To think my MIL is one of the worst...

[EMS23]

My SIL is a nice enough person, we're very different but she is a good person and we get on well.

Her mother, my MIL is just so bloody mean to her. She's bad enough to me but it mostly goes over my head and I try not to rise to it but the things she says to her own daughter make me want to throttle the cow.

There are many things but yesterday, the whole family met up to meet SIL's new baby (DC3), born 14 hours previously. The first thing her mum, her own bloody mother says to her is:
You'll have to get rid of that belly you've still got there.

WTAF?!!

Would it be terribly childish to suggest making similar comments back to her!? Eg - Have you put on weight MIL? No wonder you have so many frown lines, MIL... etc etc.

Might give her a taste of her own medicine.

Sounds like my MIL, when visiting me after DS1 wad born. Had had 30hr labour with transfer into hospital etc she made a point of saying how tired and rough I looked, made me feel even better about things .

"But the day she tells my DD she's fat will be the day my turn the other cheek policy gets shelved."
I really don't get why you are waiting. Why not just tell her to fuck off now?

Totally agree. Why wait for your DD to suffer from the same bullshit as the rest of you? [buconfused]

People like your MIL behave like this partly because they can. They are bullies who belittle others to make themselves feel good. If you all stood up for yourselves and stopped seeing her, stopped talking to her, hell just told her where to go and walked out when she started she might think about what she says more and change her shitty attitude. Or she might continure anyway and end up very alone. Would be her choice though.

Oh god no, I don't want her to say it, I just imagine she will one day.

I guess I don't feel it's my place. My DH argues with her but she never changes so I think what's the point in me causing a big rift if ultimately nothing will change anyway and it will be my DH stuck in the middle of his mum and wife at war.

Weirdly my own brother is a horrible person and he never gets pulled up on it so it carries on and my DH is always saying I should say something.

Once she started making comments about my DC was the day I thought I've had enough of this.

I've had therapy since and I think your MIL sounds like she has some sort of personality disorder in that she can only feel good about herself when putting someone else down.

Does she do it to your DH or just SIL? Often one sibling is the goldenchild the other the scapegoat.

My mother is just a nasty person (well to me), my problem was I was clever and opinionated unlike my brother who was slow and needed her more and she felt sorry for him. My brother is the goldenchild who can do no wrong whilst apparently I am stuck up.

When will people start to realise that blood may well be thicker than water, but its also a lot more messy? You really don't have to put p with twats in your life. Get rid.

I think it's more of a form of control than tourettes.

They must think they can say anything they like, which they can really because there are no consequences.

And if there are consequences, they relish the attention and sympathy when relating their tale of how badly they're treated to people who don't know any better.

So if you don't pull her up on it, what do people actually say to her when she comes out with these lines?

If you're not going to take her up on it, I would blank her totally when she does this. By that I mean don't say anything, not even something that completely changes the subject. Just behave as if you haven't even heard her speak. It may be that you already do that, in which case forget it and work on calling her out on it.

Oh, I don't know, my mother didn't let me wear pink as a little girl because I was a plain brown mousy child and didn't suit it. It was preparation for MIL's piece de resistance though when I was just pg with dd (my 5th pg and we managed two children) "at least SIL1 can perform without any problems". Actually, perhaps we could arrange for your MIL to spend a weekend with my MIL [girn]

I just thought of another classic:

in a room full of relatives, we arrive with DD1 and 2, aunt asks if I am still BFing DD2, I say "no I've stopped" Mother "oh I thought you had look at your chest it's shrank away to nothing" cue everyone staring at my chest including teenage cousins. That was another one of her pet hates that I had bigger boobs than her she once took a bra out in front of everyone and declared one of my friends must have left it as it was too big to be mine and theres no way I could fill it. WTF

Anyway I digress, a lot of the time mothers are actually jealous of their DD's, it might be because they are younger, have had more opportunities career wise they never had etc but they spend the entire time running their daughter down, could it be that?

I like that retort bran. I might try that. I think it would work on my brother actually.

I tend to change the subject, laugh it off or wander off to do a Very Important Task!

DH, my DSS and SIL are her main victims. My BIL, her firstborn is the golden child but his wife gets it from MIL a lot too, I guess for taking away her precious boy and her ultimate sin of being taller than him!

She would definitely play the victim if a row ever broke out about all this.

"I guess I don't feel it's my place. "
Actually, it is your place. You are her DIL. Her family. And a member of her family who's childhood and self-esteem were unaffected by her. If anything, you are the ideal family member to call her on her behaviour. Either the oft-suggested "Wow, that sounded rude! Did you mean it to be?", or, as cakeismysaviour, a catty dig - "Are you putting on weight?" etc. (Recommending electrolysis to deal with her moustache shut my sister up better than anything else I ever said to her. )

I assume DSS is a child? Then you ought to feel obliged to.

Start practicing saying "do you mean to be rude", "gawd, that's a pretty horrible thing to say", "have you ever been diagnosed as having tourrettes", wow, do you realise how awful your comments come across". My mother used to be terrible for similar comments, I now passively pick her up and laugh and move on quickly, she has got so much better, today she told me my sister was looking fatter but has decided not to say to her about it, I just said that was the right decision, taken about ten years with both my sister and myself using the same tatics but it has finally sunk in...

Yes, DSS is 8. I rage inside when she's mean to him, my DH does call her on it on those occasions but she just doesn't see what the problem is or what she's done wrong. So I stay out of it.
Maybe time for change has arrived then.

I have one of these in my family.

I put up with it because she has health problems, takes a lot of medication and is often in chronic pain. Basically she is deeply disappointed with her own life and takes it out on everyone else.

But it makes me [buangry] inside.

Why don't you all gang up on her and tell her to change her ways or fcking do one ? Why do people put up with this rubbish ?

So next time your DH calls her on meanness to your DSS, back him up. Don't stay out of it. Maybe that will encourage others in the group to join you. At the very least, though, it will show DSS that both the adults responsible for him at that time are on his side and sticking up for him.

Plus I don't believe the 'doesn't understand what she's done wrong' line; I would bet that she does but just likes to prolong the discussion and play the martyr by claiming to not understand. She needs to be told to shut up, and then, when that point's made, the rest of you can take the usual approach and change the subject, talk loudly over her or whatever.

I agree with EightiesEasterChick - 'doesn't understand' is total rubbish. They do it because they enjoy it. Whether that enjoyment comes from exercising their sparkling and incisive wit, or cutting others down to make themselves feel big, they totally understand what they are doing; and if no-one calls them on their behaviour, they remain motivated by their enjoyment to continue.

You are the ideal person to stop this awful woman in her tracks. When she says something spiteful you need to jump in and say, "How can you say that to X? Can't you see how upset you've made him/her?" or "Oh my god, did you say that just to make her cry?"

You are an in law. She's got away with this shit with her own family all of her life. You are the outside world looking in at her. You must stop her every time she says something awful.

She's certainly blunt? Do you think she might have some sort of disorder? Has she always been like that, or has it just come on as she has got older?

I would try to follow ImperialB''s advice. Pull her up on the things she says, just in a matter of fact way, without getting in to an argument.