If you think you have MIL issues....

...you have GOT to read this post from the Knot's Connecticut board.

I don't know if I necessarily believe that this is true because it's so outrageous, but if it is, this bride is a SAINT for not killing her MIL. (I don't think any jury in the world would've convicted her either after hearing this story!)

Anyway, here's the post:



If you think you have MIL issues....

In case you are curious, here is my story.

DH and I were engaged for 21 months prior the wedding. We wanted a big, fun wedding that we knew we were going to have to pay for, so we saved up. My parents contributed, my grandma contributed, we paid 75% of the total bill. We knew that going in, and were fine with it.

From the moment we got engaged, MIL's first comment to me (first two comments) were 'Look at that rock!' and [to DH] 'Why don't you buy ME diamonds like that?'

DH is an only child. His father has been deceased for over ten years; he and MIL divorced when DH was 5. She remarried; stepdad died about 12 years ago, and she is currently with another guy. They've been 'engaged' since the moment we announced our engagement. No date set.

MIL did not pay a dime towards DH's education (undergrad and law school), though she told everyone (they lived in a small town) she went into bankrupcy for his tuition. DH has over $1200/mo in student loans currently; she went into bankrupcy b/c she has uncontrollable spending and bought 217 Scarlett O'Hara dolls.

If you haven't guessed by now, she has mental health problems. This is even more ironic combined with the fact that I am a mental health professional (MS in Counseling Psych). It's nothing organic with her; medication and therapy is only minimally helpful, and she's been doing it for years. It's one of most pervasive personality disorders I've ever encountered, personally and professionally. And now she's legally related to me.

Yet I digress.

So, our wedding. I attempt to extend the olive branch to her in Oct. 2005. She had gotten very surly with me, very aggressive verbally, and was all around unpleasant to be around until that point. With the wedding coming up, I thought I could prevent a potentially ugly situation, so I invited her to lunch with our wedding coordinator, and offered to take her shopping so she and I could pick out her dress for the wedding. (my treat).

Afternoon goes horribly wrong. She dismisses my offer to go shopping (no biggie) and acts like a freak around the wedding coordinator. In her effort to impress the wc, she says she'll pay for the RD and after-wedding brunch. Later on, I say, 'Thank you, that is incredibly generous. We really appreciate you offering to help; however, if you chose not to, that's okay, too.' She waves her hand and says 'No, no, no, of course I will help; I am the mother of the groom.' I say, 'Great, let's start planning.'

Long story short, after I gave her the guest list and four restaurant choices, she cut every member of my family ('who are THESE people?!') and stated my dinner choices were 'extravagant.' (they varied in price from $16.99pp to $33pp).

You can imagine the battle that ensued. She didn't want to pay for transportation to the restaurant. Then she didn't want to pay for the bar. Then postage went up and she couldn't afford the additonal two cents. Finally, in December, my then-FI got upset with me crying out of frustration everytime I talked to her, he called her and said 'Don't bother. This is not worth the hassle. Leave psyched and I alone; we have an entire wedding to plan. This is only one component.'

Her counter? 'I want to buy you a really nice wedding present, and I can't afford both.'

We said, 'Don't worry about the RD.' (brunch was already shelved at this point.) 'Don't worry about a nice gift. Just come and be happy for us. If money is tight [which we KNEW it wasn't, but she's entitled to spend her money as she sees fit], don't worry about any of this. It's not worth the hassle.'

Side note: I was livid and did not speak with her; I give all the credit to my DH for handling this like the bigger person. He was great.

Then....the emails start. We get an email from the boyfriend, ahem, FI, du-jour. 'Your mother gave you a great life, you need to respect her. You need to treat her better.' Blah, blah. DH's uncle (her brother) calls us. DH's aunt calls us. We handled each one with 'Okay, that's nice you are concerned. We'll handle it from here.'

DH emails her and says, 'Enough is enough. Don't not contact us. Do not have family members contact us. We need space.'

She calls on Christmas like nothing ever happened.

(note: she lives three miles from us. She has followed DH to every place he has ever lived.)

She calls and wants to get together. We ignore the calls.

Then our engagement announcement is published. B/c we had been ignoring her calls, clearly she had to step up her game. She fires off an email to us that says, b/c her name came after DH's deceased father, 'you want me dead. You both are so hateful and hurtful and you intentionally embarassed me.'

I call the editor and it is reprinted using her exact words the following week. We hear nothing from her.

Life is calm; I am busy with wedding stuff and DH is busy with work. We have no contact with her for several months. We don't celebrate Easter with her (DH is out of town, I've got 50 million work-related, wedding-related things going on), and get the BEST email: 'No call, no family dinner, no Easter lily for me. Your father, along with our dead family pets, are crying in heaven right now.'

I about fell out of my chair reading that one.

The week of the wedding (May 2006) she calls me on a non-wedding related matter and mentions she has a great 'surprise' for us. I was like, 'ohhhh, sh*t.' I call the WC IMMEDIATELY and am like, 'You need to talk to her about this.' We hear back from the WC who says, 'She has a little surprise for DH that she wants to give him at the RD.' DH and I are like, 'Great, what now?' but don't think it's a big deal.

Also, the week of the wedding I am diagnosed with shingles. I find out on Tuesday. My MOH, BFF in the whole world, can't come to the wedding. She is 9 weeks pg and has never had the chicken pox. It was beyond devastating, to say the least. I don't think she and I have ever cried that much. But - the wedding will go on. (we ended up making a documentary ala KFed's 'Chaos' for her - she loved it).

MIL doesn't call when she finds out I'm sick, even though everyone in the free world did call me and offer support, help, and concern. My FLORIST brings over chicken soup. We find out on the Thursday before the wedding she has been hosting family dinners at her home all week, for DH's family, and did not invite us. But - my fav - she told everyone we WERE invited, just too bothered to come. Typical MIL bs.

The wedding:

Nothing happens at the RD. We even got her a gift (not a thank you gift, but more of an appeasement donation) and presented it to her. She cried her eyes out and wept to the groomsmen how she 'didn't want to fight anymore.'

DH and I think we are in the clear and there will be no surprises at the wedding. How wrong we were. We actually high-fived after the RD.

Pride comes before the fall.

Wedding goes off without a hitch; ceremony was great. He cried, I cried. All 160 of our guests cried. Then the reception began. It was a five-course meal at the Four Seasons with open bar. Halfway through the first course (that we had meticulously picked our at our tasting the month before, designed for Midwestern palates b/c that is where we are both from), there is a loud rapt at the double doors. In marches eight Star Wars characters, waving light sabers. They march to the front of the room and demand DH joins them. They present him with a gift. I'm sitting there thinking, 'Okay, it'll be over in a couple of minutes, no biggie' when in walks the guy that played Bobba Fett (?) in the SW movies. You would have thought Brad Pitt walked in. Every single man in the room grabs their (beautifully crafted) place card and runs up for an autograph. Every single female swivels her head towards me to see my reaction. I was told that I went from twisting my napkin feverishly to having the biggest smile on my face. It was plastered on for the rest of the night. I faked my own wedding.

It took 60 minutes for all of our guests to get an autograph, pose with Storm Troopers, and hang out with Princess Leia. The entrees were burning the kitchen; they were made again and brought out raw. The third time they were brought out, the dishes were right, but 1/2 of our guests had left b/c it was after 10:30.

The Four Seasons graciously extended the bar by another 30 minutes.

DH and I didn't get a chance to make our toasts.

DH tried to cover the room and thank guests for coming while I was on the dance floor, hoping people would follow my lead and dance. I didn't see him all night.

We cut the cake quickly and ran into the list of dances. The DJ played three songs and the reception was over.

That's it.

Our beautiful, elegant affair was single-handedly destroyed by a woman whom I'm told, TOOK A BOW when these people walked in. She spent the rest of the night asking everyone 'Did you like my surprise? It cost me a TON of money!' She then smoked in our non-smoking foyer for the remainder of the reception, almost in a post-coital manner. Ewww.

Since the characters stayed for dinner, I handed her the $1500 bill at brunch the next day and said, 'Your guests; you pay.' She emailed me and called me 'ungracious and tacky. YOU married a lawyer; you need to understand contracts.'

I never responded but instead forwarded it to every single person on my listserve. I continue to do that with every email I get from her.

DH and I wrote a joint statement on our honeymoon and emailed to all family members, his and mine. It said, based on her behavior, she is no longer a part of our lives, and explained things from our point of view. Please respect our decision.

My own mother hasn't looked at the wedding pictures b/c in her words, she is still 'devastated and horrified.' My father won't talk about it. Our WC (whom MIL lied to) will have her removed from the Four Seasons if she ever sets foot there again. My grandmother got physically ill and had to leave the reception.

I'm left holding the bag. DH is standing with me, clearly, and it just saddened by his mother's behavior. I'm just homicidally angry. There are starving kids in Africa, I know, and weddings are not a big deal in the grand scheme of life. But - I feel like I was robbed and attacked in some way. It feels like she STOLE something from me. There are a million coulda-woulda-shouldas, and by giving her the benefit of the doubt (that she would act in OUR best interest), we had a joke of a wedding.

I don't want pity, I don't want advice, it just *****. Plain and simple. I'm not even sure why I'm sharing this. It just helps to get it out.

**sigh**

The good news: married life has been great so far. It's a relief to be done with the wedding - and her. I had 160 witnesses that night, and all confirmed what I had been saying all along - she is a narcissitic sociopath.

Life goes on. Living well is really the best revenge.