Dear  want_to_be_a_better_person:

You are welcome.

Your MIL wants you to remain married to her daughter, parenting your children with your partner. The only thing she wants is for… all  of you to submit to her power. “she would just prefer me to be another person that she can control”, you wrote.

During the first years of marriage you were submissive, and “things worked well as long as we spent adequate time visiting MIL, or if going away on holiday bringing her for some of it”, meaning sometimes, in her  mind, she didn’t have adequate visit time and complained about it, and you and your partner had to be cautious to not displease her.

Then you asserted yourself, “I insist that my partner, children and  I always go on holiday alone without MIL”, good job, I say. Unfortunately, your MIL, through her daughter, is  wearing you down. And  you are  now interested in going back to .. a bit of submitting, which you call “more accepting”, more accepting of your MIL’s power, that  is.

You wrote that you “now  need to  find the middle ground. Perhaps, I first  focus on being amiable”- we humans are social animals, not unlike dogs in some ways,  one of which is this common situation: two dogs get together, one is  aggressive, threatening, needing power-over, the other turns over on its back, demonstrating his  submission in no uncertain terms.  The dominant, aggressive dog is pleased and  no violence takes place. There is no middle ground.

The submissive dog is relieved because  he escaped violence and the dominant dog is relieved because he doesn’t have to fight. The violence in your case  is the destruction of your marriage, this is what you fear and this  is what your MIL is threatening you with through her  interactions  with her daughter. She  will be  relieved if the marriage is not destroyed, but she  is willing for your marriage to be destroyed in her quest for power.

anita