I cannot stand my mother in law (MIL), how do I grow a backbone with her?

Context

I (34F) have been with my husband (35M) for almost 7 years now. We have two sons (4 & 2) and things have been a rollercoaster these last couple years but we have navigated our challenges together as a family quite well.. the only exception being my MIL.

To sum it up briefly, she is a very domineering personality. She is outspoken, opinionated (about everything) and critical of everyone around her.

FIL also is very critical, cold and passive. I am not the exception to her behavior but I am regularly the one that experiences it because whenever we are around, my husband’s siblings will tend to go elsewhere.

She has an awful habit of cutting us off when we are talking, only to interject with a topic pertaining to her interests only and she will go on for literally hours. The room could be silent and I will go to say something and she will immediately cut me off and begin to talk about something else entirely seemingly never noticing that I was speaking.

She will also argue almost any point or opinion that I make when around her (same behaviour to spouse as well) to the point that I just give up talking about anything of importance to me and I sit there and listen to her talk about herself and her problems.

She LOVES to boast about herself and will do so at any given chance. If we are talking about a particularly tough moment we had with the kids or just anything really, she finds a way to tell us how she has handled or would handle it better… like yes, MIL, you always know and do best. *eyeroll*

I have so much more I could dive into but the above are the main points of contention at the moment that my spouse and I need to address properly.

We find it so disrespectful and I am completely fed up and at my wits end about what to do. My spouse is on my side and we vent to each other often so I am thankful for the support. He sees it and hears it all and gets just as frustrated as I do.

Our problem is that she is SO overbearing and bullish that we feel very intimidated and struggle to speak up and call out her crappy behavior. I typically have no problem speaking up to anyone else but with her…. my god she is just so intimidating!

I freeze up every time she acts disrespectful towards me and I cannot find the words to tell her how I feel.

We see them often as they live close by (every other weekend) so it’s not like I can just suck it up for a short duration.

I accidentally saved a video snapchat of my female ex colleague in her sports bra and now she thinks that I am a creep.

Context

I was close work friends with said former colleague for around 3 years. It was very much a get online and rant about work all-day, every day.

Occasionally, over the course of those 3 years we’d grab a drink after work, I mean like… once every 4 months, so never a regular thing and we’d hang out during the monthly work happy hour with others which was once a month.

Most of our talk was about work.

I left the job 4 years ago and the friendship has naturally lessened over time. It got to point we’d occasionally text or snap chat a few things, every-other month or so.

There was no regular schedule to it; just randomly if something we knew about each other popped up in every-day life.

We both got into running and decided to keep accountability of our exercise routine to one another

6 weeks ago it randomly came up that we both were getting into running, had exact same goal, started basically the same time, and were both currently at about the same time / distance.

She responded “Omg, accountability buddies ! I’ve been worried about falling off, let’s check in on runs”. I responded sure, since then, we each run about 3 days a week, send pics of stats of run and sometimes pictures of us in our workout attire and usually it leads to small little convo about running and such.

I run outside so I send a screenshot of my GPS app, she’s usually on treadmill so she sends pic of just treadmill stats.

Sent me a video of her running in a sports bra, there was ‘bouncing’ motion and I accidentally saved the snap

8 days ago, for first time, she sent a quick vid of her in her sports bra smiling with thumbs up, then flipped video over to show treadmill stats (I think because it was a bit of a breakthrough as far as her runs).

I couldn’t see the numbers well and wanted to view them, so I tried to replay it. My phone wasn’t registering my clicks, so I kept clicking to open, and I think it must have registered as what happens when you hold to save a message”, I got a “snap messaged saved!” notification.

The snap wasn’t ultra revealing but in video you could see she was running in a sports bra and some bouncing from the motions of her running.

I thought to myself “well… fml”. I tried explaining what happened and then made a joke about me being so not IT savvy and accidentally saving the snap.

She just responded “hahah”.

I chalked it up as slightly embarrassing, but figured I had enough credit of not being a creep. Legit have 0 romantic feelings for her.

Since then, she’s sent 0 pics of her runs (by far longest gap) and has been very short with “nice!” in response to the couple I’ve sent her.

I’m probably officially in creep territory to her or something.

I had been a flight attendant with a local airline for four years and it was a job that I had grown to love.

I felt that it was time for me to move on to another phase of my life and so I resigned

I enjoyed meeting new people and seeing different places, but I had reached a point in my life where I needed to try something new.

I knew that becoming a flight attendant again was always an option, but I had decided that it was time to move on. Therefore, I tendered my resignation and served my notice period.

I was determined to pursue other careers and use my experience as a flight attendant to help me get there.

I applied for numerous jobs and went for several interviews. I was confident that I could find a suitable job on land because you know they always say that people who have experience as a flight attendant before are usually highly sought after regardless of whichever field you try and apply for.

However, I was told that my experience was irrelevant and so I decided that I had no choice but to go back and fly

Unfortunately, my confidence was misplaced. Despite my best efforts, I was unable to find a job in any of the fields that I applied for.

Interviewers were telling me that my experience was irrelevant or just wanting to recruit me to be an insurance or property agent.

I was becoming increasingly frustrated and disappointed.

After months of searching, I eventually decided that I had no choice but to go back to being a flight attendant. I was sad that I had to make this decision, but I had to do what was best for me.

I contacted my old employer and was accepted back as a flight attendant.

I was glad that I had the opportunity to return to the job that I loved, but I was also disappointed in myself.

I had been so determined to pursue other careers, but in the end, I was unable to find a suitable job on land. I had failed to achieve my goal and I felt like a failure.

I am now back working as a flight attendant, but it feels different from before. I still enjoy my job, but I can’t help but feel like I should have been able to find something else.

I am still hopeful that one day I will be able to find a suitable job on land, but for now, I am stuck in the same job.

I lied to my wife about going to a strip club with her brother.

Context

I went on a golfing trip with my BIL. My wife was already upset about me being away from the house for 4 days but she eventually caved and was supportive of the trip.

When we get to our destination, I find out that a group of friends are also in the same location to play golf. We play our first 2 rounds and decide we’ll meet up at the bar after our game.

In the Uber to the bar I realize my phone battery is low. No worries, I brought my charger. I ask the Uber driver to plug it in and away we go.

At this point I had talked to my wife and vaguely told her the plans. After we get to the bar I realize the phone wasn’t charging and I’m at <10%. I make the decision to turn my phone off so I have some power for an Uber ride home.

After a few drinks, my friends decide they want to head to a strip club. I’m not comfortable in strip clubs and I generally end up having a few too many drinks at the bar trying to calm my nerves so, I’m hesitant to go.

But, my BIL is onboard. I reluctantly make the trip and proceed to watch basketball at the bar with one of my friends and my BIL enjoys his time with the strippers etc.

When it’s time to leave, I try to turn on my phone and the battery is dead and so I could not contact my wife or even book an Uber so I had to go and withdraw money from the ATM outside the strip club and then hail a taxi.

When we get home and I plug my phone in, I’m greeted by a series of pissed off texts from my wife including: “Are you seriously at a strip club???!!”

I panicked. I wasn’t afraid to tell her where I was because she knows I’m awkward in these situations and keep to myself. I’m just bad at saying no to friends who make poor life decisions apparently.

Had to lie about where I was because her brother was with us

But, I was afraid to admit to where we were because her brother was with us along with some friends whose wives hang out with my wife.

So, I lied that I was not there because of her brother.

Turns out my wife went and checked our bank account and then Google searched the address of the ATM which confirmed that I am at a strip club and it kinda pissed me off because of the great lengths she went to discover that I am at a strip club when she should have known that wherever I was I would have

I reached home (2 days later) and arrived at 2am. Naturally, my pillow was laid out on the living room sofa.

She woke up, went to work, said goodbye to our daughter and walked out the door. We have hardly spoken since the incident.

We’ve been together for almost 20 years and married for 9. We have a great relationship and built up years of a trustworthy marriage and I’m afraid I just destroyed everything by trying to protect her brother and reacting in a fit of rage.