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Mother-in-law issues

User Profile: philosophicalally
philosophicalally June 10th, 2023

My partner's mother had been living with us for 2 months waiting until she found a place. Her staying with us was difficult as she was quite judgemental, made a lot of comments aimed at me, and started to read too much into things when I wanted to do my own thing or be in my own world. She is quite insecure and sees it as rejection when people don’t feel like talking or have things to do. She took offense and villainized me on 3 occasions now. It was a lot of chaos and drama. She said a lot of hurtful things to me, it was quite intense, and I haven’t experienced anyone talking to me that way before. I stood up for myself and fought back which was a whole learning curve on its own for me. Although she apologized, I still don’t feel okay. I feel unsafe around her in general after she has misread my actions and I often felt like I couldn’t breathe around her. She analyses everything I do and say and if something is off, it feels like chaos is lurking. It feels like I have to be a perfectly social butterfly 24/7. I feel like I am walking on eggshells. She found a place about 2 weeks ago in our complex and moved in there. She has left us alone for these last 2 weeks, so I felt myself relaxing in my body again and slowly recovering. I have been feeling good and a lot better these last few days. However today is her housewarming, and this morning I woke up with so much anxiety. I feel that feeling like I cannot breathe again. I feel unsafe in my body, I feel a knot in my stomach, and I feel frozen. Is this PTSD? Trauma? Emotional PSTD? I don’t know what to do because I try rationalizing in my head, but my body is reacting in its own way. I feel so out of control. I feel emotional not knowing how to self-soothe anymore. I try breathing exercises. I try to remind myself that it doesn’t matter how she perceives me or if she takes offense. But there is this helpless feeling of chaos that follows when she does read into something. It is just so challenging. I know I have to go there and be social today, but it feels like it is going to be so hard to be social. I feel like I am fighting back a panic attack or something. And I am wrestling with feelings of my reaction being ridiculous, not valid, and not being understood in this.

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User Profile: toughTiger6481
toughTiger6481 June 10th, 2023

@philosophicalally

I think most people find these situations chaotic and dread them...... it would be easier if you could just tell her your READS on her but you want to be positive and friendly because your partner......

Have you spoken to them about their mothers insults or otherwise wave making? i can imagine if she located near she will be a frequent visitor so maybe you can have a private time to have an in depth conversation i know when i had a deep talk with my sons partner it really helped so much developing a separate type of relationship.