How many of you have a good relationship with your MIL

[PontyPandy]

I did until I decided that I didn't want SIL in my house any more, and refused to answer the door to her yesterday when she came over and was pressing my buzzer constantly for 15mins.

Now MIL is not replying to my txts.

DH heard her on the phone last night while he was talking to his step dad about it, saying that she wansnt happy.

Dont want to have a bad relationship with MIL,but i will not change my mind about SIL.

[loopylou6]

I don't have any relationship with MIL, she's a monster, a spiteful twisted manipulative evil old twat. I can honestly say I hate her, even DH and his brother have nothing to do with her.

[pud1]

i have a lovely relationship with my mil. i have been with dh for 15 years since i was 18. i used to think she interfered but have since realised this is not the case. if i mention anything to her like i need to find hello kitty duvet cover for dd she will call me later that day with a full list of websites she has found it on. this used to bug me but tbh i do it on purpose now to save me having to search for stuff. holidays are the best. i hate trawling the internet. i just tell her what i want and she finds it

[headinhands]

Have never had a problem with mine. Have a couple of friends who think their's are evil incarnate. Having met them both can't fathom why there is so much feeling about them but having got on with mine it's an issue that sort of goes over my head. Am I just lucky? Did read an interesting psych paper on the dil/mil problems a while back.

[ShatnersBassoon]

Our relationship is good enough. Not great, we're not friends, would never go out of our ways to spend time with each other, but we rub along fine when we have to.

[malinkey]

H and I are in the process of separating and the saddest thing about it is losing my MIL - I love her to bits and I think she sees me as the daughter she never had.

I really hope we can still have a relationship when separation is done and dusted but not sure how realistic this is.

OTOH my mother is a nightmare MIL and I feel really sorry for my SIL who has to deal with her!

[pallymama]

I love my MIL, and after reading a lot of the posts on here, I feel very lucky. I'm sorry your having torubles OP, it's a really awkward place to be, stuck in the middle of a family dispute, especially when it's not the family you grew up with! If MIL won't answer your texts, will she still speak to DH? She really needs to give you a chance to explain your side. Hope you manage to work it all out.

[Fromage]

What's the deal with your SIL?

[Hassled]

My MIL is barking mad, but a thoroughly kind, generous person. She didn't bat an eyelid when her precious son told her he'd started seeing someone who was very recently divorced and had two young kids, and she's treated those step-grandchildren exactly as she treats her actual grandchildren (the two DH and I have had together). For that I will forgive her just about anything.

And I'm sort of a MIL myself - DS1 now lives with his girlfriend. It's changed my perspective massively - I miss DS1 so much, and keep thinking how much MIL must have gone through the same thing.

[Hai1988]

Its very interesting to hear all the diffrent relationships you all have with ur MIl's.

I hope we work it out to, but DH isnt that close to his mums side of the family so it wouldnt be that orkward if we cant sort it out.

SIL was just a very bad influence on DS so i have always been worried about that, but we used to sort of get on she used to come round my house for chats and so on, but she got angry with me last week because I was busy and didn't want her over mine that particular day and I refuse to be spoken to like the way she spoke to me that day, so I dont want her in my house again unless DH is hear and wants her in.

Does that sound unreasonable?
Because at the end of the day she is nothing to do with be so i shouldn't have to put up with the abuse, nearly called the police yesterday because after she pressed the buzzer for about 15 mins she some how got in the building anyway and started banging my door and screaming through the letter box, I dont want someone like this around my DS as he is only 5 and very impressionable

[perfumedlife]

Great, have not set eyes on her for almost three years!

It used to be good, very good but when dh and I caught her out lying to us at the behest of DH's ex wife we went mad. Had it out with her and she was mortified. Doesn't call now, still sends gifts at birthdays and Christmas but so immature.

People take sides, I hate when fold say ' Oh I dont want to get involved'. They are involved when they are lying for someone. But in our case Dh's mother lied to her own son and Dil to keep her ex daughter inlaw on side. That's just not on.

What did your Sil do op?

[perfumedlife]

cross post. Dont blame you for wanting rid!

[roundthehouses]

fine, not particularly close but not antagonistic either. I care about her but I wouldn´t confide in her because there isn´t that intimacy. I think she is not-so-secretly jealous of me in that stereotypical latin-mother-of-boys kind of way and once told dh "she (me) may give you a lot of things I can´t but she will never love you like i do" which made me really but whatever. Ambivalent. that´s the word.

[reallywoundup]

brilliantly (ok so she died in March ) but i have to say that even before that she was wonderful if a little bonkers and annoying at times!

Ex MIL is another matter however- she is clearly barking, and possibly the most over protective mother i have ever had the mis-fortune to come across... should have known when she turned up at the hospital while i was in labour and declared "i want to see these children asap... just to check if they have OUR family genes" needless to say she was booted back into the waiting room for a good few hours until i went for a bath and she checked!

[ZZZenAgain]

It was ok but a bit edgy tbh. She was generous to me and she made me welcome but it was sometimes peculiarly like she was competing with me. She has passed away though.

[pourmeanotherglass]

friendly but not especially close - we visit for sunday lunch every couple of months, and get on OK. DH probably visited less frequently than that before we met, as he was not living very close to them.

[MsGee]

I could do without her tbh. Neither DH nor myself like his parents but we can't see us cutting them out our life, so tolerate them as best we can.

We encourage DD to have a relationship with them ... until such time she comes to the same conclusion as us. In the meantime I watch like a hawk for any signs of DD being affected by their less pleasant personality traits! I give it a couple more years before I pull the plug on the relationship

[lalalonglegs]

I really love my MIL - she is quite eccentric which used to irritate me (and still does occasionally) but she is so supportive and always willing to help. She never judges, she treats me as a real person, not simply the mother of her grandchildren and I know I can rely on her. She does live 250 miles away though which is probably a decent buffer zone for both of us .

[BudaisintheZONE]

Very well but we live thousands of miles apart!

She is lovely but talks and talks and talks and talks. Talks at you when you are not even in the room!

Has a rose-tinted spectacles view of life and loves telling you about the past.

She is DH's step-mother but treats us all like family. And so do all of her family.

[RudeEnglishLady]

My MIL is pretty nice. She loves my son and DP to bits. I'm making an effort to learn her language so we can talk more so she's tickled pink about that. She recently gave us a gift of 2.5kilos of a peanut butter that we love but we can't buy here .

Only downside is she is horrendous at cooking. When MIL says she's going to cook as a treat for us we have to keep a straight face - its just so bad its funny.

I think distance and no shared language are a good thing in a MIL / DIL relationship. Its easier.

[Rannaldini]

love my mil but she lives on another continent

[BobMarley]

My MIL is lovely. She is a bit set in her ways sometimes but she is incredibly open minded and always happy to help out with her grandchildren, even though she has two daughters with children that would also like her help. She is always trying to make sure sure that I get just as much help as her daughters. My mum is abroad so don't get much help from my side.

She respects me as a wife, mother and as my own person. I'm married to her oldest son and because he hadn't had a serious relationship until I met him at 30, she was so relieved he finally met someone. I think she was starting to despair he would never settle down! So never had much of the MIL jealousy issues.

She is lovely and I'm really glad she is my MIL, I'm very lucky.