Breaking Free from Narcissistic Abuse

Narcissistic In-Laws: Why They Deny the Truth (and What to Do)

• Kerry McAvoy, Ph.D. • Season 4 • Episode 225

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Ever wonder why your in-laws rallied around your abusive partner instead of protecting you? 

This episode explores one of the most painful dynamics in narcissistic abuse: when families choose to protect the abuser and paint YOU as the problem. We revisit a past interview with Rossana where she shares her firsthand experience of this dynamic along with a Fan Mail listener who experienced something similar. 

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MORE ABOUT ROSSANA FAYE

ROSSANA FAYE knows what it's like to be trapped on an emotional rollercoaster. After surviving 14 years in an abusive relationship, she transformed her pain into purpose—becoming a Certified Life and Relationship Coach dedicated to helping others break free from narcissistic abuse. 

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Narcissistic In-Laws_ Why They Deny the Truth (and What to Do)

Rossana Faye: [00:00:00] There was one time that, well, a few times actually, where my ex-mother-in-law would say, oh, you've built such a beautiful home to my ex-husband. This is such a, this is such a great home. You've built, you know, for your wife, for your kids. This is your home. It wasn't our home. It didn't feel like our home.

His home and it just felt like it was a jab at like, you are not the mom. You are not the new woman that's in this life. This has always been my son, my house, and this is what he's built for you. That's what it felt like.

Dr. Kerry: Well, this is mid holiday celebration between Christmas and New Year's, which means you're spending a lot of time with family, and that also means you're spending a lot of time with in-laws, which can be complex and extremely complicated. So today we're gonna do a look back at an old episode I did with Sanna Faye around Toxic [00:01:00] in-Law dramas, and we're gonna focus particularly on this fan mail question.

Sometimes the narcissist isn't our new partner, but someone in their family today, Sanna May joined me to talk about what happens when you find that you have toxic in-law, drama, and the self-help tip is how to create better couples boundaries so you can protect the integrity of that relationship. One of the things we have not been talking about has been what happens when you marry into a family that's dysfunctional.

Maybe your partner is healthy, maybe, maybe, maybe not, but. You start to realize, and often it doesn't happen right away, but you start to realize that there's family dynamics happening in the background that's starting to interfere with your relationship and interfere with your life. Um, is this something that you experienced?

I know I, I experienced some of it and I also have watched a lot of people struggle with it. 

Rossana Faye: Yeah, absolutely. I've experienced it firsthand in my marriage. As well as, you know, heard of it from my clients that they struggle with it, [00:02:00] especially with in-laws siblings, your, your partners, your ex-partners, siblings.

But mostly in-laws. And it can be really challenging because there's this fine line that you need to kind of walk through to see, you know, what can you say, what can't you say? Is this appropriate? Is this not appropriate? And you're also stepping the boundaries of another person's family, so. Mm-hmm.

That's tough. 

Dr. Kerry: Yeah. Because what we often don't think about is that a family is essentially like a mini culture. So when you join a family, and I, I don't think we emphasize enough to people when they get into a relationship, you're not just getting into a relationship with this person. You're marrying into this family and that this family has a way of doing things.

It's got traditions, it has ways of seeing things. It has certain values that may be radically different than yours. For example, I remember a friend of mine, a good friend of mine, that dude. Uh, see a lot. And so I got to watch the early part of her new relationship with her partner is that her family, her, it was his family actually had a tradition that every person had to receive seven gifts at [00:03:00] Christmas.

That's kind of cute. Bring in, in, you know, partner, the kids as partners, and then they start to have children, and you times that by seven. Now you're talking about. Lots of gifts and lots of money, and that cost of time. There's the cost of money. There's having to really know what would somebody want. You know, you go to effort and then maybe it's not really the greatest experience for the person, so you kind of miss.

And it creates then that, that for me would be really frustrating. And I remember watching her running around circles trying to do this, and every year sort of being exasperated frustrated and really, it's not her tradition. It really, and it cost them a lot, and it, it was outta sync of her values. And I thought, yeah, that's really a great example of how tough it can be when even something innocent.

I know that wasn't, that family didn't mean to do any harm by that, but it was really adding a burden to a new couple to have to participate in this tradition. But it can get really bad. I mean like fights over who spans where with holidays or, or even when it comes to child rearing, you know, [00:04:00] expectations around child rearing.

I bet you you saw some interesting stories as a doula even with that. Mm. 

Rossana Faye: Well, yeah. I'll just talk a little bit about my own personal experience as. As I started to have children, my ex's mom, so my ex mother-in-law, she had her own expectations of what motherhood looked like and what parenting looked like, and was very quick to giving me all sorts of advice.

And as I started to kind of find my own way and then even share as a doula what I've learned in the community, being a doula and being with parents all the time, new parents. Because, you know, 20, 30 years later, parenting has changed and sharing with her some of what I've known, like some, some of the knowledge that I've gained.

Mm-hmm. She was very quick to shutting it down, showing me her way. You know, there's one time she asked me, why aren't you giving the baby any water? I'm like, because babies don't drink water. They, they drink breast milk. They drink milk. They don't need water. They get water from breast milk because that's what saturates them.

That's what's gonna hydrate them on a hot day. [00:05:00] And I said, did you know that my, my milk actually gets a little bit more watery and it's diluted on a hotter day when I'm hot to hydrate my baby? And she was really upset about that. No, this is not what we do. We give a little bit of water. It's okay to give water to babies.

You know, just like little things like that. As I, as I started to share with her some of the knowledge and she was kept shutting it down. I just stopped sharing. I just, it didn't become a comfortable space to, to be a new mom. 

Dr. Kerry: Yeah. One of the things I also saw, and it happened a little bit in my first marriage, it can be a competition between parents and the new partner where they're actually, it almost becomes a test of the adult child's alliance.

Who is this person gonna side with? Are they gonna side with their parents? Or they're gonna side with their partner and can be a terrible bind when, when you're feeling that pull. I, I know I certainly did, and it was really upset. I think even the part that upset me the worst was that my late husband couldn't see it in the beginning.

He just saw it as [00:06:00] innocuous, or that I was reading things into things that maybe weren't really there, and I knew that I, you know, in fact, I even went out and asked other people what were their opinions? And they're like, oh, no, no, that, you know that, that's not very appropriate. So. I know I wasn't, but it, it created tension for us and created, um, or even created arguments like if there was, uh, something coming up that I may not have wanted to go to, it wasn't as important to me.

I, I dreaded it and then I, I felt that, that I, the hostility when I was there, and then I had to sort of then nurse my wounds when I got out of it. But for me, it was, felt really, really lonely. I felt. I to have my partner not get what I was experiencing and then to feel this, you know, this tension, this competitiveness just made it very.

It's very isolating for me. I, I know that that's hard to see when you're, when it's your family, you feel protective of your family. 

Rossana Faye: Yeah. It's the changing of reality too, where you're, you're almost conditioned by the in-laws or by their family. [00:07:00] There's not a big deal. You know, you're, you're making a big deal out of it, or it's, this is not what's really happening.

It is appropriate. This is, this is how they did it in the old days. This is, this is just the relationship we have. This is a tradition we have. Because you feel a type of way about it. You're, you know how you went out and you had to ask people like, is this appropriate? Was this correct? You had to almost confirm your reality.

Like, am I experiencing this? Am I okay to feel this way? Am I okay to feel lonely? Left out, isolated, like I'm getting kicked out of the circle. That's what it felt like for me. Sometimes I was getting kicked outta the circle. You know, there was, there was one time that, well, a few times actually where. You know, the, my ex-mother-in-law would say, oh, you've built such a beautiful home to my ex-husband.

This is such a, this is such a great home. You've built, you know, for your wife, for your kids. This is your home. It wasn't our home. It didn't feel like our home. It was his home. And it just felt like it was a jab at like, you are not the mom. [00:08:00] You are not the new woman that's in this life. This has always been my, my son, my house.

This is what he's built for you. That's what it felt like. 

Dr. Kerry: Were you able to talk to him about that? 

Rossana Faye: I tried, but uh, near the end of our marriage, she was sick and so everything was focused around, you know, her illness. She had hip surgery, she. She was, you know, she was diagnosed and she went into remission and everything.

You know, she was healthy. But for that period of time, for those, I think it was three or four years, it was a lot of like, well, she's sick. Yeah. She doesn't need this right now. This isn't what's this is, it's probably the illness that's making her angry and making her like this. And it, it, it was just kind of, we hosted around this whole, her being sick and that every, everything she said and everything she did as.

Inappropriate and as wild and as Ragey as it was, was just, no, she's sick. This is just my mom. This is how she is. She's not normally like this. And so, no, we didn't really get a chance to actually talk about it and how it made me feel. [00:09:00]

Dr. Kerry: Often there are two sides to what happens. There's how the survivor's behavior gets interpreted, and then there's what this survivor is actually experiencing.

I had a fan mail question that got a lot of response. Somebody actually wrote in to offer another perspective, and I wanna revisit this fan mail because it's a great example of how there can be multiple interpretations. In this letter, the listener wrote that she'd been the perfect daughter-in-law for many years, and then suddenly was seen as monstrous.

In that response, I unpack six reasons why someone could go from being beloved to suddenly becoming the enemy. So this individual writes in and says, I was in a 23 year marriage with four children marked by course of control and escalating abuse. That eventually became physical. For years, I was seen as the perfect daughter-in-law, and my former in-laws even preferred me to their own son.

But when I began calling out his abusive behaviors, the family rallied around [00:10:00] him. Now, I'm spoken about as though I'm the problem or the disordered one because of the lies he told them. So she wanted to point out, this individual wanted to point out that there are other reasons why somebody can seemingly change after a very long period of time, after a significant relationship with a group of people.

So let me give you six different possible scenarios that might explain for this sudden shift. The first is that it's the abuser who's casting the perfect daughter or son-in-law, or perfect loved one in a bad light, when really that person hasn't changed. Maybe in that private relationship between, you know, back, this is a family setting, so their in-laws, and then there's the primary relationship between the husband and a wife or the partners between the two partners, maybe the one partner who's being victimized suddenly starts setting limits and calling out bad behavior.

Causing the abuser to feel exposed to his [00:11:00] family. So what the abuser might do in that case, whether it's a man or a woman, they might flip the narrative and begin to use VO as a way to smear the victim as a way to make the victim look like the bad one instead of themselves. So they may actually start to create.

Seeds, uh, plant seeds of doubt by portraying this person, their partner as unstable or cruel or as the real problem. I dunno if you've heard of Gaslight syndrome. This is so severe and goes on for so long that everyone around that individual, the victim starts to accept that the victim has something wrong, that maybe they're delusional and they'll even, there's been known cases of where these individuals have been hospitalized for.

This mysterious condition that didn't actually exist. It was manufactured by other people in order to dump the blame on that individual. So that's scenario number one, that the abuser has flipped the narrative. Possibility number two is, has to do with families who protect their own. [00:12:00] And I think this is a, fits more in with the, the, the person who wrote in with a letter talking about their 23, 3 year long marriage, how suddenly things changed when she stopped protecting the abusive partner.

When she started calling this abusive partner out. Family members who have a, uh, dysfunctional disordered member in their ranks will often close ranks around that individual to, to protect them because they get benefits off. Off of siding with that individual. For one, it's if it's their child, they're protecting their own rep, their own reputation as a parent by saying, I didn't raise a bad child.

It's the person who's complaining. It's the bad one. It also though they may be getting some kind of benefits from that individual for. Take my ex, for example. His family definitely closed ranks around him, but it was because he was financially supporting at least one of them. So it would hurt them at their pocketbook if they took him on.

So you may often see this with children, adult children [00:13:00] who have in a very established well off parent who's toxic, they may not challenge that toxic individual for fear of losing access to the money that's. Possibility. Reason number two, family loyalty and power dynamics. The third possible explanation is that there's some type of trigger point that's happened in the victim or now who's become a survivor's growth.

Say for example, you have a toxic relationship, a pathological love relationship, and the victim in that situation is docile. Maybe they're showing people pleasing tendency. They do a lot of fawning, but maybe after years of placating their. Abusive partner, they just get weary and tired and they start to find their own voice.

And when they start to resist control, that behavior can look a lot like defiance, coldness, or hostility, especially to those who are still invested in keeping things the way that they were. And so a family watching that's from the outside may see [00:14:00] this victim become difficult as their. Be actually standing up for themselves and showing autonomy and strength.

That's possibility number three. Number four is maybe there is some type of. Abuse escalation has resulted in a cycle change maybe that this abuser's abuse has been escalating and becoming increasingly aggressive and reckless and controlling, and the victim is now becoming alarmed and worried about their own survival in this relationship.

And because of that, they're reacting more intensely. Maybe they're shutting down, they're lashing out. Maybe they're seeming more anxious and angry because of the dangerousness. That's increasing in the home and the family around them may see the change dynamic, but only witness the, the victim's change, personality change.

They may not see that the abuser behind closed doors has become more aggressive, more scary, intimidating, and [00:15:00] menacing. So they may interpret that the victim has become different, become less sweet. Instead of seeing this as actually a, a survi is a, a response to an a worsening abuse cycle That's.

Possibility number four. Number five is sometimes that there is selective truth telling and withholding. We don't really tell people what's happening behind closed doors. Sometimes when we're in abusive relationship, we pass it off as just them being, you know, having a bad day or we laugh it off as them being them.

We don't, we really acknowledge or admit how things are behind closed doors. But once we start to stop selectively telling the truth, we start to really share what's happening. It may feel like a betrayal to say that, Hey, your son and daughter is not that easy to live with. That I've been hiding the worst of it.

I've been keeping the secrets of the the massive betrayals, and there may be a retaliation against that. [00:16:00] Truth telling in which then the victim becomes scapegoated for coming forth with honesty. And then the sixth possible reason this could happen in a family like this is that, um, families also get taken in by abusive people.

They oft sometimes don't know what the truth is too. Is their son or daughter the good person that they often see and hope for? Or is it really a rough person who's abusive? It's very painful to admit maybe this person isn't as wonderful as they have imagined. And so they may then, instead of seeing that their abusive son and daughter as the culprit and the problem, they may actually project the toxicity onto the victim and say she or he made them that way.

They, they're the reason why this person is that way, and then they, they'll, um, hold the person, the victim, as the responsible one for creating the bad, uh. Tension and and for the abuse in the family. Now we're gonna jump back to the interview with Rosanna [00:17:00] who experienced something similar. Our bodies are very sophisticated and able to pick up nuances of intentions of other people.

Remember when her mother-in-law said, what a beautiful home a home your husband built that wasn't innocent, that was flipping the script on Rosanna. In the next clip, Rosanna, I share some practical tips. If you're experiencing some type of similar toxic in-law drama. 

Rossana Faye: A lot of those questions come from a why, like, why do they do this?

Mm-hmm. Why are they, um, not taking my side? Why is this? Um, becoming an issue. Well, I think that the, the biggest thing is it's not about the why. It's about what are you gonna do next? It's about how are you going to, yeah. How are you going to calm your nervous system for this? How are you gonna change your perspective on this?

Or your perception of what this actually is, which is another sick woman or another person that is unhealthy in somebody else's family. That's trying to get you to do something that you're not comfortable with. That's just what it is. Yeah. Has nothing to do [00:18:00] with who you are, how you parent, how you mu, how, how you are as a wife or as a partner has nothing to do with you.

It everything to do with them and their unhealthy dynamics. So I try to get my clients to separate themself from the issue. Mm-hmm. And look at it from a different perspective. Just look at it like. This isn't what you are ex like, yes, you're experiencing this, but this isn't what is actually happening.

This is from their experience and their view of things. 

Dr. Kerry: Yeah. I love that you're pointing out that a lot of this is projection and that's being played out with them. I think the other vulnerability, and I know this was certainly true for me, but I think it's also true for a lot of other people, we go into these relationships with needs and some of us may even have our own.

Mother hunger or father hunger, and we hope that this family is gonna be our new second family. You know that, first of all, that's a tall order. It's a tall order to put even on the healthiest of families. And I, I think it really comes back to that. We need to look at what our expectations are and to realize this is a.

Just as if we were to go to a whole new country and we'd have to learn the rules [00:19:00] to the new country. We really need to learn the new rules to this family and, and that that there may be mismatches in things that don't quite line up or things that we wish we could get that we're not gonna get. But that doesn't.

Sometimes that means the family's not healthy, but sometimes that just means our expectations. Too big or in the wrong direction. 

Rossana Faye: Yeah. Different from yours. Yeah, exactly. Different from what you've, you know, been brought up with. And so, yeah, I think that's the biggest thing is just realizing that it's different.

I wish I had these tools back then. I wish I had these tools when I was married because there were many times where, you know, you bring up triangulation. Where my mom actually, and my ex's mom got into a tip over money that I was spending on my hair, nails, lashes, whatever money that I made, of course. And this was a perfect, perfect opportunity for my ex to come in and swoop in and say, see, my mom sees it.

Your mom sees it. You spend way too much money and you know. I've shared this with you before that a big issue and my [00:20:00] marriage was over money coming from somebody who I was, I was married to somebody who's a gambling addict who spent a lot of money on substances. Who is, you know, still probably struggling with addiction.

And so the, the consumption, like always spending money and always just frivolously being. That was something that he tried to pin on me and that was a clear projection. And then just a really great example is just him reaching out to my mom. Then having the two moms come together concerned about my spending and my ex-mother-in-law was just so about it.

She just loved the drama. She just loved it, especially because he came to her and asked her for support financially and also with his addiction. She was like, no, no, no. You are not an addict. You're not an alcoholic. It's your wife. She spends too much money. Mm. She's the problem because she couldn't look at her own son and say, you know, the addiction is something that we can address.

It became her problem. So she's like, no, it's not my problem. Yeah. It's gotta be hers. [00:21:00] Yeah. So this is, it was, it was, it was. It got nasty and really messy near the end, and I wish I had tools just. To know that these family dynamics, they are different. They have nothing to do with you. Yeah. And they are a projection.

Dr. Kerry: Yeah. And sometimes you make another really good point. Sometimes the more toxic a person is, the more dysfunctional they are in their thinking, then the more likely they're gonna be not only competitive and envious, but they also may wanna destroy you. Mm-hmm. That's what it felt like. Yeah. That's what I, that's what I hear.

That big story. Really. I could feel the, the effort to kind of get rid of you, or at least to throw you, you know, to really throw you under the bus. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. People often wanna know what to do, so let's move into some self-help suggestions. I, I think there's maybe more than just one tip.

There's several that we're gonna talk about that are gonna be really, really useful. And then, uh, but one of the things that I find super helpful to remember is that it is a new environment that you're moving into and that this is, has a long history. We often forget that because we know our own immediate, I [00:22:00] mean, you're the outsider coming in.

You know what you wish would happen, and you know that the relationship you're trying to build with your partner and whether your partner is dysfunctional or not dysfunctional or a little bit dysfunctional, you're really still hoping to have a connection with them. But they also at the same time are trying to balance the connection, what they have with their family.

And so sometimes in a competitive situation, families will make it an either or they'll say. If you align with your new partner, then we see that as a threat. Then you're not choosing us, and they'll actually kind of make it an either or situation. That's tough because that person's being put, the person who stands in the center between their own family and then their new partner is being put in the position of having to choose and they shouldn't have to choose.

I think the degree that we cannot worsen it is really great, but that's hard not to, when you've got someone actively working against you in the other family, it makes it really hard. They're saying, you're the enemy, and then you're saying, I don't wanna be, I don't wanna act like an enemy. It's very hard to [00:23:00] stay out of the enemy role when you've got somebody character placing you there.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Putting you 

Rossana Faye: right in that spot. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I agree. I think another thing too to remember is that we're grown up. The way we grew up, the way our upbringing is, is very different. It's like building up something like a structure, A house. Yeah. And then joining with somebody else who's built up their house.

Very different. And we try to like put them together, like all the pieces of this house together into one. Yeah. And. It's too much. It's, it's, you know, you can't put all of the pieces into one big house. So I think having the things that work in, in yours and the things that work in theirs, and just meshing them together and picking what works well and leaving some of the rest behind, like, we don't have to have the tradition of seven gifts if it doesn't work with your family financially or the commitment of it.

We don't have to have, um, you know, this mindset where you have to do everything your family says to, to, yeah. Just because that's how you grew up. So I [00:24:00] think having a discussion with your partner in Healthy Dynamics and really laying that out of what is our house gonna look like? What is our family going to look like?

What worked in your upbringing, what worked in mine and, and put it together to make your own. I think that's really important to just have that, and I know this is not gonna work for toxic relationships, but in he'll be dynamics. Yeah. Coming from toxic or maybe sometimes toxic upbringings that you just really work together to, to build something and create something for yourself.

Dr. Kerry: I can already hear what some people are gonna say. They're gonna say though. So let's imagine that you're the person who's got the toxic family and now you have a new partner and there's this tension growing and your partner says, well, what do we wanna do? Let's use the seven gifts as a Christmas gifts as an example.

'cause it's just an easy one. Let's say, well, what do we wanna do? What are our val, what are our values around Christmas and Christmas giving? Maybe we don't even wanna give gifts, so we decide that we don't want to, and that the person who ends up being raised in that like. But it's special to her, or it's special to him, or it's special to my [00:25:00] family, and you're gonna really make them upset.

And what am I supposed to say to them? And you know what, now we're ru, they're gonna say, we're ruining their holiday. We're ruining this, this special tradition that they've always had. I think it was super hard because sometimes that's the position we're put in where it, it literally is a no win. And I think those are the times where it really comes back to if you are the person who's caught between your new partner and your family, for you to realize where does your allegiance really lie?

I mean, do you want the marriage to work? Do you want this partnership to work? Because if you keep choosing your family, it ultimately won't partner is gonna feel like you have betrayed them. But I also know that may mean you're costing your relationship or your fam at least a good relationship with your family.

And the more toxic the family is, the more they're going to make you choose. And it may mean you're going to lose. That connection that you once really, really enjoyed. And I think the hard thing for the person who's joining this situation is that we often have a different timeline. How we want this [00:26:00] healing and this process to go, want our partner to be on our side right away from the get go.

And I'm not saying they shouldn't, but the more this is an entrenched process, the more it's heavily dysfunctional and the younger they are and the less. Firm they are in their identity. You're, that's a tall order. They're gonna really struggle to do that. So you may have to see this as something that changes incrementally over time.

Now, should I have been patient with my late husband and let it be, take 30 years for him to sort of say, yeah, that's not good. I don't like what happened there. No, I'm, I'm, I think that was, I was very long suffering. But on the other hand, it may not happen in a week or a year either. 

Rossana Faye: Yeah, I agree with that.

It de definitely takes time. It takes many conversations. Maybe not one conversation to kind of get things started, but it's also maybe a yearly reevaluate of where your values are. Maybe you sit down and, and do goal setting with your kids and see if things change. Maybe the seven gifts a year works until you have three kids.

Yeah. [00:27:00] Right. And you no longer can afford to do that. Um, and maybe it shifts and it's also a conversation with the family as well. 

Dr. Kerry: I agree. I agree. I think that's a really, a great, yeah. I totally agree. Thank you so much for joining me today on this podcast. I'm so pleased to have you here again. Thank you.

Spending time with in-laws who are toxic can be very difficult. I hope today's episode has gone a little ways in helping you to reflect on what you might be going through with your family members. And I also wanna offer a reminder to be safe as we head into the New Year's weekend. And I'll be back here next week with a new episode and a new guest, and I'll see you in 2026.

Well, that's a wrap for this week's episode. Are you following me on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube? You can find me at Kerry Macy. PhD or you can learn more about me and my resources such as a toxic free relationship club@kerrymcavoyphd.com, and I'll see you back here [00:28:00] next week.

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