to the point where I told my then husband that he was free to take the children to go visit her, or he was free to invite her to our house, and I would find somewhere else to be. But I would no longer interact with his mom.

And that was that. I never saw her or spoke to her again.


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## peacem

minimalME said:


> I think we might have discussed this before.
> 
> Yes. I did stop communicating with my former MIL.
> 
> It got to the point where I told my then husband that he was free to take the children to go visit her, or he was free to invite her to our house, and I would find somewhere else to be. But I would no longer interact with his mom.
> 
> And that was that. I never saw her or spoke to her again.


No doubt I have mentioned this before. Did it matter to your marriage? Or was it carry on regardless?


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## 2&out

During my second marriage my wife insisted I go no contact with my Mom. I did for 2 years - trying to be a good husband and faithful partner. I lost 2 years of her being part of my and my kids lives. I regret it. I compromised trying to accommodate a selfish "me above all else" insecure person. Even as I did, it was still a point of contention/ discussed - that I might and maybe wanted to call. 

I would and do advise any man to never put immediate family above a wife. Family is forever. Wives not - and replaceable - which family is not.


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## minimalME

peacem said:


> No doubt I have mentioned this before. Did it matter to your marriage? Or was it carry on regardless?


My ex-husband wasn't one to share his opinions/preferences, so unfortunately, there wasn't much that seemed to matter.


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## frusdil

I am no contact with my inlaws for over 4 years now. They are awful people and I don't miss them one bit.

My husband hasn't seen them for 2 years, but talks to his Mum on the phone occasionally - though she's rung him twice in the last two weeks and he's yet to return her call, lol. I keep reminding him and he says "soon". What more can I do?

I do struggle with the worry that if they should die (let's face it, they're 70+ now), my husband would be filled with regret and pain from not seeing them more, but then I can't get over the feeling of betrayal when he used to spend time with them - to my exclusion. These people hate my guts, I can't understand why he'd willingly spend time with anyone who does that, it hurts. I would never allow my family to treat him that way nor say anything negative about him.

Ideally, he would simply tell them that I am his wife, and he will not tolerate anyone saying disparaging things about me, move on and see them occasionally - for his sake, not theirs. But, like so many men he is too damn scared to stand up to them. So we're kind of stuck. That said, even he agrees that life is much more peaceful without them involved, and that seeing them stresses him out.


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## turnera

I went no contact with my dad and his wife after she did some awful things to us. And denied it. He supported her, told me I was a bad mother, etc. Didn't see them again until my dad was dying of cancer and, after he died, again no contact. Rarely even crosses my mind.


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## BigToe

peacem said:


> I am 3 years no contact to this day. Without going into details it was very toxic and unhealthy relationship. Part of me feels rather guilty but I also feel very liberated. My husband sees her every month for a few hours and communicates via his personal phone. My adult daughter is considering no contact (nothing to do with me).
> 
> Has this worked for others? Is this relatively normal for dysfunctional families?


The only thing that matters is how your husband feels about your non-contact with his mother. If he understands the circumstances and supports you in it then there is no reason for guilt. Assuming of course that you are not trying to get him to abandon his mother.


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## peacem

BigToe said:


> The only thing that matters is how your husband feels about your non-contact with his mother. If he understands the circumstances and supports you in it then there is no reason for guilt. Assuming of course that you are not trying to get him to abandon his mother.


Yes he positively encourages it. No I am not trying to get him to abandon her, quite the opposite - more let him deal with the drama. Having said that she is totally convinced that a once a month/3hour visitation = abandonment. But when we first married she expected him to visit daily. His visitation timescale is his decision because of his own anxiety around her.


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## Chippie

My MIL is a really toxic person and neither of us care much for each other. I have very minimal contact with her, ie, if we are at a family event and she is there, I will say hello and that is that. It has taken H 30 years to see how toxic his mother is. She did something very vengeful to one of our sons and then H was able to see what her true colours were. 

We live 5 hours from her so thankfully my interactions with her are very limited. H calls her once a week or so, mainly about her business. Our second son was working for her, for about 8 years, and when he told her that he was going to be accepted into the Airforce as a chaplain and would be leaving in 2 months, she fired him on the spot. This was two years ago, two weeks before Christmas. She refused to give an explanation, even though my H is also a director of her company. MIL blames our son's wife for him leaving his job and moving elsewhere (???) and refuses point blank to talk to her. At son's ordination last week, MIL totally blanked his wife in front of everyone. What a bitter old cow she is. As best we can tell, she was butt hurt that our son didn't want to spend his entire life working minimum wage in her factory rather than a job that gives him the opportunity to fulfill his calling.

I have told H that I will never prevent him from seeing his mother. Our eldest son is working for her now but is not happy there as she is in a permanently bad mood and grumbles at everyone constantly. Our other kids have little to do with her as well, she has never made much of an effort to build a relationship with them. When the kids were little, we all lived in the same town and she never came to visit - if we wanted to see her, we had to drag the 5 kids out over to her house, where they had to sit and be bored. 

I think that minimising contact with toxic people is better for us in the long run.


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## MovingForward

I do not speak with any of my XW family, I joked to my GF recently the next time I may bump into them(they live in a different state) is when one of my children get married in 10+ years and I was debating whether or not I would still want to punch my XFIL LOL


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## Ragnar Ragnasson

W and I were limited contact with her parents during first five yrs of marriage as we got to know each other.

Our first meetings were not caustic but suspicious strangely. After I set the ground rules that W and I, and coming child were my only concerns, and not them and theirs we had a few years of space while getting to know each other.

That actually set a good foundation for future relationships.


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## red oak

Did it with my XW for a long time Which included no contact with wife or kids until she changed her tune.

Would have been better to have never eventually accepted an apology from her.


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## WorkingWife

peacem said:


> Having said that she is totally convinced that a once a month/3hour visitation = abandonment. But when we first married she expected him to visit daily. His visitation timescale is his decision because of his own anxiety around her.


Good for him.
There are some people where no matter how much you do, it will never be enough. You could visit once a week or once a year and they would feel equally abandoned. The only difference to you would be how often you had to see them and hear how neglectful you are, LOL. 

I've decided with people like that you visit the amount that makes your own conscience feel right and accept the fact that they have a hole that cannot be filled and they'll just have to live with it.

I have never gone no contact with anyone but not been in a situation like you. It sounds like it may be the healthiest thing for you to do.

My ex couldn't stand my Mom. (She was always good to him she can just be unpleasant to be around in general.) I didn't push him to see her but he pushed me to NOT see her and that did hurt our relationship because I humored him and had a guilty conscience. Ironically, when I divorced him my mom was the ONE person who said I might be making a mistake and should try to work things out. Go figure.


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## MovingForward

red oak said:


> Did it with my XW for a long time Which included no contact with wife or kids until she changed her tune.
> *
> Would have been better to have never eventually accepted an apology from her.*


How so?


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## SpinyNorman

I went no contact when she died, but that's on her.


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## Andy1001

Thanksgiving 2016 was the last time my mil spoke to me or my wife.She also has completely ignored her grandson who lived with her for the first eight years of his life.
Since then we had a baby,got married and I brought her husband and her other three daughters over to Scotland for the wedding.She never even acknowledged the invitation I sent her.Her daughters are all employed by me and I gave my fil a “loan” to help him keep his business up and running and also paid for a new roof for their house.
When my fil had a dui I used my own Lawyers to get him off lightly because a driving ban would have finished his business,I’ve never been paid for that either.
Yet her excuse for not talking to us is we don’t support her enough financially.


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## red oak

MovingForward said:


> How so?


Would have been better had I never tried to make the woman my wife... but as for MIL at the time.
MIL didn't really mean it. She thought she did at the time (they were strange), but I thought to give them second chance.
Always fighting with one, or another in their family. Always wanting money. Other out (oops) I mean in-laws always needing a place to stay.........Should have ostracized the whole lot XW included less than 6 months in.
Suffice it to say some people just aren't influences anyone needs in any part of your life.


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## Mr.Married

When people treat you poorly there is no need to mingle with them ....in person or over the phone ..... related or not.

We were no contact for about two years.

The wife/MIL dynamic seems to me to be one often full of muddy water. Power struggle ......


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## dvsninja2

What was the issue, did you feel like your husband was chosing his parents side and not yours? 



minimalME said:


> I think we might have discussed this before.
> 
> Yes. I did stop communicating with my former MIL.
> 
> It got to the point where I told my then husband that he was free to take the children to go visit her, or he was free to invite her to our house, and I would find somewhere else to be. But I would no longer interact with his mom.
> 
> And that was that. I never saw her or spoke to her again.


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## frusdil

2&out said:


> I would and do advise any man to never put immediate family above a wife. Family is forever. Wives not - and replaceable - which family is not.


Wow. When you get married your wife becomes your immediate family. Parents and siblings are your extended family.

I haven't seen or spoken to any of my inlaws in 5 years, my husband hasn't seen or spoken to his sister in 5 years, not seen his parents for 2 years but speaks to them on the phone occasionally. He's tried to talk to MIL about it but she shouted him down so he gave up. It's just easier not to see them. Our life is much more peaceful.

I want to be clear that I do want him to repair his relationship with them, and I was also clear to him that most of my motivation for that is fear for our marriage if something happened to them...I don't want him to resent me. They can go to hell as far as I'm concerned, I have no interest in a relationship with them but want him to have one. I NEED him to put them in their place first though, tell them that the way they have treated me, and the things MIL has said are unacceptable, downright disgusting and that going forward they are not to speak of me that way again, ever.

He is unable to do that, fear I think, so here we are...


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