Crazy in-law makes life miserable

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 18/06/2018 (3014 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I’m so angry with my mother-in-law I want to drop-kick her butt out of our lives. She is the most demanding, pushy, interfering, hypocritical witch I have ever had to deal with. My husband and I are about to engage in a big battle with each other over her.

I want to tell her to get out of our lives totally, but my husband can’t do that because that’s his mother. He loves her “underneath” but can’t stand her on the surface. Yesterday I blew up and called her a bunch of names that were all true.

She said I am forbidden to darken her doorstep again. I said, “GREAT and that goes for you, not coming here!” So now my husband can visit her, and I don’t have to go with him. That also means she can’t come here when I’m home.

Guess what? She showed up this morning when I was walking around in my shorts and waltzed right through the back door and we met in the kitchen. I stood there and told her, “GET OUT!” She didn’t move. I said, “I said get out, or I will call the police” and she said, “Go ahead, gay boy.”

Then her son came running in from the garden. I screamed the same thing at her at the top of my lungs and she finally left. He said, “NEVER do that to my mother again, or I will leave you.” I said, “NEVER let her in this door again or I will leave you.” Now what?

— At a Crossroads, Winnipeg

Dear Crossroads: If you leave each other, his mother will have her boy back to herself and she will have won. You two really need to take this problem to a relationship counsellor and work it out.

But first, change the locks on the doors. She’s an invader type. Don’t let your guy watch you put on the locks, just do it.

You leave them open when he’s around to deal with her, and locked at night when it’s only you at home. Also, see a security company and describe the problems and ask what they have done in such cases. I think a video of your doorstep is a good idea.

Take back your power. Don’t let this pushy mother split you and your husband up!

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: Last evening, over two hours, I ate six chocolate cupcakes in front of my husband, with him knowing I had just gone on a strict diet the day before. I’m supposed to be eating nothing but eggs and salad for five days. He didn’t say anything until he was just leaving the living room and then he rudely said “OINK” in my direction.

I hit the roof. I can’t help it if he’s naturally skinny and I’m naturally curvy. I followed him to the kitchen and made a crack about him having “no butt at all.”

Now we’re not talking much, except for necessary phrases like “Pass the salt.” Please help.

— House of Silence, East Kildonan

Dear House of Silence: You don’t have dominion over each other’s bodies and you will soon find yourself with no love life and no sex life if you criticize each other’s looks.

So, a big apology is in order and you might as well be the first one and get it started. Then stay out of each other’s eating lives with no words spoken about diets or lack of bum tissue or too much curvation.

Good luck!

Please send your questions and comments to lovecoach@hotmail.com or Miss Lonelyheartsc/o the Winnipeg Free Press, 1355 Mountain Ave. Winnipeg R2X 3B6.

Miss Lonelyhearts
Advice Columnist

   Read full biography