AIBU to wonder why there are so many AIBU posts are against in-laws?

[DorisIsALittleBitPartial]

Every night there seems to be a couple of new AIBU posts against in-laws.

Surely when you marry you take on board your DH's family too, in the same way your DH takes on board yours?

I love my FIL to bits, but he can be a royal pain in the butt. I know without asking that my DF could be difficult but DH always took it with good grace and patience.

Maybe I'm being a bit sentimental, because DFIL is the only IL left on both sides and is in poor health but even before his health was bad I always tolerated him when he was being annoying. Maybe having lost DM when we met I knew that he wouldn't be around forever and wanted to make the most of happy times.

They are from a different generation to us, have lived to a different set of rules and all too often have more time on their hands then they know what to do with, and that can create mountains out of molehills. Shouldn't you just accept their ways because you respect DH and therefore his family? They formed the person he is, after all.

I hope I'm not going to get flamed for asking this... .

The point upthread about being able to drop friends if you choose also applies to your own family. If I don't want to see my parents I couldn't imagine that DH would tie himself in knots over it. The ILs are one of the few areas of adult life where you do lose autonomy. You can't refuse to see them without causing a problem if your DH thinks they are nice.

And they come into your home which doesn't help.

Probably because if you are having problems with a nasty mil and you google your situation, you will find a load of threads on aibu!

better for people to vent on here than actually tell their mil what they think of them, surely?!

I also think men don't have the same problems because they stereotypically are often out at work and it is when the women have children and the in laws descend that these problems crystallise.

Whats the difference between in-laws and outlaws?
Outlaws are wanted.

I started a thread yesterday asking if IWBU in being annoyed by my DFil constantly letting himself into our house whenever he felt like it. The general consensus was that no IWNBU and he's a bit cheeky.

We get on fine the rest of the time, he just has a problem with boundaries. He's always been very self absorbed and as my family were never like that I'm not very tolerant of it.

Dh doesn't have to deal with my parents as they both died several years ago.

That's a good point, HauntedNoddy.

I remember reading there's been a fair bit of research into in-law relationships & it does seem that the MIL/DIL relationship in particular can be tricky. Lots of possible reasons why & I'm sure some of it comes down to the fact that there are still so many sexist assumptions about women being responsible for communications & "family stuff" - so there's more potential for two women to clash.

I'd also agree with Autumn upthread that "sucking it up" isn't always the best thing to do - at least not unless you only have to see ILs very rarely indeed. In general being politely assertive has got to be better, surely - as it is in most areas of life.

My MIL is definitely the kind of person with whom you have to be assertive, or she will trample any boundaries without a second thought. And she's not toxic, or a narcissist, or anything sinister - just someone who is very confident that her way of doing everything is the only right way, & that she could sort out everyone's lives if they just took her helpful advice.

I've found threads on MN to be of huge practical help in giving me ideas for shutting down her interference, or handling her "digs", without it resulting in huge rows. So I'm personally grateful for all the in-law threads!

Oh, & don't forget, OP, that you often see the opposite kind of in-law blaming in MN threads - cases where posters are having problems within their own birth family relationships - eg. with grown-up children / siblings - & assume that this must be down to the influence of the relative's partner. I get the impression that new(ish) ILs are often convenient scapegoats for dysfunctional families.

Thank you Loon and I second your point about the 'newcomer' being singled out. Everything may have been 'perfect' until their arrival rocks the boat. IME it wasn't perfect. It was whatever the people were used to or put up with.

YY to Loonvan - The first time I properly stood up to DM was thanks to DP and now he gets blamed for making me "difficult".

Oh and the problem? Me saying that there's no point them visiting Thursday night to Saturday morning unless they didn't want to see us as we were working and would not be taking time off for them. Totally unreasonable apparently.

My first set of inlaws, Gpils too, were horrific. The best i can say is that Fil and Gfil in law were standoffish, but respectable, and both lets their wives take the lead in dealing with the world. They worked, and sat on the couch. Bil (still a teen) was a sweet guy, but still a child who worshipped his older brother. Many years later, my dd tells me that without the older males to knock sense into him occasionally, my ex's narcissistic tendencies and exmils enabling has reached astounding heights, and her blatant favouritism has ruined her second sons life as he has wasted so much energy trying to be good enough, and he never will. He is virtually invisible to them now, and when they do see him, every subject leads around to criticism of every thing he has ever done or failed to do. DD and I fully expect mil to eventually suffer from elder abuse at the hands of ex, not physical, but he was his dad's executor and knows her finances intimately because she has little education and has transferred that dependence from husband to son. He has medical and finacial power of attorney, and is joint on at least one account. We fear he will eventually take over her assets in a great show of 'taking care' of her. And Bil can kiss his inheritance goodbye, as ex will find someway of making it seem like the little help he has received as an adult actually equals his whole share. Even though ex has had far more 'gifts' than bil has had loans.

Relationships do not stay the same.

Sometimes something happens to change the family dynamic in any family; whether it be your own or your ILs.

To say that you take on the family when you marry is one thing. But its impossible to anticipate everything that may happen in the future. There are a number of life changing events, which really have affected everyone else and really strained even the closest members of the family.

You also assume that the breakdown in the relationship is down to the new person coming into the family - I think often the relationship breakdown, is more to do with the person who is part of that family - and then how that subsequently affects their relationship with their partner and children. It can be a joint problem for a couple rather than just an IL problem.

After the birth of our PFB, I was worried about turning down my PILs more ludicrous requests in case I upset them. DH turned round and said "don't be daft; you married me, not them and it doesn't matter if you upset them".

I imagine that if he had a better relationship with his parents, I would be obliged to make more effort. However, I would still hold with the believe that I married my husband and not his family. I expect him to feel the same/about my family!

when i was a child family were family but they did not interfere unless things were dire i only ever remember my dads family getting involved once when we turned up with bruises he dragged us out of there house and we didn't go back for ages till they apologised they never interfered again

these days my in laws seem to think everything needs commenting on oooh he has a smudge on his trousers! the children are in bed? what do you mean they are in bed! (this was followed by a long long conversation about how unreasonable we were to put the kids to bed at bedtime on a school night) you feed them vegetables? children dont like vegetables (patient sigh) deakymom you need to HIDE the vegetables (pointless exercise really as they eat the veg anyway) why can't i give them sweets? (its fucking bedtime!) but why cant he have chocolate there is no milk in chocolate! (only dairy milk has milk in apparently the fact it says "milk chocolate" has escaped them)

the list is endless plus my MIL has decided she doesn't like me because apparently i don't like her therefore its all my fault im disengaged totally now and i let my DH deal with it all

I written a AIBU inlaw thread

My mil left early at our wedding to make her feeling clear

She has only asked my husband when he was going to stop messing around with ethnics and get him self a nice white wife I don't have the em every to put any of the other awful things she has done

Perhaps the MIL type AIBUs are the hardest to voice in RL. You can't really say the true extent of your irritation to your OH whose mother it is, and talking to close friends or family about it somehow seems a bit disloyal to the other side of your family. Better to get it out of your system in an anonymous forum. I always find them the most entertaining threads!!

Interesting to read your posts, and I hope that I made it clear in my comment that I'm not talking about some of the really awful situations that people have been put in.
Adorabelle I saw your post and you are not who I was thinking about when I posted. It actually made me think about my own FIL because this is how he used to behave before I met DH and he ended up having to have a very difficult and blunt conversation.
Probably easier to give a RL example of where I was coming from. "X" complained because her MIL gave her smellies every Christmas. She had a shelf full of smellies, that she had treated herself to but would get the rage - proper hissy fit melt down - every Christmas because (apparently) she was allergic. MIL thought she was being nice because "X" had a shelf full of smellies so clearly liked them.
Anyway, FIL has been in poor health recently and I think I was just being a bit oversensitive. He is a pain but I know he won't be around for much longer and can't begin to tell you how much I want him to stay with us. Because I love him and because I love DH and don't want him to be in pain when he goes.
I wish you all well with your tough situations

I went into my marriage wanting to be part of a larger family.

I never got on that well with my own brother, who was older than me and not interested in a younger sister. He made my childhood a misery, we had a brief period of getting along as I hit my teens and he hit his twenties, but then we had a situation in which he was violent to me and we didn't speak for several years.

So I was pleased to be marrying into a family where DH had two brothers, a sister and a SIL already. And my MIL and I had similar interests and hobbies etc, no reason at all why we shouldn't get on.

Except that she had spent the past twenty odd years controlling and manipulating the entire family, with FIL enabling her to do so. DH's childhood was spent being brainwashed into believing he had no option but to do things her way or take the blame for her mental breakdown.

I tried for years to get along with them, but they then did something so awful that I couldn't play along anymore. I spoke up but instead of them changing for the better they subjected me to two or three more years of nasty comments and lies about me and abuse, even stalked me in the street.

They brought on panic attacks and we were forced to move house because I was afraid to go out in case they were there and poor DS spent days at a time in a house where I wouldn't open the curtains in case they were outside watching the windows. I felt like a prisoner in my own home.

I realise this is extreme. But I went into my marriage being the sort of daughter-in-law most MILs would want. I'd always gotten along with boyfriends parents and families, I wanted a big family who we could spend time with and welcome into our home etc. I've never understood why people say "I married him, not his parents" and don't seem to want to even speak to their in-laws.

But for all my efforts with DH's parents, nothing was ever good enough and frankly their behaviour when seen from outside is bizarre at best and deranged and cruel at worst. I was already giving them everything they claim they wanted in a DIL but they threw it away and pissed all over it.

So I have every sympathy with some of the threads on here, if they are posting about something that rings a bell for me and seems similar to the way my PILs started out. Bit by bit, my story about PILs doesn't seem that bad. But put it together and people are about it.

Op in your example my DM would ask what DH liked. DMIL would ask DH what I use. I would nose round MIL's bathroom and take note of what she was using.
FIL ( divorced) would buy what he thought his DIL should use and be offended if it wasn't used.
Guess who the thread would be about?

All the men in my dh family - including hubby & sons - all married very strong women because basically it saves them from having to make decisions and always gives them someone to blame when it goes tits up! So it stands to reason that there's going to be clashes with the other strong women in the family. What beggars belief is that women who are reputed to be "strong" cannot cope with anyone who doesn't agree with them and resort to childish things to win their argument! One particular favourite they have is to withhold access to their children as 'punishment' - which is something I rather thought was reserved for use by spiteful ex-wives. This has resulted in the kids paying the price of mum's childishness by not being allowed to see nanna & grandpa. They're left wondering what they'd done to be so bad.

Because it can be a very tricky relationship requiring humour, tolerance, tongue biting and empathy.

YY I do not think I have ever read an op where the DIL has verbally abused her In Laws, and is dealing with the fall out, they are all about In laws treating married adults and their spouses as their DC still, as in 5 years of age, and stepping over boundaries and being rude.

One of the last was a FIL wanting to put a surveillance system into the house FFS.

AliceLidl Tue 09-Sep-14 23:38:13

same here.

My heart goes out to people I also feel in the same situation and threads like the one OP started really undermine the seriousness and sadness of the situation.

I rarely see threads from DILS where the In Laws have done normal stuff, usually its really dire behaviour.

I am a very careful MIL.

Never criticise how the grandchildren are brought up .... very well actually !.... Never try to tell my dil and son how " we used to do it " . Don't invite ourselves to their home unless they have made it clear they want us there. Always ( well, nearly always ) available for childcare in emergencies or to allow them the chance to get away from the children for a few days . Ask advice about suitable birthday and. Xmas presents etc.Even sympathise with my dil when she criticises my son for various misdemeanours . Never take his side ( even when very, very tempted. Why stay with him if he is such a pain in the bum ? ) .I hope you are getting the picture.

I put up with being patronised by her because I do not want to fall out with her . She is top priority with my lovely son .... and quite right too. But just occasionally I would like to be spoken to as the person I am .... a retired , intelligent , professional woman who has produced two of the most amazing children , one of whom she loves enough to be married to! I never compete with her for my sons attention.... ever . But I still don't ever feel that I am totally welcome or accepted by her unless she needs my DH and I to look after their children . She constantly talks about her own mother who lives in another country and about how " supportive and caring " she is . I have met her mum and she seems nice but she has never been " available " to actually do any childcare .She is , however , very wealthy and cash is obviously very important to my dil. I think cash= care and support .

I suppose my point is that relationships are tough and fraught with potential problems . In -law relationships particularly so . Bad feelings can flow in both directions though. For every " terrible " mil or FIL there will be an equally difficult daughter in law or son in law . I speak as a mil and dil !!!

Here's an idea OP: maybe not everyone is the same. And maybe not everyone takes after their parents, or is that close to them. So maybe your in laws are just lovely, while others are having to deal with some nightmarish people who resemble creatures out of Edgar Allen Poe on a good day.

Oh, sorry, am I interfering with your self-congratulations on the depth of your tolerance and patience?

The thing that strikes me about all the IL threads is how often the women are supposed to put in all the effort in relationships with the men of each generation nowhere, just not bothering to foster them or mend them when things go wrong. And I think that imbalance is a large part of why problems very often arise and can be so intractable.

When I married DH and I were clear that we would each manage the relationships with our own birth families (contact, birthday cards, raising problems etc), and make an effort with each other's.

I was already aware that my DM was sometimes, and inadvertently, a difficult MIL. My BIL are fond of her but she often exasperates them. You can't stick your head in the sand about it, you have to acknowledge it and deal with it.

I thought it was accepted wisdom that 98% of MIL bashing threads were really DH-bashing threads - the DH was in a position to rein his mother in, or was actually making the situation worse.

I would assume a similar % of DIL situations could be prevented by the DH stepping up or in as well.

A lot of them are justified but some of them emanate from DILs who seem to resent their PILs wanting to have any kind of involvement in their lives at all, including wanting to see grandchildren regularly, take a new grandchild for a walk or bring the children out for a treat without DIL coming too.
Those posts make me for the PILs.