I’m dreading being a MIL based on some of the threads on here

[Bulbstarglitterball]

Putting aside those who have genuinely awful ILs (of which I’m sure there are many) reading through some threads it makes me genuinely worried about becoming someone’s MIL in later life. I have a great relationship with my teen son and it’s one of the great joys in my life, he’s not really into boys/girls, a few short term things here and there, but I’m sure he will at some point and if he finds someone to spend his life with and I become someone’s MIL I could be considered, according to many threads on here, to be overbearing, too involved, a bit weird for being socially awkward and therefore deserving to be excluded from my son’s life / GCs.

My MiL can be all of the above and drives me slightly insane but she is (obviously)DH’s mum and bought him up single handedly and obviously still loves him very much so I accept that she is part of our lives and go with a lot of grinning and bearing, as I’m sure she does with me.

My late MIL was more of a mum to me than my mother has ever been. I miss her hugely, she was a wonderful person.

This! MIL wanted DH to leave me when FIL died to live with her. When he was growing up his dad worked away and at those times he became ‘replacement partner’. I think I spoiled that.

I think no one ever comes on mumsnet to say how well they get on with their MIL but it doesn’t help when loads pile in on a thread and are so nasty about theirs.There’s always two sides to every story too.
Ive always tried not to overstep the mark and step back from ‘helping’ which could be seen as interfering

I think a lot of it is about your relationship with your son. And a DIL being on the scene can highlight some of the cracks.

My MIL is very negative and constantly moans about BIL's children. As a result we don't invite her to things with our children as we feel she would moan behind our backs too. DH finds her hard work and doesn't want to spend time with her. Pre kids I organised both of our families but since having children I pulled back and told DH to sort out his side. They don't appear that interested in us without us doing the running. I don't think she would say we have a bad relationship if asked, but I would say she's not a great MIL.

I’ll also add, thinking about one of the replies re. competing.

There was a time six years ago when I had a newborn and DP was prioritising his mothers needs over mine in terms of a visit when I was completely exhausted/poorly. I did actually give him an ultimatum - that if he forced me to come in the trip he was in essence deciding to centre his mother and put my needs second. To give him his due he listened, went over on that day with our older child and I bought the newborn over a couple of days later when I was more rested.

It was actually quite a pivotal moment in our relationship.

"Don't correct the children"??? This is nonsense. Why wouldn't a loving GP correct her GCs? Why would yhe parents be hard done by this?? This is absurd. But each to their own.

Thank you for your thread. This was my exact thought over Christmas when reading some threads on MN. Glad I wasn't the only one wondering.

I think there is a difference between 'this person is not a nice person MIL or not'

And people who need drama in their lives and some weird contest thing happening

People can be annoying and still be pretty ok but this territorial 'I own him now' is just plain weird, I am sure it works the same I presume with MIL thinking 'I still own him' type thing just don't notice it on here as much

The viciousness of some MIL threads can be depressing. However as in many other things MN is not real life.
My late MIL was a lovely woman. She was quite old when DC were born so never played a big part in their lives but she and FIL were warm, kind people.

I have two sons and am not yet a MIL. Both of them seem to have settled relationships with wonderful women. I was quite anxious to get things right being mindful of the threads on here but so far we seem to get on really well.
Also, importantly, both DS's have been welcomed into their families.

@OneDayFri why on earth would you get involved telling DGC what to do when their parents are there to do that? I wouldn’t tell anyone else’s kids what to do unless it was dangerous or they were doing something directly to me like hitting me. Even if their parents aren’t there, and they’re misbehaving, I’ll say things like are you supposed to be doing that? Shall I check with your parents when they come back. It’s not my job to discipline someone else’s kid.
MIL loves to tell my DC what to do. I’ve asked her not to. She can’t help herself. It’s one of the reasons we go over less. I find it incredibly disrespectful when I am already dealing with something and I’m interrupted so she can give her opinions.

I always think the people slagging off their mils don’t realise that one day their child will grow up and they’ll have to vy for their attention/ try and figure out how to balance doing right around a new member of family. They’re so tunnel visioned that the mil/ em is wrong but I’m only 42 and I already am beginning to see similarities between both and me. They stood exactly where you were and probably did the exact same things and made the same mistakes too!

I think as PP have said, some MILs seem to view their sons as an extension of their husbands - they use them as a weird relationship replacement and get annoyed when the son has someone they're in an actual relationship with.

In my experience a lot of MILs think that their DIL doesn't like them or arrange to see them, but actually their sons have grown up and have a different relationship with them (or perhaps don't like them as much as their MILs think they do!) and it's easier to blame an external person for this than reflect and think that their behaviour has caused it, or the relationship wasn't what they thought it was. It can also be hard to no longer be the most important person in someone's life, my mum was that to me before I met my DH and the same for him and his mum. It's a huge adjustment for some people.

My MIL is lovely, but bloody annoying sometimes. I'm sure she'd say the same about me! I don't think she realises that I do a lot of the donkey work around seeing her and FIL and that actually my DH finds her hard work and annoying, it's normally me suggesting we call them / go for a meal / arrange an activity.

I have the most amazing DIL. She is like another daughter to me (I have two DD as well as my DS) and I know she loves me too. She and my DS live locally, I do regular childcare for them and we also see each other socially. I don't really know what the secret is, other than I was careful to take my lead from them in the early days, but it absolutely is possible.

I'm sorry you lost your wonderful MiL.

You were very lucky. So was I with my own mother. We may have lost these amazing women far too soon, but were privileged to have them in the first place.

This point is a general response to the thread and the tone of the site as to DiLs and MiLs in general, not the PP above. People are not going to post on a support and information website asking for advice on how to deal with lovely, benign mothers-in-law; or to recognise it might be their own son, not his interloping wife, at the root of problems between married men and their families of origin. So naturally we'll see the worst of it here.

It's not necessarily that Mumsnet gives MiLs and sometimes DMs a bad rap, or that the site is populated by hateful DiLs. The above PP and me have been lucky with certain relations - blood and in-law - we've had in our lives, but the relatives we end up with are purely a matter of chance.

I know not everyone is so fortunate. Nor should anyone be blamed for having tough boundaries in place to protect themselves.

Well if a partner's parents raised them then those parents provided the model for being a partner and a parent. That isn't sexism, its simply a fact of raising children.

Most of the problems I see between MiL/DiL are a result of a sexist society expecting women to do all the emotional family labour and the consequential internalised misogyny - all those little assumptions about the DiL being responsible for all cards/presents/birthdays on both sides of the family and the myriad of other small or large tasks spring to mind. Plus the expection for the women to be "best friends" and center the man in everything which is still pretty ingrained in much of society.

If there was less pressure on all women to be the perfect wife and mother and women were encouraged to simply build a cordial, working relationship with each other whilst holding men responsible for managing their own relationships then many families would be a lot happier.

Just don't be a possessive, emotionally stunted weirdo and you'll be grand.

The current trend in pop psychology is to advocate for immediately and completely cutting out anyone "toxic" from your life. Unfortunately this often means mother in laws getting the cold shoulder as they lack the longer term familial bonds that help to dissuade people from the outright cruelty of estrangement.

Sadly the definition of "toxic" in popular social media psychology tends to run on a spectrum from legitimate concerns such as physical violence all the way down to petty nonsense like forgetting to add sugar to someone's cup of tea.

People are no longer willing to learn conflict resolution skills and therapist online are capitalising on the rise of narcissism that our social media fuels. You are the centre of the world and if people don't bend entirely to your will and support everything you do (no matter how stupid), you are TOXIC and will be "grey rocked" out of existence.

It's a sad state of affairs but unfortunately the world we live in now means every tiny faux pas is seen as "abuse", which massively waters down the significance of the word for those genuinely suffering from serious mistreatment. I believe that familial relationships such as the role of the mother in law is being impacted by this shift in attitudes.

People need to learn the skill of getting along with each other, even when those people may not be perfect. It's a lost art.

And before anyone straps on their judgey pants, no I am not an estranged mother in law with an axe to grind. My eldest child is only 10!!

Please don’t worry OP. I often think mumsnet is just a completely seperate world from actual real life where functioning adults manage to get through life without some of the ridiculous things mentioned on here ever featuring

it’s easy to say that from the safe perspective of having a pleasant MIL. Some of my friends haven’t been so lucky. There are some awful MILs about (and probably DILs too). More awful MILs, I suspect, because they are the ones unsettled by the changes to their authority/ the status quo when dgc appear on the scene

I don’t think the threads would be written or read if people write about how amazing their mil is…unfortunately family dynamics can be very difficult

@zippalippa I agree with a lot of your comment. I also think there's a lot of crossed wires because of extremely different cultural/generational expectations.

There was a thread a few years ago where the DIL was going low-contact because the MIL had ironed and put away washing uninvited/unasked while looking after the dgc for the day at the DIL's house. I for one would have been 100% grateful. That DIL was insulted and felt judged.

I thought this about mine until I got divorced and haven't heard a peep from her since.

It's hurtful. Makes me think it was all a sham.

Its ok but can be difficult at times as she is from a different culture, wasn't raised to be polite like UK folk and does things like returns gifts I've bought her that she doesn't like.
I find it hard but I don't say anything because I have no intention of being piggy in the middle in their relationship.
She generally has a good heart though.

My mother in law is not easy - she thinks I and her son are still children and has told us when to have kids, what gap to have, countless things about how to parent them, what stockings they MUST have, what we should be doing in our leisure time.....

...but we rub along ok. Mostly, I take my cue from DH, who smiles, nods, does what he was going to do anyway and has a laugh about it behind the scenes. He never expects me to prioritise his mum's more eccentric suggestions.

Truth is, if you are in a happy relationship with your DH and you have the grandkids, you have the upper hand in the relationship. You can afford to be gracious whilst kindly setting boundaries and you really don't need to hammer home your advantage. Obviously, some MIL relationships are totally beyond saving, but generally it's give and take.

@BeggyMitchell I can relate to this a little when DH and I were rocky. It has made me see that they don't have any regard for me except because I am married to DH. So I've stopped investing in them. It's hard to articulate why it feels so rotten as obviously they have an interest in you because of their son, but surely they shouldn't drop you like a hot potato at the first sign of trouble.