Is my mil being difficult or am I misreading her?,

[howrulottie]

We have been very busy recently with family gatherings every weekend of this month,so have said to pil ring before you come over please and we are available blah blah they then said to me its not enough time to see the grandkids on the days I said ,since then Ive seen her and she said dont worry we will see your kids when your at work ,im beginning to think she is being difficult and has a gripe with me.
Thing is we have always got on but I have recentley had to put my foot down becuase she wants to come over when the kids are just having a bath and Im getting them ready for bed and she tells me and does not ask please help as its really peeing me off.

[thedollshouse]

YANBU. You need to set boundaries otherwise she will walk all over you. People know they have to ring us in advance if they want to see ds, I can't just have people turning up when it is inconveinent.

[howrulottie]

bump

[Besom]

My dad took dd's arrival as an excuse to turn up at my house unannounced and just expected to be round here all the time. I have had to tell him not to do it.

He had a minor huff at me today because I told him he couldn't come round.

It's hard but you have to decide what your boundaries are and try to tell pils when they can't come. (I'm saying this like I always manage it fine, but the truth is I do find it difficult and my dad is still round more than I would like).

[iloveshoesandbags]

YANBU - mine used to need telling specifically not to call around. I used to come home and find them there waiting for us, just sitting in the car until we turned up. Sometimes they would wait for an hour!!
it was very frustrating.
Start as you mean to go on.

[howrulottie]

Thank you to you all for saying what I already thought, I try to be accomadating but I have started to get peed off with the sarky remarks and trying to tell me how to do things especially with the kids.
I have put up with it for so long now that it feels like i'm the child and not the parent and I have now started to set bounderies because if I dont she will be in a permanent fixture trust me,thing is my parennts are not like this so why take it from them.

[LEMprefersdogstocats]

Besom, my dad used to turn up all the time, ALL the time with DD1 - it used to make me so cross and i would be really shittty to him sometimes because of it - he died when DD2 was only 8 weeks old and never got to see her (he was too ill) - I would give ANYTHING for him to be irritating me by being here all the time

Sorry to be all precious about it, but we should treasure time with those we love because one day, we might not have it

[Besom]

LEM - I'm so sorry about the loss of your dad.

My dad actually had cancer this year but has now (thank god) been told he is in the clear, so I did go through a point where I thought we were going to lose him. I also lost my mother at a young age, so believe me I don't want to be withouth him.

He can still be extremely irritating though - I do try to rise above it but I'm not a saint!

[nickschick]

Set boundaries ?? these are grandparents -valuable assets to enrich any childs life,unless they are treating your dc with disregard or neglect welcome them with open arms.

Grandparents are a blessing.

We have only one grandad and Id love my dc to have a granny.

[Coldhands]

YANBU. My MIL does call before she wants to come over. But if it is not a convenient time, she will keep pushing to try and get us to come home etc so she can come at the time she wants and no other time. If I say "no sorry, I don't know what time we are coming back" etc. She doesn't bother again for months and months. Then when she does finally see DS again, she says "oh we haven't seen him for ages". She only works for a few hours in the evenings and could see him in the day but never offers. Always on a Sunday afternoon when we go out as a family.

She also hasn't offered to have DS since last April when she wanted to give him a bath at her house, get him ready for bed, then we were to go and pick him up. We told her it wasn't a good idea with his eczema stuff in the bath and putting his cream on after (he wasn't the easiest baby to put cream on), plus I didn't want to get him all settled for bed, then have to take him out in the car where he would fall asleep and we would have to wake him up again, then he wouldn't settle. She hasn't offered since then.

[thedollshouse]

nickschick. Grandparents are a blessing but that doesn't mean you shouldn't set boundaries. My pil's spend every evening round my bil/sil's house, they spend the entire weekend with them, every holiday is spent with them, they know everything about them and I mean everything. Bil/sil are fine about this (I think) but we aren't and if we hadn't set boundaries this would have been us.

When dh and I first moved into our home, mil had a key and came round our house and restocked our kitchen cupboards with food that she wanted us to eat. She told me I wasn't allowed to visit my mum one weekend because I had seen her 2 weeks before and when ds was born she wanted us to sell our house and move in with them so ds would think of her as a second mum. We had to be firm and set boundaries and things are fine between us all. If we had let them do things as they wanted we would have had to emigrate to Australia by now.

[posieparker]

secondcoming.....wtf?

Of course any visitor needs to come at your convenience, it's your house. Put your foot down now!

[Jux]

YANBU and everyone's right, you need to set boundaries.

My MIL was round all the time; dh told her to ring first which she started doing when dd was about 6m. However, she'd completely ignore me if I said dd had just gone down and was asleep and I was going to grab the opportunity to sleep too. She'd come anyway, use her key (ffs! why did dh give her one!) and come up the stairs shouting hello in order to wake dd up so she could play with her.

I'd have gone to the moon to get away from her but we didn't even manage Australia! We did move 150 miles which has worked pretty well!

Don't let it get that far. Good luck. (She'll forgive you because she'll want to see your dcs.)

[wonka]

I find this sort of thing very cultural.. I'm Irish.. if I was still in Ireland my family would be in and out all the time no appointments no invitations and they would not be unwelcome. I find it really Hard here that my MIL feels as though she has to be invited to visit and I try hard not to feel like it is disinterest that keeps her from just dropping by. I'd love somebody to be interested in seeing how funny they are in the bath together.. or want to help getting them into their PJ's! I think you are very lucky to have loving involved grandparents near by for your little ones

[thedollshouse]

I think you are right wonka to some extent it can be cultural. My mum is english and my dad is irish before they split up they had very different ideas about visitors. On my mums side visits to relatives who were not local were always planned in advance whereas my dads friends and family would just turn up out of the blue and expect you to find them a bed for a few weeks. It caused a lot of resentment between my parents and I remember feeling very uncomfortable on Sunday mornings when I would find yet another distant uncle/drinking pal sleeping on the sofa.

My mum and dad split up when I was 7 and visits from my dad were never prearranged he just turned up when he wanted to or was in the area. This was very unsettling for me and made me feel very anxious. I think it is partly why I feel so uncomfortable about unexpected visitors now.

[NanaNina]

I post as a MIL and a GM. I think some of the things posted on here by dils about mils can sound quite petty (like this one) and I just think that it is the underlying difficulty of the relationship between dils and mils that is the real problem, not the issue that is being presented. I just feel it sad that in this day and age this age old troubled relationship does not seem to have eased very much over time. I am fortunate in my r/ship with my dils but it can be tricky sometimes and there is the need for sensitivity on both sides.

Trouble is I sometimes think MILs can't do right for doing wrong - sometimes they are accused of not bothering enough with the GC and sometimes coming round too often etc etc. With this post I wonder if the OP would have a problem with anyone else doing this sort of thing, like her mom or best friend - probably not. I am not criticising because my mil was a bit of a pain and I never had much in common with her and much preferred my own mom around. However I think some dils need to realise that the paternal grandparents should enjoy a good relationship with their grandchildren as well as the maternal ones. We paternal ones can sometimes feel like "second best" at times you know.

And above all else, it is the children who have a right to enjoy good relationships with all their extended family, not the other way around.

Finally remember you mothers of sons, the years will whizz by and one day you will find yourself being a MIL...............and you might start to see things differently then, especially when the grandchildren come along.

[howrulottie]

Nananina I can assure you im not petty just looking out for my children and laying down bounderies. You have no right to judge me as some petty dil ,I would never stop them seeing their Grand parents but I dont like being told what to do ,being played against my sil and her children and my kids piggy in the middle, I dont like her sneaking over when Im at work and the rest that goes on you dont know what I have had to endure.
And my family and friends the same aplies to them they know my bounderies with the children she the only one that is a law to herself.
I tried to involve my mil from the start becuase she has no daughters thought it would be nice but it back fired and she tries to tell me whats best for my children she interferes, calls my partner when I say its not convient to get round him.
Sje is invited to dinner, I buy her flowers etc and im treated like this.
When Im was in labour and I said I wanted knowone their she turn up that is how much she respects me.
Im a nice dil and have been really sensitive to her feelings but she is not with mine, she wont let me breathe and on social occasions my parents cant get a look in becuase she is always here, I get the silent treatment if she does not get her own way believe me I have tried but I have had to stand up for myself after all they are our children.
I would like to think when Im a mil I will mind my own business and not interfere and explain im always here for you all we will wait and see but I wont be a busy body.

[chipmonkey]

NanaNina, some MILs do overstep the mark! I have had to be very firm with my MIL, when she goes behind my back and tells the ds's, for example that I am not a part of the family because I kept my maiden name, make poor ds2 repeat a prayer seven times when he got it wrong, even though she knows we are not bringing them up in her religion, dosing their food with salt when I have asked her not to, even though her own eldest son had to have serious heart surgery at 42, slapping ds1, aged 3, in the face because he left handprints on her window, babysitting ds3 but leaving him alone long enough to flood 2 bathrooms, then claiming it was because ds3 ( then 18 months) had a "mania" for water, calling another of her grandchildren "evil" when he was 3 years old.

And believe me, there's more!

As the mother of 4 sons, I am well aware that I am going to be MIL to some DIL but seriously, my MIL has taught me how NOT to treat them!

[uglymugly]

Nananina, I understand you want to say something to balance the criticisms of mils, or put forward a different viewpoint. And you mention the age-old troubled relationships between dils and mils, which indicates that these situations have not only gone on a long time, but also that there's no real sign of a quick and easy solution. But unless I've missed them, you don't seem to respond to people who have similar kinds of problems with their mothers, or siblings, or whoever.

When you go on to say that mils can't do right for doing wrong ? if someone posts about a GP not being interested in the GC, that's one kind of person; if someone posts about a GP coming round too often, that's a different kind of person. And those different kinds of people can be parents as well as parents-in-law. There often is a problem of communication ? it can be much easier between people who have known each other for a long time, than between people whose connection has been relatively recent. But there is often an element of hierarchy. A person (and let's confine this to a mil) who has raised children, run a home, etc., could have lost sight of when she was young and a new mother, but instead see situations through much more experienced eyes and thoughtlessly intrude. But a lot of the mil posts here are from dils who either want to let off steam (and try and prevent a family row), and/or seek advice on how to deal with a difficult and emotional situation. Many responses are bound to be from people who have or are experiencing similar situations. Mumsnet is essentially a self-help group, and that works best when people facing similar difficulties get together and share their own personal stories, and out of that can come some good coping strategies. Just because others join in, it doesn't mean that it's a "mil-bashing" thread.

From the little I've read of the "Stately Homes" thread, it's pretty obvious that there are some very toxic parents out there. Some of those parents, by virtue of statistics if nothing else, will be mils. For someone, especially a young mum, who has never experienced that kind of toxic environment, it can be very difficult to know what to do. When you say that children have the right to enjoy good relationships with all their extended family, I'd agree with that point to a large extent, and I expect that everyone else would do also. But sometimes that right can be impossible to achieve, if some of their extended family cannot or will not understand what their role in that child's life should be. Overbearing and interfering relatives do exist, and sometimes it just has to be accepted that some of these will not make the effort to understand what their role should be, or modify their behaviour.

Regarding your last point, which I read as a warning to mothers of sons, I don't know about you but I personally feel that the mothers of sons who post here about their difficulties with their mils are already very likely to see things differently in the future, because unless they go on to have selective amnesia, they are more than likely to be sensitive and supportive mils themselves. Chipmonkey makes that point exceptionally well. You mention that your mil was a bit of a pain ? did your experience help you learn to be a good mil yourself? Do you think you wouldn't have been such a good mil if you hadn't had to deal with you own mil problems?

Finally, dils post here because they need to ? if they didn't, they wouldn't.

[enuffalready]

Uglymugly, thank you. You have said so brilliantly what I have thought every time I read such a post from nananina. I have a wonderful MIL but so many other people don't and they need support.

[pigletmania]

Of course grandparents are a blessing, but also the op has a family and a life and needs time alone with that family, people cannot come round as they please and boundaries need to be set.