To dislike my mil despite not wanting to dislike her?

Also, I don't understand why some women are like this! Surely they can see they are rude and disrespectful. If you have nothing nice to say ....shut up unless we ask for your opinion!!

This sounds like my mother! The constant irritating, passive aggressive comments and observations about me! The amount of eye rolls I've done about her comments in my life is off the scale! The thing is - i never bite back because thats not me to be nasty or spiteful! Like you, I am shocked when she says things and always think of something to say later! I hit perimenopause and thought- bugger this! I hit back a few times and she had the cheek to say im too sensitive!!!! Ive now distanced myself, tell her barely anything about my life and I am much happier

Hmm - I had a “friend” like this in Year 11 (by friend I really mean that she and I were the only two in our class to take the same slightly weird GCSE combination so we were stuck with each other). It was “death by paper cut”. Nothing she said was awful in its own - it was just that every other comment was a teeny tiny dig.

I’m naturally quite “dreamy” and live a lot in my own head so one time I completely missed what she said and so said “sorry - what was that” and she wouldn’t repeat it.

So after that I did the same thing pretty much every time. Never once did she repeat it.

Luckily after GCSEs she went to a different sixth form and I never had to see her again. (Although snogging the lad she had fancied all through year 10 and 11 at one of the sixth form parties was particularly enjoyable! 😂)

I used to drink a lot more than I should have when staying with my in-laws, because I felt so uncomfortable in their company and was using it as a coping/survival mechanism. Unhealthy and unhelpful, I know.

Several years after basically giving up booze (or cutting down to very very little and never drinking around them) I still get "WHAAAAT?? YOU don't want a glass of wine???? But you LOVE a drink!!!" every time I politely refuse. Get's my goat it does. It's said to belittle for sure.

This is such a good saying and I have definitely reached this point with some people in my life. Love how you've just put this into words.

You may be one of the very few women your age she knows. You will have different ways of doing things to women of her generation which may be of interest to her, ie. comment-worthy. It doesn't necessarily mean she is being a bitch by asking you about things, I don't think. All male groups tend to converse with each other totally different to all female or mixed groups so perhaps she's just absorbed a more direct, "banter"y sort of way of talking to others.

My MIL can be like this - little digs often out the blue rest of time okay company.

I hit my limit when kids were young and had had about a decade of it under my belt - stopped watching my toungue apparently I have quite a sharp tounge. We tend to polite now though evey so often she sucks up then out blue get more digs - though increasingly DH gets them to.

I was slow to realise she competes with all women in her orbit on quite bizzare things - and some of it was that.

Every so often I don't realised she got in my head. Last time drove DD1 mad as MIL suddenly had a go at me for not getting a quite heavy cast iron item up to her uni - we don't drive getting everything up was a challenge - I went into guilt loop till DD1 pointed out she wasn't asking and didn't want the item.

Having guest over is stressful for me - part of that my parent comment evey visit however prestine the house making comments about mess but MIL has habit of suddenly insiting when Dh and I are busy getting ready to host seem obscure task has to be done in our house - and then starting in diverting us and stressing us out - I now completely ignore go elsewhere and she no longer does it.

I'd have probably gone with a joking well you drive me to it - tinkerly laugh - I thought they'd be load of fall out when I answered MIL back - FIL and DH didn't hear my comments like they apparently missed all hers and she never quite had confidence to answer back more - or a long stare and call out her comment a what do you mean - ie put it back on her.

But why let others bug you so much by asking such a trivial thing? It's must better to say something like "oh yes, it's DELICIOUS!" with a twinkle in your eye, even if you think she clearly thinks you drink too much alcohol. Just play with it.

I had one like this . But I always asked What did you say there ? or Why would you say that ? Passive aggressive like to make the comment and have the last day . Don't let her . I used to amuse myself with this tactic . But I did get fed up of always having to be on the defensive and drastically moved country to get away . And then she died . FIL turned out to be a rather sweet man on his own who never got a look in before .

You have two options really. Either treat her like an irritating colleague that you have to be polite to, go through the motions and don't think about her when she's not there; or engage with her like for like.
So when she makes a rude or irritating remark, respond assertively.
So 'You do put that away'
'No I don't MiL. I enjoy it in moderation'
'Do you have a weight problem?'
' Not especially. Sometimes I just want to drop a few pounds. And you?
At least this way when you runinate you wont need to look back on it as an attack you accepted passively.

'

I think if you said it a lot it would be. The main thing is to get her to re-say what she said or defend herself.

In that case there's absolutely nothing wrong with OP replying "yeah, I DO seem to drink more in your company, you're right!"

Are you SURE she is being bitchy deliberately? She might have just meant it in a "do you have to watch what you eat otherwise you pile on the pounds? I only need to look at a piece of cake these days and I put on half a stone" type of way."

I think a lot of it is just people's different personalities. Some people just naturally use a poor choice of words/don't realise how they could come across, and some people are more likely to take instant offence if they're on the receiving end of awkward or direct questions or comments and will not seek to clarify, even with a mock gasp of horror "weight problem? Well, I didn't think I did, but it sounds like YOU think I might have?" to see if they attempt to correct their cack-handed way of putting things.

Neither of them are wrong as such, it's just not a good mix. Resentment can build easilly where misunderstandings occur and clarification of intention isn't sought, and then the relationship just goes downhill, and it all becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. I've seen it play out in my inlaws' family. My sister-in-law, married to my husband's brother, has a poor relationship with MIL, as she clearly takes things differently to the rest of us, but will never queries/clarifies it there and then. Or if something happens that she has a right to be a bit unhappy about it, she'll never say. So she just avoids seeing them, which is sad really, because with better communciation the relationship could be improved.

I'm not saying that's the case in your family, but it definitely happens in some.

OP you don't have to see anyone you don't like, just don't go any more. DH can go on his own.

I had one like this, always nasty, snide remarks. I barely saw her by the end but t's wonderful when they die tbh.

Christ, I don't know why people on MN ever bother to add a story when they're talking about how much they hate their MIL for likes. They should just post "MIL" and sit back and enjoy the frothing.

Yes, I've seen that too. It seems a bit passive-agressive to me.

But it doesn’t need saying and it’s rude to state that.

Just laugh when you say it rather than doing it in a blatant eye-roll sarcastic type of way that she can instantly construe as nastiness.

If you just treat all her comments as part of her slightly amusing way of conversing with someone, and pay no proper heed to it, then it won't bother you. It's hard to do, but as you get older you realise that some people just have weird ways and there's no changing them. You just roll with it and don't expect to be best friends.