My husband says I ruined our family’s future after a fight with my MIL

My husband and I are currently separating after 14 years together (9 years married), and I honestly feel like my entire life imploded in one week.

We’re both 36 and have 3 daughters together. My oldest is 17 and technically my stepdaughter, but my husband has been in her life since she was 3 years old. We also have daughters who are 7 and 2.

For context, my oldest has autism and can be extremely challenging at times. I also fully admit that I have struggled with my own mental health for years and should have gotten help sooner. I haven’t always treated my husband the way I should have. I can be very reactive emotionally, especially under stress.

A huge source of tension has been my mother-in-law and housing.

We currently own our own home, but had it listed for sale because the plan was for us to move into a much larger house together. My MIL would own the majority share and live in a separate basement apartment, while my husband and I would take care of the overhead costs and expenses so she wouldn’t have to worry about bills for the rest of her life.

Financially, it honestly made sense. My MIL had already helped us tremendously by paying off about $50k in debt, and the money from the sale of our current home was supposed to go toward renovations on the new house. We hadn’t invested money into the property yet aside from helping with property taxes.

The move also meant a lot to my husband because he’s exhausted from constantly working and commuting. Right now he drives anywhere from 1.5 to sometimes 2 hours each way depending on traffic. Originally, I struggled with the idea of moving because I currently live 3 minutes from my work, while moving would increase my own commute to 45 minutes to an hour.

When we first discussed the move, I was bitter about leaving the city we currently live in. At the time, it felt like I was giving up my routine, support system, and stability while already overwhelmed raising 3 kids.

But over time, I finally came to terms with it and started to genuinely look forward to it. The new house would actually bring us closer to my own family and back to the city we both grew up in. Our daughters became excited too, especially my 7-year-old who was already talking about her new room and making friends with the neighbours.

Then last week everything exploded.

I was still recovering from a concussion, found out I was being laid off from my job (which later turned out to be a mistake by HR), and then at our daughter’s birthday party I found out my MIL had apparently been speaking negatively about me again to extended family.

I completely lost it.

I’m not proud of my behaviour at all. I yelled, screamed, and told her to leave. She had also been living with us temporarily for the past few months after selling her own home, so tensions were already high in the house. My husband got extremely upset with me, and honestly I was so angry and emotionally flooded that I don’t even remember everything I said.

The next day my husband told me he thinks we should separate.

I spiraled emotionally. I was devastated and honestly became suicidal. I kept trying to reach out to apologize and talk things through, but he was working all weekend and emotionally shutting down.

Then he told me his mother no longer wants us on title for the new house and that we’re no longer moving because I “ruined everything.”

To make things even more confusing emotionally, my husband also cheated, yet somehow I feel like I’m the one desperately chasing him, apologizing, and trying to hold the family together while carrying all the blame.

What hurt even more was that when we discussed the cheating, he compared it to the Rachel and Ross “we were on a break” episode from Friends. But to me, that comparison felt incredibly dismissive because we aren’t a sitcom couple casually dating. We’re married, have been together 14 years, and built a life and family together. It didn’t feel funny or grey-area to me. It felt devastating.

What hurts most is that I feel like nobody is looking at the bigger picture. Yes, my behaviour was wrong. I fully own that. But this feels bigger than one fight. There have been years of tension, emotional burnout, unresolved resentment, family involvement in our marriage, financial stress, mental health struggles, and pressure on all sides.

I understand many people will say my MIL helped us financially and therefore has every right to control what happens with the house. Rationally, I get that. But emotionally, it feels like the housing situation created an unhealthy power dynamic where one emotional blow up suddenly changed the future of our entire family. I finally reached out to my work EAP and found a counseling office that offers direct billing. So in a week I've had 4 sessions so far. And I've booked ahead for the next month weekly 2 times a week.

I genuinely love my husband. I don’t think he’s a bad person. I think he’s emotionally exhausted and stuck in the middle. But I also feel heartbroken that after 14 years together, our future now feels tied to whether his mother approves of me.

I honestly don’t even know what I’m asking anymore. Advice? Perspective? Maybe just wanting to know if anyone else has experienced in-laws having this much influence over a marriage and major life decisions.