Replaced

Something recently occurred to me that hurts quite a bit: my mother-in-law replaced me, when she was still around.

She got in contact on Facebook awhile back with a distant relative of her 1st husband's - a girl that's 6 years old than me, with several kids, one not much older than Jay. They both "hate" their mothers so we're sure they've bonded over that. She went and visited her down in Florida (shortly before Jay was born) as she had this whole story of how she was dying of cancer soon with a newborn to take care of as well as 3 other young kids and her husband was possibly going to jail for (alleged at the time) fraud... turns out him (and her as his accomplice) were both scam artists - he went to jail, she claimed to be a victim in his schemes after the fact. There were news articles about it that you can find online.

We were afraid that first time she left that she wasn't going to come back - I was afraid Jay would never know her (there's an infamous family story I was afraid would be repeated - my brother-in-law, when he was young, went up to my mother-in-law's mom and asking "are you the grandma?" when he was told to ask grandma if he could have something but she was so absent from his life he didn't know who she was!). But she did come back when she said she would.

Well... we knew within 48hrs of her leaving this last time that that's who she was with. There's been various pictures the girl has posted online, further proving that they're together...

Seriously guys, she replaced me - her daughter-in-law whom she saw regularly, chatted with regularly, - with this distant relative of her ex's whom she met online and met once in person. She replaced her flesh and blood grandson whom she visited with on a weekly basis with this girl's toddler who's not much older than him.

And the feeling sucks.

I almost feel like she never really gave me a chance. I tried initiating "girls nights" with her like going to a movie or a Mary Kay party or other various parties, including her in the wedding planning and shopping for dresses among other times... who knows. She prided herself on her "church smile" which was good, but people started to see through it and recognize the act towards the end here as she over did and used it at the "wrong times". I wonder now if she used it with me, if her behavior towards to me was just an act the majority of the time. I just... I don't know. She says she still cares and loves all us kids, but then why the secrecy? She has a 2nd Facebook account with her maiden name - for the longest time she used it strictly for those stupid Facebook games which is why I removed it from my page - but a few weeks ago it "disappeared" from others' friends lists and the search. We thought she had deleted it but it was brought to my attention last week that nope, it still exists, others can see it (just not her family as she clearly has us blocked from it) and her profile picture is her with 2 of the kids of this other girl.

These kids she had never met until she went down there the 1st time... she referred to them as "her darlings" before she ever met them! It's been told to me that when she 1st held my son for the 1st time she said he was "cute" but that she felt "nothing" towards him. Like that doesn't hurt.

Seriously, it feels like she replaced me and like she never gave our mother-in-law/daughter-in-law relationship a chance.

I always used to think I had the coolest mother-in-law - she liked the same music we did, read the same books, watched the same shows... but now... not so much - abandoning your family, burdening them in the process with all the responsibilities you up and left behind, and replacing them with others... no, that's not cool at all.