Hello Readers. I am fine. We have been moving house and have spent a few weeks packing up the contents of one house, dealing with last minute legal angst and moving to our new house. I am up to my eyeballs in boxes and the kids are living out of suitcases! We are trying to crack on with redecorating as the new, larger house has a lot of work that needs doing to it. The bathrooms are in a right state.
Yesterday the man from the cable telecommunications company turned up to connect us so now we have TV, internet and phones which we haven’t had for the last 10 days which is why I haven’t been able to post and respond to your comments. We are even in a spot which gets poor mobile phone reception, in a dip between two hills, so my smart phone has been taking up to 5 minutes to load a webpage if it is able to at all.
Now things are settling down I will be able to post a bit more frequently. I have a post about event hijacking by MILs and some ideas for an article on fleas, that is the traits your partner brings into your relationship which mirror the disordered MIL’s behaviour. The term comes from the phrase “if you lie with dogs, you will catch fleas”.
Thank you for all your comments recently and hello and welcome to the new people who have started following this blog. Please bear with me while I get the family settled into our new house.
Narcissistic MIL 
Thanks for that FCW!! Great to hear that your ok except for the Drama of moving.. It’s not fun anyway you slice it….. Super excited to hear the subjects for future posts.. As you can tell the ‘Fleas’ has been quite the issue for us. I just woke up so my brains not fluent yet but there is something that does bother me… I have an adorable yet feisty 7 year old daughter and she’s the baby of 3. Am I tripping because I seriously think I’m seeing some manifestation of Narc traits.. I’m aware of the phases of development but this seems to be at the Core or Centre of her being… It’s quite disturbing at times, she sets things up, maneuvers accordingly and enjoys watching the fall out.. …hmmm Help Please!!!! It’s not urgent, I just wanted to throw it out there…. Anyways 😉 great to have u back, be blessed and be safe…. Alabaster
After a holiday season with my MIL and their family, I finally have been able to define what I have been dealing with in my marriage and life the past 20 years! To say it has been painful and difficult is an understatement! The denial amongst that family is absolutely unbelievable. I have been considered negative and begun to think I was crazy after so many years of this dysfunction. Thank you, thank you, thank you for pouring out your heart, sharing what you have learned and providing strategies. I have been struggling so hard to keep this marriage afloat but it has felt like one betrayal after the next with all the denial. I have finally started to change my approach and return to the confident woman I was years ago and am seeing a change. Your blog, and some other poignant blogs discussing narcissism have been the so validating, its has been as if you have been witnessing my life and putting a name for it. Keep writing! You have a gift, and if you have helped only a hand full of us dealing with the “cancer” within a family, you will have turned around generations of families. God Bless you!
Thank you JDS I am really pleased I’ve been able to help. When you change as you’ve described the people have no choice but to change also or leave. Either way it sounds like you are coping and forging ahead. Good luck.
Thank you so much for this blog!! I felt compelled to leave a comment because I’ve been dealing with my horror of a MIL for almost 16 years. I did done a fair amount of research years ago, but I have recently been digging back into the research again because things have come to a huge head with her right now. I cannot deal and need help especially as it relates to my children. There is a lot information out there on Adult children of NM’s, etc., but only a handful of stuff I can’t truly relate to dealing with Mother-in-Law’s.
Despite reading lots of information, online and off line, I have to tell you that your situation with your MIL and your husband sounds exactly like mine, right down to how our husband’s personalities are as an individual and how they respond to their mothers. I have two daughters who are 23 months apart, too. I wanted to cry when reading your entries because I felt like I was reading about myself. To have another person practically mirroring my experiences is very validating.
I’ve noticed you have not been on since October since your move, which I know can be all encompassing and is very stressful. I hope all is well with you and I certainly hope you come back. If not, I will re-read these entries until I probably know them by heart. Take care and be well!
Hi Pixie, thanks for your comments. It is still, even after writing this blog, just so reassuring to hear from people like you who have the same experiences. If you ever feel like sharing some gems or have any tips for managing it all I’d love to read them.
I have just finished reading through all these posts and comments and I really hope that you come back and start writing again. Your blog is one of the most informative and hits more issues related to this than any other that I have seen. I so wish I had found it years ago because right now, my 9 year old daughter is being constantly tortured by 3 out of 6 of her grandparents who I now believe are all N and who I know for sure are very abusive.
My ex husband is also N (among other things identified by a parental responsibility evaluator during the terrible 2 year custody battle that still ended with 50/50 custody due to the betrayal of my own family) and if I had known 5 years ago, what I know now, I would have stayed with him to protect her from them all. My father, who I went to for help in leaving the marriage that was killing me and affecting my daughter so negatively, ended up teaming up against me with the other evil grandparents and it took 2 years of hell just to get back to 50/50 after they set me up, sent me to jail and took my daughter away to be raised primarily by my ex and his very abusive girlfriend (who is thankfully gone now).
Still, the stress they have all put on my precious little girl has been so extreme that she developed such severe anxiety that the attacks caused mainly by the thoughts of all the things she wasn’t allowed to tell me caused her to frequently throw up on the way to school. This has thankfully begun to get better just this year as she has been breaking the control and talking to me anyway. This didn’t happen soon enough, however, as that combined with the many illnesses that I believe have been primarily caused by the recurring personal hygiene issues brought on by the continual emotional trauma of being left with my ex’s parents along with lies told to her principal by my abusive father, have prompted the school to take me to court threatening jail time for her many absences from school.
I can’t believe how many things here ring true for me regarding both sides of my daughter’s highly dysfunctional family! I know that it’s been a long time now, but I do hope that this one is not your last post as the information you were presenting and support you have given is still so very needed by so many people. Thank you for all your hard work on this topic and I do hope that you are doing well. It’s hard for people in my position to not feel alone in trying to protect and heal our children in the face of such extreme craziness. Thanks again and please come back. All my best to you and all the others here fighting the good fight. I know as well as anyone how very difficult it can be, but all of our children are so very worth it – no matter the cost!
Sorry, I just saw that the posts did continue after this and I am quite relieved to have more reading to do here. Thanks again for all the wisdom and support you give to so many on this forum. I’m hooked for sure! Keep up the good work!