My fiancée and I are getting married in less than 30 days. We live in my mother in law's house, she is paying for the wedding and is very controlling. She is driving me crazy but more importantly she is driving my fiancée, her daughter, insane. She is a sweet woman but she has severe control issues and my fiancée is literally mentally degrading. My fiancée is now on medication to assist her with depression and anxiety. She is drinking more and finding more reasons to go out with her friends to drink. Not only does this make her mother mad because of the many things that need to be done for the wedding but I feel it is becoming a problem. My fiancée used to 'cut' as a teen but hasn't for about 10 years. She has mentioned it to me one night while she was drinking that she felt like 'cutting' herself. I am extremely worried but I know that if she felt a lot less stress, things may calm down for her mentally. I have offerred to do so much but many of the last minute things are only for my fiancée to do (fittings, bridsmaid gifts, etc.). I'm afraid that she's not going to make it through this a healthy person or even at all. Please if anyone has any advice or suggestions, please help...

Move out of the mother in laws house, get your own place and you should have not had a big wedding you can't afford. ( but that is most likely too late at this point)

Take on as much of the responsibility as you can, and try to buffer the situations between her and her mother. You might even want to approach your future mother-in-law (in a respectful, non-confrontational way) that you think your fiancée is getting really stressed and you are worried about her, so maybe you should scale things back a bit. Surely she doesn't want to be the source of pain in her daughter's life.

As Chuck said, the best thing at this point is to move, but moving on top of a wedding is likely to cause more stress. So consider finding a place to move to ASAP after the wedding is over. In the mean time, YOU need to stay calm and cool, and not add more stress to the situation.

Oh, and offer your lady a foot rub or back rub every night - you might be surprised at how much it will calm her down! :)

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Originally Posted by Fr_Chuck

move out of the mother in laws house, get your own place and you should have not had a big wedding you can't afford. ( but that is most likely too late at this point)

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The wedding is easily affordable to all of us, I don't know where you got that idea. Not really good advice

If this wedding is so "easily affordable by all of us" then why is the future mother-in-law controlling it all? If you moved out of that house, which it sounds like you can afford, you would out of the future mother-in-law's control. Why are you living with her anyway? You need to get you and your fiancée out of there asap. Even if it to stay with some friends until the wedding.

Instead of concentrating on this wedding, concentrate on the emotional and physical health of your fiancée. Get her out of that home and back to see her doctor. Put your foot down for once and do not allow her mother near her.

The MIL is controlling because you are giving her the power to be so. By living in her house and allowing her to pay for YOUR wedding, she has control of everything.

That power-powerless dynamic between mother and daughter is not going to change with your wedding. What are you going to do when you have kids and your wife starts going nuts from her mother's interference and starts cutting herself again. Your finance needs to get counseling and learn skills to handle her mother or you will both be miserable.