There was a third person in my marriage.

After the panic and initial onslaught of grief as I watched my marriage suddenly topple last summer, one of my next feelings was one of relief that I would never have to deal with my mother-in-law again.  During our marriage, I knew his mother was a point of contention but I'm not sure I truly saw the entire extent she actually played a role in our marriage.  I see now that she was a third person in my marriage.

There are moments that stick out so clearly where even at the time, I was taken aback by the boundary she crashed through and the ways she tried to manipulate us and exert her influence.

The call to our realtor asking him to convince us not to buy a particular house comes to mind immediately.  That was an awkward conversation with our realtor as he explained the call he received from her.

And then there was the argument where she accused me of not supporting my husband.  She had been visiting for too long of a visit.  While I was out (at work or choir or something), she and my ex had taken some action on a joint account I held with my ex that he had not discussed with me first and that I was uncomfortable with.  As I tried to get clarification on what he had done and express some concern, she jumped into the argument.

There were all the times she would complaint to my ex that I didn't like her after I took some time to myself during a long visit with her (to go to choir or to go find a quiet space to have my weekly call with my parents or to just go for a walk).  I sometimes wonder why my ex-husband shared these conversations with me.

Then there were the vacations we took her on where she was so needy my ex-husband didn't feel he could ever leave her side for any length of time.  I just wanted a quiet morning with him or a dinner together or an excursion together.  I never understood why she couldn't entertain herself for even just an hour.

She had an opinion and advice on everything, even topics she knew absolutely nothing about.  And she would pout if we didn't take her advice.

My ex-husband grew up in a family that used speaker phone for all calls.  Honestly, I didn't think anything of it until the first time he went to visit his parents alone and he called me.  I was having what I thought was a private conversation with him (I couldn't even imagine that a husband wouldn't want to talk to his wife alone) when suddenly his mom chimed in about something in the background.

And then over the years, I got really exhausted hearing every single one of his calls with his mom which were frequent.  They were usually filled with criticism, neither of them truly listening to the other, and spiraling off each other complaining about something.  So I asked him to either not use speaker phone or go in a different room when he made the calls.  Sometimes he would respect that request but usually he just did what he wanted and continued using speaker phone.

Over the past months, the role she played in our lives and honestly even in the end of our marriage has replayed in my head many times.  Sometimes I feel some anger towards her but my real anger is at my ex-husband who allowed all of this to happen, actively participated in it, and very rarely stood up for me.  He chose to focus on his discomfort at feeling in the middle (even though I tried so hard to never make him choose between us) instead of focusing on the harm her actions were causing to me and our marriage.

To be fair, he did learn to set a few boundaries over the years.  He even thanked me for showing him how to set boundaries as we were separating - I guess he and his mom had gotten into an argument when he said no to something and she had intentionally called him "Rebecca" to blame me for teaching him to say no at least occasionally.  He says he stood up for me in that moment.  But in almost the same breath, he was blaming me for not being closer to his mom and for not wanting to participate in every phone call on speaker.