To say where MIL's are concerned there two sides to a story?

[MiddletonPink]

There seems to be an abundance of mil threads again on here.

I don't believe that every single mnetter is virtuous and without some blame in the breakdown of her relationship with her mil.

Some posters would do well to think about that and also remember that one day you are likely to be that hateful woman

Jux I have already said twice that when I texted ds about the Chinese he was happy with it. He texted back an hour later to say about the Indian. And I didn't suggest a further option because she doesn't eat Pizza or pasta!

Rose you made some good points there. I think the reason I'm not assertive is because I don't want to come across as bossy or wanting my own way. I let thngs go because I don't want her coming on here in years to come complaining about me. I want to keep a good relationship with ds.

But tbh I'm not sure the way I am is helping. She probably thinks I'm spineless and a pushover.

I was resentful I suppose but in all honesty how many of you in my shoes wouldn't have been?

I don't believe many any.

Lemon you are talking out of your arse.

There was no resentment shown that night. I greeted her with two glasses of fizz and a big hug!

I don't know. I have a mother with whom I have often had tension, but ultimately she wants to help me. I am splitting from P and when she found out she sent me texts and emails saying "I will do anything I can to help you" and even just "I am thinking of you today." I have a stb ex MIL who said "please can you call me back about what is happening about Christmas dinner". I just can't put those two people in the same category of person, no matter whom they are related to.

Da has a long term girlfriend who I get on well with because I bite my tongue. I bite my tongue because I love DS. His GF has been spoiled all her life by her parents and now DS is doing it.Everything gets passed by GF first. If I invite them for a meal DS asks what we are having. DS has never endured about what I'm serving before he met GF. Christmas is always at her parents because that's what she wants.Everything revolves around her.On the face of it we have a laugh and chat on the phone but if I were to ever reveal my true feelings to DS there would be uproar

yes, really talking out of my arse to see any resentment from you towards your son's gf. all of the above are just really nice things to say about your sons choice in partner.

I get that you asked everyone over for a Chinese and it seems churlish to accept the invitation initially and then change the cuisine.

On the other hand an invite for a takeaway here means we'd order what people wanted. We would probably get Chinese and Indian delivered (and let them pay for their choice).

You resent choices because you are keeping track or winners and losers. It was a bit rude of them to ask to change but it was ok for you to say no. You could have said 'oh well next time then' or that you were still getting Chinese and did they want to come.

It may be a personality clash with you and your dil to be. I think it's a problem between you and your ds.

Lemon there was and has never been any resentment shown to her.
She does like her own way. Fact.

I don't say anything or show how I feel

Show me anyone who wouldn't feel frustrated by this.

There are many many women who would have stuck the boot in and caused rows.

I haven't.

And yet you're still finding fault with me.

I'm not finding fault with you. I am suggesting ways to manage it.

I don't like people who like their own way all the time but when life throws us together I have ways of managing them that corrals the irritation into manageable amounts.

Techniques like making it really clear when I am asking for their input and when I am not. If I invited someone to dinner and they asked what we were having I would airily say "haven't decided yet. Are you veggie or caeliac or anything? Just let me know if there's anything you can't eat". If they insist on trying to make me tell them I might get cheeky and say "why, aren't you coming if you might not like it?"

The only thing is, I gather there is a (small?) child involved and I do tend to be much more forgiving of parents of small children who like to do things a certain way. There are two year olds who will torture their parents for a period of 24 hours if their naps are disrupted.

No Rosearg I know you weren't I was talking to Lemon.

Anyway I need to make tea now.

I'm going to hide this thread tbh. The accusations from some posters are really quite upsetting, when in reality I've only ever been kind.

Mine really is that bad. Utterly toxic. An awful mother as well as MIL.

My husband adores my mum though. They have a great relationship, she doesn't interfere but is very supportive. So they do exist

This thread has taken a strange turn.

klog I will google that information, it sounds very interesting, thank you. You made me smile, I've changed brands

ZeVite thank you for the flowers.

OP I think you are right, there are some bad MILs, some bad DILs, some bad DILs who go on to become bad MILs, and some perfectly lovely people who just need a bit of time to get to know each other and learn a bit of give and take.

I'm not sure what you really wanted from this thread other than that, but yes it's certainly not true that all DILs are lovely and all MILs are not. I know my MIL would never have allowed her MIL to behave towards her the way she seems to think she can to us (her DILs, and yes, to her actual children as well).

It's all gone a bit food focused since I last posted. So aside from really wanting a portion of lemon chicken right now, there are a few possible things that could have happened with the takeaway.

Your DS thought about it and asked to change takeaways of his own accord.

DIL asked him to ask if you could change as she didn't fancy the same thing again so soon.

Your DS asked you to change and you changed it.

Your DS asked you to change and you said no.

Your DS asked you to change and you said okay but your DH still ordered from the chinese takeaway (we do this all the time when we can't agree which we want).

You all ordered pizza or kebabs instead.

I mean, if you think she's princessy, you should see us when we order indian takeaway but I will only have the one thing particular thing from the one shop because the other shop makes it too spicy and don't put a tomato on it, but then I need to get skinny chips from the kebab takeaway shop to go with it because they only do chunky chips at the indian takeaway and I don't like them and I don't like their rice (it's pointy and harder than chinese takeaway rice, but you can't have chinese takeaway rice with indian takeaway food) but I do get a garlic naan and no I won't share it, get your own. I'm like that entire episode of Gavin and Stacy all on my own when takeaway is concerned.

There's a surprising number of people still prepared to eat with me

Show me anyone who wouldn't feel frustrated by this.

I can show you plenty, on this very thread, but there are none so blind as those who won’t see. You don’t want to see that your son decides what appropriate behaviour is for his girlfriend, not you. You don’t want to see that she was possibly just an adult making an adult choice of what to eat, and you felt insulted when the parent/child dynamic was taken away.

I don't say anything or show how I feel

I sincerely hope not, but I have healthy skepticism over your ability to hide your resentment towards her. I hope it’s less obvious in real-life than it appears here, I doubt it though. My own friends who are in similar situations also think they hide it, in truth, it's as subtle as a kick in the arse.

There are many many women who would have stuck the boot in and caused rows.

do you want praise for this? Seriously? Your son’s girlfriend did nothing to warrant you sticking the boot in, so why on earth even mention it? Should she be grateful you didn’t stick the boot in? This is a scary statement for a grown woman to make about a something or nothing encounter with a young girl.

And yet you're still finding fault with me.

If you just want people to agree with you, why post on AIBU? I am finding fault with you because I think you’re being pretty petty for an adult woman dealing with a very young woman. You’re the adult, act like it. The resentment you hold towards this girl is obvious, yet you deny it. Look back at the language you use to describe this girl, then tell me again that you don’t resent her.

The accusations from some posters are really quite upsetting, when in reality I've only ever been kind.

How can you use the words you have used in this thread towards this girl, then try and convince us you’ve only ever been kind to her? Your thoughts about her are far from kind. The language you use to describe her is far from kind. The power you attribute her to be using towards your son is far from kind.

God sake Lemon - you're sounding obsessed. Middleton has already told you you're wrong - you can either carry on making assumptions and spurious claims, or you can accept that you actually don't know anything about it.

Thing is op, you say she likes her own way but that you never say when her own way doesn't suit you. As far as she knows, Chinese or Indian (or any of the other issues) don't matter to you because you've never said. She clearly comes from a background where if you have a preference, you say so. It also sounds like your ds behaves as you do, believing if someone says they want x when you suggested y, you must do x even if you'd rather do y.

If you are going to cope with a dil who is assertive and will tell you her preferences, you need to recognise this isn't bad behaviour on her part, just different. Explain your reasoning (she explained why they rather have Indian, you didn't explain why you'd rather have Chinese), if she still stamps her foot, then you can say she's difficult, right now all she sounds is vocal about what she wants.

It obviously bothers you so if your ds is in for the long term with her, you will need to change your behaviour rather than quietly being annoyed that she continues to behave the way she always has done.

She wasn't assertive and she didn't tell the OP her preference - she got her partner to make the phone call. Assertive women make their own phone calls.

God sake Lemon - you're sounding obsessed. Middleton has already told you you're wrong - you can either carry on making assumptions and spurious claims, or you can accept that you actually don't know anything about it.

was it me who opened a new topic in AIBU to garner opinions on my sons girlfriend?

No, I didn't think so.

And if you apply across the board the "accept what the OP is saying as the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth" then 95% of mumsnet would be wiped out overnight.

No - you didn't start the thread, but my God, you've been quick (and happy) enough to post on it numerous times.
Look, the OP has explained and explained and explained what happened. Your refusal to accept what she's saying, despite having absolutely no knowledge of the facts, people, occasion, or indeed anything surrounding the trivial event, makes you sound ridiculously obsessed with making your point regardless of whether or not your claims have any basis to them.

I have 3 brothers and find their wives relationships with my mum interesting. The one closest to mum is French.She left her family to marry my brother and hardly got to see her parents so she treated my parents as if they were her own and they loved her for it. My other 2 sister-in-laws behaved a bit more like they now owned my brothers so my mum had to back off. There is definitely some sort of fight for dominance of the son/husband often and that is sad as it leaves the man in an impossible situation.
My grandma hated my mum and she lived with us for 25 years.In the early days of their marriage my dad sided with his mum but after a few years he recognised that his mother was being unpleasant to mum and he started to stand up for her.My grandma used to bake all the time and take cakes round to my cousins but never gave us any.She told us how wonderful our cousins were and how naughty/noisy/badly behaved we were. I am sure MN would describe her as toxic but as kids we laughed it off and it certainly did not disturb us for life.
My own MIL did not want her only son to marry me.Our family apparently had nothing to offer them and she hated the fact that I was a Christian. She went NC with DH for 11 years and I was gutted for him but also felt a bit cheated as I never had any time for my friends who complained about their MIL's.They are family and you do your best,however I ended up with a MIL refusing to see us.I was outraged!! However,we persevered and sent letters,birthday and Christmas cards etc and suddenly were invited to visit a year ago.We now see them every month and my husband says his mother is like a different person.We have not yet disagreed on anything and the kids have loved discovering a new set of grandparents who they met for the first time aged 7,9 and 11.
I always think that going NC with any member of the family is desperately sad and should be absolute last resort. I do really feel for the men who get stuck in the middle of these battles and whilst I can see why people say it,I hate to read on MN 'but you are his family now,not his mother.' Would anyone with a son seriously want them to ever think you were no longer his family because he had now got a wife.

Middleton, and I said once that maybe he changed his mind. People do, even sons. It really didn't have to be your dil's decision, it really could have been his. But it seems you really really really really don't want to think that.

We don't know whose preference was asserted.

We don't know that the son wasn't busy when the OP invited them over for a takeaway, agreed quickly and then when he had chance to think about it replied himself to say he'd rather have a different type of meal without even telling his girlfriend what he'd done or said.

Or, like chinese whispers (no pun intended) the OP could have sent the message to her DS saying "would you like to come over for a chinese takeaway" and he's then sent a text to his girlfriend saying "We've been asked over for a takeaway" without saying what kind, and she's replied with "great, what are we having, don't fancy chinese after the other day" and he's gone back to the OP with "can we have indian, we had chinese three days ago" and the DIL has no idea what silent resentment has occurred from all of this.

There are any number of reasons for what happened or didn't happen with that takeaway and as the OP has said, there's always another side to the story. None of us know what happened because even the OP is just assuming the DIL went all princessy over the choice of food.

It could just be a simple miscommunication on all sides.

Just because the OP has stated something it doesn't mean that others have to agree. I totally see where lemon is coming from.

Aibu - it's nice for the OP to gets some support. Not everyone agrees and we don't have to. This is exactly why il relationships are so hard.

Ops can flounce if they don't like what they hear. Who knows what the actual situation is? You can only go by what the op posts and I understand why this relationship is difficult from time to time.

Ds to dil: fancy a Chinese?
Dil: sure, though we did have one a few nights ago.
Ds: oh yeah. Do you mind having another?
Dil: not really. Might be nice to have something else though?
Ds: yeah. How about Indian? I've been wanting one for ages.
Dil: Indian would be great.
Ds: Ok, I'll suggest it to mum.

That's a perfectly normal exchange.

my God, you've been quick (and happy) enough to post on it numerous times.

I've posted numerous times, so have you. So????? Are you the thread police? The OP's forum-body-guard?

Look, the OP has explained and explained and explained what happened

and denied and denied and denied feeling resentful, while it pours off her. An adult talking about a young girl.

Your refusal to accept what she's saying, despite having absolutely no knowledge of the facts, people, occasion, or indeed anything surrounding the trivial event, makes you sound ridiculously obsessed with making your point regardless of whether or not your claims have any basis to them.

so I wont accept the OP's opinion as "right".... in much the same way you won't accept mine as right? Except you want me to shut up and piss off and stop posting, whereas I don't give a toss if you disagree with me till the cows come home.

Go play forum police with someone else who gives a damn about what you think. I don't. Alternatively, just ignore me. I don't care either way.

I do think some mothers just never know how to let go of their grown up sons; I have an only child, a son, but in a million years I would not expect to be 'best friends' with him as the Op stsyrd before ds started seeing his GF we were very close. Best friends - I think that is a really odd attitude. .

I am raising my DS to be independent, his own person and hope that when he is old enough he will leave home and make his own future and relationships. Just as I have lots of plans and ideas that I want to follow when I no longer have to care for a child at home. I can't think of anything worse than expecting to be invited to spend every Christmas etc with him and future DW/children - my DH and I and want to get on with our own lives, and if I am on my own I still have loads of plans. . My own parents (in their 80s) don't sit around expecting their children to 'entertain them' so I hope I follow their lead.

If the men in my life are in the middle, it's because the are. My oh is responsible for his relationship with his parents. I'm not an evil gatekeeper, nor am I a princess because I have different priorities and demands on my time.