Can a MIL who hates her DIL love her grandchildren?

Can a daughter in law love her husband despite hating his mother? Its the same thing.

My SIL (DHs sister) can't stand me and has made it clear that extends to our children 🤷‍♀️ she won't even let them call her aunt. At big family gatherings now they don't realise she's close family and think she's a distant cousin.

In your case OP, from your updates, she sounds like a bloody nasty woman and you'd be best off keeping her at a distance as much as possible.

Coming from a family with some unkind (to say the least) members, part of my recovery was to actually work out what the word love means to me. I defined it as: always caring about that person's best interests. So, if you love someone you don't hurt them, you support their wellbeing, you don't insult them etc etc.

It's handy to have a clear definition. Families make our perception foggy and we can lose perspective.

I agree. We have gone no contact with MIL because of how nasty she’s been to me. Several of her family members are appalled with MIL’s behaviour.

I don't get on with DSD but her daughter and I have a wonderful relationship. She is absolutely pure gold.

Weirdly my MIL is very nice to me and to my husband and our son, but we think she's on "best behaviour" since my son arrived. The backstory is that she completely froze out her own MIL (I was at her MIL's funeral and her behaviour to my grieving FIL was awful to see). She has always wanted all family events to revolve around her own family, no exceptions.

But it feels like she knows this wouldn't wash with us. She lives locally, so sees us regularly, but she doesn't overstep when it comes to separate time with my family. She still is quite pushy about her extended family sometimes (wanting me and my son to spend Mother's Day with her cousins, for example), but she doesn't fight it.

Of course she can.

Of course it is. My maternal granny couldn’t stand my dad. Adored the bones of me and my brother

I was a child in a situation like that, and no, I never felt loved by my grandmother. It was never addressed, but as an adult I see I've never experienced loving relationships with grandparents (grandparents on the other side passed away before I was born).

I wouldn't want my children to have a relationship with a racist, even though she is their grandmother.

If she hates the ethnic part of her grandchildren, which is part of their DNA and not something that they can control, such as their behaviour, she doesn't deserve to have contact with them.

I’m white British, so it’s not the same, but my paternal grandmother did not like my mum, largely because she was English and not Welsh (although I’m not sure she’d think anyone would have been good enough for my father) but I had a really good relationship with her. I was upset when she upset my mum, but we did get on and she loved me and my brother. She saw us as Welsh bizarrely, we all lived in England.

My MIL was very unpleasant, she did not like me, I’m not sure she’d was too keen on my husband tbh, but she loved the kids while they were tiny. She lost interest as they got older really, same with all her grandchildren.

It is of course possible, blood is thicker than water.
I don’t know how MIL would build a bond with the children assuming DIL wouldn’t want to visit her.
It would not be a healthy relationship especially if she was badmouthing DIL around the children.

Oh gosh it’s certainly possible! MIL thinks the sun shines out of DS. I’m sort of treated like someone her Son vaguely knows. Polite but slightly awkward small talk, a social media comment on my birthday, that kind of thing.

When we were going through a rough patch with MIL when DC was born, she was adamant that they looked like DH, although they were an absolute mini me and everyone else said so. Whilst she was criticising me as a parent and telling all her friends how awful I was, she did have limited access to DC (we lived hundreds of miles away so visits involved staying with us or her). I was of the opinion if she was bad mouthing me as a mum she wasn't showing herself as a good grandmother.

Once through the bad patch all was fine, and we have good relationships all round, but if her attitude had continued we would have gone NC including access to DC

this is my experience. I think my in laws viewed me as an incubator. They want my DH and (when they can be arsed, my DC) can act like I I don’t exist.

I’m not fond of my ex DIL on account of her wicked actions towards my DS, but I love my GS more than I love life itself

Yes, they can.

This is what i would say. A relationship with gc is not so complicated.

Yes it is quite possible.

Of course they can! My grandmother was awful to my mum but worshipped her son, my dad, and similarly worshipped me because I was his baby.

My mum didn't get on with my brother's first wife but his children were the apple of my mum's eye. She would do absolutely anything for them.

Totally possible. My DH has kids from a previous marriage. His ex wife is the shittest mum you could imagine and a malignant narcissist but my MIL loves the grandkids 100%. My gran also always loved me too despite my dad being a total scumbag. Children are not their parents.

Of course she can. Because they're her sons children. Her DiL will just be his unfortunate choice of woman to carry them.

I love my niece and nephew despite throughly disliking my BIL and his wife.

The "motto" in the family is... the children are innocent of the parents crimes.

(We have good reason to dislike BILs behaviour. Even his parents are angry about what happened. But it isn't the children's fault.)

However in your case... I wouldn't facilitate a relationship with anyone who was racist towards me (and presumably them?)

That is probably all you can do and judge how she is with the children .

What’s missing here is how the dil feels about rhe mil. If the feeling is mutual it will make it hard for the kids, and all adults need to try to set aside their differences for the children’s sake, if they can manage that and behave appropriately