boyfriend's religious mother may be mentally ill

[religiousdementia?]

i've been dating this guy for a few months, we both live near his parents. he works with his dad and they are close. i love this boy very much.

 

his mother is quite religious. i am a bit concerned about the following activities:

 

1. whenever we drive somewhere with her, she makes us say the rosary all the way to the place and all the way home.

 

2. i left some of my books at her house and she has thrown them out after asking jesus if they were "bad" books or not. (they were classics from an english course)

 

3. we all have to bow our heads and say grace at restaurants; this one is just more embarrasing than anything else.

 

4. we won't go to church, so she openly prays for our sins and so forth during these dinner prayers.

 

5. she will start crying if anyone openly disagrees with her about any issue so the family simply lies to her all the time about everything. (i.e. what they think about, what movies they like, etc) when i first knew her, i giggled a bit at the book against masturbation in the bathroom, thinking it was a joke, and she was furious for weeks.

 

6. she has, in the past, spoken in tongues, had prolonged visions, and relentlessly informed her children and myself, often, about their father's infidelity and his conversion after she showed him his sins.

 

7. she gossips about me and the supposed sins i am committing with her son with other women in the community.

 

writing this out, it sounds even worse than i expected. but everyone is just sort of resigned to it. if people want to be this religious, well, its not for me but whatever, more power to them. it only upsets me when i feel that it intrudes on my day to day activities.

 

had anyone dealt with this situation before? i'm at my wit's end, and all i can think to do is just keep our distance and be very formal with her.

[chaotic]

yea, my mom is pretty crazy as well. i am planning to move out soon, and all i can tell you is, people wont change unless they see a reason to. his mom is perfectly fine with staying the way she is, and using her "religion" to terrorize you and her son all she wants. i personally am an agnostic, and i am fine with people having their own beliefs, but if someone wants to give you crap about not going to church, and enjoys rubbing it in how she is better than you, because she is religious, then she can go f**k herself. i can just suggest that you try to avoid her whenever possible, and dont try to get her to stop, cuz she probably wont.

 

ive also noticed that very relgious people tend to be very sure of themselves, and also very stubborn.

 

chaotic

[my_mother's_daughter]

Sometimes, a bi-polar disorder can manifest a religious mania, however religious mania can also simply be that in itself. My opinon is that she certainly exhibits some symptoms of a person I would describe as "not well" but only a fully qualified psychiatrist could diagnose the presence of any mental illness.

 

My advice to you would be to extract yourself as far as possible from the integral part of this family you seem to have become. Is it necessary to spend so much time in her company? Any mental illness diagnosis and treatment is the responsibility of, and should be instigated by, either herself and/or her family and I would advise you to not get involved.

[HokeyReligions]

1. whenever we drive somewhere with her, she makes us say the rosary all the way to the place and all the way home.

If she wants to say it, fine. But I wouldn't bow to this and I wouldn't say anything. If she had a problem with it I would just tell her it's her problem and if she wants to pray about it go ahead, but leave me out of it.

 

2. i left some of my books at her house and she has thrown them out after asking jesus if they were "bad" books or not. (they were classics from an english course)

I'm reall picky about my books. I would insist she replace them, and I would make sure to never leave anything over there again.

 

3. we all have to bow our heads and say grace at restaurants; this one is just more embarrasing than anything else.

This one doesn't bother me - I'm agnostic and I've sat and waited for people to say grace.

 

4. we won't go to church, so she openly prays for our sins and so forth during these dinner prayers.

Well, if she got on a roll I might start eating something crunchy after a few minutes and continue to ignore her. Or get up and leave.

 

5. she will start crying if anyone openly disagrees with her about any issue so the family simply lies to her all the time about everything. (i.e. what they think about, what movies they like, etc) when i first knew her, i giggled a bit at the book against masturbation in the bathroom, thinking it was a joke, and she was furious for weeks.

Well, I can see where lying to her is the easy way out. If she cries, she cries. I know that sounds mean, but I'm not going let someone run all over me. Rather than disagree with her I would tell her that I didn't want to discuss it anymore and if she insisted, I would leave.

 

6. she has, in the past, spoken in tongues, had prolonged visions, and relentlessly informed her children and myself, often, about their father's infidelity and his conversion after she showed him his sins.

I'm afraid I would just walk away.

 

7. she gossips about me and the supposed sins i am committing with her son with other women in the community.

Probably the people she talks to either see her for what she is, or they are like her. So what if she gossips, don't let it bother you if you have nothing to be ashamed of.

 

writing this out, it sounds even worse than i expected. but everyone is just sort of resigned to it. if people want to be this religious, well, its not for me but whatever, more power to them. it only upsets me when i feel that it intrudes on my day to day activities.

If it's that intrusive, then maybe you need to discuss it with your bf and find a way to distance yourself from her.

 

had anyone dealt with this situation before? i'm at my wit's end, and all i can think to do is just keep our distance and be very formal with her.

Well, sort of. My mothers other daughter is a Jesus Freak to the nth degree. She's also a royal bitch and a hypocrit. I decided to have nothing to do with her and haven't seen her in over 20 years. I got tired of her tirades of how I should live my life because I was such a bad person, but it wasn't my fault - I just didn't know any better, but if I would strive to be like her I would be a decent person, blah blah blah. Who needs that? Is your bf worth all of this?

[moimeme]

Who needs that? Is your bf worth all of this?

 

I agree. If your BFs family is willing to let this woman take her religion to a point where it is dysfunctional without getting her checked, then you're in for a lifetime of this. It's odd, but when it comes to religion, people are 'hands off' no matter how wacky it gets as though having any association at all with religion, no matter how tenuous, somehow confers some sort of credibility on it.

[rel.dementia. guest]

First, thank you all very much for your support and suggestions. I really appreciate knowing that this is weird behavior, or that other people would not put up with it. The whole situation is very hurtful and it's getting worse. I always used to believe in being close to one's family, so does my bf, but there is something really odd here. I understand from your posts that the religion aspect is almost arbitrary, it's more of a control issue.

 

It would also help me very much to have some vocabulary to describe what she is doing? Is there a name for this kind of disorder? If I have a name for it, it seems clearer to me that there is a real problem here, otherwise I just think I'm being a petty unkind person. I did google search it but i could not find anything that was useful.

 

Thanks again - it means a lot to me!

[reldementia]

as a PS - I did not mean to sound lazy... i really appreciate all the work you all have already done here - if I just knew some key words to look up I can get better results; I just need to know where to start reseraching. Thanks again!

[my_mother's_daughter]

Religious mania???

 

But not a diagnosis, just an opinion. Religious mania is ot uncommon, usually manifests as a result of either a strict religious upbringing or sometimes as reaction to a traumatic event (many psychologists attribute religious mania in the female as a byproduct of sexual assault at an early age)

 

This is just for information, of course, it's quite possible that your bfs mother is just a religious fanatic: no specific reasons...

[mattdad]

It appears that her mother suffered grievously in her past, and is compensating for it by this extreme form of religiosity. She could really use some counseling; in the meantime, if she starts coming after you with knives - RUN LIKE HELL!!!