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What are the worst things your in laws have done or said to you?

243 replies

Awkwardusername · 31/12/2021 09:16

Struggling a bit as my future in laws can’t stand me (or my husband to be it would seem!) but everyone around me has a great relationship with their in laws.
Anyone else got an amazing partner with awful parents and/or siblings?

Hoping this is vaguely light hearted!

My favourite: I told them I got my wedding dress from a high street shop for £200 and they told me the wedding would be “cheap and disgusting”, and that the dried flowers we’re having will be “stinking, dull and boring”. They haven’t seen the dress or the flowers!

OP posts:
CloseEncountersOfTheTurdKind · 01/01/2022 00:16

Not really my Mum's family though. And she wouldn't move to let a very elderly lady sit down!

piefacedClique · 01/01/2022 00:49

I didn’t really want to include my MIL in wedding plans for a number of reasons…. The final was when she asked me to give her a hint what my wedding dress would be like… I reluctantly but kindly showed her. Her response….. DH’s cousin is fat like you and she looked ok in white so I suppose it will be ok. DH cousin is literally three times my size and half my height! Such a bitchy and unnecessary thing for her to say! My husband had gone to get a takeaway and arrived home to Absolute silence!

Heartofglass12345 · 01/01/2022 02:05

My MIL constantly tells me how lucky we were when my sons were both born prematurely and spent time in NICU, and I had to give one of them CPR when he was a few weeks old as he stopped breathing. I'm lucky that they are both still here but I don't feel lucky when I think about what happened when they were born.

Also told me last week that my son isn't always behaving the way he is because he's autistic, he's just being an 8 year old Hmm I shut that one down quick enough!

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Gilead · 01/01/2022 02:29

When dtwins were born my Mum helped for the first week as we already had a two year old and a five year old. Then MiL volunteered for the following week. Spent the week sat on her arse demanding tea, cooked nothing, helped with nothing. We went shopping and she sat in a cafe whilst I got the necessary stuff, I’d had an emcs. Things didn’t get better and when her son was arrested for abuse not once did she check on her grandchildren.

takenforgrantednana · 01/01/2022 03:33

@TyrannosaurusRights

3rd trimester of pregnancy. Told in laws the baby was very tiny, dropping down percentiles, and the pregnancy was being managed on a week by week basis.

MIL said ‘that sounds very positive’.

Now we tell them nothing.

@ TyrannosaurusRights yes she may have said that and to be honest with you i think most mils would have said the same thing, because its a language they arent used to hearing and hadnt a clue what on earth you just said now if you had said that the baby is likely to be very small seeing as your nearing the end of your pregnancy, so the docs/midwifes are keeping a close eye on you, well she would have understood that perfectly, so a case of you trying to be to clever for your own good i think
ClaudiaJ1 · 01/01/2022 04:30

@LunaAndHerMoonDragons

FIL saying he felt sorry for my parents because they only live round the corner and have to see our DC all the time. There have been a few variations on this theme. FWIW my parents love living round the corner and see DC any chance they get. FIL telling me our then 3 year old needed a smack and if it was up to him he'd give him one. FIL teasing our DC and upsetting them, when I'm not there. H saying he didn't see any problem with it and they had to learn to cope with teasing. Our eldest is getting to the point she doesn't want to go and see the ILs anymore, she likes MIL, she would happily never see FIL again.
@LunaAndHerMoonDragons H saying he didn't see any problem with it and they had to learn to cope with teasing

Seriously? Your husband sounds abusive and toxic and he'll destroy your children. He'd be my ex-husband the minute he made such a comment. Please tell me you're not still with him?

sweetbellyhigh · 01/01/2022 04:38

Mine were generally welcoming but when we decided to move out of London they stopped speaking to us, refused to come to our farewell party. It was as if they interpreted our move as a direct personal attack on them.

Tomlettegregg · 01/01/2022 05:56

How are you fond of her?!?!? She sounds like an absolute witch and you need to learn to say no.

Tomlettegregg · 01/01/2022 06:04

That was for @Baublette

PickAndChooseMe · 01/01/2022 06:16

MIL said she voted for brexit due to immigration getting out of control.

I am forrin (and so is the other DIL).....but oh no she didn’t mean us, we’re alright staying here!

Juniper68 · 01/01/2022 08:28

@Gilead

When dtwins were born my Mum helped for the first week as we already had a two year old and a five year old. Then MiL volunteered for the following week. Spent the week sat on her arse demanding tea, cooked nothing, helped with nothing. We went shopping and she sat in a cafe whilst I got the necessary stuff, I’d had an emcs. Things didn’t get better and when her son was arrested for abuse not once did she check on her grandchildren.
Hope they're exmil and oh?
Juniper68 · 01/01/2022 08:42

@Simonjt

So many things.

They’re racist, they pretend they can’t understand me (like the woman from fat fighters!), I have a Nottinghamshire/North London accent, his mother with sometimes say “oh sorry, was that in Urdu” in her faux concerned voice.

She regularly tells my husband he is going to tell for marrying me, she also has a photo of his girlfriend from when he was 13 to prove that he is straight and satan has led him astray. She doesn’t have any photos from our wedding on display, my husband sent her a few wedding photos and made sure they were all of us kissing.

She didn’t come to the wedding so she didn’t know her son had taken my name, that went down well. She said only stupid people change their name when they get married, my husband did point out that she changed her name, so she had just called herself an idiot.

She has recently become a Grandma, so we thought this may mellow her, or at least encourage her to keep her mouth shut a bit more so she can have a relationship with her Grandchild. We had decided not to share any pictures with anyone until my son had met his little sister, so we decided it would be nice to send her a photo of her daughter and a little family photo. Her only response was “you didn’t tell me it was brown”.

Her behaviour is bizarre, she is never racist etc to your face, she bought my son christmas presents and a birthday present, she plays with him etc and no signs of racism when she visits. But anything via the phone is just vile.

Her husband paid off my husbands mortgage when we got married so he could escape my money grabbing ways. We used it to buy a joint little holiday home and used the rest toward our joint mortgage.

She tells people her son abandoned her and ran away to another country, in reality they sent him to boardinh school in the UK when he was eight and he stayed here.

How vile! Am so glad you bought the holiday home Smile
FrDamo · 01/01/2022 09:09

After the ex wife died, my MIL accused me of stealing the ex wife's jewellery.

She also accused me of covering the video camera lens with my hand anytime my stepchildren were in shot - during a family holiday which we had invited her to. Needless to say there have been no more holiday invitations.

Kdubs1981 · 01/01/2022 09:11

@BenjiMcSchmenzie

My ILs won't let us come and stay at their house (which is the obligatory Mumsnet 5-hour drive away from our house thank goodness) because they don't have room ....

They live in a 5-bedroom house, just the 2 of them.

FIL told me that my dad's sudden, awful death in his 60s was not a sad event, and that I had no reason to be sad about it or miss him.

I no longer speak to FIL.

The day after my mum's funeral (she died of cancer), MIL rang me in a state convinced she had cancer .... she could have spoken to her husband, either of her sons or her other daughter-in-law but no, she chose to speak to me who had literally just buried her own mother. (She didn't have cancer of course, it was all drama and attention-seeking).

I have recently been diagnosed with a painful and life-limiting (not life-shortening) medical condition, which has totally changed my life and that of my husband and children. Have my ILs bothered to ask how I am, even once? Have they heck.

They are awful!

Fucking hell. You "win". I'm sorry they are such dicks
Gilead · 01/01/2022 09:15

Juniper68 indeed they are!

Juniper68 · 01/01/2022 09:24

@Gilead

Juniper68 indeed they are!
Smile
Figmentofimagination · 01/01/2022 11:54

DH was NC with his mum for a while before I met him. When we had been dating for a year or so he agreed to meet up with her to try and mend bridges. I wasn't with him for the first few meet-ups.

When she finally met me she took a dislike to me. She then invited DH on holiday with her to help their relationship. She spent the whole trip putting me down and trying to break us up. Said I was a gold digger after all his money because I was in university at the time. DH came back from that holiday and next time he visited her told her I was his family and if she didn't accept me she would lose him again. She cried. He went LC.

When we got engaged she cried.

On our wedding day both husband's BIL and MIL's own husband (not referred to as stepdad because he was the OM) ordered her to keep quiet and not spoil our day. I found out about that afterwards.

When I got pregnant I was on a 1 year contact, so was unemployed once DS was born. I was a SAHM for 2 years. By DS's 2nd birthday I found a perfect job for me that meant that DH could leave his 50hr a week job, spend some time at home with DS and look for a better job (which he did after 3 months and then was promoted 8 months later). MIL begged DH not to let me take the job and give up his as it would mean he would have no security should I leave him. But it was fine for me to be a SAHM for 2 years.

When she sees DS and DH she wants to see DS but not hear him. She prefers to see DH on his own. I see her a family occasions and that's it as DH usually visits when he's off and I'm working.

FIL was great for years, but I lost all respect for him when he got a new girlfriend. Her family became a replacement for us. He lived 10 mins drive away but never wanted to see us as he was happy with her family. He saw DS a handful of times until he passed away when DS was 3.5. Me and DH cried so much at his funeral when girlfriends nephew read a eulogy and talked about all the fun things he did with them as a family. Trips, holidays, family games nights. We felt such anger and jealousy towards them as they got to play happy families whilst our DS wasn't important.

God that was cathartic.

Sweetchillidiphigh · 02/01/2022 23:21

What happens when the badly behaved in law is the adult child of your spouse?

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