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

[Hullygully]

Why??

What did you think would happen?

My mil used to be happier and more positive. She also used to be more positive about me. There's always been odd digs or clumsy comments, but since having dd they've felt more personal and I'm less able to handle it.

Fellatio

I was nodding when I read your summary.

MIL who is deceased would have been difficult at first. She was lovely but deeply unhappy post-divorce and I think would have wanted maybe more involvement than I could have handled when mine were small. But I think she'd have been a good granny and I'd have liked her perspective on having two boys, and her memories of what DH was like as a child - FIL can't remember/wasn't there much.

Step MIL is lovely but makes it pretty clear she likes one of mine much more than the other

BTW Mil died when youngest was nearly 2

She lulled me into a false sense of security.

She was on her best behaviour first few and far apart visits - then when she started to be occasionally off - I just accepted it as I was very shy and FIL and DH made it O.K. somehow.

She ignored our engagement - weddings she was very difficult but small wedding and easily coped with.

Then she went completely nasty and batty few years after wedding when I become pg. Plus FIL was containing her less and less.

Then she calmed down again and we developed strategies for coping with both IL.

To answer the OP, because I married my DH and not my mil.

And the real problems didn't start until we had children.

I'm very glad DH married me even though I have a hard work mother, but then, he'd spent very little time with her before we got married. In fact, until DS came along, i'd never spent time with MIL without DH and FIL at least also being there, and when we got married, we lived in London with PIL living in Kent. It was only 2 years after we got married that we moved to being relatively close to them, luckily, MIL is lovely, however, this is more luck than judgement on my behalf.

Yabu. She didn't reveal the full extent of her batshittery until after ds was born, and DH has always normalised her abusive ways so for a while I thought it was just me. It took a marriage counsellor gasping for him to agree that I might have a point.

I don't have thoughts of deservingness or not.

I'm thinking about people who knew full well before they married that they didn't like their MIL but would have to have a relationship with her and the family.

That's what I'm questioning. If there isn't estrangement, you are marrying a package. Like stepkids etc.

I don't think alot of women realise what that package is before they marry or fall in love with a man.

I do think it would be an excellent way of controlling the population however; to have to meet and get to knows ones MIL very early on.

That would certainly put paid to any further dates and except in extreme cases would be the same the world over.

People wouldn't get together and meetings ones MIL would stop women procreating.

Because it was two years before I met her.
We get on very well now, sometimes I even polish her urn.

My MIL is lovely. My own mother not so lovely. I'm so glad DH still married me despite my mother.

But i think that's the point hully, I don't believe people come as a package to their parents, children yes - because they are minors. 'Meet my mum she will be living with me for the next 18 years' is different to 'Meet my mum, you'll be seeing her about 4 times per year'.

Hmm, I think before you have DCs, both working full time etc, you don't tend to need to spend all that much time with your ILs socially if you don't get on. It doesn't seem to matter if you only see them for a few evenings a few times a year. Then suddenly, you go from just seeing them a few times a year to having to see them regularly.

Even my dh didn't like his mother.

Luckily we only saw her about twice a year.

Cos I didn't marry his mother.

Yes, DCs are part of a 'package' because the person you are dating is responsible for them if they are still children, but thank god adults aren't responsible for their parents. No one needs to spend time with their parents/siblings. I get on with my DB, but due to various working /social life issues, I've not seen my DB since christmas day. If DH didn't like him, it wouldn't matter really to our lives because he sees so little of him. In fact, DH has only seen my parents for a few minutes as he came in from work before they left a few times since Christmas as they tend to visit when he's at work and I'm at home.

BTW - step children aren't always 'part of the package' if they are also independent adults when you get together with their parent.

Because I was only 20, and grew up in a family where mum's mum and dad came to see us every birthday and Christmas, came on holiday with us and were very much a part of our lives, despite living 4 hours drive away. Dad's parents lived less than 10 mins drive away and were less than interested in us. (But could get on a long distance bus to visit my cousin - their DD's child - also 4 hours away once a month or so). We lived in our house for 16 years and they visited once that I remember.

Rightly or wrongly I grew up with the idea that your mum's parents were the only ones who counted, and fully expected not to have to have anything to do with the ILs after we married . My mum was fully aware of how I felt and didn't bother to tell me that my paternal GPs were odd. It was a huge shock when the ILs were on our case all the time from when we set up home.

People are the product of their own upbringing and take a lot of baggage into a new relationship.

Because I knew that if it came to a fight I could take her...

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

Why should the DP/DH be held responsible for the actions of their mother?

I love my mil, unfortunately my dhs mil is an interfering cow bag of the first order. I still don't know why he married me, maybe because he loves me and not my mam?

I'm in the same position as KingPhilsWench on this one, My Dh never would have married me if he worried about what a nightmare my DM is.