Future mother-in-law, I have to thank you. You raised the man I am going to spend the rest of my life with. You loved him, nurtured him and made him into who he is today. You made him into the person that I love more than anything in the entire world. But, you are a toxic parent. And because of how much I love your son I am sorry, but I will not stand for that toxicity to be in his life any longer.

Please do not get me wrong, you are his mother and you will always have a relationship with your son and the family we plan to start. I simply mean that I see what your toxic influence does to him, and I cannot let that continue the way it is going any longer. You might not know that things you are doing are harming him--I cannot fault you for simply now realizing, but after reading this letter, you must try to change those behaviors for the sake of us all.

“Me, a toxic parent, no way!” Yes way, and I am sure that as a mother that is not what you want to hear about yourself, and I am sorry that I have to tell you about it. You love your son, I can see that, but you hurt him too, and that has to stop.

When you call to check in, I know that you do genuinely want to know about his life, but your calls always coincidently happen when you need to release all of your failures, insecurities, and feelings, and you do that on him. He listens to you talk about your second marriage falling apart. He listens to you whine and complain about your other children. He listens to you wish for a different life. He listens, and it makes him feel as if he is the cause of your pain and he is the one who let you down.

Any accomplishment he, or his siblings, make is initially recognized, and then dismissed, replaced by something you think about it or something that you did similarly and then never brought up again. Their failures though never seem to end, giving you something to cling to and worry about in replace of dealing with your own shortcomings and issues. You try to ruin and control his relationship with his father--the man from the first marriage you could not make work--and you have no right to do so, not simply out of spite and frustration when his father does nothing against you.

Every time you send him a text or you meet for lunch I have to worry about what emotion he is going to return with. Sadness. Guilt. Regret. Shame. Embarrassment. Disappointment. He does not like to talk about it with me because the emotions are complicated and messy--how can one feel shame and guilt from one simple interaction with their own mother?

I know that you have your own set of problems and that I have not been in your life as long as he has. I cannot know all the intricacies of your relationship nor of your past experiences. I am not an expert in you or your family as a whole but what I am an expert on, even more than you are now, is your son.

I am not asking you to be perfect. We all have our flaws and we all make mistakes. What I am asking for, is for you to be positive and nurturing towards your son, towards the child that you love so dearly. He is more than just a dumping ground for all of your issues and he is more than just a trophy from your first divorce.

He is the person that I love with all of my heart. He is a person who is kind, smart, caring, funny, unique and strong. He is the person that you raised to be that way. You will always be his mother, but as your future daughter-in-law, I cannot sit back and watch your toxic parenting harm the man that I love. Please, as the person your son has chosen to spend his life with, be the parent that he deserves.