My FI has always said his mom is a bit nuts and a million other things, and I've always been on the outside of disputes and such, and had a relatively good relationship with her, but recently she's been saying pretty hurtful things.
A few weeks ago, FI and I put together a sign for the wedding; we cut it out of pallet wood, shaped it like a heart. He painted it white, and then I spent about a good hour or so writing and then painting "Best Day "ever" "02-08-15" (wedding date) on 3 boards. I pretty much copied it right off of Pinterest. We had been staying with his parents while we were waiting to move into our new place, and his mom has been incredibly helpful with a lot of the DIY projects. So I asked if she wanted to see the finished product, and then showed it to her. She looked at it and said "oh did you want my opinion?" and I said "no, I just wanted to show you that I finished it". Then she decided to give me her opinion anyways and told me "best" and "day" were too close together (I actually put dots outside and between the words to separate them) and that people would wonder what that word is and that I should sand it off, repaint it white, then repaint the wording because it didn't look good. I told her I didn't think anyone would really notice that, and it had already taken me quite a while (the wood while painted and somewhat sanded was bumpy so I had to go very slowly). So that was pretty upsetting. FI told me to ignore her but it still really hurt.
Then we finally moved into our new place on May 1. This past Saturday, FMIL came over to drop a few more of our things off and FI was taking her for lunch because he was working Sunday (mothers day). In our front entrance, we have a couple paintings hung up that I did. One is of our Beta fish (that I made for my Fi a couple years ago for his b-day) and the other is 2 nautical flags representing the letters of our first initials. She asked who did the paintings, and FI piped up quite happily saying that I had made them. FMIL then says "your lines are crooked". I walked off so I didn't say something I would regret. She then took a peek in our bedroom, again the walls have paintings I had done, except for 2 tree painting/prints that FI found in our old condo's garbage room (he's a bit of a scavenger). She looks are those 2 pictures and says "oh these are nice!" So finally I said "funny how the only 2 paintings she likes are the only ones I didn't paint." FI had a bit of a talk with her later on about that too.
I guess I'm just feeling like I'm getting some weird nastiness towards me for no reason. We stayed with them for about 5 months, and I was nothing but helpful and kind to her. We've grown close enough that we've been able to joke around together, but those 2 things were more hurtful to me than joking. I even made her jam for mothers day!!!!
Anyways, FI keeps saying to let it go, that's just how she is. I feel differently though because he's her son so he's used to this "normal behavior" of hers, but to me it's not normal. And it's upsetting because we've had such a good FMIL/FDIL relationship up to this point. Anyone had similar experiences? I don't wanna lose it on her
