Hi all,

Woof... this is a long time coming. I've been lurking on this subreddit for a few weeks, and obviously created a throwaway (like many others of you) so I can post this.

Long story short, my SO and I have been together for over two years and we had a lovely, happy life together. That is, until his mother moved down here last August. She moved for a variety of reasons, but largely because she was unemployed due to recently losing a job and SO was tired of financially supporting her, so he moved her here where he knew he could get her a job and thought that would lessen the financial burden on him. His family warned him that it was a bad idea - he didn't listen.

Quick summary of events:

• She's completely turned her back on what family she has here, leaving my SO the brunt of dealing with her.
• She's hell-bent on ex-ing me out of my SO's life. Every time I'm around her, she makes nasty remarks to me, tells my SO I'm being rude to her (I'm not), or my preferred option - she completely ignores me. If things seem to go well, she texts/calls my SO endlessly telling him nasty things about me.
• Next-level bad things she has done: (1) slammed the door of my parents' house in my face while we were together for the holidays - for kindly asking her to please keep her dogs in the room she was staying in, so they wouldn't "go" in the house while we were out, (2) talked shit about my brother for not wanting to build a gingerbread house, and the worst of all (perhaps best of all?) (3) ruined my SO's proposal by basically making it super obvious to me - so I told him I knew b/c the surprise element is really important to him. She's also been very vocal about not wanting us to get married.
• My SO and I just moved into an apartment together about 2 months ago, and she refuses to acknowledge that we live together. She thinks my SO lives with her (spoiler alert: he hasn't for almost 4 years).
• Lied to my SO that she still owed mortgage payments on her second home (she uses the other as a rental property) so that my SO would feel bad and help her pay her rent each month.
• Somehow convinces my SO that she needs money constantly, even though she makes more money than I do and has a rental property as additional income - so I really don't know where the money is going, and my SO hasn't sat her down to have a frank conversation about her finances like I've asked him to.

Obviously, I know she isn't playing with a full deck. She fits the description of narcissist to a T. Thanks to many hours with my wonderful therapist, I've gotten to a point where her words/actions don't affect me as much as they used to. That being said, I'm now more focused on the issues between my SO and me, especially in relation to his mom.

Issues between my SO and me:

• He doesn't stand up for me in front of his mom (although apparently he does afterwards). Still, I feel like she gets her validation as she's being nasty towards me and he's not saying anything.
• He feels guilty that his mom is alone (his dad passed away years ago), so he makes excuses for his mom's behavior and feels like he needs to be a "stand-in" for his dad.
• I don't feel that he has strong enough boundaries (financially, emotionally, etc.) with her. My mom has severe mental illness as well, and I uphold tight boundaries/expectations with her including expecting her to continue to take her medication and see her psychiatrist. If not, my mom knows it is game over and I will forcibly institutionalize her again. If her pattern continues, my mom knows I will no longer be a part of her life.
• The rest of his family wants him to cut her off completely (all communication and financial help), but he doesn't listen. I don't think he needs to completely shun her, but he does need to set and uphold firm boundaries. Thus far, he hasn't done a stellar job at that.
• Due to some circumstances, we will undeniably have to have kids through IVF, which is a huuuuge financial burden. SO and I are both very much "kid people" and would like to have children in about 4 years, so this is something I am saving for now. He is not. I've brought it up to him that I'm concerned all the money he should be saving towards our kid process is being spent on his mom, but he brushes it off and says that we will just magically figure it out somehow.

That being said, I love my SO more than I've ever loved anyone else I've dated and crazy FMIL aside, I could see us living a happy life together.

Reasons why I want to stay with my SO:

• He meets all of my "criteria" that I set as important to me with my therapist. In so many ways, we are the perfect match for each other including shared political opinions, common interests, frequent weekend trips, culture, food, etc. etc.
• He is open to couples therapy (we have gone together before) and he is going to start seeing a therapist on his own, as well as with his mom if he can convince her to go.
• He loves my family as his own, and my family loves him (and is even willing to deal with his mom for holidays). He's already talked with everyone in my family about marrying me, and they're all on board with it.
• FMIL aside, I love his family and see his brother and his girlfriend as my own siblings.
• We officially moved in together about two months ago, and everything about our apartment is perfect. We've finally gotten into the groove of day-to-day living.
• He loves my cat.

Breaking point for me was last weekend, when he told me that his mom was "right about me in regards to some things." Little bit of context, she found out he was still planning to propose (after her attempts to ruin the proposal in the first place) and she had a complete shit fit in front of their entire family (they were back in the Northeast for the weekend). She texted me telling me that I was no longer welcome to come visit at the end of the month (I guess when he was planning on proposing). It was a very stressful weekend, and I feel like he took a lot of that stress out on me.

Things he said his mom is right about:

1. I roll my eyes at her (formerly true, but once he and my therapist brought it to my attention, I've made a concerted effort to stop).
2. I intentionally exclude her from things. I don't believe I do, so I asked him to give me an example. He said the gingerbread house over Christmas, to which I responded what gingerbread house? The one that no one built? It's impossible to exclude someone from an activity that no one did.
3. I don't have my act together (although he denies saying this). This stems from me currently thinking about a career change. I'm currently employed full-time with excellent benefits, but don't feel respected in my job and am thinking of going back to school to enter a different career. I do not sit on my ass all day, and I very much have my act together.

After this, I told my SO to not propose anytime soon, as I really need to take a step back to evaluate things from here. SO knows our relationship is on thin ice, and has agreed to go to therapy and set firmer boundaries with her. Just want to get some outsiders' perspective on this. Everyone I've asked for advice on this (my parents, my best friend, my therapist, and his brother's girlfriend) obviously all know what a wonderful person he is.

Should I stay (and give him more chances to prove himself), or should I go?