Dealing with Fiancé’s Mom

That's a tough situation. You can't force anyone to like you. Hopefully your fh understands this. As long as your being polite to her, that's all that matters. By the sound of it, I dont think she even wanted to like you. I dont know what is up with moms and first born sons? Lol. But you can try for the sake of your fh. If shes still rude and not wanting to try, then let it be. Just be respectful to her. That's all you can really do. If she makes comments, just excuse yourself. Your not living with her, so I wouldnt worry about it.

Ugh. Hmm, if you’ve already had a chat not sure another will help? Could you include her in something like a cake tasting with your fiancé so she feels included? And being respectful to her is so awesome! It only makes her look bad.

View Quoted Comment The cake tasting is a good idea, I haven’t picked my dress yet so I guess she can go with me. It’s odd because when she’s around my fiancé and I, she’s nice but when he’s not around sheesh. But I’ll give the cake tasting a try and she can pick his grooms cake

View Quoted Comment She treats him like he’s Jesus and that’s not an exaggeration. I want to be civil but it can be hard, excusing myself doesn’t work because she thinks I’m being rude. I just look at her and smile, no matter what she’s saying. “Just keep smiling”. Lol It makes her uncomfortable and me happy. I’ll just keep doing that. I’m just trying to find ways to make an effort to show her that I want her to like me. Not need, just want.

View Quoted Comment I say yes to the cake tasting but I don’t think you should feel obligated to include her in the dress shopping. The reason I say this is because they’re stressful enough and there’s plenty of opinions to go around. If you already feel like she doesn’t like you, it could be a recipe for disaster.

This sounds like a conversation he needs to have with his mother, not you. Yes, you can kill her with kindness and let her in on some minor decisions, but how she treats you now will set the tone of your entire marriage.

If he’s not okay with it, he needs to do something about it. He should absolutely stand up for you in this situation. If his mother has a problem with your relationship based solely on your race, it is 10000% not your responsibility to extend the olive branch to her. The fact that he’s not defending your relationship would be a huge red flag for me. This isn’t something that’s going to end after the wedding. If you choose to have children, will she treat them differently because they’re biracial?

He needs to handle his own mother. If she thinks he's Jesus and Jesus sits you down and says you're racist and embarassing to me she might listen.
I would suggest fiance not hold back if he's disgusted with this behavior, it's better for him to be clear it's unacceptable now than later

FH needs to stand up for you! His mother's behavior is not okay. Period.

View Quoted Comment He’s said somethings multiple times and he’s been firm with her. She acts nice but we can tell she’s forcing it. The kid thing is something we had a LONG conversation about and I made it clear that she can’t be involved in anyway unless she gets her act together and he agrees

View Quoted Comment He’s spoken to her and she kind of has this “he’s my son, he loves me, he’ll get over it” mentality. That is the issue. You ever heard of single moms that treat their sons like they are their husbands and will never ever cut the cord?? That’s what we’re dealing with

View Quoted Comment She doesn’t listen to what he says

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Then, as with anything else, there need to be consequences which will "hit her where it hurts." He lays down the law: she treats his fiance with appropriate respect (e.g., at a minimum NO RACIAL slurs/innuendos/insults/slights) or she is CUT OUT OF HIS LIFE. NO CONTACT WHATSOEVER. And then, he needs to stick to it. If she's as dependent on his time/attention as you said, she'll get her act together asap. Without clear boundaries, she will continue to misbehave. If he can't draw a firm line, you need to accept that this will be your life.

View Quoted Comment That’s what I said. And he’s firm but not hard firm if that makes any sense. He just feels bad because her whole family and her kids are jerks and he’s the only one she can depend on to love her, listen to her and be there. Every time she calls she always cries (literally cries EVER CALL) about how her sisters are so mean, her kids are so mean and how she doesn’t feel like she did a good job as a mother. He sits there and tells her how awesome she was and blah blah blah. He said he doesn’t want to another person that makes her cry. I don’t know what to say to that. I feel like I’m getting in the way. He says that he wish he could get her to understand she’s suffocating him with being harsh

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Then, I'm sorry for you. Unless he's willing to be "firm, firm," I'm afraid you're going to need to be okay with her believing she can treat you like crap and assuming he'll put up with it. That's what his current behavior is telling her. If you're good with that, then it's a match made in heaven. If you are not okay with his mother behaving in accordance with her racist views toward you, then something has to change on HIS end. It sounds like the only way he can get her to "understand she's suffocating him" is to be very clear about the consequences of continuing her current behavior. Right now, he's given her no reason to change. I wish you luck; I don't think change will be easy given their current dynamic.

View Quoted Comment I’m not okay with it, he just has a life time of coddling her. I already told him that she’s not invited for the holidays and that he won’t be seeing her. I think that’s a good step

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I'm worried that it may do more harm than good. Cutting her off from his life could impact your relationship. What if something goes bad and he blames you for not being there for his mom. Not saying it will happen, just seen situations like that before.

If you're around her, and she says or does something rude/inappropriate, you and your FH should excuse yourselves immediately and not talk to her the rest of the day. If she acts up during a holiday, do the same but tell her that due to the way she acted at Christmas, you wont be spending the next holiday with her. So on and so forth.

Is counseling an option? With the way she sounds with the constant crying and "can't cut the umbilical cord" issues, it sounds like counseling would do her some good. Maybe the 3 of you could go and it could slowly turn into counseling for the two of them and maybe she could start seeing one alone? Not sure if she would go for that or not

View Quoted Comment Yeah, I do not under any circumstances want to cut him off from his mother and he doesn’t either which is why I’m trying to find any solution to get her to get it together. Counseling is for the willing and she’s not willing. This holiday the foolishness ends. She also travels to see him and we’re telling her don’t bother if she won’t try to make an effort to talk to me. It feels like we’re talking to a child sometimes

Honestly I'm worried for you, if your husband can tolerate racism towards you from his mother what's stopping him from letting other people do it? Where's he draw the line between your we'll being and not? It sounds like you're being mentally taxed by this and it's not right for him to have you suffer abuse from anyone. I don't want to make assumptions about your plans for your marriage but if you two plan on having kids shell likely continue the racism towards them too, and that's unhealthy and unfair as well. He really needs to cut contact until she apologises, otherwise I'd personally consider ending relationship. There's just no excuse for racism in today's world, it's embarrassing and disgraceful.

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The cake tasting will be good because she'll feel included but your fiance will be there too so she'll be on good behavior. Hmm...not sure on the dress shopping because what if she acts poopy??? Don't want her to ruin your special time (dress shopping is already stressful enough), with even a darn disapproving look.