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

I really don't care if you piss off and stop posting or whether you stay here and continue to obsess about Indian/Chinese takeways/MiLs with issues who obviously give off vibes/spend your time copying and pasting - but you can't be right because you weren't there. HTH.

Rag - I agree, but I sometimes feel as if I'm in a tiny minority. When DD and the DSs grow up I want them to be independent adults with lives of their own. I'll be happy to look after the Grandchildren occasionally, but I certainly won't be childminding on a regular basis - I hope to have my career for as long as possible, and then enjoy my remaining years travelling, pursuing hobbies and so on. I don't think I'd like living in close proximity to my adult DCs and their spouses, with all the dramas that seems to bring (esp. when takeaways are involved, it seems).

My mil is the most interfering nosey, and opinionated person I've ever met but I know she's only like it because she genuinely cares about us all. She is an absolutely fantastic grandparent and my DC love her. There have been many times when I could quite happily kill her because of her interfering ways, but she means well and I'm lucky to have her.

To be honest i think that if you're invited for something specific you either accept graciously or decline graciously. To me, the only acceptable way of asking a host to change their plans is for allergy issues.

but you can't be right because you weren't there

and neither were you, lol

Do you have anything to state besides the obvious?

Jux, that is a perfectly reasonable example of how the takeaway conversation could have played out. The thing is, the OP won’t be swayed from her view that her son’s girlfriend is spoiled and entitled and acts like a princess, and her son just panders to her unreasonable behavior. The OP is looking for confirmation of bad behaviour instead of possible explanations of normal behaviour.

No I wasn't - but the person who was (ie the OP) has already explained what happened and explained why you're wrong.

Oh dear - was that too obvious again for you?

what part of

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.

are you having trouble getting to grips with?

since you mentioned obsessed SirC, aren't you getting just a tad obsessed with me right now?

No, not getting obsessed - but if I start copying and pasting your posts then that might be the signal.

None of us were there. Even the OP was only there by text.

I'm usually one for paying the OP the courtesy of taking them at face value, but in this instance she has started a thread to say there are always two sides to the story and so it's not unreasonable for people to say the DIL might not have been to blame for this takeaway incident.

The OP's gone on to tell us her side but obviously in this case there's more than two sides and we don't have her DS's side or her DILs side.

There are other possibilities, other than the one the OP has presented.

It could have been her DS's choice.

It could have been a miscommunication.

It could have been just the 'takeaway' part passed on to the DIL and a reply along the lines of "great! I really fancy a Korma tonight" that had the DS text the OP that they would prefer indian to chinese.

We don't know, even the OP might not know for sure, because all she got back were the texts from her DS, not the DIL.

We don't really need to fall out about it on the thread, in particular a thread about having more than one side to the story.

Peace?

give it a rest, will you? I won't do what you demand of me. I am my own person and have my own opinions. I don't jump when folks like you tell me to. I won't adapt my thinking because folks like you tell me to. Get over that fact. And go find someone else to obsess over. It's boring already. And it's derailing the thread.

That's true - but she's involved much more in the actually event that any of us were, and probably has a better handle on her family dynamics than strangers on MN.

But yes, peace

I do wonder if the fact that my MIL had a really responsible job-Assistant Head in a large secondary school- and has lots of her own interests, which she tends to organise, makes her less interfering. We meet and speak as equals- with similar interests, views and lots to discuss. We both like politics, art, photography, films, walking and have similar values.

FIL has chronic condition which flares up and is debilitating when it does. She has her hands full then and both of their mothers are still alive.

That combined with her being 130 miles away means she jsu does not have the time or inclination to interfere. SIL lives near them and they see a lot of her but there is no favouritism as far as I can see between her and DH.

Also, there is no competition from my family- I don't have any. I am an only child, my parents are dead and most of my cousins live in Australia. So there is no thought that DH and I might be spending more time with my family.

The title of this thread should say that there are two sides to every story - except this one.

LemonChicken got it right. Nailed it even.

And OP, to tell somebody who have different opinion then yours that he/she "talk out of her/his ass" is NOT a good way to debate.

I've just got in from my night class and I could bloody murder a ruby murray now! even though I had a mead earlier...

Thing is, op wasn't there either was she? She has made massive assumptions about what changed her son's mind, but she wasn't there so she doesn't know.

Just like my MIL assumed that I stopped her son spending time with her, when her son saw being married as an escape from having to spend time with her (he thought I should do it for him).

There''s a very old saying. It goes ' a daughter is your daughter all of your life. A son is your son till he gets him a wife' A large percentage of you with young sons will just have to accept this. The alternative is for your sons to marry orphans! Strangely, many woman still like to be involved with their sons as well as their daughters, even when they're grown up. Jealousy is usually the cause of problems.

Not sure if we were unusual but when DH & I were first together we would often use the other one as a reason for why we might not do something. This was especially useful when the event was something that had gone on for years and parents assumed we would want to carry on.

Of course it meant that we came across as controlling to our respective PiL. However it had the advantage of getting out of things without having to say to our own parents that the suggested event sounded dead boring!

We were both happy to be used as each other's excuse.

I wonder if OP's DS & his partner do this.

In England people say the "daughters are yours for life" thing and assume that mothers and daughters will have a special bond. In Ireland it's mothers and sons who are known to have the special bond. None of this is set in stone. You can make your own relationships. If you are prepared to analyse social pressures and go against the grain sometimes.

Gnome is spot on about people using their partners to get out of things and this sending weird signals. The more I think about this weird takeaway situation of Middleton's the more I think it odd that there is so much deferred preference there, and assumed deferred preference. Middleton didn't want Indian on behalf of her husband who doesn't like it (but he isn't here posting, we don't know if maybe he preferred leftover chilli anyway. I love homemade food, I'd love a bit of homemade chilli). Her son texted about preferring Indian and she is assuming on behalf of his girlfriend - why? Because she assumes that a woman with preferences would not "dare" to express them herself? All this third party preference stuff is only going to lead to trouble. If you can't bring yourself to woman up and say "I would prefer Chinese FOR MYSELF (AND I'M PAYING)" then this should be done by secret ballott, with a media-ban (no discussion and manipulation of each other in advance)

I realised on holiday with soon tbx P and other people (my family, groups of friends) that I was incredibly uncomfortable asserting myself and it usually didn't matter. My sister is a very strong personality, my dad has strong preferences that are built in as baseline to everything by my mum, this gives me no room to express preferences once theirs are covered, but I usually don't mind going with the flow. when P was there, he was always trying to get me to say what "we" wanted, ie he wanted, and I felt extremely pressured as I just had never developed the social wherewithal to try to influence them, nor in normal life would I argue with him, so this left me feeling crushed between two monoliths that I would usually never oppose. Very stressful

The title of this thread should say that there are two sides to every story - except this one.

I said it earlier but it's obvious to me the OP is more interested in getting confirmation of bad behaviour instead of possible explanations of normal behaviour. She and her forum-body-guard are positively against us exploring the other side of the story. When we do we get accusations of "talking out of our arse" and being obsessed.

glove punch of solidarity, rosdearg.

I was brought up to put myself second, nay third, fourth, fifth, always . Consequently I am incredibly unassertive and if I have to be it makes me sweat buckets.

I've seen it with dsis too, eg she might say, "You must be feeling hot in here, I'll open a window for you." No one else is the slightest bit hot - she's just transferring her wishes onto someone else to avoid making a direct demand.

The son is only yours till he gets a wife thing - . It depends on the personality. Some children are always quite independent-minded, even when they are little, and I suppose then you as a parent have years of preparation for separation. Some dcs are more matey, and then if that mate distances you, it is hard.

What I will never ever get is:

we all chose our own partners, we all decide our own boundaries with those partners. He might be in charge of the remote control and what programs are on the telly, she might be in charge of the finances, that suits them as a couple.

If a man decides to partner up with a woman and allows her to chose what they eat every night, that is his choice to do so. It's his life and he is allowed to decide what decisions he allows his partner to make on his behalf. He doesn't have to run it past his mum first. He is an adult making an adult decision.

I decide every single year where we go on holiday and how the holiday budget is allocated. I decide what colours our rooms get painted and what style they get furnished in, my husband lives with my decisions. My husband on the other hand never consults me about cars, he chooses, I live with his choice. I can't remember the last time I got a say in what telly or computer or tablets or phones we have. He makes all those choices. I don't ever recall giving him a choice on washing machines or dryers, they are my department.

Now it could be I am a princess and control certain facets of his life
And he is an abusive arse who controls certain facets of my life

Or it could just be
it suits me to let him deal with cars and electronics, and
it suits him to let me deal with soft furnishings and holidays

but I love to see the spin family members (usually but not always, mother in laws) can put on a situation like this. All they see is their son being dictated to, they never see their own son in the role of dictator, even when it's clear the couple have decided between themselves, "you deal with ABC and I'll deal with DEF"

My dm has quite difficult dils. One in particular is bonkers.

The other is nice but doesn't say how she feels which can lead to misunderstandings.

Well, in truth I don't think most mils could care less about that sort of thing.

I've seen dil behaviour from me - perfect of course! And dsis - awful. I was always polite to mil, although my teeth are ground down from the effort. Dsis was always, if not horrid to her mil, always trying to keep her at arm's length which, to be fair, her mil respected. She always seemed nice to me on the occasions I saw her, but the problem for dsis was that she existed . Dsis didn't want to travel 100 miles to see her; she didn't want to have her to visit for the day; she didn't want to see bil's siblings. Bil never spent any bit of any Christmas holiday with his family and dsis complained if her mil even phoned up. However dsis lived two doors away from my parents!

Actually bil left dsis and one of the ten thousand reasons he gave was that she was so hostile to his family.

Eurgh, I'm getting flashbacks of dealing with my own mother from this thread, no in-laws involved.

It's the list of perfectly normal interactions that you'd have with any friend or member of family (not criticising them, complimenting their hair, having lunch together) followed by "I must be an angel to do that".

Er, no mate. That's normal not-a-twat behaviour.

Deluding yourself you're doing some special and saintly in asking what they'd like for a birthday is teetering dangerously on the edge of twatdom. In normal relationships one does that without the self-congratulations and score-keeping.