My husband has two kids from a short fling he had in his early 20s. I don’t want to give too much info about the situation but my husband and this woman, we’ll call her Mary, have never had an easy time of co-parenting. She checks all the boxes of a narcissistic abuser towards him. I’ve seen the texts myself she is bitter and has no respect for him as their father. She also has attempted to alienate the kids from my husband and myself. Needless to say a true co-parenting relationship is not possible with this woman. My husband has told her many times that he would like to have a parallel parenting relationship — only communication is about the kids, sticks to the point, and is all through e-mail so it’s documented. This idea is beyond her comprehension. There was a point where I attempted to be friendly with her to give them a buffer for communication but she made it very clear she wants nothing to do with me and has no respect for me. She doesn’t even acknowledge me at drop offs. My MIL, knowing we have parenting challenges with her, decided recently that she would buddy up to her and become that buffer instead. I want to make it clear that they had no previous relationship. So now my MIL is the one getting texts from their mom asking how visits are going and asking for pics of them. My MIL is not even in the same state as us so she’s texting ME asking how it’s going so she can relay the message to their mom. I have just been ignoring her when it comes to the kids. I feel she’s out of line and it’s not her place to step in like she has. We, more importantly my husband, has decided to do this parallel parenting for good reason and to protect himself and I feel like his mom should be respectful of that instead of going in as a middle man and trying to appease everyone. My husband agrees that she needs to respect his wishes and he’s tried to explain to her how and why he wants things this way but she doesn’t respect his wants on this. She was a single mom so I feel from her point of view she is more sympathetic to their mom wanting updates and such. Which I get, I’m a mom if want the same thing. But the fact is my husband can’t have that kind of communication with their mom because she uses it as an opportunity to tear him down every chance she gets. I feel like we should tell my MIL that we aren’t ok with her being in communication with their mom when we aren’t even in communication with her and she needs to stay in her lane on this one. Am I wrong? Any suggestions on how to have this convo with her so that she understands she’s out of line without hurting any feelings?