Dear Tridha:

I don’t think that her aggression is anything new, she was probably aggressive when your husband was a child. Everyone fears aggression, but children most of all. So he was probably afraid of her as a child and the fear stays.

So your husband doesn’t help you out in this regard because he is afraid of her.

No  wonder “the more I bent the more disrespectful she became”- to bend to an aggressive person means to bend some more, and more. There is never bending-enough for the aggressive person to be satisfied.

I imagine what happens with your MIL is something like this: every day there is a voice in her head that says to her, sometimes it whispers to her, at other times it screams at her: this person is disrespecting me! That person is disrespecting me! No matter how her day is, someone is disrespecting her, so it is a constant battle in her mind, fighting the people she imagines are disrespecting her.

So one day she is okay with her daughter, satisfied, but she suspects her husband is disrespecting her and rages at him, next day she imagines it is her daughter and she rages at her but is okay with her husband, just on that one day.

There is always something, always someone to rage at, to put in their place.

I suggest you never try to please her, to satisfy her, it will not work beyond a moment or a day at best, maybe a week (while she is targeting someone else and you get a break!)

anita