help! Advice about difficult grandma

Hi there. I wanted to ask for some advice regarding my MIL and I wanted to get the perspective of a grandparent rather than a parent so thought it best to post on here.

It’s quite a complicated story but I’ll try and tell it as simple as possible. My husband and I have 2 children who are both now in full time school. My mum and my mil both live nearby and have helped out with childcare since they were little. I returned to work part time and our mums have helped to look after the children for us which we have been grateful for. I used to think my mil was lovely, I thought we got along but over the years she has become more and more difficult and I have gradually felt more and more uncomfortable when I’m around her.

When the kids were younger things seemed fine but as they’ve got older my mil has gradually got more jealous and possessive over the children. I’m obviously closer to my mum who pops over to see us quite a bit. My mil is incredibly jealous of this which we are aware of so we try and arrange things with her but lately she makes excuses or seems in a mood if she does do anything with us as a family.

My mil never pops over to our house even though she would be welcome to. She also never invites us to hers she just seems to want the kids on their own at her house (but then moans to others she just feels like a babysitter!). It seems no matter what we do we can’t please her.

Anyway we went on holiday with my family to celebrate my mums special birthday recently. My mil hates us going anywhere in general and we dread telling her about anything going on in our lives cos she always seems resentful or acts indifferent (including us getting engaged, buying a new house etc). In the run up to the holiday she was moody and short with us. She ignored texts/calls from my husband on the holiday and then when we got back she had a furious meltdown at my husband saying how we always leave her out, I’ve always hated her, she might as well be dead etc. She was incredibly angry but did not admit it was about the holiday and kept saying it was different reasons. My husband was incredibly upset after this and worried about her mental state. We did not feel happy about her looking after the kids when she was feeling like this so we had to tell her we didn’t want her to look after them unless she dealt with her negative thoughts/feelings.

This did not go down well and my husband spent a lot of time and energy trying to convince her she would benefit from some professional help. (This was not the first time she has had this kind of meltdown). She took this as a huge insult and turned it all round blaming us for everything, lying about what she’d said and done, trying to turn my husband against me, then threatening to take us to court so she could have the kids at her house. She was insisting that she would tell the children everything when she sees them despite the fact it would upset them to know we have all fallen out.

We told her she can still see the kids but we just didn’t feel happy her babysitting. We wanted her to see them at our house. She was furious at this (I think cos she is not in control). She has also lied and told everyone who’ll listen we have stopped her from seeing them (because according to her I’ve always hated her and am jealous of her relationship with the children). She said she has told everyone she knows what a b*****d my husband is and screamed in his face that he is dead to her. She’s said some truly unforgivable things to my husband and then denied saying them to his face when he brought them up, not only this but made out he was sick for saying such a thing! She also tried to convince him that he’s going mad and he needs help it’s been really awful.

There are other reasons too such as the way she tries to get the children to feel guilty when they don’t see her and how she plays the victim. She’s also puts my mum down to the kids even though she has never done anything wrong. I think it’s all based on insecurity and jealousy knowing her as I do now.

She did not come and see the children for weeks when this first happened but we finally arranged for her to come to the house to see the kids and she turned up the other day with a random friend we have never met (without asking if this was ok). We think this is because she hates us calling the shots so she wants to show us she is still in control.

I’m just wondering what other people think about what they would do in this situation? My gut is telling me I don’t want her in our lives, my husband doesnt either. But I feel the kids may want a relationship with her as she is their grandma so I don’t want to stop them seeing each other. It’s awkward though to have her over after all that’s been said. We also don’t trust her one bit. I also don’t trust her with the kids so refuse to send them to her house alone. Any advice or comments would be really helpful. Many thanks.