Practice English Speaking&Listening with: Man Says Mother-In-Law ‘Thinks She Has A Say In Our Marriage’

My mother-in-law is neurotic, insecure, and attached.

Susan and I have a broken relationship.

She shows no interest in repairing it.

All she seems to be concerned about

is seeing her grandchildren.

After I married Becca, it became obvious to me

that Susan's best friend was her daughter, my wife.

I was getting in the way of that.

Susan has been training everyone in her family

to enable her bad behavior.

If anyone goes against Susan's wishes,

Susan's wrath is unleashed upon them.

I'm done with it, I'm tired of the drama.

Her nose is always in our business,

she's always up in Becca's life.

When Susan comes into our home, she'll rearrange

the cabinets.

Susan thinks that she has a say in our marriage,

and she does not.

It's not her marriage.

You cannot speak to her about anything

without her blowing up about it.

I've never been argumentative with Susan.

I have stated what I needed to get across

in a very clear manner, but I've never been met

with the same level of respect.

Everything is extreme.

Everything is full-tilt boogie.

Every time there's been a blow up,

it's just the start of a vicious cycle.

Everything gets swept under the rug

and nothing is being fixed.

When Susan implied that I may have been abusive

to my son, that infuriated me.

I am not going to take those kind of accusations

from anyone.

It doesn't matter if it's my wife's mother or not.

Okay.

David, I'm glad you're here.

You've been listening so far.

Yes sir, I have.

Are you upset with her and

withholding the grandkids from her

because you're mad that she accused you of being abusive

with your son?

Or because you really think she's a risk to your children?

Those kids are my responsibility to raise, properly,

so that they can learn how they should go

and be in the world.

And I can't have people who exhibit poor behavior

around my children.

And the poor behavior that you refer to,

that's just offensive to your sensibilities,

and unacceptable to your standards, would be what?

Reacting with anger when someone goes against

your wishes, or ignoring one's position

in the household.

My position as the father.

And you two have decided that she

has a personality disorder?

Yes.

Yes, I have.

And I've got, one, two, three,

four, five pages

of

characteristics of--

That's a partial list, by the way.

Anger and baiting and circular conversations,

disassociation, emotional blackmail, favoritism,

and scapegoating, harassment identity disturbance,

lack of consciousness, manipulation,

mood swings, raging violence and impulsive aggression--

Just take me away now.

Uh, sabotage, self victimization,

sense of entitlement, threat, I mean,

it just goes on and on.

I've got pages and pages and pages here.

We did do a lot of research.

Of course, Google's always there,

and I just typed in,

"What is it when someone blames someone else

"for the things that they're actually always doing?"

Well if it's on Google. (laughing)

I understand.

And I've said, I'm no psychologist.

You are not.

And the reason that I bring this up,

and if y'all are really interested in information,

is there's a tendency for those

who mix

psychology and religion,

who know just enough to be dangerous,

to use psychology as a weapon to judge.

You guys decided that she was a

histrionic personality, right?

Yes, sir.

I mean, we didn't say that was set in stone.

It was just, this is what we've read about this--

Well no, but you submitted about 14 pages of

support for that diagnoses.

And I can tell you, that wouldn't even be

on my shortlist if I was diagnosing her,

but I'm not, because I'm not qualified to diagnose her.

I haven't done the proper work, nor have you.

That doesn't mean she doesn't have flaws of character.

Certainly.

It just seems awfully judgemental, I don't know.