My mother-in-law is into crap like BodyTalk etc. My dad died of cancer and she had asked if she could BodyTalk him and we told her no (at least she asked I suppose). So a few short weeks after my dad passes, the mother-in-law is visiting and while my wife takes a shower she turns to me and says "you know if you guys just let me body talk him your dad would be alive and healthy today". I haven't really said anything more than Hi or bye to here since then.
This summer we had a vacation we planned with some of my wifes cousins and wifes sister. We were all staying at the same resort. Her mom hears about this and literally invites herself. Fine, let her come and see the grandkids etc (note the cousins and what not are from my wifes Dad's side). The mother-in-law was simply unbearable to the point where my wife stopped talking to her and planning anything to do with her. I kept my mouth shut because well I don't talk to her anymore.
Anyways, the last day we were having breakfast with my sister-in-law and we nicely invited the mother-in-law. We happened to have a kid who was extremely tired and just hell to deal with that morning that started to throw a temper tantrum in the restaurant. Being my turn to deal with such things I removed the kid and myself from the restaurant to give the diners some peace and quiet. Kid couldn't get calmed down enough to go back in so we sat in the car (during which time the kid stopped crying and fell asleep). We wait for breakfast to be over, wife and other kid come out, we say our goodbyes and we're off. My wife then gets numerous texts and a phone call about how I ruined the entire vacation for everybody because of taking the kid out of the restaurant on the last day of a 10 day vacation. When i mean numerous, I mean numerous and over several days. Meanwhile we get phone calls and texts from everybody else telling us just to ignore here, that having kids themselves they understood why I took the kid from the restaurant (and were happy that we did) etc.
Neither my wife nor I have talked to her in the last 5 months. Honestly, sometimes that is what is necessary. Some people will never change and my mother-in-law is one of those. So my advice is to simply ignore them BUT make sure your wife knows why you are ignoring them and is supportive of it. I know people say family are family but in the end is the family member is causing you more grief than they do comfort it's time to ditch that family member.
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