MIL said I need to take better care of my husband

[caggas]

I thought we could play a fun guessing game of why my MIL, without a shred of sarcasm, told me I need to take better care of my (42 year old) husband.

Winner can keep her!

Mine writes judgemental WhatsApp messages along the worse lines, listing my 'failings'. Just found out she is visiting today (DH arranged it). Retired to bed with my laptop and letting him run around getting ready. Not happy and certainly not making any effort anymore.

My MIL is no longer with us but my own mother was horrified when I said DH could iron his own shirts if he wanted them ironed… she was in her 50s at the time too, so not elderly at all.

ETA: DM hates ironing and pays someone to do all of hers

Haha.
Tell her it's shame she didn't teach him better pattern matching skills when he was young and malleable, but he's a lost cause now and you're concentrating on the next generation.

Well my MIL said this when dh lost weight - apparently it was because I wasn't feeding him enough 🙄 so I guess it's this?

OMG I know some mums of sons have had this weird, sexist attitude in the past, but are there actually mums of sons around who think like this now? 😂It's 2023 FFS! I'm embarrassed for her!

If he's 42 she's probably no more than mid 60s herself. Young adult in the 1980s and 1990s. I don't think I know one single woman of this generation that would have this 'you need to take care of your husband better' attitude. Good LORD! 😆 I'd have laughed at her @caggas and asked her if she was taking the piss.

My MIL keeps trying to show me how to wipe down the surfaces of my own house. Just a quick wipe down of sinks, bath, counters, mantlepices, windowsills, I can do it "first thing when everyone's gone". Except I work far more hours than DPm and am often out the house before him.

WTF? Why do these women think it's OK to do this? And why aren't they showing their SONS how to do it?

What do you say to her ?? How do you react @AmazingSnakeHead ? I hope you laugh at her and tell to fuck off.

I was going to ask ... did he have to bring up his own wind? 🥺

It’s not your responsibility to ensure your husband puts on matching socks, did his mother not instil in him that his socks should be matching at all times

out of interest what did you say back to her when she said this to you

I hope you apologised 😆

Has he lost weight?

Boomboom70
Hol moly

What was your response?

My MIL was shocked that I didn't pack my DH's holiday suitcase for him. Yours takes the cake

What? Are we supposed to wear matching socks?

So it was socks. Wow.

Doesn't your MIL realise she is actually insulting her son?

As much as I'm interested in your reply, I think his could be interesting.

Addendum

Way back when I was newly married we went to a thing with his family where his Nan complained about his body odour. Naturally, I apoligised and explained that it was a result of the family he grew up in. She was the old bat who called me by his ex's name.

Side-eyeing my lunch, which I no longer want .... 😂

Hole in his sock needing darned

Constipated and needs more roughage

Had a wandering eye and needs more "attention "

I wear odd socks quite regularly. I wonder if someone should be taking care of me? Not sure who that would be.

Just seen the update OMG, surely by now MIL's have moved on from that old fashioned codswallop.

I've got one of those. We took her with us on a recent stay with SIL. I always do a huge shop and cook most meals when there. I really enjoy our trips there and don't go for a cheap getaway. We pull our weight in every way and always buy a gift too. I also have an outing skill but save her a lot of money by doing it each visit.
The only night DH cooked alone, MIL jumped up to help. She never assisted in anything else the entire stay, feigning aches and pains every time something was needing to be done. She thought it was disgusting he was being left to cook dinner for ten people...he's a chef!

Id reply with

Has he been complaining about the quality of the sex?

say it dead pan and watch to see her reaction

I just don't get the cognitive processing that happens when someone does this. So she saw your DH, noted his socks (weird), understood he got himself dressed, bypassed this fact (weird), then formed the thought 'That's @caggas fault' (weird) didn't filter out the fact that it's a ridiculous thought to apply responsibility to her sons wife instead of him (weird), and then actually verbalised that he needs taking better care of and all the value judgement that entails? Weird and wrong.

I must be thick AF because I can't imagine looking at someone's socks in the first place (I can categorically state the cloth or lack of on someone's feet is absolutely the last thing on my mind). I have 3 children and I have literally zero idea of what socks they have on this morning

He took his washing to her.

I think they're aware they are doing it on purpose, and that they know the other woman knows it. I think they know they'll be perceived as ridiculous, and are not bothered. I think women who adopt this barking mad stance with other women have, at a previous stage of their lives, accepted the patriarchal diktats that a woman's place is in subsevience. I think they've lost out, possibly very significantly, because of it.

I think they resent the fact that other women know they have other options in life aisde from Wife Work, mental labour and domesticity, and can't bear for them not to share the same fate.

She's in all other respects a nice and reasonable woman, so I just smile in that strained way of when someone says something awkward, and say nothing at all.

It's strange though, in most ways she understands that I work and have more of a career than my DP, and that he does housework too. But some things are so ingrained that she can't even see it. Another example, his whole family assume that I do the christmas gift buying for them. When I tell them actually DP chose it they laugh and wink like I'm being cute!