(Date Omitted)
Dear Step-Mother-In-Law,
Since neither you or your husband "have the balls" (your words to MY husband) to contact me, I have decided to reach out to you about your history of disrespect and trespasses. I am taking the initiative right now, to inform you of where you stand with my family and I.
I understand that you and your husband are intimidated because I am a strong woman. I do not adhere to a dated, subservient view of women as a fawning and submissive species whose sole purpose is to cater to men. When you and I first met, you really liked my strong personality and the fact I do not tolerate disrespect towards me or my loved ones. I never judged your relationship with your husband, as we have vast cultural differences and initially you were supportive of me as head of my household. At some point in the past 6 years, you went behind my back and began to perpetuate the lie that I am controlling my husband.
Your husband, a known misogynist, has a history of avoiding or deflecting criticisms, and he knows I have a lot negative experiences with you two to draw from. As it was explained to be by your sister-in-law and my husband, your husband could not tolerate having someone put him in his place.
This is why he uses you, his secretary, to be the middleman to communicate with me, his sister and sister's husband. He used to use his sons, my husband and brother-in-law, to act as middlemen until I put a stop to it. I will not have anyone in my family acting as a messenger for a narcissist. You may be his willing flying monkey, a well-meaning dupe. The rest of the family and I know the game. You and your husband are not fooling anyone, "step mother in-law".
In regards to your ugly text message to my husband, you disregarded his feelings when he opened up to you emotionally. I find it sickening that you are encouraging your "step-son" to have an unhealthy relationship with his father. Rather, you are enabling your husband to carry-on with whatever the f*** is wrong with him. The best thing I have done for my husband was issue him an ultimatum. He sought help and is now the most confident, productive and mentally stable he has ever been in his entire life.
Also, anything that has caused my husband trauma that he is still dealing with as an adult IS MY BUSINESS. You and your husband are just a pair of indecent, selfish people with broken moral compasses. I know you married Felix when his sons were in their early teens but you do not deserve to call yourself a "mother" when you did not protect your "sons". I understand that you were young and naive, when your husband brought you to the states from Central America. Even then, you could have recognized the red flags in the treatment of his children, particularly his oldest, my husband.
I also know, from my husband’s account, that you weren't always so permissive. You used to, on occasion, stand up to your husband in the best interest of your step-sons. Now you have developed a reputation for being a lying, delusional sycophant. What happened? Did your husband give you the “it’s my way or the highway” spiel that I have heard so much about?
I like to reflect on our interactions with you and your husband during the first 2 years of our marriage as “pleasant enough”. I tried to like you, I got to know you, even though you never reciprocated any interest in getting to know me. I tolerated you and your husband’s disrespect. Looking back, I don’t believe you ever intended to over-step your bounds initially. I think you were just following your husband’s orders and acting as a messenger. When my husband started to put a healthy distance between you and us, that is when we noticed the biggest change in your personality.
I like to think that I have liberated my husband by getting him out of a bad situation by inviting him to live with me and subsequently marrying him. You told him that he has changed. He has. You just don’t like the fact that he is not giving into your manipulative BS any longer.
He had developed so many compulsive habits growing up in your household. Lying was our biggest issue; a habit he developed to avoid his father’s irrational anger and meanness. A mother is supposed to protect her sons from emotional and mental abuse, even if it comes from her husband.
My husband was taught by his father to fear conflict, another result of his father’s authoritarian and narcissistic “parenting”. Why is it that your husband’s sons do not want to confide in their father about their personal issues because they are afraid that their father “will be mad”?
That alone should be a red flag and a clear indicator of your husband’s failure as a parent.
I am proud of how my husband is progressing as an adult. He has come a long way since we were little children together. He is not practicing “stupidity” or being an “asshole” as you wrote in your texts to him. He is being an adult and establishing healthy boundaries. I don’t expect you or your husband to know the difference.
I heard that you have tried to create a reputation for me. It is of no consequence because none of the people that believe you have any bearing or influence on my life. As for the people you have tried to turn against me, apparently they know me better than you know them.
Let it be known that you and your husband instigated the disrespect when previously; I was ALWAYS respectful to the both of you. From the day we were married, your husband was telling my husband that our “marriage wouldn’t work”, “your wife will leave you” and “you need to get a divorce”. What father tries to get his son to take a child away from his mother and leave his wife, to live together with said father who would “be there for him and his grandson”?
[Does this scenario sound familiar to you? This is how your husband treated his son’s poor, naïve, immigrant mother, who he abandoned and cheated her out of sharing custody of their children. Before she died, she was paying child support for two children who weren’t even living with their custodial parent; your husband. These children, your beloved step-sons, were in the care of their loving grandparents.]
You and your husband betrayed our trust and disrespected us by taking our son out of school early, without our permission. We agreed on allowing our son to have quality time with his “Opa” and “Great-Opa” but found out that you were driving him over 88 miles away, in the opposite direction of the destination we agreed upon.
We should have trusted our instincts. You lied to us for over a month until I caught you red-handed. Your husband, using you as his mouthpiece, asked to spend more time with his grandchild. We worked out an agreement and you betrayed us. This is why we haven’t let your see our son unsupervised since 2013!
Your attempts to guilt trip my husband with the “you spend more time with your wife’s family…” b***s***, will not work any more. I don’t think you ever realized that my relatives are invested in my husband. He was always welcomed with open arms, loved and respected. My relatives would not dare disrespect me, my husband or my marriage. If they cannot get away with it, why should we let you?
When it comes to regret, my husband will not regret the distance he put between himself and toxicity that comes with you and your husband. What he will regret, is that he did not have a healthy relationship with his father because his father did not have an advocate in his corner. His father did not have anyone to urge him to seek assistance to improve on himself rather than alienate everyone who has tried to help him. There was a time when my husband believed his father would have considered making a change. You were there and could have encouraged him but you sided with your husband.
It will be your husband who will regret having one less son to visit him when he is ailing. He will regret not having any memories of seeing his grand-babies grow up and come into their own.
You will regret it when you realize that you and your husband have alienated everyone in the extended family that had ever felt sympathy for you.
Keep my name out of your mouth. You don’t know me. You don’t know your oldest step-son and I doubt you ever have. You do not know your husband’s growing and ever-changing (step)grandson.
I laughed when my husband read to me that you always loved me until recently. Your definition of love is incredibly twisted. You are jealous, disconnected from reality and don’t understand empathy.
You insulted me behind my back, Step Mother-In-Law. You told anyone who would listen that I control my husband, I forced him into this relationship by getting pregnant, pressured him into rejecting his father and ruined their “perfect” father and son relationship. In the meantime, it was YOU who put yourself in a situation where you are isolated and economically dependent on your husband.
As you approach middle age, with no children of your own (because your husband had a not-so-secret, secret vasectomy), I hope you realize that you have been brainwashed. You have been brainwashed, so horribly mind-f***** that you think having no freedom, no job, no education, a limited social life, and an unfaithful husband who is not interested in a close relationship with you, is the EPITOME of the perfect life.
Please, don't feel sorry for me. Don't feel sorry for mine. We feel sorry for you.
You might have your relatives in Central America fooled and your Facebook friends will only see what you post. However, those of us who have known you 8 years or longer, see past the façade. You have been drained of your former personality. You have become this hollowed-out person capable of only superficial talk and parroting blatant statements made by your husband.
You and your husband light up a room with your absence. If you ever see us again, it will be on our terms only.
Sincerely,
Your Step-Son’s “Controlling” Wife.
P.S.
When you make and post cooking videos, I suggest you practice proper hygiene. Seeing you lick your fingers while making empanadas was disgusting
NOTE TO READERS:
If you are in a similar situation dealing with parental-in-laws that are disrespectful, I hope this gives you some inspiration.
Not all people with narcissistic personality disorder are like my father-in-law. I have gotten to know people who are very empathetic, well-adjusted and confident. These individuals live with their disorder, sometimes without the aid of therapy. I am not trying to create further stigma towards those who suffer from NPD.
I have found that the best way to deal with malignant narcissists is to have no contact with them. By ceasing contact on social media, in person, blocking them from having access to you, your spouse and children, you are taking away their control.
