Agony Hound: My Mother in Law Refuses to Speak to me and my Husband Won't Help

 For some time I have pondered doing posts based on letters written to agony aunts and this is the first. I will be giving witchy answers creating hatred and breaking up families using all the subtlety at my disposal. Stop laughing.

The first is a letter from a wife at her wit's end:

“Although I’ve been married for 15 years, my mother-in-law still hasn’t accepted me. I think I could cope better if she was rude or argumentative, but she simply ignores me completely. It’s literally like I’m not there and she can’t see me!

“I get no support from my husband, who doesn’t seem to see it and sticks up for her every time. I know she’s getting older and that I should have learnt to cope with it by now, but it’s getting me crosser and crosser.

“So much so that I feel like refusing to visit her, and refusing to let the children see her either. Am I being petty?”

The source for this question is here and the non-witchy answer from their counsellor Fiona is:

“I don’t think you’re being petty by considering refusing to see her yourself, but I think it would be a mistake to involve your children. Aside from the fact that they wouldn’t understand, and that it would cause even further resentment, they really shouldn’t be used as pawns in this game. The one person who I think you should be taking more of an issue with is your husband.

“The next time you visit, ask her open-ended questions, in front of him, to see if she responds – make it hard, if not impossible, for her to ignore you. He should be on your side, and so if he cannot or will not stand up to his mother, you have every justification at being angry with him too.

“Make sure he sees just how upset you are and point out that he is putting his mother’s feelings before yours. I can see why he wouldn’t want to cause a family rift, but that doesn’t mean he can’t give you more support and speak up for you when his mother is being rude.

“He needs to know just how angry you are, and if he doesn’t want you to finally blow your top, he must find a way of getting his mother to accept that you are now part of the family.”

The Hound says:

You must be a saint to have been putting up with this nonsense for fifteen years of marriage and obviously your husband has found himself a real gem in you for staying with him despite this.

But why the hell are you putting up with this? Your husband is married to you and so his first duty must be to you and your children. I note that he has denied being able to see you being blanked which is I think a betrayal in itself.

If you really want to stay with him you can of course try the things suggested above, and Relate can offer counselling to try to open up this situation between you, and it would be with a neutral professional.

If you want to sweeten your mother in law, write her name on a piece of paper or get hold of a hair or nail clipping and put it in a jar of honey.

What bothers me, though, is that being sidelined and having your concerns not validated by your husband can have a longer term effect of eating away at your confidence and while you have put up with this and put him first, he is not putting you first.

My own opinion would be to get rid of this mummy's boy and take him for every penny hes got to teach him to pay attention to his wife.

If you want the Hound to sow confusion in your personal life you can contact me on the contact form below.