My MIL is an annoying old goat

[iamusuallybeingunreasonable]

Having family live at a distance is the pits, every single holiday, bank or otherwise, seems to be taken up within seeing to PIL needs, we both work full time and would like our lives back!

Arghhh, back from a weekend will the MIL and needed to get this little lot off my chest? you can tell me I am being unreasonable ? but good god, how can one person be so bleeding annoying?!

1 ? My baby doesn?t like her ? she is 9 months old and won?t be held by her, screams when she sees her, doesn?t like her pushing her pram? a good friend of mine said, well you know that babies are a good judge of character, like dogs ha, and given the MIL doesn?t hold back in terms of being nasty with me, it?s highly likely my baby feels this nastiness seeping through her every pore 

2 ? She is loud, rude, in your face and likes everyone to hear her when we are out? example from the weekend, having a lovely lunch in a nice restaurant with extended family, poor underpaid waitress brings the wrong dish to the table, she goes BALLISTIC ?we didn?t order THAT, take it back, we don?t want it? said with a poe faced sour nastiness? when a ?we didn?t order the lamb my dear, we ordered the chicken? would have sufficed

3 ? When we arrived, having not seen baby for 3 months, did she fuss over her or her son for that matter? nah, she asked DH to look at her printer/scanner? go figure, loving mother huh?

4 ? Having driven 400 miles to see her, paid to stay in a hotel as there is no room at the inn for crap (another story), did she offer us a bite to eat like any civil person would? no? we had not eaten since lunch, she lives in a remote area, we had a 10 pm mcdonalds on the road, not exactly nutritious

5 ? Every single effing time I go to breastfeed my baby, she follows me around going ?good feed mmm?? ? she hates me breastfeeding

6 ? She doesn?t call me mum or mummy to my baby ? rather uses the term the ?dinner lady? in homage to my breastfeeding, and also a little dig I feel that my baby is only clingy to me as I provide food, nothing to do with love, affection

7 ? As soon as I get the pram out of the car she runs off with baby, baby usually crying as baby doesn?t like her, won?t let me push my own child in her pram ? I work full time, I get very little time with my child as it is, does she not think I might like to push her out occasionally, baby starts hysterically crying as she wants mummy, as soon as mummy quieten?s baby, MIL bangs her face right up to baby, scares the living daylights out of her, tears again

8 ? She dished up lunch on Monday, and gave me the tiniest portion of roast dinner known to man, and this I was to ?share? with my blw baby? my DH however had a food mountain on his plate, and I got 2 snarled looking, full of eyes roast potatoes on mine as some kind of gift of sourness!! I am no twiggy, in fact, I know I am still carrying baby weight, but I don?t need her enforcing diets on me ? it?s the same every time we stay, I always go home lightheaded and full of a headache due to lack of food intake!

9 ? When I try to get baby to sleep, I get a audience ? what baby has ever gone to sleep when it has a mooning daft face peering at it, trying to wake it up? she stands are stares at me rocking her, waiting desperately for it not to work

10 ? She?s been in the loft, and got a nasty snarled old toy out from 30 years ago? it smells of sick, she boils it in water, it still smells of sick... and she likes to put her fingers in my baby?s mouth ? this I cannot abide, mine fine, but not hers

11 ? Baby has blue eyes, none of DH family have, I have? ?let me think, where does she get those blue eyes from, I?ll remember in a bit, its coming to me, oh great great great grandpa? ? not her effing mother then?!?! She looks like everyone, but me, my baby is the image of my brother when he was a baby, looks nothing like the miniature gargoyle?s on DH?s side, to say a baby is ugly is not a nice thing, but the baby?s on DH?s side are challenging aesthetically!

Maybe it?s me, perhaps I am too sensitive, but good lord, what happens to women when they reach a certain age, when she is pushing the pram and mooning, she is thinking ?look at me, and my baby? when all anyone sees is an old crusty hag living out a fantasy, it?s my grandchild this, my grandchild that, let?s go and visit Mrs whatever in the whatever shop who doesn?t know you, but who I can moon over you in front of while your all in tears and wanting milk from the ?dinner lady? ? AGHHH, its off my chest now!

Surely I am not the only one???

Its making me laugh thinking about the food, i would never ever offer, even my most arch-nemesis, 2 snarled potatoes covered in eyes and dirty nicks!!

Its so funny how she thought to do this, bless her cottons!

Whilst mummy's boy gets a plate of the finest yummy scrummy looking golden roasties, because he's a growing boy don't you know, and mummy has to feed her boy up, and let that nasty DIL lose some weight, much needed I hasten to add myself, but not a welcome gesture from the old bat!

Ah well, its good to see I am not alone, i dont hate or dislike anyone, i just question the logic in her being so bleeding nasty, its hardly going to win friends and influence folks is it?!

I can remember my own mum absolutely hating her MIL for being a nasty scrote (and it was justified - on her final baby, the MIL accused my mum of playing away - as both my parents were 40 when they had their last - shock horror, it's impossible for a man to conceive a baby at 40, no?!?!? ... anyway, it left a lasting taste in my mouth, how could i ever admire and wish to spend quality time with a woman that visibly disliked my own loving mother so much... women, hey, if only we were as simple as men!

I've heard some of Kreecher's stories, and having a difficult MIL myself, I sympathise with her.

My only point of divergence is that in our house, it'll be DH cracking open the champagne.

I feel your pain. My mother in law describes me DS's "meal ticket" and says that is the reason he wants to be held by me more than anyone else. It makes me furious as is such a callous attempt to belittle the bond between mother and baby.

Salmotrutta I think the optimal distance to live apart from a disliked mil (or indeed anybody else that has to be seen out of duty) is 20 miles.
Think about it: if they live 200 miles away, bite-sized visits will not be possible- nobody drives that distance for a quick 2-hour visit.
At the other end of the scale, a mil who lives 2 miles away could 'pop' around every day.

If 20 miles away, though, it will not be possible to pop in everyday, nor will it be necessary to have visits that last days.

A person would probably see their mil about once a fortnight or so for sunday lunch or similar for about a couple of hours. Also, if somebody lives near to you, there does seem to be a tendency to think, 'I can see them tomorrow' and tomorrow never comes!

So if anybody is thinking of moving from disliked mil- 20 miles seems sensible.

Mumwithadragontattoo... love your name, and feel your pain :(

Wamster - I really hope you're right. My PILs are moving about 20 miles away (from rather further) and I'm dreading it. But if you're right they will be too far away to pop over too often but won't need to stay long. Can anyone advise how this works in practice?

That seems an eminently sensible suggestion for optimal distance Wamster - not too near and not too far.
I think you should spread this knowledge far and wide to all young couples with annoying relatives

iamusuallybeingunreasonable

I'll let you know in August Mumwith.....
I am moving about 25 miles away from my FiL, his lovely new wife, SiLs and one of DHs bonkers aunties.
Yikes.

Mumwithadragontattoo, I make no promises about being right but it's just something I observed by default. My ex-mil lived a long distance away and anything less than 24 hours in her company was not worth her travel time (which was reasonable, I think. Fair enough).

But my own mum, who lives about 15 miles away and I like to see, I only see for a few hours at a time about once every two weeks, because it's not exactly easy to see her every day and, at the same time, the pressure to spend more than the afternoon in her company is not really there like it would be if she lived 200 miles away.

kreecher - you must be brave...

ugh i have had the dc all look like in laws side of the family yet when small and had hissy fits that must be from my side cos none of their kids ever did that!

Mumwithadragontatoo - the key is pre-arranged visits. You phone and arrange (due to your very hectic social schedule and activities etc. ) a visit. Stressing how you wouldn't want them to "pop by" and be disappointed - as you lead such busy lives .
Ask them for lunch etc. then say you have another engagement for later in the day e.g. meeting friends. That way they can't stay for hours.
Plus if you visit them , you call the shots as far as length of visit goes. Same excuses - clubs/activities/meeting friends.

Your DH should have a word with his mother. Much of her behaviour is totally unacceptable. As the DIL you can't stand up to her. It is up to your DH to set the boundary.

I have problems with my MIL. PIL live 3000 miles away and has booked flights to visit 6 weeks after the baby is due to arrive. They are staying for 3 weeks (I get 18 weeks of maternity leave here in the US) and there is sweet FA that I can do about it as DH won't tell his mother where to stick her SAS flights (she will only fly SAS and then complains about the cost). I hope her grandchild craps all over her on a daily basis.

I don't think kreacher said anything that bad, it's just something she was thinking, not that she actually wanted to go out and party. When dh's mother died I was very, very, very sad for him, but for me, selfishly, I had no sadness whatsoever because I knew that there would be no peace while she lived. Nobody admits that because it sounds so horrible. In fact, I felt some horror at myself for vocalising that. It's different to actually wishing death on someone.

I can relate to No. 11 too, maybe it is quite common. DD is quite fair-skinned (we are Asian), like me while dh is quite brown. But dh's family were trying to think where she got her light skin from and finally settled on a distant cousin .

I still think your dh needs to put a stop to her awful behaviour.

You need to show her who is boss you really do

Lol at madamdeathstate - I would love to know what you look like! Do you have kids?

Cats like me too! Cats have great taste

megapixels I totally understand where you are coming from with regards to your MIL death. I would never admit it to DH but the woman is nothing but trouble. She has nothing positive to say and takes pleasure in putting people down. I don't wish her an early death but I wouldn't be too sad if she popped her clogs tomorrow.

I am Jewish and the MIL has said some pretty nasty things. She went so far as to tell me that the child will not be Jewish but Danish. When I corrected her and told her the child will be American she said at least the child will not be Jewish. I do hope hell has a special place reserved for her.

I can relate to your last comment megapixels - it has reminded me of my sil holding my newborn ds (dh is Indian, I am English), noticing that his hands were lighter than his face and asking him, in my presence, where he had got his white hands from??????

I think in the first year of a baby's life there is a general "tussle" over its features from both sides of the family - both of them trying to claim relationship as it were, but this settles down and now that my kids are 5, 7 and 9, I rarely hear any comments about who looks like who...
I too used to get the comments about my kids as babies wanting to be with me because of the breastfeeding, I had forgotten how annoying this was! Your baby feels so much part of you having just spent 9 months in your womb and then having given birth to him/her which is such a painful/emotional/hormonal experience, and the moment they are out in the world, you are descended upon by crowds of people trying to stake their claim - just as you are at your most vulnerable and hormonal. Glad for kids to be loved, but have memories of in-laws all having pics of themselves taken with the babies but nobody wanting to take a picture of me with my new baby :( - don't know if this is me being unreasonable. It was me who went round making sure I had a pic of the baby with all the different relatives to show them (the children) when they are older.

Want2bSupermum - have you told your MIL that your kids ARE Jewish because of Judaism being passed down through the mother? That they might be Danish and American but they will always be Jewishas well? Can't believe anybody could be that rude! Aren't there any Jewish Danes?

There you are, iamuusuallybeingunreasonable, according to Salmotrutta and myself you need to move closer to your mum-in-law! (runs and hides)

Salmotrutta - good tips thanks. I just don't fancy hanging out with them a lot (especially without DH). I like the idea of going when have something else to do so that can make a swift exit.

ostracized - for you that your in laws didn't want pics of you with new baby. Mine are not on that scale of being mean...

I'll not be putting the house on the market just yet :)

ostracized There is no point in arguing with stupid. The MIL wants to see the baby bump every week to see how their grandchild is developing. I told DH that I didn't have time to listen to his mothers insults and that I would no longer parade myself infront of the webcam for someone who can't even be polite.

I think Hitler saw all the Jewish Danes off. The Danish put them in ships and sent them all to Sweden during WW2. The Germans then occupied Denmark and very few, if any, returned.