To ask how many of you get on with your mil?

[nothingbyhalves]

That's it really, just fancied a poll of who feels respected and liked by mil?

[BanjoPlayingTiger]

My MIL is fantastic. I love her to bits!

I told her the other day that I was so lucky to have her as a mother in law and she just beamed. She never interferes but will help if she is able. She comes at everything from a completely different angle to me, but has long since realised (as have I) that we both want the best for my kids and we have built from there.

She was there for me when my Nan died and when I went to help my best friend at a desperate time. She willingly looks after the kids and loves seeing them. She is ace!

[lurkedtoolong]

My MIL and I are very, very different people but in general we get on very well. We frustrate each other at times and when we made the mistake of going on a two week holiday it was a bit rough but in general we have a very good relationship.

She's a very kind and loving person, when DH and I were going through a rough patch she refused to interfere or take sides and when I was poorly she had me to stay for a few days just to help me get back on my feet. I could do a hell of a lot worse.

[everybodysang]

I like mine more than my own mum. She likes to micromanage and she has said the odd infuriating thing but mostly she is lovely, funny, interesting and one of the best people I've ever met.

[mumeeee]

I do mostly although there are moments when she annoys me. She's the same with DH so it isn't a MIL thing just how she is and has always been.

[Soditall]

I'm lucky I get on with mine really well she's lovely.

My husband was married before and she was a bitch not very nice and the first time his mum met me she told her son what a great choice he'd made in me

She helped pay towards our wedding.Spoils the children.Sends us money towards a holiday in the summer and money towards Christmas.We don't ask for it and have tried to decline it loads of times but she gets upset if we try to say no.

[twitchycurtains]

Mine has never liked me, but will never admit it. Very controlling and stubborn woman who will never admit she is in the wrong. It's such a charade, I know she doesn't like me, she knows I know, everyone in the entire family (DH's siblings/FIL, my parents) know she doesn't like me, however she will never openly come out and say it because then she gets revealed as the controlling and toxic woman that she is, because her reason for not liking me is that her son chose to marry me instead agreeing to an arranged marriage with the perfect import bride she had lined up for him abroad. So, she lives out her days making sly digs at me or alternatively denying my very existence in my DH's/DC's lives. My life would be a lot happier one if we didn't live so close to her.

[YouTheCat]

Dp's mum (not mil yet, I really need to sort out my divorce) is absolutely lovely. She's so laid back and thoughtful.

I wish I could see more of her as she lives quite a way away. Cracking sense of humour and kind.

[cryhavoc]

I love mine. She is a brilliantly hands-on Grandma, but never offers unsolicited advice, despite being a lactation consultant. She marks every occasion with buying me either an expensive handbag or a case of wine, and if she stays at our house to babysit while we go away, she looks for washing and cleans the whole house.

I think the key to this is two-fold. First, marry the black sheep of three brothers, and civilise him, and then, bear her first and (thus far) only grandchild.

[SlinkyB]

I love my MIL to bits. She's incredibly supportive, kind, a great listener and would do anything for her/our family.

We've always got on well, and she's even more special now as I've just lost my own Mother.

[Alligatorpie]

My MIL is a fantastic grandmother, she is kind and generous, she has the best work ethic of anyone I have ever met and is fun and friendly.

BUT she never taught her son how to do any housework ( although he loves cooking and does it daily) she thinks I am a bit too much of a feminist and she never stops talking!

Other than that, she really is great!

[ChantandbeHappy]

I really like and respect my MIL and I think the feeling is mutual. However, we live on opposite sides of the world, so don't get to see each other very often.

DH has two brothers and my SIL's have clashed very badly with MIL. Not quite sure how there can be such a dichotomy. Am not close to SIL's at all, and unreasonableness seems to be theirs according to MIL's account of the situation, but there are two sides to every story.

Clashes seem to stem from her expectations over how often she gets to see her dgc, so perhaps my feelings towards her would be different if we lived closer together.

[CountryMama]

I am so jealous that so many people have such good relationships with their MIL's. I really struggle with mine. She's very controlling, critical, and doesn't like my parenting.(ie. I don't beat my kids as she believes I should).

I try to be nice and friendly but I often leave rooms in tears!! She too tries to win me by buying me presents which is very sweet but all are efforts are very superficial in the light of our bigger clashes.

[MrsHoarder]

Love mine. We don't have too many common interests and thus wouldn't otherwise be friends but she livres my dh and adores ds so we are fundamentally on the same side.

[exoticfruits]

Mine is lovely.

[CityTiliDie]

Mine is a bit mental and very self centred. Everything has to revolve around hre, every conversation comes back to her.

At the start of DW and my relationship she did all she could to break us up but we saw through it and we are still strong 14 yrs later.

She strongly favours SIL's daughter over ours but we think that is because SIL is sucha shite parent and Dniece is sucha fucked up child whereas ours is perfect!

DW and I have spent the last two months decorating her house for her so she can sell it and move in with us!

Should be fun.

[milkymocha]

Yes i prefer her to my own mother.
She is amazing and annoying and i'd be lost without her!

[seeker]

What I find odd is that people seem to have so much higher expectations of their mil than of anybody else in their lives. No slack cut . At all. Ever.

And I think it's weird that practically every woman you meet over the age of, say, 55, is probably a MIL. And generally they are pleasant, reasonable, OK people trying to do their best in a difficult world. Sometimes getting it wrong, sometimes getting it right, usually just muddling through. And all our lovely mothers are our SILs' MILs. So how does that work?

Is there another dimension somewhere where all the psycho MILs live?

[Branleuse]

she's alright. she's very basic but I like her well enough and vice versa. only see her a couple of times a year as we don't live in the same country and neither speak the other language fluently enough to really get to know each other deeply.
we're not really the same sort of people but we respect each other

[Sunnysummer]

My MIL is lovely, but we have absolutely nothing in common! She's ultra traditional, doesn't speak great English and is a brilliantly dedicated homemaker, while I am from overseas, very average at DH's native language and am the main earner as DH is an academic... We just don't have a lot to talk about, every now and then she'll say things like "how nice that you're finally pregnant and can stop working forever!", or I ask really awkwardly for her advice with cooking and then we go back to silence.

We can't even talk about how great my DH is, because it is culturally not acceptable for her to boast about her kids! Am hoping that the arrival of a grandchild will give us something to bond over...

[exoticfruits]

I find it odd that mothers of DDs are perfectly reasonable women and yet mothers of DSs can't get it right! It seems very odd when through nature or nurture they have produced the one man in the world that you chose to marry. It also seems odd that you run the risk of producing a mini MIL in your child- maybe her genes just missed a generation. My paternal grandmother died before I was born but I can see from photos that I look very like her.
I would agree that women will let their own mother get away with all sorts and yet would ban MIL from the house for far less!

[CorrieDale]

My first was ok - she tried hard but could never get over how extremely lucky I was to have been married by her son!

My second was just lovely and we all miss her terribly. She died 18 months ago of pancreatic cancer. Horrible way to go for a genuine darling.

[binger]

I love mine. She's much, much nicer than my own mother was.

[FryingNemo]

I wish I had a MIL like some of the ones listed here. I was fully expecting to get on with my in laws in the same way I saw my siblings' other halves getting on with my parents but what I didn't realise is that DH comes from a highly dysfunctional family. MIL is toxic. FIL was emotionally incontinent.

[Iteotwawki]

Possibly respected, but definitely not liked by mine. I know that because she told my husband she didn't like me at all. She had a row with her son then turned it somehow into a catalogue of my sins/omissions/bad parenting.

All she wants her son to do is say he cares about her / loves her. But he won't, because he doesn't.

When she told him his father (her exH, who I adore as does DH) never wanted him I think that pretty much sealed her fate. She's moving a long way away and we are unlikely to see her again.

I wish my sons had had the chance to have such fab grandparents as other kids.