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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

EVIL MILs - WHY DID YOU MARRY SOMEONE WHEN YOU DON'T LIKE THEIR MUM??

206 replies

Hullygully · 07/02/2013 15:36

Why??

What did you think would happen?

OP posts:
Xiaoxiong · 07/02/2013 15:55

My FIL was a doll until DS arrived. Then he flipped out (to the extent that we thought he'd had a stroke or something else to cause such an extreme personality change).

Also what woozle said - DH married me in spite of being fully aware of my mother having worked for her for a while, so thank goodness he doesn't subscribe to this concept.

SneakyNuts · 07/02/2013 15:55

FIL on the other hand...Angry

Trills · 07/02/2013 15:57

YABU because you have not asked an AIBU question, of course.

Not getting on with your ILs only works if your partner agrees with you on how they are annoying.

If your partner thinks that their family are perfectly normal and lovely, while you think they are bonkers as conkers, then this is a serious problem.

TerraNotSoFirma · 07/02/2013 15:59

Mine was loveliness personified until she cut in on our first dance at the wedding. It's been downhill since then really.

limitedperiodonly · 07/02/2013 16:01

I don't mind my MIL. She does make it hard though.

I wouldn't blame my SIL and her small daughter for hating MIL though. She says really spiteful things to me about them.

My SIL is the soul of discretion and tells me nothing. Unfortunately.

JamieandtheMagicTorch · 07/02/2013 16:01

Hmm.

I do agree that if I absolutely could not get on with my MIL, and my DP/DH couldn't see any problem, I would think it ill-advised to marry them.

BUT

I think that some MILs only show their true colours at certain critical points, having children being the main one.

I think it isn't so much the MIL being the problem, as the DP/DHs attitiude towards them being a problem

I think FILs get off lightly on this

Finally I think I am going to be a tremendous MIL now I've read and digested all MN has to say on the matter

Jins · 07/02/2013 16:02

DH dislikes his mother even more than I do.

GetOrf · 07/02/2013 16:04

Sometimes though some MILs are utterly awful. It's not just the DILs being cowbags.

My XP - his mother is wonderful and I love her dearly, still call her my MIL even though I have split from XP.

XXP (christ my series of men) - his mother was a mean spirited bugger. HE was horrible as well, even though it took me 6 years to realise such. But when I met him I was stupid in love so just accepted his meanness and hers. Made me unhappy though.

LadyBigtoes · 07/02/2013 16:05

I also left someone (or refused to get back together with him when he came crawling back after a break-up) because of the choice between having to deal with his awful parents forever, especially his mum, and having them related to my kids, or being free of them.

However, although I now have a nice (if very uninvolved) MIL, my DP hates my mum. It's OK because I agree she is unpleasant and we can talk about it. But I would be a bit sad if he'd decided against me because of her.

I agree it all depends on the attitude of the person whose mum it is. Me and DP can rant to each other about my mum. But my ex was always on his parents (and mad sister's) side and I thought I was going mad when he wouldn't accept that they treated me appallingly.

gordyslovesheep · 07/02/2013 16:05

personally because I loved me husband to be and was marrying him not her - her I put up with because he (at the time) was worth it

GetOrf · 07/02/2013 16:05

And XXMIL was always lovely to my face. Just slagged me off to my mum, friends, daughter, all sorts behind my back. Strange, spiteful woman.

LadyFlumpalot · 07/02/2013 16:06

Because:

A) I love my DH
B) She's a fantastic mum to him, and grandmother to DS, it's just me she dislikes.
C) DH is 27. His mother is 62. Sooner or later she won't be around.

DonderandBlitzen · 07/02/2013 16:07

"I love you dearly and would like to spend the rest of my life with you, but I don't like your mum, so I won't. Goodbye." Not going to happen.

HumphreyCobbler · 07/02/2013 16:07

I expect they thought he was a nice man and that they could cope with his evil mother. I expect they mostly do cope too, but come on here to moan, or moan to mates in RL.

NotAnotherPackedLunch · 07/02/2013 16:07

I married him, not his mother.
He likes her even less than I do!
I have grown fond of her (Stockholm syndrome?) over the years, but he grows less and less fond of her each time she treats me or our children badly.

DrGarnettsWinterMixture · 07/02/2013 16:07

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

TattyDevine · 07/02/2013 16:07

My mother in law was fine until about a week before the wedding. Then she paniced about her son being taken away from her and never seeing him again. In this panic, she did far more damage making it far more likely that he'd run 10 million miles than if she'd stayed quiet and hung in there!

She peaked in evil about 6 months after the wedding, and its tailed off over the past 12 years, a turning point was when our marriage was officially a longer duration than the one of her eldest divorcved daughter.

She still has nothing much to say to me, but that's okay, she doesn't live nearby and I just maintain my cheerful friendly bantery indifference as I have always done.

Husband finds her a pain in the arse and has little to say to her anyway, and he never really did, which is partly where her panic set in I suspect.

Shame, really, as I don't have family nearby and we could have been a nice supplement to each other if it had been mutually agreeable.

GetOrf · 07/02/2013 16:09

lol at Stockholm Syndrome

Miggsie · 07/02/2013 16:09

Well in my mum's case I think it was because she wasn't qualified to recognise Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

My dad didn't have it and is a decent bloke - you can't ostracise someone for having a lunatic parent.

The biggest issue surely is - if you notice your partner has a dysfunctional family - can you live with the ensuing trauma of the family acting up all the time?

Or my MIL whose 2 sons both married drug addicts? She was a lovely MIL but she had 2 quite dreadful DIL (not me!!!)

JamieandtheMagicTorch · 07/02/2013 16:11

Everyone has a dysfunctional family though, don't they? To a greater or lesser degree. We are all optimistic/arrogant enough to think we won't be like our/their parents and be a ll super emotionally healthy and communicative, and we just mess up in different ways.

crypes · 07/02/2013 16:13

My DM and Df were a right nasty pair of shitbags towards my DH. Im glad he saw past their madness and married me, and we are still happily married Why would your parents have anything to do with who you marry?

Narked · 07/02/2013 16:15

Mine isn't evil. She can be difficult.

I'd imagine that you don't get the full on awful behaviour until you're already very involved with their (adult) child.

redskyatnight · 07/02/2013 16:18

On the flip side ... my mother is a nightmare. No one would have married me me if they'd have to also get on with my mum.

EauRouge · 07/02/2013 16:20

The very first time I met MiL (before DH and I were married) she asked us if we were fornicating. My mother put every effort into teaching me how to behave appropriately in all kinds of social situations, but I was shit out of ideas for responding to this one.

But actually she's turned out to be a lovely MiL. Too bad she lives 4000 miles away.

FellatioNels0n · 07/02/2013 16:23

I have got along well with all of my MILs. (one ex, one dead, one step.) It helps that the ex became an ex before I had any children, the dead one is dead and the step one is a long, long way away and always has been.

Seriously, I have got along with all of them but I am under no illusions that feathers may have been ruffled had I had to live in prolonged close proximity to any of them. I don't do falling out though. I think my ex MIL was very highly strung and would have become a problem in the long term, although I was fond of her. ex FIL on the other hand....Hmm The dead one was lovely but I didn't know her for long and it's easy to canonise a dead MIL who you hardly knew. The Step one is great most of the time but she can be a bit arsey opinionated when she's had a drink and she needs to watch her step as she's on a yellow card at the moment. It's taken 20 years for us to have a cross word though.

My recently departed FIL however, was perfect. A total gentleman.