Hello,

I have been reading the postings here for a couple of days and am amazed and grateful there is a place to talk about this stuff. Finding this group all started the other night after watching the latest tv episode of "The Mentalist," when the new supervisor called Patrick Jane a psychopath, then listed the major symptoms. I said, "Wow, that sure sounds familiar." I went hunting online and here I am.

It is going to be hard not to make a huge, ugly spew while telling about what my husband and I are going through. But it helped to see a encouraging post here the other night about how writing it all out can help stop the vicious cycle of thoughts, and perhaps bring up some insight or a plan of action.

I don't know if I can make a long story short with this. After all the reading I've done the past two days, I can look back at my 37 years of knowing this woman -- I'll call her MIL -- and now see quite clearly what she is and has always been. MIL is my husband's "step mother," his father's second wife.

So far, most of what I have seen in my reading is: you cannot beat a psychopath at their own game, and if you sue them for any reason they will hurt you beyond what you can imagine. My husband and I have almost come to the conclusion that for his father's children and grandchildren, there will be no inheritance whatsoever. Right now it looks like her daughter and grandchildren will get everything. (MIL's daughter is already sucking some accounts dry.) What MIL has done to cut us all out of the estate is criminal, and she has done it in the most cruel way. Long story.

We see no way to contest what she has done without even more major expense and horrible pain to ourselves than we have already suffered. We have already wondered this past year if we are losing our sanity. There is nobody around here to talk to about it.

Anyway, I am here to read and see if telling this story will help me see things any more clearly. I hope to hear what others have to say about involving the law.

Thanks,
blue heron

Let me just start recording.

It is probably a good thing that over the past 37 years I had very little direct contact with MIL because we lived over a thousand miles apart for most of the time. Husband and I usually saw MIL and hubby's Dad for short times at Thanksgiving or Christmas. Less than a week at a time for all these years. Yet I saw and heard things that made me wonder what was up with her. But it was never long enough for me to put two and two together.

I want to say that husband and I have been involved in the mental health consumer advocacy movement for quite some time, having a couple of bipolars in the family. So we are educated and trained in mental illness, trained as lay counselors, etc. I can diagnose a mental illness almost as good as a doctor can. But we never learned one thing about psychopaths. That's why I could never put MIL in a mental illness category. I knew something was wrong, but she never did fit anything I knew of.

Anyway, I'll start with the present, because it is so bad. We walked right into a hornet's nest. My husband and I are both on disability, and I am doing a tiny bit better than he is. Every time we visited his folks "out west," we loved the climate and the way it made us feel; we loved the people; we loved the small city where they lived. We finally got a chance to move out here to the west a year ago. Husband's folks had moved to a senior community that we liked, and in 2009 we put our names on a waiting list for a home in the community.

Husband's folks acted so thrilled that their "dear, precious children" were going to be living so close after all these years, etc., and they were looking forward to it. Dad-in-law is 90 and MIL is 89. Dad is in late stage Alzheimer's (which nobody in the family will admit), and MIL is nearly crippled with arthritis. We took a lot of pains to make sure they understood we were NOT moving out here to be caregivers, because we are ourselves disabled. We were moving because we were hoping the climate would help us feel better. MIL made sure to say ohhh, she already had plenty of help, so it was not going to be an issue. (ha)

Well, in July of 2010 we got word that our names had hit the top of the list, and the unit that was available was -- guess -- next door to Husband's folks! (Wonder who fixed that, haha.) We did have quite a few reservations about that! But since our health was not getting any better, we went ahead and moved while we were able. We had to hire extra help to get us and our belongings out here, so it cost us almost double what anyone else would have paid for the move. We didn't get out here until last November, because I was executing my father's estate. Yep, right in the middle of everything, my dad died.

Okay, so right from the get-go when we got here, MIL and her one remaining daughter started in on us. We "looked fine" to them, so why couldn't we (fill in the blank) -- come clean the place so MIL could quit having to pay a maid, come clean up after Dad when he messed, come get Dad up off the floor when he fell, well then at least come make breakfast for them every day at 9:30 a.m. sharp. (We quickly saw that Dad should have been in an Alzheimer's care unit long time back, but MIL did not want to spend the money. Money, money, money, it is ALWAYS about the money!) We always said no, no, no, sorry, we told you we didn't come out here to do that. Once in a while that mask you all talk about would slip down, and the cold, calculating, hateful look in her face would be chilling.

She talked my husband into leading a family Bible study every Monday night at her place, and she coerced and manipulated all the children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren into coming over for it. She has always acted like this pious Christian Bible scholar, "praise God" this and "bless Jesus" that, but I discovered that she could NEVER find one scripture reference in the Bible, ever. And she turned out to be almost completely ignorant about the life and teachings of Jesus, all the Bible stories that little kids learn, and the basic tenets of the faith. She just made up stuff as she went, and I was appalled because the little great-grandchildren might not know she was fabricating the whole thing. You couldn't correct her, or she'd make you pay somehow. I told them I had nothing to add to their get-together, since they'd never listened to a thing I had to say in 37 years anyway, so I wouldn't be coming. So every Monday night, I ate dinner alone.

Actually, MIL is just an uneducated, abysmally ignorant country bumpkin with a learning disorder (she admitted that), who has put on airs and made herself out to be something she's not for all these years. But she does it so she can find a person's "hook" and attach herself to them so she can use them somehow. Suck them dry. Wreck them.

It took me about two months to finally get a full picture. The only reason she had ever called us her "dear, precious children" was that's what it took to get us out here so she could put us to work. It took me until this past March to cut off all contact with them, which is very hard, since they live next door! My husband finally had to walk out on them in about August.

And I'll tell you why in another post when I quit sweating and hyperventilating over this one.

Thanks,
blue heron

My husband and his step-sister have for 19 years been joint powers of attorney and joint executors for MIL and "Dad." That is, until one month before we got moved out here next door to them. We discovered some time in November that my husband had been removed, and now it was all up to his step-sister.

He had in the past had several talks with his father about the things in his living will (advance directive for healthcare), and Dad had expressed confidence that Husband would do what he was asked to do. So it was a terrible surprise to discover that Husband was no longer going to have any say over what happened to his father. When we asked who changed this, MIL said Dad did it. I was thinking, "No way!" The man is in stage 6 Alzheimer's (out of 7 stages) and is not competent to make legal decisions for himself. Yes, MIL and step-sister said, that's what he wanted and so we had the paperwork drawn up and got him to sign it.

You got a man with severe dementia to sign legal papers that he had no idea he was signing? That is illegal! Oh, says the step-sister airily with a dismissive wave of her hand, Dad will sign anything. Well, yeah! Of course he will, but he has no idea what he's doing! Sure he does, she protests, or he wouldn't have signed it.

Why on earth did you change all of this, my husband asks. Repeatedly he is told it was his father's decision, but when he speaks with his father in one of his lucid moments, his father is very upset to hear this news and says he would never approve such a change, and does not remember signing any papers.

It finally comes out that MIL and step-sister do not believe there is anything wrong with Dad, and I cannot freaking believe it. Every health care professional, like nurses and therapists, who spend any time at all with Dad say he's definitely in late stage Alzheimer's. But MIL and step-sister want to keep their dear old man at home, even though nobody can deal with him and he's getting grossly neglected. It further comes out that they do not want to spend the money to have Dad in Alzheimer's care. Ah, there's the real problem.

Well, husband sits down at the table with MIL and step-sister and asks again why they did this, and they do an old con technique -- bluster and misdirect. "Oh, well, we can change it back! We can change it! We just took your name off because you lived so far away, that's all! I mean, if some doctor in an emergency room had called you to find out what to do with Dad, you would have had no idea of his day-to-day treatments, or his medications, or anything!" And we're thinking, duh, you knew we would be here within weeks of your changing it. If that was the true concern, you could have changed it years ago. So what is your real reason?

Yes, they could change it back, that is the truth. But they won't and they haven't. And they are smirking about it all the way. At this point, it is all I can do to keep from brutally physically assaulting smug step-sister, so I stay away from her. I am not a physically violent person, my pen is mightier than the sword, but I have wanted to permanently maim her for months.

Husband finally teases out of them that they knew full well when he moved here and got a good look at his father he would insist on putting him in a nursing home, and they didn't want him to go because they are "broke." So they changed the legal papers. Somehow he got them to spill those beans, and once they realized he had gotten them to betray themselves, you should have seen the look on MIL's face. You know that cold, black, murderous look. Like there's somebody else in there. Except now I know that's the real her, and everything else is a sham.

Oh, for heaven's sake. Husband sits down once again with MIL and step-sister, both of whom couldn't pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were printed on the bottom. And guess who is running the household accounts -- step-sister. He gets them to gather up all the papers, all the bank accounts, all the financial papers, etc., and sees that they have around $800,000.00 at their disposal at any given moment. Surely that's enough to take proper care of Dad and MIL too? No, no, no! We're broke! We don't know where all our money went! We have to sell some of our liquid assets right now to cover a big bill, and Dad can't go to the nursing home! (It's all a lie.)

And from here it falls apart.

After I quit sweating over this part, I'll come back and write more.

blue heron

Hi blue heron, welcome to our community. I will wait for you to tell your story to comment and offer any ideas or support. In the meantime you might contact an Elder Abuse Agency. My brother and SIL had to do that to protect her father from her meth addict sister. They take these things very seriously.

Di

Thanks for your comment, Di.

Actually, someone did report MIL to Medicare and the state Family Protection service, and they would not put up with any of her baloney. She could not bluster or misdirect any of them; they were quite stern with her and hinted that if she did not remedy the situation, they would sue and fine her. That infuriated her, because she's above the law, you know; always has been. She just couldn't seem to get around the law this time with the pitiful story of how she's just a poor little old crippled lady and people should cut her a break. (She has used the "poor little crippled lady" story on several occasions when she wasn't going to get away with something -- like failing to put a leash on her dog while in the park!)

She did go around accusing us of making those calls, smearing our name in this little community, but it was Dad's home healthcare nurse who reported her. (She visited a couple times a day to give him insulin and check his vital signs; she wasn't full time.) We were on the verge of reporting it, but we didn't have to. Dad did end up in a nursing home, where, for a short time he was doing quite a bit better. And it soured MIL's and step-sister's guts horribly that they had to put out cash for that.

However, just this early morning, Dad died in the hospital with pneumonia. His doctor insisted that MIL honor the Do Not Resuscitate order and his living will. Otherwise, she would've kept him hanging on. He can no longer be a victim. (Even though he got in a few licks of his own.)

In the heat of the moment, my husband has found out yet more about why he was removed from all the legal papers. It was blamed all on Dad. But I guess it no longer matters now, does it.

I expect that MIL will now change her will from "all the children share and share alike" to just one beneficiary, and it certainly won't be either of Dad's sons. My husband thinks things will quiet down now, but I bet it doesn't.

For myself, perhaps now it will be even easier to totally cut them out of my life. I really don't care what happens to them. There are plenty of others willing to feel sorry for them and be used by them.

I'll keep telling the story here, because I'm finding it helps me see some patterns. And perhaps it will help others see something. So I thank you for this safe place.

blue heron

We are finding out more and more interesting things now that Dad has died. It is interesting that one of the traits of a psychopath is to isolate people and try to keep control of them.

MIL has isolated her daughter and her live-in granddaughter from everyone else for a couple years now, has them doing her beck and call, including illegal activities, and swearing them to secrecy about everything. She cowed them into being totally silent toward us for months, with what kinds of threats to their well-being I don't know. She hooks people in by buying them, and they cannot get away.

So until yesterday, when Husband finally pried it out of step-sister, we had no idea Husband was actually removed from having any legal say-so because MIL told her two minions my Husband was threatening to sue them all, AND take his HALF of the estate early. Say what!!! (There were four children in the wills, so how could he "take his half." Doh.) No wonder they were curling their lips at us when we silently passed each other in the car port. She had them believing it would happen any minute, and had them terrified that they would all be wiped out, destitute, homeless, etc. Of course, she blamed it on Dad, saying he's the one who was afraid Husband would sue.

And not either one of those two -- the step-sister or the granddaughter -- had the wherewithal to come talk to US and see if any of it was true! Talk about isolated.

We also have heard rumblings of rumors that money is being hidden away so no one can find it, probably including Medicaid, which is also highly illegal. But they are above the law, see. I have had enough of hearing one of them say, "But that's the way I want to do it (which makes it all right)," when someone protests that something isn't quite legal.

I want to know what my husband was supposedly going to sue anyone about. I mean, they've probably done plenty worth suing for, but only they know exactly what they have done.

My advice for the day would be, if you're dealing with a psychopath, then you'd all better closely confer with each other, probably against the psychopath's wishes, to see what you're all being told about the others. Good grief.

I have had to take blood pressure medication since a couple months after I got here, and I have never had any trouble with b/Psychopath my whole life. 166/100 is not good numbers ... But now that I can see more clearly about all of this, I am feeling more on top of the game, for that is what it is. I should have remembered what I learned many years ago in kung fu class: never take your eye off the adversary, no matter how helpless they look. It's just a shame the woman has to be considered an opponent.

That's all for today.

Thanks for reading.
blue heron

Thank you for sharing so much of your story.

I have always had low blood pressure, and now, since dealing with this, I have high blood pressure. I guess the pressure and the stress of dealing with it all takes a toll on our bodies.

I'm trying to relax more. I think it's working. It feels nice

Hi blue heron, sorry wasn't online much yesterday. You might have legal standing. If your father-in-law (fil) already had the Alzheimers (sic) diagnosis before the paperwork was signed or enough people who knew he wasn't in his right mind you could have a good shot at getting a legal guardian. I am sure the people at Elder Abuse would know and could advise you about how to protect your fil. It would be an act of kindness clearly to protect your fil and if possible your own financial interests.

There has to be a way to protect him and your interests. He needs protection badly. I am sure the Elder Abuse people would be on your side. As far as their claims over who called Elder Abuse? You might want to call them in the meantime to find out his legal rights. Who cares if they find out it is you? I would have to guess the Elder Abuse people would be glad to help you and it is your husband's father that needs protection and I would think any money that they had him sign over or make any changes to may not be valid in a court of law, the trick is you need him declared incompetent and with their history of abusing him, getting the Elder Abuse people on your team will help a great deal.

You know kung fu, which I know nothing of but get the theory from your explanation, thanks for that. Put on your kung fu suit and practice being in what I call your neutral zone and sort this out. Why should they get away with your families share of the $. Why should they get away with abusing your fil?

I am sure you and your husband must feel a great deal of pain seeing his father at the hands of a couple of Psychopaths. He is his father so I would go after them anyway possible to protect him. In an ideal world the Elder Abuse people can guide you and probably if there is enough question over at what state he had things changed they would probably be able to put an emergency freeze on the $ until things get sorted out. Elder Abuse advocates would work quickly, they are not going to just stand around and leave your fil in their care and have them spending money they obtained when he was not able to know what he was signing.

This is a fight that I would advocate having. Your fil deserves your protection and why the heck should they walk with the money while they are abusing him, too crazy. You are really now one step in front of them if you can get the information from Elder Abuse about the legal side of things. I am sure they have seen other evil families treat another family member the way they are treating your fil. If you act quickly they won't get their grubby paws on the family money that is rightfully your since he probably was not functioning properly to be signing legal documents. I would love to see the looks on their faces if they swoop in and freeze the money now. Get your fil out of their care and get what money is rightfully yours, that would be my focus.

I have my bet that you will win this one. You know who your opponent is and we will be here to support you.



Sounds to me that now you know she is considered an opponent, go for it. I would be on the phone to the Elderly Abuse people as fast as I could get to my phone and get the process going.

Di

Hello, Dianne,

I believe you are correct in all you've said, and anyone who reads this in the future needs to heed it. We may still be able to get Family Protective services or someone like them to help us --

Even though Dad died Monday morning!

We are watching what everyone does now, and this has been a terrible week. I think the lies will now only get worse, and I believe they're siphoning money off and hiding it somewhere faster than ever.

It is a mercy that Dad has passed away, he was suffering so much. Except for one thing. He did the usual estate arrangement of passing all his earthly goods to his spouse. That would not have been a problem until just recently. I don't really understand why Dad's half of the family is suddenly being cut out. Not a clue, except greed. So I guess that's the end of that, unless we do something legally. (Is it worth it?)

I want to say I understand a person can do whatever they wish with their estate, and that is fine. It's their prerogative. But to have had it all set up for all these years to divide equally among all the children, then suddenly change everything in such a cruel and underhanded way, it is almost beyond bearing to stand by idly without saying something.

It has been very weird watching what different family members are doing this week. We have many people coming from far away for the funeral, and there are estrangements and poor communication among them all. When they all converge at one point on Saturday afternoon, there is bound to be fireworks. Everyone's wrapped tighter than a violin string.

I have always been able to sense what is going on beneath the veneer of situations, and I don't feel much collective grief here. I sense a smoldering anger and bitterness, along with helpless frustration.

Question: Will a psychopath "buy you off" somehow to distract you from your real feelings, or your real complaints? I watched it today when MIL handed one angry grandson a huge wad of cash and told him she would give him some more tomorrow. Yup, that's MIL -- here's some money, now shut up.

Thanks for allowing me to ramble. Next week we will decide how we want to pursue all of this, and if it is worth it.

blue heron

Hi, starry,

The blood pressure thing was a surprise, huh?

I have been doing qigong (chi kung) and Chinese meditation for a few months, and it helps for a few hours. Anything that involves slow movements and slow, measured breathing helps. If I would do it every day, it would probably fix it.

Keep plugging!
blue heron

Yeah, it was.

I only twigged a few years ago that I have diarrhea all the time and that's not right. Most other people don't. I'm sure it's the fear and adrenalin that's caused it in my case.

I'm so disconnected from my body. I don't trust it and I'm scared of it, so most of the time I'm either trying to control it or ignore it.

That's the lesson dad wanted to teach me: sever mind and body, thought and feeling.

I obviously have a long way to go on this healing road.

Blue heron reading your story - very well written btw - is like a soap opera and i'm waiting for the next installment. A few gasps and a few (commisserating) giggles later... What are we at now. Has the funeral get-together happened yet? Sorry about the loss and also all the drama.
I am really surprised that in your mental health training you weren't briefed about psychopaths (or narcissists?).
I agree about keeping your eye on them, that their cold eyes betray them, at least a narcissist (MIL or ex-MIL - I'm really thinking they've done me a great favor, even though the loss is of my companion, or who I thought was my companion, is painful). My estranged husband has isolated me from friends, family and colleagues, ever since his mother pushed her way into my home when my baby was 8 months old and assaulted me for daring to ask her to take off her shoes in my home (with a baby crawling around). The city streets are filthy, and she doesn't drive.
My husband always took her side, no matter what she did to me, but I believe my grave error was speaking to his colleague at work and telling him to please tell my husband that his mother was over at our place and refused to leave. So potentially-reputation damaging word got out. That was more important than her (or his) appalling behavior to me.
The other "mistake" was calling the police when my husband assaulted me a year later for the same reason: a fight about his mother's behavior. She knew exactly what she was doing. So I can also commisserate about not being a violent person but wanting to brain her. My husband actually told the police I said I wanted to kill her. Well obviously I'm not serious, but who wouldn't want to cause serious harm to such a creature? She was standing in my front hall with my baby screaming in the bedroom, smirking at me, taking a deep breath of satisfaction with her elbow up on my filing cabinet (so in my personal space), and saying she wouldn't leave because this was her son's house. She was enjoying the "show" - my horrified reaction to her, while she called me names. Sick really. My husband does the same thing - likes to create a bad atmosphere so he can just see the horrified reaction in my face.
I also have a permanent injury because of him - a chronic pain, that also I think has an effect on my temper. It's shorter.
They can have each other. That's what she wanted. Didn't know I was going to be her great opponent for her darling son, and didn't realize the devotion was mutual. Last Easter I wrote a card to him and her - they are the ones united, why beat around the bush? But we also have a daughter so unfortunately I can't cut off from him. I would love to be able to contact people and tell them the real story about these abusers but social constraints stop me. They're his friends and family. Then I think maybe we just need counselling and can reconcile, but perhaps I'm just not ready to face facts. He left me, he doesn't love me, and that's it. It's the cold hard reality.
You can't beat them at their many silly games (and you are an enemy to them, and they can be very hostile, and vicious) so I'm not too keen on finding out what he's capable of if pushed. Yes, intimidated. I try and stay friendly but it's hard, especially when the manipulations and passive aggressive gestures start and don't let up. And they can always twist things around to make themselves look like the victim.

My horrified reaction. She was enjoying humiliating me in my own home, and enjoying my powerlessness and inability to get her out. I finally figured out a way - by throwing her things out the front door. She was so PO'd she put her shoulder under my nose, as if for me to nudge it to get her going, so I looked at her like, "is this what you want?" and obliged. I nudged it. That was her excuse to shove me over on her way out. I was shocked. Just unbelievable.
My dear mother actually met her for coffee some time later for my marriage's sake, and the MIL told her that no-one had ever been as rude to her as me! Even my husband said that wasn't true. And what was her "spin" on the event even to me and goodness knows who else? She said she came over to "talk to me about my post-natal depression, to suggest I might talk about it with my gynecologist!" WT? I was on cloud nine when this long-awaited baby was born, and that suggestion was another hurtful blow and outright lie. She really came to put me in my place, as she saw it, and detrimentally affect my marriage, because that was a death blow to my relationship with her son.
As for her "beloved" granddaughter, the first thing she did when she had my baby in her arms for the privilege of giving her a bottle was to shake it roughly in her little mouth and say: "Come on, stupid." Just an appalling woman.
After that home invasion - she had been ringing the doorbell until I answered - no call to say she was coming over - just showed up during a much-needed nap after I'd just vacuumed and mopped the floor, and pushed her way past me when I opened the door, walked into my bedroom, sat on my bed (at which point I said she needed to learn some manners), and said: "I came to stop you spreading lies about me." I laughed at the irony, because I'm known to those who know me, for telling the truth to a fault. I told her that she repeatedly crossed the boundary line and to please leave. She refused. Even answered my telephone when my husband called, and calmly told him I was in an irrational state.
I also know more than I care to about "projection." They spew and project what they hate about themselves and put it on you. And they believe it! I became both of their scapegoat, and I'm not willing or strong enough for that. Not even a month after that I told my husband I was willing to go with his mother for an Easter celebration but not yet invite her home. He never acknowleged that (said I wasn't serious!), or that I was actually the first to try and make amends. Instead it festered for two years. He said if I moved an inch toward making up he would move a mile. Well he did - right out of the house. And had the nerve to accuse ME of withholding money (what money?! I hardly make any), of betraying him... Just so unfair. He was the one actually doing it.
I guess this is also therapeutic for me to write out. It was so flippin' traumatic and hard to get over. I guess other people have suffered worse though so I have to try and get on that other mental plane of counting my blessings. It's a lovely day. I need to go and pick up my daughter soon.

My husband continued the passive aggressive behavior and really turned it up when we were meant to go out with others, when his family or friends visited, or when my friends or family were coming to visit, including rages and manipulations, well after my MIL and I reconciled. I found a flash drive with "tiny apartment" layouts he had put together 2 months after I reconciled with his mother.

My gosh, Akeso, you have really been through it. Appalling is a good word for it. I'm sorry you had to. What you've described sounds so familiar. I can see it takes a while to "get over it." Or maybe never.

Thanks so much for sharing, it helps my heart.

blue heron

Wow, it's hard not to sound hateful and bitter, isn't it.

Well, fortunately, Dad-in-law's funeral was a tightly controlled, by-the-book service, so there was no opportunity for anyone to do or say anything to wreck it. Pretty much everyone was on their fairly decent behavior. But I don't expect that to last. Not at all.

I'm just going to keep spewing here. It's helping.

The more I read of other posts and resources here, the more I am convinced about MIL. So many people have mentioned the greed aspect and whether it is worth fighting back legally. Here's a classic for you. Eleven years ago husband's Dad loaned him some very special valuables to use for generating some income. There was a legal document drawn up with the conditions. (I hesitate to say what these valuables were because they're pretty specific to a certain kind of business.) At any rate, husband was able to turn the items on the market for a nice profit.

Years went by and nothing was said about this loan. Nevertheless, husband kept it all separate, principal loan and profit proceeds alike, just in case. He always was afraid his Dad would renege on everything and do him out of it all, as he had done in other instances in the past. (I don't see Dad as a psychopath, but perhaps a pretty nasty alcoholic.)

In 2007, at the funeral of MIL's oldest daughter, husband's Dad talked to him for a while and said to keep the valuables that he'd loaned him, just consider it a gift and not ever mention it again. Dad said that over the years he had given similar amounts of money to the other children, and my husband hadn't ever gotten any. So he should keep the things. Well, husband, being the wise man he is, asked Dad to please go dig out the old loan agreement and mark it up as no longer a loan, but a gift. But they were at the after-funeral dinner and Dad just kept stalling and stalling, until the bank where he had the papers closed up, and husband had to fly home without the gift being final.

Nothing more said until this past March. MIL decides after all this time that she wants "her" loan money back from my husband. Because she is "broke." We thought it had been forgotten. (In one of his lucid moments, Dad was surprised she remembered it too.)

I don't even know if I can tell you how ugly that got. There was no reasoning with her. She refused to believe the discussion that husband and Dad had in 2007. Meanwhile, poor old Dad is sitting over in the corner shrugging his shoulders apologetically. By this time he has level 6 Alzheimer's, and hardly knows what day it is. MIL is taking advantage of that big time. We had about three very ugly meetings about it, and I secretly videoed them on my cell phone. The scene where MIL hangs her head pitifully and whines, over and over, "I just want my moneyyyyyyy, I just want MY moneyyyyyy" is priceless. Ya know, it wasn't her money, it was Dad's.

Husband and I discussed refusing to give it back. Other family members advised us to tell MIL to stick it where the sun doesn't shine. But we realized that would be more trouble than it was worth, especially since they did have a signed loan agreement, and it was still legally valid. It would be my husband's word against an ill old man who couldn't remember what you said thirty seconds ago. And a vindictive, conniving poor little crippled old lady (who would spend endless amounts of money to make an example of us). Ha. So we agreed to pay Dad back the loan principal. We did say it was going to take us a few weeks to liquidate the items, because MIL insisted on CASH, not the items.

However, before we could do that, SOMEBODY called the police on us and said we had stolen these same valuables off MIL's dining room table. Holy crap! Those items had been in my husband's possession non-stop for eleven years! I videoed that whole event too. (Parts of it are almost funny now.) Fortunately, the officer had a grandmother with Alzheimer's and saw right through the entire ruse. He kept wanting to know when it was we were supposed to have taken the things, and finally Dad said it was just the other day; when the officer asked the date of that day, Dad called everyone an idiot and said, 2000, of course! That ended it for the police officer. I have never had the police called on me for anything! I was scared to death! I also know exactly who dialed that phone. Dad didn't have the wherewithal. It was MIL. She had that man out of his 24/7 pajamas and dressed in his Sunday best before she dialed 911.

We didn't get in any kind of trouble, but the police call did its job in convincing us there was no way to beat that old b***h at this game. So at great expense to ourselves, we made a cross-country trip to cash out the principal amount of these very specialized valuables and bring back her cash. We made sure we had everyone involved sign a paper agreeing that the whole thing was paid in full, and they weren't going to ask for anything more, and indeed they could not legally ask for anything more (like all the profit). I think they were too stupid to understand the legal language we had on the paper, so they hastily signed it, literally snatched the check out of our hands, and had MIL's daughter run straight to the bank with it. She ran out of the room like her tail end was on fire. They thought it was going to be a bad check. Idiots. A cashier's check doesn't bounce.

(They thought it was going to be a bad check because that's what they would have done? I guess! A bit of projection there.)

Huge check. More than a year's income for a nice middle-class family. Gone. Made me sick because we had been counting it as a nice piece of our retirement. We were thinking they might stretch it to cover Dad's care. Maybe they could be convinced to place him in skilled care now that they weren't "broke." There was enough to pay for almost a year, and we didn't see him surviving that long. Ha. He was more neglected than ever and that money was gone in two months. And nobody seemed to have any idea where it went. Two months! When pressed about it, MIL got up on her high horse and said she didn't have to tell people what she did with HER money.

And that's when my blood pressure reached it peak of 166/110.

Yes, some of the people here, including Dianne the admin, have learned to decide whether a legal fight with a psychopath is worth your time, your health, your sanity. No, it's not.

She's also correct in saying the only way to deal with a psychopath is to get the heck away from them. Completely.

Thanks for listening.
blue heron

Thanks again for this forum. It helps to write this stuff down, because it is helping me to see all the inconsistencies, lies, con jobs in that woman's behavior, which she has up until recently been able to distract us from seeing.

Oh, there'll be more ...

blue heron

Oh, remind me to tell you about my lovely floor.

Oh wow. We've also had something similar insofar as a manipulative half-sister (my aunt) got our grandmother to sign over a house that was meant to be divided among all the children while she was in a state of dementia. It's gone.
Also thank you for reassuring me that what I have been through was actually as appalling as I believe it was. I get the feeling sometimes I'm just over-reacting, but these things really are horrific.
As for the gift and the money, that's tough and I hope you have enough so that your retirement is comfortable. It didn't sound like "Dad" was all that concerned to get the loan changed to a gift either though, but maybe he wasn't counting on his wife going so far as to do what she did. Unbelievable, calling the police on you! THANK GOODNESS the policeman saw through it, thank goodness you had the foresight to tape it!!! I never have such thoughts until well after the fact.
Also very scary about not getting involved in a court battle with a psycho. I just keep thinking, if the MIL did that to me for asking her to take off her shoes, what will her son do to me if we are in dispute about anything regarding custody / visitation of my daughter? Scares the bejeezus out of me, truly. I hope for fairness but you just can't trust someone who thinks of you as a complete enemy. I pray a lot and hope for the best.

Akeso, sending you a hug this afternoon.

Looks like in every family, the psychopath has at least one person who either protects and shields them, or is totally taken in by them and believes everything they say (even when confronted with the truth).

Just a mish-mash of further junk.

MIL probably completely wrecked any chance we might have had to get any closer in 2009. We were here visiting (hadn't moved here yet), and there was a family get-together. I caught her over in a corner instructing her great-grandkids. She was telling them about her job (long ago) for a [utility] company. She said she fast-talked her way into that job, as administrator for the supervisor. Said the job required shorthand and typing, and she said she didn't know either one, but she promised the boss she would get the work done somehow. Because the job also involved overseeing other workers, and that was what she said she was good at. So on those provisions, she was hired.

Then she proceeded to tell the kids that she "got" some other girls to do all her typing and shorthand, and the boss was pleased with her because she was able to get those workers to increase their work. (Yeah, I'll bet she did.) She got so good at it, that the boss turned hiring and firing over to her. I think she was there for 25 years.

But the clincher was when she said, "See, children, you don't have to have any kind of an education at all to go and get a good career. So don't you worry about how bad you're doing in school. You just have to figure out how to get everyone else to do your work for you, and you'll do fine."

HUH!!! I wanted to go over there and smack her! I could hardly believe it.

But I know just how she did her work. She found everyone's weak spots and either exploited them, or pandered to them until the person was in her debt. They then probably had to do whatever she said, reasonable or not, or lose their job and get a bad reference.

For her family, she has tried buying everyone. That has served two purposes: not only is money a potent bait, her ability to "buy" so many people fulfills her desperate grandiose need to appear wealthy, and thus superior. That was one of the first things I ever noticed about her long ago. About three people are so "indebted" to her that they are pretty much her slave. They are miserable and cannot break away from her. They can't afford to. One is so snared by MIL that suicide appears to be an attractive option. MIL hasn't ever been able to snag me with anything -- money, flattery, trying to shame me into doing things I don't want to do -- not a thing. I'm of no use to her, so she doesn't pay me much mind. (Except when she's giving me another random try here and there.) In fact, I guess I'm not part of the family, because this past summer when my husband had a birthday, MIL invited several people to go out for a steak dinner in his honor, and I was NOT invited! To my own husband's birthday! "Close family only," she is reported to have said. I guess she thought THAT would bring me around. Didn't work.

Mishmash number two -- It is interesting about the vocabulary and speech mannerisms of a psychopath, as I read in some of the resource material here. MIL has long had this strange hem-hawing stutter as she appears to searching for the best way to say something. Yes, now I see. It's an attempt to find acceptable wording and keep that mask up. Once she gets started, though, on a track that she scrambles to come up with, then she will blather you to death with what I call the con-man bluster and misdirect.

Mishmash number three -- I'm not sure why personality disorders and psychopathy was not so much covered in the mental health training I got. I know a lot about bipolar, major depressive, schizophrenia, schizo-affective, obsessive-compulsive, and those other disorders that can be treated with medication and cognitive-behavioral therapy. I know some about borderline personality disorder because I kept running into so many of those, so had to go do research. I knew something about what a Psychopath was, but it was never equated with being a psychopath. I'm just as guilty as the next person in thinking a pyschopath was like Norman Bates in "Psycho," or the woman in "Play Misty For Me," or "Fatal Attraction." Perhaps the trainer didn't want to waste time on me learning about personality disorders and psychopaths because usually they can't be helped and don't want to be helped.

Well, I'm learning a lot while reading here, and thank you all for sharing. And for letting me get this out.

blue heron

That didn't come out right in the above narrative. I was saying s o c i o Psychopath a t h.

blue heron

Ah, I see some autocorrect there. Hmm. Okay, I'll work with that.

I have been reading lots of the older posts here, and can see I'm in good company. There is a lot of good advice, and a lot of kindness.

Something I have not mentioned is that this whole mess with MIL has hurt my husband far worse than it's hurt me. I'm all upset and angry mostly because of what it is doing to him.

Just to refresh, MIL is not my husband's mother. She married his Dad when my husband was about 16. He tells me they always had a good relationship (but I think maybe he has a poor memory, lol). Perhaps they got along because he was "going her way" most of the time; I mean, maybe his chosen direction just happened to coincide with what she wanted out of him most of the time.

I am a night owl, preferring to surf the internet and catch up with my friends late at night. My husband goes to bed fairly early. But over the past months he has had terrible trouble with sleep, staggering up out of bed while I am still up, talking about how he can't stop thinking about everything that's coming from "next door," having bad dreams, trying to figure out how to make it stop, how to rectify it all and make it right on behalf of the others who are getting hurt in the process -- and he cannot come up with an answer. My husband is the number one "answer man," and this has him totally stumped and hurt.

We have just about resolved that the only way we can handle it is to cut off contact with MIL. I dunno ... I already have. I don't know if he can or not.

Well, let me tell you about my lovely floor.

Before we moved into this lease unit, we had new paint, light fixtures, and flooring installed. We chose some of that new engineered hardwood that just snaps together. It's a floating floor; it is not glued or nailed down. That's in about half the house. The rest is some extra nice vinyl, and a little carpeting. The floating hardwood floor is easy to care for, but you cannot put much water on it. If you spill any liquids, you have to get it up quick because it will go down between the planks, then you have a problem. Oh, yeah.

Back in August, husband's brother was visiting, and one morning just before dawn he got up and was quietly making his way down the hall to the bathroom. He woke me out of a dead sleep exclaiming, "Oh, no! What's this? Ohhh, my."

I bolted out of bed and there he was, standing in a LOT of water. A lot of water, and more coming. Well, heedless of our respective states of undress, we started searching for the source of all this water. At first I thought the line to the ice maker had broken, so I went under the sink and turned it off. Nothing -- water kept pouring out from behind the refrigerator. There was an inch of water in about half our house.

I called the manager's office to tell them there was an emergency with a water line break "somewhere," and needed some maintenance people for help. The first person to show up, bless his heart, was the manager himself, toting a wet-vac. Two maintenance guys finally showed up, and they went looking for the source of the water.

It was from next door at MIL's unit. Turned out that nobody had ever thought to do regular maintenance on their under-sink water filtering system in the six years they lived there (!), and it had finally exploded.

Pretty quickly, those lovely hardwood planks started swelling and popping up. I can't even describe how bizarre it was.

Once the manager had things in hand, he and my husband went next door to see MIL, and she wanted to know what all the ruckus was at our place. When the manager told her that water was flooding from her water line and that it was her fault, husband says she got this blank look on her face, then she said, "Oh." And went back to what she was doing.

Now, most people would would exclaim in dismay, express some empathy, and ask what they could do to help. Or something! Nothing from her.

The manager stewed and stewed over how he would replace our wood and vinyl, and finally went to MIL to see if she had homeowner's / renter's insurance. Nahh, she didn't need it, she said. So he decided he'd had enough of her (she's messed with him the whole time she's lived here, and he finally had it) -- and told her he was going to charge her the whole amount of repairing our floors. It added up to about $4,500.

And what did she say? She couldn't see why SHE should have to fix OUR floor. She didn't put the water over there. Furthermore, she started whining about how she was "broke," and she decided she would only pay the manager $20.00 a month. When the manager related this story to us, I could see the incredulous, furious look on his face, even though he was trying to be professional and unbiased.

She never asked us one thing about our floor, or if it was an inconvenience to live with it all popped up like that for the month it took to get replacements ordered and installed, or did our new floor look nice, or NOTHING.

MIL has done some other things to the manager that has amazed and surprised him. Hey, she is above the rules of the community. Our row of units is on the back side of the community, and there is a tall fence between our back yards and a hotel parking lot. Let me say, our manager is not a micro-manager, he has people who deal with the details and he expects them to do their jobs, so he hadn't had any occasion to go in our back yard. That's somebody else's job.

But this summer when we had a horrendous rain storm and I had to bail furiously to keep water from flooding into our back door, I talked to the manager about it (some other people complained too), and he came to take a look.

The first thing he saw was a huge patio slab that MIL had had poured in her back yard. His face got all dark and he said, "I didn't know she had done this. How long has this been here?" I estimated it had been there about a year. He said she had mentioned to him how she wanted to put a little patio back there, and he told her he would have to get some people to determine what she could do, and he would find the contractor to do it for her. Apparently some time later she told him she didn't need him to do it any more.

The reason was that she got tired of waiting, of going through the proper channels, of doing what the community covenants required. She wanted what she wanted right then, so she hired a contractor. They drove their concrete truck into the hotel parking lot next door, took several planks off the fence that divides the hotel from our back yards, and happily poured a huuuuuge patio. Put the planks back on the fence, and nobody's the wiser.

Only one problem. That huge patio slab interferes with the natural drainage of several yards. The water can't go around it fast enough, so guess whose back door it goes into? MINE!

There is also an issue with some dogs she has.

It's never ending. It probably won't end until she dies. She's pretty close to it, and cruel old me prays for her end daily.

Amazing what a volume of junk comes out when you start talking about it. Geez.


blue heron

Okay that sounds like a classic N!! LOL. Her reactions sound JUST like something my MIL would do. I hope you're all getting together to make her pay to dig up her patio. Talk about above the law and above everyone else.
On our wedding day all excited we asked her to sign our wedding book. That's exactly what she did, with this stupid smug look on her face. Couldn't believe it! No well wishes, no nothing. Just signed her name. No card, no gift... well that should've been the biggest red flag but I hoped by calling her "mum" after we married she would see my relationship to her as that of a daughter and NOT competition. Couldn't understand it as I did get along with her also and helped her when she was sick, etc, etc. Well I realize now that she is the big princess, and my husband seems bent on making my daughter the little one, complete with "princess slippers" she said he got her, even though he's read the book about adult children of dysfunctional families and the part about covert incest that says it's very damaging to start going the "daddy's little princess" route.
Anyway after the MIL assured me that the birth was for the parents, she not only shows up on the day but comes in together with her son when the nurse is putting my baby in my arms for the first time. So my first reaction on seeing her is that my heart SINKS when it should only have been SOARING when I first laid eyes on my long-awaited baby, together with my husband. And my baby's birthday will be forever marred by that one event that she knew exactly what she was doing.
Apart from the "come on, stupid" remark, she takes up space in the car to come back to our place for the home-coming, and as I had to walk up 4 flights of stairs, my husband brought a chair down to the middle landing for me to sit on as I'd had a ceasarian. He'd gone up ahead with my sister with the baby. Guess who sat in the chair to rest?
As I write, this hypochondriac has my husband down at her place on the one day he comes to see his daughter. Okay with me, the longer my girl is with me instead of those psychos the better, but she keeps asking after him. She's disappointed. I hate to think she needs to get used to it with that creature (brings new meaning to "mirror mirror on the wall...") and Lord strike me down for thinking the same thing about her as you do about yours, except they say they get worse after their mothers pass on!

No card and no gift -- from the mother of the groom? Man, that's cold. Forgive me, but I had to laugh a little about who ended up sitting in your chair on the stair landing. Unreal. Text book. Whatever they "need" always comes before what you need. They probably don't have a clue that you need anything in the first place. Not that it matters.

We think we should have seen such a red flag, but truly, we have no idea. Why should we?

Our wedding gift from MIL was a plastic fake antique clock. It had a spray-painted wood look finish, and you had to plug it in to make the pendulum swing. It truly looked like something from the carnival. It had to have cost all of $25.00.

And this was a gift to two people who had a rather sizeable collection of very fine antique clocks -- wall clocks, mantel clocks, a rare "repeater" carriage clock, and a very old grandfather clock from the 1700s that would play two different chime tunes. A plastic clock that she expected we display with our fine antiques! ("I gave it to you because I knew you just love, love, love clocks!" Doh! How exactly are we supposed to interpret the intent of that?!) It was supposed to go on the mantel, but there were no electrical outlets near the fireplace. I should have seen it as the thoughtless insult it was. But I chalked it up to someone who had absolutely no taste. And forgave it. It went to the garage in the box because there was really no place to set it, and it eventually went out in a garage sale. (And now my stomach hurts just talking about it.)

Husband's actual mother, not to be outdone, gave us a frying pan. Period. I don't know WHAT she was; we haven't been able to fit her into any category. She was truly frightening. How my husband turned out as nice as he did has to be a miracle.

We never decided whether no gift might have been better than the ones they chose.

Well, I guess that's why we are sharing here on this forum. Maybe it will help others see the red flags sooner so they can run before they get too snagged up in the Psychopaths life.

I came here to deal with MIL the psychopath, and not my mother, who was a slightly watered down version of "Mommie Dearest." I already spent years in therapy over her, so I'm not going to spout off much about her. I had to figure out on my own that she is a serious narcissist. So I understand what you are talking about, Akeso.

Every time I watch "Two and a Half Men," and Charlie and Alan Harper's mother is on there, man -- I figure one of the writers knows exactly what a full blown narcissist is. It may be funny, but it's also chilling.

Oops, rambling again. I need to start a new topic and ask something about the grown daughter of the MIL.

Thanks for listening,

blue heron