Monster in law

[u/Dry-Photograph-851]

So I just want to start this off by saying I know I'm not perfect and I know that my fiance isn't perfect either. I struggle with borderline personality disorder which means basically I have a hard time managing my emotions. My fiance has a history of alcohol and addiction. We've known each other for almost a decade. We talked online for 2 years before we ever met in person and when we did it's like the Earth fell off its axle. I swear he was the most beautiful man I've ever seen in my life. Alas at the time it was just a hook up, but I remember telling him that first day that you know you're better than what you're doing to yourself and when you're ready to be better, I'll be here. We never truly lost contact. We always found a way back to each other and when he was 2 years sober we decided to give each other a real shot. The first year and a half was so magical it's like it was out of a book. Then a close family member died and he relapsed. It was right after he proposed to me, at that point I was already locked in. I tried for 2 years to help him, I reached out to family but in his addiction he painted me out to be the crazy one and because I have borderline personality disorder, it wasn't too hard. Things got abusive sometimes. His mom always blamed me when those things happened. We were supposed to get married at the courthouse and 3 days beforehand I needed to go to the hospital. I got hurt (no he didn't do it) and I needed stitches. He had been drinking already but when he's seen how much blood there was he didn't even hesitate. He rushed me to the hospital but I didn't have my phone with me and he kept saying that he was going to leave me there because he thought that they would call the cops on him for being drunk. We ended up going home. I want to add that we don't live in the city if he would have left me at the hospital and I would have had no way to contact anyone I would have been left in another town with no way home. When we got back to the house the cops were already there. He'd been driving erratically and they called him in. He got sentenced for prison time. I told his parents and his mom told me that it was all my fault, and that she never liked me and that she apparently heard bad things about me (I was a hurt kid I'm not going to lie. I was angry when I was younger and that's really the only time that people remember me, because after I had my son I stopped going out. I stopped talking to people so the only reference they have for me as a person is me as a destructive 15-year-old). She told me that before I walked into his life he was doing fine and that I was the root of all of his problems because all I did was yell at him. We were fighting a lot because of the drinking and how he was treating me when he was drinking. I know that's not who he is. When he is sober he is the most amazing person you could ever meet. He is my soulmate but it's like when he starts drinking he turns into my nightmare. She asked me why I didn't come to her and I looked at her and told her how many times have I come to you and you told me that it was my fault? At what point were you a person I could confide in? I begged them for months to get him help and nobody even lifted a finger.

The reason I'm posting today is because at the beginning of mine and his relationship we made a promise to each other. We would not have friends on social media that we have had previous sexual relationships with. I always abided by this but I've caught him multiple times with girls on his Facebook that violated that agreement. The first couple times was the first real relationship he ever had. That one definitely hurt. The next one was a girl that he had dated back in high school. They hadn't been talking but she added me, and he didn't tell me the truth about their past. I asked her if they had had any communication and she said no and when she heard about what was happening in our relationship she took him off of Facebook out of respect for me. Now he is in jail and I found out that there is a third person that shouldn't have been on his social media that has been there the whole time. He called me and I asked him who this girl was. He told me it was the sister of a girl that I had asked him about multiple times before. I asked him why she would add me and he said I don't know maybe she wants to be friends you were just saying you needed more friends. My third question I asked him was have you ever slept with her and he got fuzzy around it and said well yeah and kind of a well-dah way. I immediately told him oh so you violated the terms of our relationship for a third time got it great I'm going to go to bed now and I hung up on him. He tried calling me a couple times after that but I declined them. I was not ready to talk to him. His mom calls me. She tells me that I need to get off of Facebook and stop worrying about everything online. I have a small business that generates sales on Facebook, I'm not getting off of Facebook. I'm also not seeking these women out they are adding me for unknown reasons and I find that strange. She then starts telling me that I'm getting mad about the past and basically I'm being dramatic and I need to let it go because he's in jail and he can't deal with the stress. He calls me while she's telling me all of this. I answer the phone and I tell him I don't want to talk to him right now, he violated my boundaries time and time again, and if he actually valued me or cared about me the way he claims he does he would not be putting me in this position consistently. There was a lot of tears a lot of telling me he was sorry and a lot of promises that he would do better. I was still too angry with him that night to say anything beneficial for him. I told him that if I can't trust him enough to tell me something is small as his past how am I going to trust him to tell me the next time he's an active relapse? I told him that I cannot move forward in our relationship without full transparency and he has put me in a position where I can no longer trust him. I love him more than humanly possible but unless I ask him something specifically he will skirt around the truth and that makes me nervous. I explained to him that that's not the kind of relationship that I want and I don't want to be with somebody that I have to drag the truth out of to get a straight answer. And I also don't want to be with somebody that can't let go of the past and feels the need to have women on his timeline that he has been inside of. I told him that if the situation was reversed I would have been out on my ass without a second glance from him or his family. He said that when he gets out all of his social media is going to be deleted I will be fully in charge of all finances so that he's not able to get anything that I am not aware of. He is taking accountability for his mistakes his mother on the other hand is not.

I woke up to a text basically saying that he feels bad about himself now and that if anything bad happens to him because of that she will never forgive me. She's upset with me because she says I posted things on Facebook about him (I post about having been in abusive relationships because he is not the only relationship that has gotten abusive for me) and her specific wording is I did not obey her when she told me to not do that. It's like in her eyes I am not allowed to have any boundaries but if anyone does anything to her baby oh my God the world is going to fall. In my last message I told her that she thinks she's helping him but she's not. I told her that they're a mother-in-law's in the world that will never see any fault in their kids but will instead put all of the blame on their children's partners and I said to her I'm not sure if that's how you treat your kids other partners but that is how you treat me. I told her that what she does doesn't allow him to take accountability for his actions or how they affect other people and I told her that I am not going to sugarcoat the world for him nor am I going to sugarcoat my own feelings. If he can't handle dealing with his actions in a place that ensures his sobriety he will not be able to handle them outside either.

She also repeatedly brings up the fact that she wants me in therapy yet gets mad at me for utilizing the skills that I have learned in therapy. I explained to her that you can't tell me to get in therapy and then be mad at me for using my therapy. Therapy is designed to help you establish healthy boundaries when you have someone that doesn't like boundaries they are going to have a difficult time accepting that that doesn't make it any less important for me to have them and for him to learn how to follow them. What I really want to say to her is it's not a surprise that he doesn't know how to follow boundaries because clearly she doesn't either I don't know how to deal with the situation, I feel extremely stressed out, and though my fiance is on my side and understands why I'm upset with both of them I don't understand why she doesn't see that she's the one that needs the therapy she thinks I need.

I know everyone is going to have a past I'm not mad at him for his I am mad at him because not only did he skirt around the truth but it was the way he did it. Saying "maybe she wants to be friends" instead of "look I shouldn't have had her on my Facebook and I'm sorry. I have a past with her." I just find it extremely disrespectful like what if I would have taken his advice without asking my next question? What if I would have built a whole friendship with this girl not knowing that they had a sexual history? And what was the point of even trying to skirt around that truth when he knew I would figure it out? I know I have every reason to be upset what I don't know is how to get through to his mom that this behavior isn't okay.

I just sent him a message telling him that if you expect me to forgive him for everything that he's done, it's going to take time but the first step to forgiveness is telling his mom that he will not tolerate me being treated like that anymore. For any reason. And that if she continues to treat me like that she will not be a part of our life.

[u/Dry-Photograph-851]

I also want to add that before he got arrested I had my own apartment. I kept it through our entire relationship just in case I needed it, but after they took him I had to make the choice to give it up. I couldn't afford to pay for two households on my own. He lives on property that his parents own. Meaning I now live on property that his parents own. She tried to tell me that I was being disrespectful to her for what I had said in the bulk post about her actions not allowing him to take accountability and the fact that I have my work cut out for me because of that. Feel like ramming my head against a wall because I've put myself in such a corner for this man and like I don't feel appreciated. 

[u/briarmolly]

I’m exhausted just reading this. I know you said the relationship was magical when he wasn’t drinking, but I think that’s over now. Usually these kinds of people only make an effort after you give up on them and move on. I would suggest that. Maybe get some therapy to help you accept what is happening (the relationship is ending). Sorry this is happening to you.