Why are some MIL so bad?

Because MsIL know perfectly well that if they complained, it'll always be their fault.

I don't have a DIL, before you all assume.

I ponder along similar lines. My mum was a lovely mum to me and a very lovely and generous MIL to my DH. However I suspect she’d have been an awful MIL had my brother not been gay and if he had married a woman.

My mum was a generation older than the current crop of Mumsnet MILS will be but she was in general much more critical of women than of men and men had a very low bar to meet to be wonderful. She craved male approval (I’m making her sound awful which she really wasn’t as a whole). She was quite competitive with other women and I can imagine she would have viewed any DIL as a non-sexual rival. Therefore she would have gleefully picked up on any “deficiencies” she perceived in a DIL as it would have bolstered her confidence that she was actually the better mother/woman. She wouldn’t have been outright hostile and nasty and would initially have been very warm and welcoming to her precious boy’s girlfriend, she liked to be liked, but I think that once a precious grandchild arrived the cracks would have shown. My brother was the eldest and although as a young child I didn’t think she had a favourite and she was always very fair, I think she and some other women, felt something particularly visceral about her firstborn boy. He actually put her through hell as an adolescent and adult after being a very loving little boy for whom she was the centre of his universe, but as an adult I think he was definitely her favourite although she also dreaded him at times.

I don’t have boys and I do wonder if I would have felt the same. I mean I doubt it but who knows? Many people who have had boys and girls say their girls were more independent and it’s their boys who were the cuddliest and most dependent: one women with three of each also bred English Setters and said it was the same with them 😂

I can imagine that giving birth to this male baby from your female body and him being so dependent on you and loving in those early years might have a particular intoxication. Particularly if you live in a fairly conservatively gendered culture/family.

My one time MIL was a nasty bitch - but she was nasty to a lot of people, not just me!

Sometines they're just horrid people who happen to have children. Said children get married and they become MIL.

Never again would I pursue a relationship with someone with horrible, batshit parents, especially if they tend to make excuses for them or fear upsetting them and causing 'drama'. Lesson well and truly learned!

My (STBX)MIL was, I am convinced, never a lovely woman. I think she’s just always been a misanthropic, nasty person. She really, really is awful. No one partnered with her sons have ever had an even vaguely decent relationship with her (and even STBXH doesn’t like his mum). I can’t imagine anyone getting on with her. She goes out of her way to make that impossible.

in contrast, I still genuinely love an exP’s mum. ExP and I were together for a decade - his parents are absolutely lovely people and, when we split up, the thought of losing them was the saddest part. I didn’t and years later we are still in contact. My ex not-MIL is great. She has always had good relationships with her son’s partners - even where the partner is hard work (exP’s brother’s partner is Very Hard Work) she still does her best to maintain a good relationship.

In short: some people are just not as nice as others. The horrible ones become horrible MILs. Sometimes that context brings out the worst in those people in really spectacular ways.

My MIL basically has no life of her own outside of her grown children (who are all in their 30s and 40s). It leads to no end of trouble because she is constantly obsessing over what they do and interfering. I'm her only daughter in law - my husband has two brothers but they go home to mummy every holidays like good boys. I really don't think she likes that DH puts me above her - not that he normally has to choose, but e.g. she was put out that he cancelled a visit to her because I was in hospital having a complicated miscarriage.

Mine was just an evil person who now seems to have the beginnings of dementia from long term alcohol abuse and no longer hides her disdain. She engineered that contact with DH’s siblings only went through her, and sadly told lies about me to the others to make me look like the bad guy stealing her son. They don’t know anything of what she’s said and done. She wanted to keep her son smashed into the ground so she could rescue him. When he became successful and just wanted to see her socially, she cut him off, but told everyone it was me stopping him see her! She still tries to beat him down still so she can swoop in.

My MIL never liked me from moment she met me. I detest visiting but try to view the situation with compassion. I don't dislike her but wish we got on better and she could see beyond my background. She isn't very nice to my partner either. The other day I asked him was she always this negative and he said "yes, always."
It is what it is.

My MIL is an angry narcissist. My FIL only cares about himself and money. Vile people.

Not the bashing ,no . Gransnet is no way near the venomous trash pit as mumsnet

Maybe it's because MILS don't post or are of an older generation that won't wash their dirty linen in public?

I have a horrible mother in law. She hates me but because her son married me and we now have a dd, she is pretend nice to me. She judges me, criticises me amd continues her shitty ways, but with a sickly sweet voice instead of out and out shouting.

Meanwhile, my son is getting married this year and I adore my future dil. She is an angel and I've told her so from day one. I couldn't be more supportive and basically, kind and lovely to them both.

I am not dumb enough to be mean to her even if I didn't like her, because I value my son and respect his choices!

I’m generalising but I think the demographic that I imagine largely post on MN - young mothers 30-40 - are very unforgiving and intolerant toward older people and particularly those outside of their biological family.

I can understand this, they’re the social group most likely to be juggling a thousand and one things and probably in survival mode. But what happens in survival mode is less capacity for patience and empathy. I’ve seen it in my own family - the strained, irritable DIL becomes the MIL herself and maybe understands some of that behaviour she was once so hyper-critical of.

So it’s not necessarily that MILs are ‘so bad’ - it’s that those judging MILs as being ‘bad’ are at a point in their lives where they have the least capacity for anything outside of their own worldview.

That's a good point! I wonder if it's the opposite on Gransnet

Could that be because this is MUMSnet and DILs vastly outnumber MILs?

And the DIL's own mother often seems to get preferential treatment and priority in terms of access to the DGCs.

This is far more likely due to lousy fathering by the sons. I now contact my MIL less than before I had my son because I have less time to do everything and she doesn't make the cut when I have friends and relatives to keep up with in my limited free time - and she has a son to arrange things with.

I arrange things with my mum. He eventually gets contacted by my MIL when it's been too long, and then a date has to be found amongst other plans we've made.

I get a bit of pained expressions from him about this, but I'm not sitting on a bunch of free dates because they don't organise things together.

That’s probably because there are more DiLs than MiLs posting on here. Have a look at what people have said on the DiL thread. There are some good MiLs, who appreciate the people their sons have married, understand that wife and children come first, help out when needed and don’t interfere.

I am not a MIL yet and I have had a largely good experience as a DIL, so no.

But these are the two people who do most often seem to complain about one another. There seems to be a natural antipathy between the two in a way that doesn't happen with SILs and FILs.

I agree we see more DILS complaining on here than MILs, but that's probably more down to the age demographic of MN. On Gransnet it would possibly be the other way around. But just because it's the DIL doing the moaning on here, doesn't mean she's always the one in the right. I often think I'd love to hear the MIL's side of the story.

When I read an 'AIBU about my MIL' thread I often find myself thinking 'Poor MIL. This DIL sounds like a right piece of work who is impossible to please. She just wants to assert her dominance and is looking for any opportunity to put distance between the MIL and her son and DGCs.'

MILs are either too over-involved or not involved enough. They can't win. And the DIL's own mother often seems to get preferential treatment and priority in terms of access to the DGCs.

I really don't agree with this. Mil had her career, had her own interests and hobbies and every support from her own parents and in laws when raising DH. She and fil were gifted their first homes when marrying etc and have lived a very fulfilling life compared to me and DH and still does but she still competes with me and pushes boundaries for attention and reaction. She is a very selfish, self absorbed woman with no boundaries and in the past has admitted that she was very jealous of me that I was marrying her son 🙄

I think as a future mil to have a pleasant and civil relationship with dil I just need to accept that this person will be ds's family and it's their life and only they will choose how to live it. I will offer help and support when needed, be there when needed and never compare myself to dil to just to prove to ds how amazing i was compared to his wife juggling a career, childcare, domestic chores whilst working in the evenings as a extra job curing diseases.

I’ve wondered this, there’s a secret part of me that would love DS to be gay so I don’t have to contend with the MIL/DIL relationship.

My current thoughts after having a difficult MIL are to be relaxed, don’t try to compete with her or her side of the family, just be very welcoming and hopefully slowly win trust and a natural affinity. I think the problems start with the MILs go in with the attitude of ‘I won’t be second best to her family’ and massively overstep in their efforts to assert themselves.

I often think when a lot of mums on here post things about always putting their child first, not leaving children with babysitters (even doting grandparents) until they're about 10, mum who accuse other mums of being selfish for having the audacity to want an identity and social life outside of being a mum, I always think these are the ones who will be the nightmare mother in laws. When their whole identity is tied up in being a mum, there is no way that just changes when the child grows up. That son will always be their baby in their eyes and their relationship will always be closers than anyone else's... including a wife.
I think these people are the ones who grow into batshit mother in laws

I never liked my mother-in-law, but not because she was my mother-in-law but because she is just a person I would ever choose to spend time with. We have completely different communication styles, interests and in fact have not one thing in common. Now she is no longer my mother-in-law I am relieved.

Well you will also be a MIL if your daughter gets a partner too!!

Just it will be your blood daughter that's the mother to grandchildren.

I have 3 sons and I really hope I don't turn vile overnight if/when they get married.

I wonder if mother in law's to son in laws are any better. Like if any of my sons are gay, would I be any less vile to their male partners?