Are you close to your MIL?

[arlequin]

I'm a mum of 2 boys who are absolutely amazing. I really hope I can continue to be really close to their families if and when they grow up and meet someone.
Are you close to your MIL? I am close with mine although she lives far away so we don't see her as often as we'd like.

No. She has BPD. She is very difficult but I try my best with her! It's not a terrible relationship but not close either.

Very much so.
She’s an incredibly intelligent, witty, warm hearted friendly woman who has championed me and my potential since I became a young mum. Hugely supportive and a very hands on grandmother to all of her grandchildren, ones who live nearby and ones further afield.
She’s brilliant fun to be around and I feel like my life has been so enriched with her presence. I love her to bits.

Eh? I was just asking if you're close to your MIL.

I am but it took a LOT of work from both sides to get here. A lot of letting shit go. She was very sad to let DH go and was going through menopause when we got together so has been harsh. I was wrapped up in my own dysfunctional family and very sensitive to criticism. Now I'm closer to her than my own family.

Yes. She is truly lovely, helpful without overstepping and I think the key is that she is "normal" and very honest on parenting disasters and how difficult it is (both now and then). I am not trying to attain her level of parenting, and as far as I know she isn't looking down on mine. She wasn't clingy to her son/was definitely ready to hand him off. I would happily go for a drink/meal with my MIL without my husband, and it wouldn't be awkward. Bonus points that she is a retired teacher and actually has boundaries with children/doesn't give them everything they ask for/spoil them. She even tries to help them learn at home when visiting. Most usefully though she set boundaries for us and told us she didn't want to be an expected childcare resource on a weekly schedule. Our little ones love her, and so do we.

Yes, we got on very well. It took time, but yes would phone her for a chat, go on holiday together. She died 6 years ago and left me all her jewellery and her posh car!
We liked each other.

Nope, you are expecting DIL to facilitate your relationship with sons.
Otherwise below would be irrelevant and you would not worry about your relationship when they meet a woman. Even if DIL dislikes you you could be close to your sons if they make an effort.

"I'm a mum of 2 boys who are absolutely amazing. I really hope I can continue to be really close to their families if and when they grow up and meet someone."

Oh come on, of course it helps if everyone likes each other. I would make plans with my MIL or FIL, perhaps my DH would, but I tended to be around and did the planning. Clearly me liking them smoothed the way. My DH wasn’t torn between me and his mum because there were no issues.

I prefer her to my own, she’s warmer. But i have never truly bonded with her as o know deep down she’s all about her own boys rather than in laws. But we are very polite to each other.

My MIL was fabulous. She welcomed me with open arms and could remember nothing about child rearing (or she was extremely discrete!) even when asked by me for her opinion.
Gradually things would come out, like her milk dried up due to stress when DH was born, there was sod all money, so tiny DH was fed on, irc, condensed milk (rural poor life in the 60s). They all survived on cold baked beans when they moved as there was still no money. And to get your washing white many moons ago you'd put a blue cloth in.
Put all my problems into perspective really! And helped cure me of the enormous guilt I felt struggling to bf my DC.

She was 80 when her first grandchild was born and she thought they were fabulous and thought I was doing a great job. I used to visit her a few times a week with DC and without DH as he worked stupidly long hours then and she lived half a mile away. It was a lovely time and I still miss her hugely.

She's no longer with us, but we liked each other. We were very different women with little in common other than that we both loved her son. That was enough to make us get along.

Wow @LondonFox - not sure if you are projecting, or just making stuff up but @arlequin didn't say any of that.

I'm not particularly close to my MiL. We get on fine and spend 'extended family time' together. Never fallen out. No drama, but we are just very different people.
I do get on very well with both my dcs' partners and hope and expect it to continue.

I adore my MIL despite us living 5000 miles apart. She and I have similar sense of humor and she's warm, kind hearted and generous.

When DS was born, she was so careful not to overstep boundaries when she came to stay (although I never felt she did, if anything I threw DS at her every morning so I could shower and nap in peace!) and our fridge was never empty and dinner was always on the table despite us not asking or expecting her to do that.

And ultimately, when my younger brother passed away when DS was 9 months old, she sent cards and flowers to my family, text my parents throughout and flew down from Scotland for the day of the funeral and back the same afternoon (we didn't know until that morning) so she could look after DS during the service and support us all.

It's things like this I will never forget, I love when she comes to visit us as I really enjoy her company and my boys love her.

I have two boys and hope my future son/daughter in laws feel the same way about me.

In 7 years I have only met my MIL 3 times... once in passing at a coffee shop, my hen do and our wedding day.. the women only lives on the same road as us

I love my mil like she is my mother, she has fully made me feel like a valued member of the family, and in 6 years we have never had a tiff. I am very grateful to her for letting myself and DH live rent free, which enabled us to buy our house. It was also nice to live with her, we sometimes drank tea at kitchen table and talked for hours.
Having said that she is a bit funny with boundaries, wants to know and be involved with everything, which I find a bit hard to navigate! She comments on our marriage often and has asked about our sex life, nags DH to be nicer to me

Not as close as she would like but that's because if I give an inch she tries to take a mile. She has form for completely trying to intrude in my life, make comments and give her opinion on everything I do with my dh and my dc (all uninvited and not asked for!). She has desperately tried to hold control over my dh but with him now having other priorities she isn't willing to just start to take a back seat and wants to jostle for the lead role. I do an awful lot of kind gestures and include her where I can but her manipulative and overbearing nature aren't very attractive.

Absolutely not. But then DH doesn't appear that keen either.

He does like his MIL though! But then my mum put a lot of effort in and his didn't.

I was, she passed 3 years ago and I miss her immensely. We were good friends, always made effort with me and was just a lovely person. She was firm but fair (always sided with me over DP ha).

I didn't produce any Grand Children for my MIL so she was never that fussy for me. Other daughter in law was the golden one as she produced grand daughters (MIL only had sons and had been desperate for a daughter back in the day).

Annoyingly, now she's at deaths door in a care home, guess who ended up sorting out all her stuff and paperwork..... Other daughter in law and shiny halo grand children never go near her now the bank of Grandma has been used for care home fees and I'm now the main contact for the care home staff.

After 25 years I’ve got closer but before I had my first child 10 years into our relationship she didn’t really see me as a DIL. I like her, but I still remember the past although I don’t let it get in the way of our relationship today.

No

I was. Until her son cheated on me, which she knew about & said nothing, to either him or me.

Completely changed the way I viewed her & our relationship has never been the same.

No. I would have liked to have been but her terms and conditions didn't work for me. It also wasn't in my children's best interests to have much involvement with her. She's still alive but it won't happen now, which is sad, but sometimes it's just how it works out.

Yes, she is fantastic. We both worked hard on our relationship to being with. We're very very different people but respect each other a lot.
She is still sometimes a bit uptight around me but we generally get along really well.

I am. We live nearby and she is lovely. Fair, kind, down to earth. I got really lucky.