His Family Against Me Disengaging
I have been with my fiancé for almost three years now. He has a high conflict BM ex who is crazy and it’s a toxic situation. SD is fairly well behaved considering but still has some personality traits of her mother and is annoying to be around. Fiancé tries to be a good dad and do the right thing but the situation has taken a toll on him.
He gets SD for part of the summer and the first year I met him, I was more involved during that summer. She liked me right away and enjoyed spending time with me. I started having mixed feelings of being involved pretty much right away when I saw some of the ways SD was acting because of the parenting she was getting from BM..not disciplining SD, SD needed constant attention and couldn’t entertain herself or do anything for herself and was not independent at all. Fiancé told me she was picking up after her mom and learning to be manipulative at a young age. After I learned how bad the situation was and started reading steptalk about other SM’s disengaging, I decided that’s what I wanted to do. I wanted it to be my choice how involved I was and my choice what activities I participated in with SD. I had a discussion with fiancé at that time about it and he told me I could be as involved or uninvolved as I want. Hindsight is he was telling me what I wanted to hear but he wasn’t able to deal with the consequences of me disengaging (primarily his mother giving him a hard time about it.)
I then started being more disengaged. I wouldn’t come to his house as much when SD was here, I went to visit my own family out of town during those times or picked up overtime at work. When I moved in with him, I would sleep in on mornings she was here and make my own plans for the day. I would also go visit my family on my days off.
I saw the courts and BM taking fiancé to the cleaners even after the divorce. I saw fiancé jumping through flaming hoops trying to be a good dad and paying dearly for it. I saw fiancés parents obsessing and fussing over SD, their only grandchild and seeming to care more about SD than their own son. I decided that fiancé would be my first priority. I would do what I could for SD but not be put out or jump through hoops the way everyone else does. I decided I would accept others doing what they wanted, that was their choice and I would make my own choice.
His parents are the kind of parents who live for their grandchildren and SD is their only one. They coordinate with fiancé who will watch her when she is here. Fiancé has a business where he needs to work at the office but essentially makes his own hours and can take off if he needs to. His parents were expecting him to work from home the entire three weeks that SD was here in the summer so he could spend time with her, keep in mind that SD is not independent and needs to be constantly entertained. MIL even told fiancé he did not need to put SD in day care for the summer because she would watch her, then she expected him to stay home with her and his business suffered. MIL would also constantly ask SD what she was doing and would get upset with fiancé if he did not do enough with SD (when he was supposed to be working!). MIL is completely obsessed with SD and thinks everyone’s world revolves around her.
I have also noticed this: MIL and fiancé do certain things to pawn SD off on each other instead of watching her themselves. So MIL tells fiancé that she will help watch SD in the summer and he does not have to get daycare, then expects fiancé to stay home with SD. MIL did watch SD sometimes when fiancé said he had an appointment for work. But MIL would do things like schedule her own hair appointment during the week instead of on a weekend because fiancé should be working during the week so MIL gets out of watching SD during the week. Fiancé would also say he had appts when he didn’t so he got a break from SD and could do something with me instead. So while fiancé tries to spend time with SD and be a good dad, and while MIL thinks the world revolves around SD, they both get tired of dealing with her too. That makes me even more peeved that they are trying to force SD on me, when they are her real family and have the bond of being with her since birth and even they get tired of dealing with her.
Needless to say, MIL was not okay with me disengaging from SD, as MIL thinks SD is the center of everyone’s universe! MIL started coming to fiancé and complaining and saying I need to be more involved. Fiancé does not have the ability to stand up to MIL and when he saw how mad I got when he told me what MIL was saying, he said he would take care of his parents. However, he still tries to please everybody so his idea of “dealing with his parents” is letting me do what I want until he hears about it from them, then he comes to me and tries to get me to be more involved. He said I will be a stepmom and should be treating SD like she is my own. I told him I am not the BM and SD is not my responsibility. I told him stepmom is basically just a title and stepmoms have no legal parenting rights. I do not go to court with him and biowitch and put my two cents in. If fiancé and I ever broke up or got divorced, I would have no visitation rights. It’s NOT the same as having your own kid. I told him he either needs to deal with his parents or I will and MIL really won’t like what I have to say to her. Any advice for dealing with MIL?
MIL
MIL is also a controlling and manipulative personality. She has to get her way, and if not, she will retaliate. That is part of the problem for why fiancé will not stand up to her.
I'd think twice before
I'd think twice before marrying this Mama's Boy. It's his job to deal with his mother, not yours.
You seem quite capable of setting and sticking to your boundaries - his inability to do so is going to make you nuts.
Stand your ground. With both
Stand your ground. With both of them.
Seriously, I agree with Tog
Seriously, I agree with Tog so much!
I *was in a relationship with a mommas boy with kids too. Yes, WAS. It ended up being horrific in so many different ways.
For me, FormerMIL was the same as far as thinking the sun rose and setted for the direct benefit of skids. Both of them REALLY pushed for me to be the "new mom" and even told skid I was a better mom. At the same time I had no actual authority, just the responsibility. I very much tried to put in place boundries, and sometimes formerSO agreed for a little bit, until MIL got in his ear and/or it put the responsibility back on him "too much".
The result was skid absolutely hated me and was H.O.R.R.I.B.L.E to me and later to my babyBS. Horrible to the point I packed up all my and my baby's stuff and left.
My formerSO had full custody of his son only, good Lord I can't even imagine how much worse it would have been if he had custody of his daughter also. Which brings up another point. At any time your fiance could end up with full custody. Accidents happen all the time - BMs included. Skid could decide she wants to live with her dad. BM could decide this as well - bm is in the process of raising a monster with no discipline, which will be very evident in pre-teen and teen years. She may not want to deal with the fall out.
Figure out quick if your boundaries can be accepted and actually stay in place. If not, it may be time to move on. Don't wait until you share a child with this man. Please heed my advice.
“I decided that fiancé would
“I decided that fiancé would be my first priority.”
As it should be as as you should be for him. Equity life partners are the sole top priority to each other above all else all of the time. Kids are the top relationship responsibility but they are never priority over the marriage/core adult relationship.
Dealing the toxic extended family of a partner is much like dealing with the toxic blended family opposition or a toxicly behaved SKid/kid. If the SO won’t deal with it they can bite their tongue while we deal with it. If they don’t like how we deal with it they can step up and deal with it effectively before we have to.
As for your MIL..... “MIL, if you want to watch SD during visitation that is fine. But if you take her then you watch her and do not manipulate my husband with your guilt crap. We have to work whether she is visiting or not and if you don’t watch her we will arrange for camp, day care or some other care optionduring work hours. Is that clear? Good, buh-bye.”
Why does his mother have the
Why does his mother have the idea she gets a vote on how you live your life? Tell her to F*** off. Then tell fiance he better get his balls out of Momma's purse and put them back on where they belong. Seriously, if he can't get things together now, his dughter will run your home when she is a teen.
Next time your BF comes to
Next time your BF comes to you whining about what his Mommy wants tell him to STFU. He doesn’t have the balls to disagree with his Mommy. But that doesn’t mean he has to come to you repeating everything she says. Refuse to listen to 2nd hand orders from her.
This site has lots of members
This site has lots of members who are here because they've chosen to partner with weak men. It's not a recipe for happiness.
We've also had many posts from women providing variations of the same theme: woman becomes involved with a father who has a well-established dynamic going where his mother (or both parents) have either helped him raise his kid(s) or done it for him. The girlfriend is expected to assimilate with the existing dynamic, no matter how dysfunctional or abnormal, and pressure is applied to ensure she toes the party line.
In the best cases, things are bumpy for a while but improve because the father handles his business as he moves forward and creates a new family dynamic. The grandparents get to just be GPs, the father parents his kid(s) with support from his partner, and everyone knows and accepts their role. In the worst cases, the father is weak and his mother/parents are more concerned with keeping control than doing what is healthy and best for their son and grands. A tug of war develops, because the father either can't or won't draw boundaries with his parent(s).
OP, you're doing a good job of prioritizing yourself and staying out of your fiance's family issues, but please don't marry this man until he demonstrates that he is willing and able to stand up to his parents, protect you, and parent solo. It is his responsibility to get his life in order and ready for remarriage. If he can't draw boundaries with his mother, it spells TROUBLE for your relationship.