I have noticed an increased trend of clients who share that they have divorced, separated or on the verge of leaving their toxic partners and claim the reason behind their marriage issues is the enmeshed and over interfering mother in-law. We have heard of the saas-bahu drama triangle for ages and it has become the topic of many demeaning jokes and memes. It is true that a woman’s biggest support is the tribe or village she has around her which in turn consists of many other women including her own mother and mother in-law. But why do women turn against each other so much to the point of actually destroying a perfectly happy marriage?
The answer is the insecurity and fear of being replaced as the most important person in the adult son’s life- which to an extent is normal feeling. Afterall a mother has sacrificed so much to bring up her kids and she may want some bit of affection and attention from their kids even after they become independent adults. But when it becomes toxic is when the mothers continue to interfere in their adult son’s married life or want to have a say in their relationship issues. Toxic mothers use this as an opportunity to successfully drive a wedge between their adult son and his wife or girlfriend. Divide and rule is the order of the day in a dysfunctional home. There are innumerable instances of triangulation amongst the family members and there is always an unhealthy competition and power struggle between the daughter in-law and the mother in-law.
The sons in toxic homes are groomed from childhood to feel enmeshed with their toxic mother and to feel her every emotion. If the mother is happy then the son is happy. If the mother is sad or angry then that negative feeling trickles down to the son as well. The son is conditioned to believe that his primary duty is to ensure his mother’s well-being and happiness and the constant pressure to keep fulfilling a bottom less pit, drives an adult son to start hating all women including his own wife or girl friend.
Such adult sons become very avoidant with their partners and remain distant and cold. Any bid for connection with them would be deemed as clingy, needy or too much and their partners suffer a great deal of loneliness trying to win over their husband’s love and affection. Once a man gets married his primary loyalty and duty shifts to his wife and his future kids. He will remain duty bound to take care of his aging parents too but to allow the toxic mother to continue to drive a wedge in his marriage- is a clear red flag to watch out for.
Let me share a few examples to elaborate how toxic the enmeshment can get between a narcissistic , manipulative mother in-law and her adult son. Meera was an independent woman for many years and she was quite happy on her own yet felt something was missing in her life. She met her husband during a networking event and she was smitten by the fact that he was like a mirror copy of herself in terms of likes and dislikes. She felt like she had found her soul mate and decide to tie the knot with him when she was 30 years old. The initial few months were bliss and she enjoyed the happy phase of her marriage. Few months later she beloved father in-law passed away and she saw a different side of her mother in-law and her husband post that. She tried her best to make her mother in-law happy and would host her for stay overs very often in their home. She gave her mother in-law full freedom to do what she pleased and re-arrange anything in her home. But then she saw how covertly her mother in-law would wait for her adult son to return home and sneak in snide remarks or complaints about Meera’s house keeping skills. Meera tried having multiple conversations with her mother in-law and tried her best to cordially explain that if she has feedback about the house keeping, she could directly speak to Meera about it. Also she wondered why her mother in-law expected only her to do all the household chores when she also was managing her career just like her adult son.
She tried to reason out with her mother in-law that times had changed and now a days with the increased stress at work it was almost impossible for her to do it all alone. Yet despite multiple attempts her mother in-law would only make the situation more worse for Meera. One day her husband returned home fuming and when Meera questioned him he said he had visited his mother and came to know of some comments Meera’s mother had made about him to his mother. Meera tried to explain that her mother did not mean to judge him but the way her mother in-law had twisted the whole situation- it was impossible for her to get past the instigation and manipulation. All she could see was blind rage in her husband and Meera was at a loss of words to pacify him.
The breaking point for Meera was when her mother in-law who was visiting her told her that she had advised Meera’s parents to not visit Meera’s house often and to leave before her son returns from work as he doesnt like them hanging around. Meera being a soft spoken , naive girl could not speak back to her mother in-law. She was choking back tears , unable to openly ask her mother in -law to not cross her boundaries. Her husband too sat there across the dining table applauding his mother for taking that step to keep Meera’s parents off his hair.
Meera asked her husband later if her mother had done the same to him by asking his mother to not visit their house , would he be ok with it ? He just laughed it off and asked her to not bug him with silly issues but this was a huge red flag for Meera. She kept asking herself how could someone who doesn’t even live with them take decisions for their home.
That is when Meera started therapy sessions and her therapist made her realize the importance of speaking up, asserting her rights and setting healthy boundaries with her mother in law who was definitely toxic for her marriage. Her husband ignored her bid to set healthy boundaries with his mother. He kept justifying that she was a poor old widow and that she had nobody else but them. Meera kept swallowing her pain and giving more and more chances to her mother in -law because she did not want to hurt or disrespect an elder and her upbringing didn’t allow her to say anything back to elders. So she learnt to tolerate disrespect, manipulation and verbal abuse from her husband too.
She tried to tell her mother in-law about the rude and inhuman behaviour that her adult son was putting her through. But she did not get any support and in return was told Meera was doing something wrong to instigate her son and make him react badly. Meera was told to keep her house clean and do all the parenting duties by herself without any expectation of getting help from her husband . She was told that she needs to cater to her husband’s every need no matter how ridiculous and some of his demands were that Meera needed to cook 3 different meals in a day. Meera would slog it out at work and come back home to make fresh hot meals for her husband and sometimes he would not even turn up for dinner and not bother informing her. Meera was told that she had an easy life in comparison to other women who have had it far worse. All the gaslighting kept Meera confused and she decided to keep quiet just to keep the peace.
After few years they were blessed with twins and managing the home front along with her job became close to impossible. Her husband would not help her at nights and expected her to wake up in the morning and cook fresh food for him. She finally decided to quit her job and be a full time mother. That turned out to be a huge mistake as the abuse escalated after that as she was financially dependent upon her husband and he controlled her every spend and shamed her, humiliated her in front of relatives and made fun of her at every party. She tried requesting him to stop passing snide remarks and rude jokes but he would say she was just being too over sensitive and could not even take jokes.
One one side Meera was dealing with an emotionally absent husband who would even demean her and verbally abuse her in front of their kids. He would call her a useless housewife and good for nothing and keep comparing her to other women who had successful careers. On the other hand was her overly interfering mother in-law who kept harassing them with her never ending drama and demands . The day Meera tried to confront her mother in -law about her toxic and immature behaviour that was hurting Meera and her marriage- her mother in law turned very spiteful and vengeful towards Meera. If what she saw earlier in terms of covert manipulation and control- things became a hundred times more worse for Meera. Her mother in-law started playing victim and started accusing Meera of being rude and disrespectful to her mother in law.
Meera’s relatives started questioning Meera what was happening as her mother in-law started sharing their personal stories and issues with the relatives and blaming Meera for their marriage issues. Meera was at a loss of words as she did not want to keep re-traumatizing herself by repeatedly sharing what she endured to everyone who questioned her about it.
Meera tried to explain all this to her husband but he would not hear of it and instead accused her of being jealous of his innocent mother. Instead of setting a boundary with his toxic mother , he emotionally became more distant with Meera to punish her for daring to speak about his mother. She started functioning like a single parent and her every bid for connection was met with shame and ridicule. She was expected to do everything single handedly and not have any basic expectation too from her own husband. All this while her husband continued going on dates with his mother and long night walks and after appeasing his mother, he did not have any inclination or strength to be present for his own wife.
Sadly over a few years Meera’s husband became more preoccupied with his own work and meeting his toxic mother’s never ending drama and demands that he failed to see how his own marriage was falling apart. Meera tried to convince her husband to come for couple’s counselling and instead of fixing their marriage issues he tried to point fingers at Meera and found fault with her for everything. He had a long list of issues with Meera which was impossible for any person to fulfill – which in narc abuse terminology is called moving goal posts .
Meera tried to bring the attention back to their lack of emotional intimacy and even the therapist suggested to them to set boundaries with his toxic mother. He found issues with the therapist as he was conditioned from childhood not to accept anyone saying anything negative about his mother and he stopped meeting that therapist. He told her therapy was a waste of time and money and that their issues were regular marriage issues and did not require therapy help. Meera realized she was wasting precious years of her trying to win her husband’s affection which she may never really get.
She silently packed her bags and moved into her parents’ home with her kids. After she left her husband tried to plead with her to move back with him and tried to guilt trip her about their good times and family bond they had shared. He started love-bombing her by sending her gifts and trying to convince her to come on dates with him and give their marriage another chance. He kept sharing photographs of their good times in a bid to get her to withdraw her decision and come back to him.
Meera though was heart broken and tempted to give him yet another chance, decided to move on and live a drama-free and chaos-free life without her mother in-law’s frequent interference and her emotionally avoidant husband who never bothered to prioritize their marriage or protect her from his overly dominating and controlling mother.
Meera is now back at a full time job and has her parents’ support to restart not only her career but also her broken life. She is truly grateful that she got out of the mess before it was too late and she is grateful that she has the support system and courage to do so. She joined a narcissistic abuse survivors group to share her story in safe spaces and heal from the trauma of the invisible wounds that she endured in her marriage. In the group she also realized there were so many other women out there who were suffering in similar situations like her but sadly did not have their own family’s support to leave the toxic situation. They were forced to rethink and keep giving more chances to the point where some of them had given up on any hope that things would be better and had resigned to the fact that in this lifetime this was all that they deserved to get maybe for some past bad karmas !
Healing from narcissistic abuse is not easy and it sometimes takes months or even years. If you are suffering or know anyone else in your circle who seems to be suffering from having to deal with toxic people or deal with narcissistic abuse , please encourage them to seek the right support. Reach out to trauma informed therapists or life coaches who specialize in narcissistic abuse.
If you want to consider one-to-one or group healing programs with me, reach out to me on ramya.shripathi@gmail.com or activate.you.coachramya@gmail.com requesting for a session and I will connect with you. I’m an Internationally certified life coach specializing in narcissistic abuse recovery support and I’m based in Bangalore in India.