This woman's desire to find fault is so deeply ingrained into her psyche--she actually accused us of writing differently on the gift tags! If there was one event that defined how her narcissistic tendencies impacted my relationship with her, it was this one. The tags were written differently because hubby wrapped one gift, and I wrapped the other. We didn't meet beforehand in order to ensure we wrote the exact same thing on the gift tags. They live out of the area, so when we called them on Christmas day that year, you could just hear the disappointment in her voice. She clearly was not pleased, this Christian woman. She's in church every Sunday--shouldn't she know what the holidays are truly about?
To make matters worse, about a week after Christmas, they came to town for one reason or another--I assume it was to see the golden child, who lived about 20 minutes away. I made the decision to leave my home with my mother because I wanted to protect myself from this woman's narcissistic abuse and rage. When I returned home that evening, my husband told me that she flew off the handle during the visit, going off on him and telling him that we "wished she were dead." Huh??? Oh, and she did all of this in front of our son, who was a toddler at the time. You didn't like the gift we gave you, and you equated that with us wishing you were dead? Classic narcissistic personality on full display.
This wasn't the only Christmas she ruined for us, but it defined for me what I was dealing with. We eventually made the decision to stop buying them things for Christmas. I know it was probably hard on my husband, but I think he agreed that not buying them anything was better than the stress of trying to buy her the "perfect gift"--even going beyond our financial means was no guarantee that she would approve of it.
I've been no contact with my mother-in-law since December 2011. I don't buy her gifts, she doesn't buy me gifts, and I'm fine with that. I no longer feel stressed when December rolls around. I focus on the true reason for the season, the people in my life who I love unconditionally and love me back in the same way. Yesterday was nice and peaceful because I made the conscious decision to ensure this narcissistic woman doesn't ruin another holiday for me ever again.
