Hey everyone, I am coming to this board because of my mother-in-law and her alcoholism. Since I've known her she has always been an alcoholic and I have had to deal with her for about 4 years...nothing compared to the nearly 10 that my husband has had to go through. She was sober for most of his childhood until "the divorce" and then she hit the bottom, taking my husband (only 12 at the time) down with her. He has had to drag her off the street, coerce her, naked raving drunken, into a police car after she was supposedly drugged by one of her many abusive boyfriends. He has had to move from shit hole to shit hole because she is not able to pay rent or get along with landlords or neighbors. He has had to wait for hours after school because she wasn't able to come and pick him up. And because of all this has become somewhat of a callused, untrusting man. For that, I may be enternally angry and at her, and I sometimes fear I will never be able to forgive her over...how could he actions and her lack of responsibility rob my loving husband of the ability to feel fully, trust fully, and even maybe be fully happy?

I have so many many stories that I have witnessed and countless more that my husband has, but my current distress come from an incident that happened about 2 months ago. It started shortly after my husband and I moved about 900 miles to come and live near my husband's family; his brother and his wife and daughter and his mom. When we decided to move, we were under the impression that his mom was sober and going to AA meetings, etc. So under those conditions, we agreed to move in with her. I was very hesitant and nearly left my husband over the issue, but knew that I had to at least try before I can say it was not going to work. So we packed up everything, leaving plenty behind because my husband knew his mom would take us shopping for new stuff. I left all my family, all my friends, everything I ever knew and followed my husband down here. It was very emotional and stressful for me, and to make things worse, I found out when I got here that I left my wallet back home! I was devestated because I had planned on enrolling in school here as soon as I could, but I had no ID or anything so for the first week we were here I moped around and felt sorry for myself.

It was no time at all before my mother in law decided she needed to take it on herself to motivate me and get me moving, and it just so happened that she showed up with an open beer in her hand hollering about how I needed to get off my lazy ass and get a job or something. This was the first time since I'd gotten here that I'd seen her drink and so I was upset, especially because she was doing so in front of my two year old daughter. That morning (yes it was about 11am when she came drunk and driving) we argued and I asked her to pour out her beer and please not drink in front of my child. It turned out she had lost one of her jobs that morning and that was probably why she was drinking. It wasn't long before she lost her second job and was drinking on a daily basis.

At this point I still was not working and so my daughter and I were with her all day. I tried to explain to her that we get along much better when she is sober. She thought this was funny and was conviced I wouldn't be able to tell the difference. We were having a good day one day and got along really well all through the evening. We made dinner together, played with my daughter together, and after I picked my husband up from work, we even had a nice long conversation about Jesus. Once he and I got into bed, she went outside to "smoke" and came up to our room a while later saying how bad she wanted to "burst my bubble". I was confused and asked what she was talking about and she said she had been drinking all day and we got along just fine. I was very angry. I couldn't believe she would play such a nasty trick on me. What if I had let her drive us somewhere and my child was in the car?? I was very upset and felt betrayed. She later told me that the whole thing was a lie, I know that it would be just like her to have to play this trick on me to try and prove a point. After that night, I started acting a lot differently around her and would not let my daughter spend a whole lot of time with her, mostly because I wasn't sure if she'd been drinking. I felt I had to assume the worst for my daughter's safety.

Things were getting worse every day. She and I could barely talk civilly before we were arguing with each other about how I'm the only one who has a problem with her and nobody else cares if she drinks and what not. I tried to always stick to my guns but it wasn't easy, especially when I would cry to my husband and he would tell me basically to buck up and deal with it because this is how it is. I cried myself to sleep quite a few times. I felt very alone and un-supported. I tried to just ignore how I felt, but when she would say the littlest things that I felt were going against my parenting I would get really upset. After weeks of constant bickering and her now drinking secretly to try and "please" me, I sat down to write her a letter describing how I felt. She had said she was out seeing a movie with friends but she returned within an hour saying her friend wasn't home. I tried to keep to myself in our bedroom and was beginning this letter with my daughter watching a movie in my bed. I was trying to get my daughter to relax in bed when my MIL came in, obviously intoxicated.

She began to say goodnight to my daughter which was fine with me but then she started riling her up and so I say down next to them on the bed and told my daughter it was time to lay down. My MIL started walking out of the room but instead the alcohol kicked in and she started getting an attitude talking about how she wasn't going to allow me to bring my daughter to work with me at this daycare where I'd just gotten a job. I think she wanted me to leave my daughter at home with her, which I would never do because I don't trust her enough. This upset her and she tried to tell me what I was and wasn't allowed to do with my child and soon we were in each other's faces about it and I was yelling that it was basically none of her business what I do with my daughter and that since I am the parent it is my choice and not hers. She continued to push the issue and even threatened to call Child Protective Services to which I welcomed the offer since I have nothing to hide.

Things were escalating very quickly and she and I were screaming at each other's faces while my poor daughter is on the bed next to me, crying. I could smell the beer at this point and I asked my MIL to leave. I may have bumped chests with her, we were awfully close. At this point she jumped onto the bed and put her arms around my daughter, I believe in an attempt to take her somewhere because she had my daughter's shoes in hand when she came in the room. At this point, I immediately lost it. I started hitting, kicking, pulling, scratching, biting maybe, ANYTHING to get her off my child. I punched her in the face and pulled her hair as hard as I could and she didn't let go. I pulled on my precious daughter's legs and couldn't get her away. I was absolutely hysterical and of course my child was terrified. I finally grabbed my mother in law around the waist and threw her to the floor. She landed on my poor baby and at this moment I reached for my cell phone which was luckily only a foot away on this very computer desk. She reached for hers out of her pocket at the exact same time and we were both dialing 9-1-1. She was now kneeling with my daughter, who was now reaching for me screaming "Mama!!!" I reached out my arms and thought if she ran to me, his mom wouldn't touch her on the way, but she was scared stiff. My husaband's mom was saying, to the operater "um, yes, my daughter in law is assaulting me" and she had her other arm still around my daughter. While screaming at the dispatcher to get police to my address, I saw my split second and scooped my baby up. I ran with her to the next room (which happened to be my daughter's bedroom) and shut the door, but his mom was right behind me and almost got in before I slammed it and put my weight against it. She slammed up against it but I braced myself on the wall and held it closed.

The police ended up coming and although I was a wreck, I told them exactly what happened and she admitted to drinking and I was able to press charges against her. She was so mad that the police didn't let her press charges against me that she actually filed a misconduct report against the officers and ended up calling Child Protective Services against me. Of course both of those motions did not accomplish anything, as they were completely unfounded. Well, after all of this we tried to go back into the house with her, but my nerves were completely shot and I was having my daughter sleep in the bed just to feel safe. It was about three nights after the entire incident that my MIL came into our room, drunk, and began yelling at me calling me every name in the book and pointing to her bruised face saying "Look what you f-ing did to me you b----!" right in front of my daughter. After my husband made her leave our room, I basically gave him an ultimatum that I never ever wanted to put in front of him: it's either her or me. I was NOT going to stay in that house any longer with her.

It turned out that while we were asleep that night, my MIL continued to get drunk outside and ended up getting arested after fighting with some neighbors. She was in jail for about a week and all her credit cards were declined and so she wasn't able to bail out. During that week, I continued to live in fear and even keeped all the dead bolts locked just in case she found a way to get out. My husband and his brother decided that they would have her comitted to a rehab clinic, and so after about her time in the jail was up, she was immediately transported to this rehab center where she stayed for about a month. We went up there once during that time and sat down with a couselour. His mom said she was ready to leave treatment and come back to live with us, but I made it very clear at that time that if she was coming back to that house I would be moving out, with or without my husband. This made her very angry and she demanded that she leave that night to "supervise" the move. By God's grace though she was convinced by the staff at her center to stay for the weekend and we were given a few days time to pack and get moved out.

My husband and I moved on short-notice to a crappy roach-ridden apartment near his job because he had been borrowing her vehicle while she was away and we took her car back to her so that she could come home. Well about three days after this, my husband had not heard from her and so we went back to the old house and she had never come home. Of course panic set in and we were calling around to look for her, and we ended up calling his grandma and found out through her that his mom has checked into a residential rehab center without telling us. We were of course happy to know that she was staying in rehab but a little frusterated that we had gone to all this trouble and she could have at least said something.

So anway, she has been in this new place for about 2 months and has been supposedly doing very well. I have seen her three times and every time I see her I struggle with my anger and pain. I am still very upset that she put her hands on my daughter, and while I am as much to blame for the violence and she is, I cannot seem to forgive her. In the past, it has not taken me this long to move on from one of these kinds of drunken mishaps, but this time is very different. I have put up a thick wall against her, trying to protect myself. She is very vauge about taking any kind of responsibility for what happened that night, and I feel is still in major denial about the whole thing. However, if she admitted to doing wrong would I be able to forgive her or would I still be mad? Even after 3 months of sobriety (one of the longest times I have ever seen her sober) I am still not conivinced that she is better, nor does it makes me want to see or talk to her about any of it. The other day when I took my daughter to visit her in the treatment home, she cried to me about how sad it is that she can't see her grandbaby very often and how puzzeling it is to her that I am so cold and she even said "what happened? One day we were friends...?" I was appauled. Is she really that out of it that she doesn't realize what kind of toll this has had on my relationship with her? Or am I just being too harsh?

Another thing that has had to suffer from all of this is my marriage. I am angry with my husband that he cannot sympathise with me and sometimes demands that I "Get over it" or just let it go. And he is mad at me because he feels like if his mother died tomorrow I would be the one that would be at a loss because I never gave her another chance. We are a mess over this...and this topic ALWAYS starts a fight between us. What should I do? I cannot even look the woman in the eye. Last night she said to me "I was hoping we could give it another go [living together] now that I'm sober" and I seriously think I laughed and said "I don't think so". I truly don't think I'll ever be able to have a healthy relationship with her again, much less LIVE with her! She makes me so angry. Am I so wrong in feeling betrayed, hurt, angry?? I don't know what to do. I came here to get answers and maybe find other people who are in a similar situation as me. I desperately need your advice and I apologize for such a long entry.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to read this. God bless all of you.

>MOM2EB