Has anyone else dealt with this?

Hello beautiful mamas. I'm looking for some insight with the current situation involving my MIL. I'll try to keep it as TLDR as possible 😅. So about 4 years ago my husband and I decided to go no contact with his mom after a final blow up. We suspect her to have untreated mental illnesses (think borderline) and in the years leading up her behavior became more and more erratic and destructive for herself and anyone close to her. My husband and I finally had enough of her behavior and sought couples as well as individual counseling to process the current relationship with her and how to proceed in a healthy way for us. Fast forward to the final blow up which led us to completely block all forms of communication and go NC. Since then she has used hoovering techniques to try to entice us to speak with her again, but we never fell for it (thank you therapy!). The plan was to eventually reopen contact with her via mediated family counseling to hopefully heal and move on in a more healthy setting and relationship. Unfortunately his mom has shown little to no improvement with her behavior and still blames everyone and anything else for the fallout. Even when she knew we were expecting and this will be her first grandchild, she still made no effort. My son was born in April 2024 and from the time we announced the pregnancy and birth she never even acknowledged her grandchild. However this past Christmas, my son's birthday, and Easter, she sent several packages of gifts and cards with letters stating things like "hello MY grandson! I am your grandma! I miss you and can't wait to see you" and friends of the family/ other family members are saying that she has been sharing pictures of him on social media and going on and on about "HER grandson" ( I write HER and MY in all caps because that's exactly what she is writing). Like she's making up this whole story about how she's a proud grandma but in reality she hasn't done anything. She basically went from not acknowledging him to "super grandma". What's bothering me is how her letters and cards seem... possessive? She says things like "MY grandson" this and that. She was like that with my husband growing up. Like if he did well in school or won an award, got a promotion at work, her response wouldn't be "congratulations, you worked hard" or anything like that. It was "wow, look at MY son! He's such a success! I always said you would do well, now look at MY son!!" (Through therapy my husband said that because of this he never felt like his accomplishments were his own and he suffered from "imposter syndrome" most of his life). Now she's all about HER grandson (that she has zero relationship with). Sorry, I tried to keep it short. I guess my question is has anyone ever dealt with behavior like this? We've been NC for several years and now she's desperate for a relationship with her grandson, but it feels superficial. Like she just wants people to feel sorry for her and she needs something to build her image/ego. As for the gifts and cards, they're only addressed to my son, like my husband and I don't exist. Any insight and shared experiences would be much appreciated. 💖

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So my MIL kind of does the same. We’ve been no contact for 2 years now (she did meet my first as she’s 2.5) but not our second (she’s 7 weeks) but she’ll send gifts/cards on my daughter’s birthday/holidays. She used to skip my husband and I completely and now she sends cards with passive aggressive notes in them. She’s narcissistic and can do nothing wrong. We just throw everything out so my daughter doesn’t even know about her (we will explain when she’s older) and keep ignoring her. The only time she sees pictures is when we mail them to her mom once or twice a year (it’s my husbands grandma and she didn’t do anything) but other than that, she’s blocked on everything and I blocked family that was showing off pictures to her

@Katie I'm sorry to hear you're dealing with a similar situation. It's tough on everyone involved. I was wondering if we should have kept the gifts but left them unwrapped or just send them straight back. My husband didn't meet his paternal grandparents until he was 20 due to a big blow up between them and his mom when he was only a few months old (see the pattern here?) and when they tried to send cards, gifts, and notes of apology, she just sent them back herself. Because of this he didn't want to do that because he felt like it was punishing our son. Either way, our forgiveness can't be bought.

So with the gifts, I will say I let my child decide if she likes them or not. She sends some new clothes, toys, and books but other times she sends things from antiques stores that are filthy and smell bad so I automatically trash the nasty ones and anything signed by her but I let my daughter open the box and see what’s inside and if something is wrapped, she can unwrap and we let her decide if she likes the toys to play with but most of the time my daughter could care less (they usually send junk) so I just throw it away and I’ll wash the clothes and use them for painting with or getting dirty outside

That's a good idea. He's 1 so he's cool with anything at the moment 😅. I've already taken a few things and just put them away in his toy box. Do you feel like your MIL is trying to be a good grandmother, or just trying to be seen as one?

Oh just seen as one for sure. She’ll send shitty gifts and write passive aggressive comments in her cards too but has never once asked how she is or anything about her since the whole situation went down 2 years ago and found out we had a baby but never asked about her but she can send verbally abusive emails and letters to my husband

@Katie it's such childish behavior. Like we don't have any to deal with add on their antics. Is your husband doing ok? Is he just used to the behavior?

He was more than happy to cut her off 😅 she was a terrible mother to him so he has never liked her so this is easy for him. He completely ignores all of her attempts to message/email him (he does get mad and annoyed when he notices them) and wants me to just throw everything away without even opening it

My heart goes out to you and your husband. Mine still feels torn at times. He admitted that he still thinks of her as she was when he was a kid. But once he grew out of the dependent age and wanted more independence, she just couldn't cope and started to spiral. Didn't help that her marriage was over before it even began (they stayed together for him) and once he moved out she just crashed. Now they're divorced and she's living in FL with her sister and mom and it's a real sh*tshow.

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