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.