My [23F] Mother [45F] Disliked My Partner [24M] and I's Christmas Plan and Has Become Increasingly Belligerent and Has Falsely Accused My Partner of Abuse and is Threatening Us Both

Throwaway as family know that we both reddit. We’re in the UK if that affects any advice. Sorry for the length, this has come from nowhere and a lot has happened very quickly I’ve tried to only include the most relevant details; TLDR at the bottom.

Broadly speaking, my mother was unsatisfied with my partner and I’s plans for the Christmas break, but rather than express this in a healthy or constructive way she has become increasingly aggressive towards me, cancelling my car insurance out of the blue and accusing my boyfriend of being abusive. I have spoken to my uncle and my grandparents about the issue, both of whom agree that my mother has stepped out of line and that my partner is a good fit for me and that they are happy with where I am in my life. We both understand that this first Christmas was going to be a difficult adjustment but her behaviour became so extreme that we refused to budge because we didn’t want to set the precedent that she could bully us into doing what she wanted.

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Background: Me and my partner (Dan) have been together for 3 years and have started living together this year. When we moved in together we moved to the area where he studied, which is about a 2-hour drive from my home town. We’ve both met and done a lot with each other’s families, although our families haven’t met yet. There has been no mention to me that anyone in my family has any issue with him or how he acts, and they have been open about any issues they have had with previous partners. Dan’s parents have been divorced for as long as we have dated and live about 30 miles or so away from each other with my family living nearer his father. Dan is working a graduate job in his field and is supporting me financially while I complete my master’s degree.

As this is our first year living together we decided early on that we’d also like to spend the Christmas holidays together, where we have previously done separate Christmases. To reduce the amount of travelling we would need to do we planned our Christmas trip like so: Christmas eve at his father’s, Christmas morning seeing my family for a few hours, finally we would travel to his mother’s for Christmas dinner and to stay the night. We then intended to visit my family on boxing day so that we could broadly spend the same amount of time with everyone.

We told everyone our plan around late September or early October and it was well received. In the middle of November my mother told me that she wasn’t happy because Dan’s family would be getting to cook Christmas lunch and dinner and she didn’t even want to cook Christmas breakfast, so she thought we should stay with her for lunch. I reiterated that we wanted to stick to our original plans. In early December I wanted to address my mother’s concerns by offering to instead spend Christmas eve with my family but staying the night at Dan’s fathers. She refused and said I was treating her like an inconvenience; instead suggesting that we just visit on Boxing day and stay the night. That wasn’t something Dan and I were comfortable doing. Ultimately, we couldn’t come to an agreement and she became aggressive and then told me to just do whatever I thought was best.

Finally on the 23rd of December I reiterated our plan to visit her early Christmas day for around 3 hours and then again on boxing day. She immediately became aggressive telling me she was “fucking furious” and that she “won’t be able to keep her mouth shut”. This descended into an argument where I told her she wasn’t being fair to me and was acting like if I didn’t just give her what she wanted then I was abandoning my family.

Throughout the day she became more aggressive, leading to her doing the following: 1. Cancelling my car insurance which expired on December 26th 2. Trying to contact Dan’s parents to “set the record straight”

We then made the call not to visit my parents for Christmas because we were concerned about how we would be treated. I wished my family happy Christmas on the 25th and my mother told me that my presents were too heavy to post to me but refused to deliver them via my uncle, which is what we did. I asked if we would be welcome to visit on Boxing day and was told that I was only welcome if I came alone.

My mother has continued to escalate the issue since then. On boxing day she accused me of blocking her on Facebook. I hadn’t, but we were no longer Facebook friends. I told her this and she repeatedly said that it wasn’t her but that “someone” must have done it. As Facebook records your activity logs it was clear that no one unfriended my mother through my account. Throughout the most recent arguments she has stated that I “will always have a home” with her and that I’d “regret how [I] treated [her] when [I] came to [my] senses”. I can tell that she’s trying to imply that Dan is abusive but that 100% is not the case and I resent her saying it. She’s unhappy she didn’t get her own way and instead of owning up to it she’s trying to shift the blame onto him while she continues to be aggressive. Most recently she has told me that she will visit me while Dan is in work to deliver my Christmas presents. I suggested that she visited on the weekend, so I could see my sisters, but she insisted that she would only visit if Dan wasn’t present. At this point I asked her what exactly her problem was as she has never said anything bad about Dan until now. She continued to imply that Dan was abusive and that she’s always felt this way but refused to say anything directly.

She is now telling me that she will visit when it suits her. I am worried as to what will happen if she gains entry to our home as she has, several years ago, been violent with me over my sexual history. I am worried about I should do if she tried to forcibly remove me from my home and how I would get back? I have informed several family members of what has happened between us, while they don’t want to directly intervene, yet they do understand that she is in the wrong. I am also worried about what could happen to Dan. What can I do to try and deescalate her behaviour and gain control of the situation? Neither of us want to completely block her out of our lives but her behaviour is unacceptable.

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TLDR; My mother was unhappy with my partner and I’s Christmas plans but rather than compromise she became more erratic and confrontational. This culminated in her cancelling my car insurance and accusing my partner of abuse. She is now threatening to visit me when I am alone and I do not want this. What can I do to navigate this situation to minimise the damage that she can cause without burning what little is left of this bridge for the future?

Submitted December 29, 2018 at 05:50AM by throwawayChungus http://bit.ly/2SsjahW