Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Chat

Join the discussion and chat with other Mumsnetters about everyday life, relationships and parenting.

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:
onlyreadingneverposting8 · 31/12/2021 16:29

au = I (typo)

Grumpyosaurus · 31/12/2021 16:30

I could write an essay, but it would be outing.

Suffice it to say I avoid about 20% of the ILs like the bloody plague. They're not just unpleasant to me, they lay into DH as well.

Flowers to those of you dealing with this sort of shit. It's incredibly wearing.

Bogofftosomewherehot · 31/12/2021 16:43

@danmthatonestakentryanotheer

Please tell me you knocked the b*h out!!!*

I wish I could say I did, but justice was served many years later. Her father posted a picture of DD at her graduation, (we had been divorced many years previously, but he was still massively involved in DD's life). His mother commented about how "proud (she) was of her amazing GD", which prompted this reply from DD...." Yeah you're so proud of me that you haven't bothered with any contact for the last 15 years so fuck off you witch!!!!".

Good for your daughter!!!!

Interested in this thread?

Then you might like threads about these subjects:

GrannytoaUnicorn · 31/12/2021 16:45

@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.

Sounds like she just misunderstood or misheard? A bit shocked that you've completely shunned her for it Hmm
GreenJulie · 31/12/2021 16:54

When I was pregnant with dc1 we were discussing with mil what she would like to be known as by the baby.
She has a nickname as one of her sisters couldn’t say her name properly when she was born. This name stuck.
So dh said what about granny nickname. She agreed.
Then dh said can greenjulie call you nickname.
Oh no she replied, she’s not family 😔

St0rmTr00per · 31/12/2021 16:55

@OublietteBravo

MIL is convinced I’m a gold digger. In the (very nearly) 20 years I’ve known DH I’ve earned more than him for 12 of them, and the same as him for a further 4. I’m obviously not a very successful gold digger.
have you ever pointed this out to her? or, even better, has her son?

same to all the other gold diggers who contribute more than MILs golden spawn?

St0rmTr00per · 31/12/2021 16:55

@BabyPotato

My FIL was spying on me in the shower when we lived with them earlier this year. Things have been... interesting since.
how was this discovered and what happened?! (sorry this happened to you)
GrannytoaUnicorn · 31/12/2021 16:56

@MomomysweetPeach

The first time I met my MIL she stroked my face and told me it was nice. Asked if I'd seen my DHs spotty back yet.

I once stayed at the in laws and she weirdly insisted we had her bed as it was comfier apparently. We'd been out the night before and she burst in the room at 7 am opened the curtains and pulled the duvet back, saying she wanted to see what I looked like first thing in the morning! We were naked and kinda having quiet sex Grin I still had make up on from last night and eyelashes all over the shop!

Then when I was pregnant she said she'd be calling the baby Louise of it was a girl. I said well that's odd, and I'll just correct you. She said I won't know when the baby's at her house. Needless to say I had a boy and called him Bear, MIL has never looked after Bear alone and he's now 5. DS was 4 months when FIL just refused to see us anymore. Completely out of the blue and he just refers to DS as the one with the weird name apparently.

Funnily enough we get on ok now.

Pleeeease tell me you were joking about calling an actual human being 'Bear?!?!' 🤦🏼‍♀️🤣

I could never get away with winding my MIL up like this, I'd start laughing half way through! As if you'd call a child Bear! 🐻 🤣🤣🤣

St0rmTr00per · 31/12/2021 16:56

@Toomanypeople

In our wedding video mil can be heard saying 'it'll never last'. When dh told her we were expecting first DC she said 'oh well it's done now'. Overall she ok but these 2 comments will never be forgotten
did you ever show her the video'd comment or ask why she said it?
St0rmTr00per · 31/12/2021 16:57

@grannytoaunicorn Alicia Silverstone and Cheryl Cole have little boys called Bear. I don't personally know anyone but it is a name.

Simonjt · 31/12/2021 17:05

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.

EmergencyHydrangea · 31/12/2021 17:06

@Grannytoaunicorn

I know several children called Bear

Cocolapew · 31/12/2021 17:17

God where to start!
First time I meet her she turned to DH and told him she didn't like me. I was sitting next to him at the time.
Cried so hard during our wedding people were staring at her. My Mum stage whispered it's not a funeral and Mil shouted she wished it was DH s funeral instead,whilst mopping up her tears 🙄.
I woke up from a D&C after a late miscarriage to find her sitting staring at me , she proceeded to tell me it was for the best because me and DH didn't really know each other Confused She had only got onto the ward by telling the nurses she was my Mum.
There's loads more Grin. I was more than able for her but it got wearing after a while.
I haven't spoken to her for years and years, DH went NC a few years ago and my adult DDs don't have anything to do with her either.

Outsidermum · 31/12/2021 17:20

I have a friend who’s child is called Bear. There are weirder names out there than that!

Blueberrycreampie · 31/12/2021 17:24

I got on really well with my in-laws but after many years I started to realise my fil was racist and bigoted and I couldn't bear to be in his company any longer.

Whambamthankyoumaam21 · 31/12/2021 17:27

New born baby, walks through ex mil’s door. Oh you must give ‘insert ex girlfriends name’ a call later, she’s so upset you and wham have had a baby. Yes she hated me - reason. I’m from the midlands

LyndaSnellsSniff · 31/12/2021 17:30

My MIL has mellowed since FIL died. He was an enabler.

I always found them hard work but they definitely got worse after our DC1 was born. MIL would carry DC1 around and refer to me as “that bitch” through him, all said in a sing-song, lighthearted way. Eg, “look at your socks falling off babyLyndaSnell! Can’t that bitch of a mummy dress you properly?” Hilarious 🧐

When I was pregnant with DS2 we had one of those 4D scans done. We got copies of the video for both sets of grandparents. MIL told us she turned it off because it was “horrible and creepy”. Fair enough, but why tell us that?!

When DS2 was a few weeks old he was hospitalised for a week with a mystery infection. When we called to let them know he was ill in hospital, FIL said “I bet I caught this bloody cold from HIM”. No concern at all.

I think it worsened after DCs birth because they couldn’t handle not being the only parents any more.

HollowTalk · 31/12/2021 17:36

@CloseEncountersOfTheTurdKind

When my wonderful Mum died in her mid fifties 2 years ago my MIL never acknowledged it had happened. Until she turned up at the funeral nearly a month later. And sat in the seats marked 'reserved for family'. When I asked her to move so a very frail and elderly relative could sit down, she said that she had every right to sit there because she was family!
I would say she is family, though. Not a very nice family member, but still family. I'm so sorry you lost your mum and that your MIL couldn't be a mother to you.
colourPink · 31/12/2021 17:37

Wow these make me feel SO much better about my MIL. On the most part we got on great except that she has VERY VERY strong opinions on about absolute everything and you can't disagree with her.

Her new one is the vaccine and she begs me not to get it or else my DH might leave me. Charming. I've told me DH I'm getting it and I'm sick of putting it off in fear of her reaction and he's agreed but wants me to keep it a secret from her.

Crazy?

Serena1977 · 31/12/2021 17:43

If it was a proper wedding, I would have asked for child X to be a bridesmaid (registry office).

Don't bother ordering me a button hole. It's not a proper wedding.

I can only meet new DC in SCBU for 5 mins because I need to walk the dog.

Isn't your cousin strange? (perfectly average actually)

Tell me about your Dad's treatment etc for cancer because I've been diagnosed with the same. (My DF died because it was caught too late)

Our wedding photo in their lounge has a crease between me and dh when they used to have it in a frame only showing DH, it now shows both of us.

StrandedStarfish · 31/12/2021 17:59

My mother in law rang the reception venue and cancelled it

CoffeeBeansGalore · 31/12/2021 18:01

The wedding photo MiL picked (and we paid for) was of Dh & his brother. Dh insisted we also gave her one of us. She used the frame for a different unrelated photo.

MiL when I was pregnant with dd1 - "now, you have to accept that you will get fat, I gained a stone with each of mine" - both MiL and SiL were obese. I didn't and I think she was most disappointed I was back in my jeans in 2 weeks.

She implied dd2 was not dh's because "well she doesn't look like any of mine". Never any doubt that Dh is her father. She just looks like me.

RuinedReindeer · 31/12/2021 18:04

@StrandedStarfish hope you were able to still go ahead 😱

Whenigrowupiwanttobea · 31/12/2021 18:12

MIL "I am so disappointed in you" two days after I had a late miscarriage!
MIL "Such a shame you have a dysfunctional family!" To my son with ASD who was 9 at the time (because mum and dad both worked!)
MIL smacked my 5 year old leaving a large handprint on his thigh complete with chunk of skin missing from the stones in her engagement ring! Why? Because he had the audacity to grab his own inhaler and spacer and put it together himself while he was having an Asthma attack! Apparently he was faking it and deserved a smack for helping himself to his medication! (She scarpered when I told her she could explain to the Paramedics why his Asthma attack had worsened and how he came by the injury to his thigh!) Not been allowed unsupervised visits with the kids ever since!
Told me that my son had Autism because he had the MMR!!! Yes, because having Measles is so much better than being vaccinated against it!!..
Told me that I shouldn't work because she never did and that being a proper mother meant staying home!!! Soon shut up when I said I didn't have to go to my husband for every penny nd that earning my own money meant I contributed to the household income!
Told me she was a "Registered Nurse" because she had done a home-nursing course for 6 weeks back in 1958!!!! And that the Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP) Was actually a drug used in hospitals to euthanise patients to free up beds!!! And that I didn't know what I was talking about ( me, a RGN for 30 years,) when I put her right!!!

hilbil21 · 31/12/2021 18:16

Husband's parents fine. Husband's sister told me that struggles with my autistic son and home schooling during the pandemic was bad parenting and nothing to do with autism! Many other things but that's the straw that broke the camel'sback. I now only see her when necessary Hmm