My Mother-In-Law Ruined My Marriage & My Life Will Never Be The Same

I’ve always had a good track record with my boyfriends’ moms and I assumed I’d continue the trend when I met my fiance. While my relationship with his mother was wonderful at first, as soon as we got engaged, she did a complete 180 on me. My future mother-in-law ruined my marriage before we actually made it down the aisle. To be honest, I don’t think I’ll ever forgive her.

1. She became overbearing about how we chose to celebrate our lives. It came as quite a shock when she started acting irrationally as soon as we got engaged. She was very insistent on certain wedding details and on one occasion, she gave my fiance and me the silent treatment for a full 40 minutes because we didn’t want to arrange the bridal party the way that she wanted us to. It was extremely awkward and upsetting; it sucked the joy out of a time in my life that meant so much to me and that I’d been waiting for so long. She didn’t care about my own visions as the bride-to-be, it was all about what she wanted.
2. She was jealous of me and it made me nervous. When my fiance and I made decisions about and plans for our life together, she always had something negative to say about it to make me feel awful. If we booked a trip or a weekend getaway, she would ask my fiance when they would go on a mother/son getaway. It was as if she couldn’t let him go and grow to become his own man with a family of his own. I started to become very uncomfortable around her and looking back, I know it was my gut instinct warning me about the chaos to come.
3. She tried to subtly intimidate me but I saw right through it. She made a few remarks to me during the wedding planning about how her culture doesn’t compromise even if they pretend that they do. Not only was it a completely rude and immature thing to say, I also knew it was her way of trying to intimidate me from expressing my desires and needs. She tried to make the wedding entirely about her family’s culture and traditions with zero regard for mine. Sadly for her, I’m no pushover and this infuriated her even more.
4. She was verbally abusive towards me. I got pregnant shortly after we got engaged and that’s when things really took a turn for the worse. Instead of celebrating our impending bundle of joy, she began bullying me fiercely because she wasn’t getting her way in our lives, cussing me out and threatening me. She even texted despicable things about me to my fiance. I couldn’t believe that any future mother-in-law could behave so badly towards their future daughter-in-law. It was truly baffling to me and still is to this day.
5. I gave her a second chance and forgave her but I regretted it. I strongly believe that people make mistakes and in the name of working through difficult times with my future family, I gave her a chance to explain herself and make amends for what happened between us. I truly cared about my relationship with her out of respect for the love I had for her son. I sat down with her and addressed our underlying issues, and after hearing each other out and apologizing to one another, I thought we had reached a place of harmony. Boy, I was so wrong.
6. She tried to play the victim when she didn’t get her way. She continued to try and control me by shaming me into hiding my pregnancy, insisting that people would think and talk badly about me. It was shocking to me that a grown woman was saying these things to the mother of her future grandchild, and it added a lot of unnecessary stress to my pregnancy. She even shamed me for wanting to make an announcement on social media when I was safely out of the first trimester. When I stood up for what I wanted for my own life, she had a hissy fit and became verbally abusive towards me again.
7. She totally disrespected the woman her son loves. My fiance and I had this beautiful future ahead of us and so many reasons to be happy, but she couldn’t stand that it wasn’t going according to her plans. My family, on the other hand, celebrated us. They were happy and supportive and I just wish that she could have been the same.
8. I’m not the first woman to have experienced her offensive behavior. In the wake of my relationship’s demise, I’ve actually learned a lot about her. I’m not mad for feeling like a victim of her abuse because I’m unfortunately not the first woman in her son’s life that has experienced her toxic ways. She’s been rude and jealous towards girlfriends before me and I don’t think she’ll ever change or let her son ever be truly happy, which is actually pretty sad.
9. Sadly, my fiance didn’t stand up to her and it destroyed us. While I say my mother-in-law ruined my marriage, my ex played a huge role too. As horrible as her behavior was, the only thing worse was the fact that my fiance refused to stand up to her. This only made her feel more powerful. Spousal loyalty is huge to me, and while I don’t underestimate the importance of his relationship with his mom, he should have put her in her place the first time to let her know he wouldn’t tolerate her treatment of me. He didn’t understand the concept of standing up for me and protecting me, especially while I was in such a delicate time of my pregnancy. It totally devastated me and directly led to our breakup.
10. She made me stronger than I’ve ever been before. Even though I’ll be forever haunted by my experience with my would-have-been mother-in-law and she ruined my marriage before I ever got to experience it, I have to look at the bright side and thank her for making me infinitely stronger than I’ve ever been before. Not only am I about to be a mother myself, but I now have the wisdom of knowing what not to do and how not to behave to ensure the best interest of my child.