Dreading becoming a hated MIL

[FlatOnTheHill]

I have read so many MIL threads on MN and many of the attacks on MILs are for such petty, ridiculous and unnecessary reasons it makes for uncomfortable reading.
Does anyone else dread the thought of their DS's one day marrying a controlling MIL hater.

[FreshHorizons]

It is the pettiness that would get me down as if 'how's my boy?' had any meaning. I just don't get it.

[pictish]

How's my boy? What's so terrible about that? It's a commonplace turn of phrase that depicts affection.

[pictish]

Coco I have read about your mil before. She's beyond comprehension.

[OnceAMeerNotAlwaysAMeer]

The answer is not to have expectations.

It's reasonable to have expectations of being treated with courtesy and a modicum of privacy though.

The only thing that drew the MIL and DIL together in the first place is the son/husband. it's always going to be tricky if you don't have anything in common except him, if one is an unpleasant person or if you come from really different cultures (family or country).

[FreshHorizons]

There are just certain rules:

You get to choose your own partner and no one else's partner. You have to get on with the one they choose, not the one of your imagination.

You need to be welcoming from the start and get to know them as a person, not just through your DC. Make your own relationship.

You are not their mother, they are not your daughter. A huge advantage that you meet as adults without any baggage.

You will be a visitor if you go to their home so do not treat it like your own home.

Take pleasure in DILs company and do things on your own.

Once they have a child do not offer advice unless they ask for it. Don't be obsessed with having the child on your own , wait until you are asked and if you think they have bonkers instructions just humour them and do as you are told. You don't need to buy lots. Time is more important to the child.

Make sure that you have plenty of friends and interests.

[yankeecandle4]

Haven't RTFT but MN has given me an insight into the "dreaded" MIL. It seems whatever you do you cannot win.

Want to be involved with children=entitled/ interfering
not offering to look after children=selfish, uninterested
buying moses basket/equipment for their house=outrageous, toxic
look after children on a regular basis and take a day off=selfish, outrageous

buy children gender specific clothing=outrageous
buy children sweets=outrageous
don't buy children sweets= uninterested and outrageous by default)

wanting to go to nativity=self absorbed, stealing limelight, over invested
not going to nativity=not interested
wanting to visit in dc's birthday= interfering
not visiting on dc's birthday=uninterested

My MIL days are not for some time yet thankfully.

[Ifrit]

Bloody hell Coco

My MIL is in a similar vein.

She did her utmost to try and spoil our wedding day. I won't list all the things she did, it would take an entire thread, but by the end of the reception my DM had heard enough of me being openly bad mouthed and told MIL to either shut her mouth or step out into the car park to "discuss" it further.

When I had my first mc she said it was shame as she and SIL had only just come around to the idea of me being pregnant. When SIL got pregnant a few months later she made many comments about "finally" having a grandchild then on Christmas Day, of all days, asked "wasn't yours due around now?".

When I got pregnant (was pregnant that day but we hadn't told anyone), when I got further along she was constantly comparing me to SIL but in an unkind way. SIL was glowing, I looked tired. SIL had put hardly any weight on, I'd gained loads. SIL was keeping the sex a surprise, I'd ruined my surprise by finding out. And so on.

It didn't get better once we had DC. She played constant favourites. When I took 2yo DS to her house she would make food for DN and not even ask DS if he wanted any. DN had piles of toys there that DS wasn't allowed to play with. I stopped taking him there when I heard them say "quick, here's ! Hide the toys!" because it was a selfish, petty thing to do a child.

When DS was a toddler she said he reminded her of Cousin XXX. I said yes, because he's a happy boy just like XXX. She replied "no, I meant the other reason...". Cousin XXX has severe learning, behavioural, and mental disabilities. DS was 18mo at the time.

When I was 14wks pregnant she threatened to have me beaten up, told me I was evil, and to watch my back. Turned up at my house and stood on the path outside with her DP, both shouting at me. I was home alone with 10mo DS at the time. Why did she kick off? My DB had called in and found me ill with morning sickness so he took DS out for an hour while I had a lie down. He posted a picture on FB of them at the beach, I liked it, she saw it, she went ballistic that DB was hogging the baby (a baby she hadn't bothered seeing in over four weeks). I had a mmc diagnosed a few days later and while the two are likely unconnected, the measurements indicated that my baby had died only a day or two before the scan (measurements were accurate for dates) so I will always wonder if the stress she caused contributed.

These are just the highlights (low lights?) of a long and complicated history. I am not a bad person. I have always made an effort with her and have forgiven her more times than I can count, I even tried to rationalise much of her behaviour and in return left myself open to even worse.

In short: some people are cunts and will don't deserve to be part of your family.

[SoWhite]

Fucking hell Ifrit, what did your DH do?

[Elliecherry]

freshhorizons I like your advice.

[FreshHorizons]

Thanks Elliecherry.

Some of the examples on here are just toxic women. Plenty of women have toxic mothers too, you only have to read the 'but we took you to stately homes' threads.

If you get a toxic one there is no real advice except keep your distance.

[Cocolepew]

Even if MIL had become reasonable after DD was born (she didn't) the relationship was ruined. I coukld never foorgive and forget.
We didn't keep the DCs away from them, they were allowed to come around as long as DH was here. We took them to their house.
We stopped contact when DD1 was a todder and I walked in to find MIL zipping DD into a coat and whispering, I'll have you across, the border in no time (into Ireland from NI).
We were NC for about 3 years.

She had a good enough relationship with DD2 until she said something nasty to my face and DD was old enough to understand.
Neither GDs want anything to do with her.
She also was the sort who thought she was, and should stay, No 1 in DHs life.

She was deluded in concern to this because DH never had anytime for her.

[Cocolepew]

Sorry typos

[Atomik]

Cocolepew

Is it possible that you are dealing less with a MIL issue and more with a "close family member has a mental health issue" issue ?

Becuase... that is a whole 'nother ball game.

MIL 2.0 (who I am hoping was the whole package of the pay back due for my bad behavoir with MIL 1.0 ) had severe bipolar I, that more often than not did not respond to treatment.

She's dead now. But if I had my time again and could resist the urge to run screaming from DH the first time I met him (again) cos I couldn't face a couple of decades of the realities of his mother's illness twice over I think I'd be better off right from the get go framing the problem more as one of mental ill health, and less one of our relationship.

Because the stratagies I needed to get through it were vastly different from the sort of advice you normally get when it's bog standard MIL/DIL tussles and bad feeling. Plus if you've been up 36 hours straight having to repeatedly deny you hired the Peruvian spies currently lurking on the roof (allegedly) it can push you over the edge when you go somewhere to have a generalised "MIL issues" vent and see "well it's often six of MIL and half a dozen of DIL".

As with all unsolicited advice, this is just put here in case it's useful, to be ignored if not... but you might find some helpful support in the forums for relatives who are dealing with the ramifications of MH issues and family dynamics. Even if at this time there is no diagnosis on the table.

and

Cos there are times when if can feel like you are spending your life ricocheting between exhaustion, despair and white hot fury.

[Scaredycat3000]

Flat
^I have never read so much crap and nastiness for such small reasons.
Makes me wonder about what has happened to make Scaredy this way?^

20 years of Matriarch MIL happened to me. 15 years of bending over backwards, doing my very best for her, FIL (was diagnosed with a degenerative condition 19 years ago) BILs, SIL and OH. Putting her family above mine. Spending days trying to get the perfect gift she had asked for. Risking my job by taking week off to care for BIL as she refused to believe he had had a total breakdown, diagnosed by hospital, so left for holiday anyway. She never said thank you once. I was told and it was made clear I was not part of the family. I was expected to give more. I was expected to do as I was told. I was expected to tell OH what to do. Then we had children. She upped her game. Then she teased DS1 all weekend when he was just talking as he had a different accent to her, that would be my accent! Then she accidentally started telling me the lies she had been telling her friends about my parents despite only meeting them twice. Then I found out she lied to BIL about my role in his care blaming me entirely for the length of his recovery from a week to years.I've had enough, gloves off, I tried so hard, I'll be a fucking Bitch to her, I don't care, there are consequences to her actions. But she will always get equal access as my parents to their GC despite her lies about how much she sees them.

[ButImNotTheOnlyOne]

I hate the whole 'we cant do right for doing wrong thing' and 'you're too sensitive' that the pils come out with when called up on awful behaviour.

Which includes telling dc that they 'are the only ones that care about them. Clearly Mummy doesn't' and risk taking including hot black coffee on 9mo old dd's highchair tray, whilst shes sat in it, not strapping into car seats.

Yep my oversensitivity.

[eastwest]

Personally I get on far, far better with my MiL than I do with my mother - or did get on - sadly she passed away recently.

[LordBrightside]

"Personally I get on far, far better with my MiL than I do with my mother"

Me too. It's my wife I feel for.

[Cocolepew]

I veer between thinking mil has MH issues and that shes just a nasty bitch who gets some sort of twisted satisfaction from being like this.
She isn't a problem anymore, the DDs are older and know some what has gone on so I don't have to pretend to be pleasant. I don't take her under my notice.

She is very active in her church and has now adopted a wee, gentle, old woman persona. Im sure she tells her church friends a pack of lies about her relationship with DH and the DDs. Theres no way she would admit to them disliking her. I'm not sure what way she would play our relationship to her friends.

Maybe she has me painted as the DIL from hell. But it goes to show you you can't take everything at face value.

[Hihohoho1]

cocolepew have read other posts of yours regarding your vile mil. Honestly she sounds psychopathic. Poor you.

Ditto KERALA mil too.

Unkind, spiteful and vindictive. Char get your head around it.

[Hihohoho1]

yankee no that's bollicks.

I am a mil and I try to see things from my dils point of view. We talk about things and I am careful to gauge her thoughts, feelings and needs.

It doesn't have to be hard. Just listen and remember what it was like to be a new mum.

Don't judge, criticise or advise.

Be kind

[Hihohoho1]

Dils mum is vile by the way. I can see me stepping in if she starts on her after the baby comes. Not having that shit.

[BertrandRussell]

"Is it possible that you are dealing less with a MIL issue and more with a "close family member has a mental health issue" issue ?"

This.

It's only when it's a MIL that hideous unhinged behaviour is attributed to malice rather than to mental health issues.

[Ifrit]

Fucking hellIfrit, what did your DH do?

He went NC a whole two years before I did which was an odd situation but I really wanted her to have a chance at a relationship with her grandchildren. I finally had a final straw moment when on DS birthday she gave him £5 in a card delivered by a third party after he'd gone to bed for the night then two weeks later showed up at the door on DD's birthday all smiles and with one of those vtech tablets for her. I told her that she couldn't give one child a fiver and the other a tablet, I accepted she had favourites with her children and with her grandchildren but I wasn't going to allow her to favour one of my children over the other. It's exactly the sort of thing she used to do with DH - one Christmas, the last Christmas he had contact with her come to think of it, the SILs got top of the line mobile phones, shopping vouchers, and jewellery while DH got a tin of biscuits and even then it had both our names on the card so really it was half a tin of biscuits.

He's currently in therapy dealing with issues from his childhood and the way she treated him. His childhood was basically shit.

MILs stance on it all is that she doesn't understand what she's done wrong, she treats all of her children and grandchildren the same and she's hurt we won't let her see the DC. She sent a message over Christmas, via another relative rather than direct contact, to say she missed the children and would like to see them. She says it's all down to me and my influence on DH (she refers to me as "the puppet master").

You can't argue with that sort of blinkered view of the situation. She is never, ever in the wrong.

[Cocolepew]

No thats not true Bertram. Mil can be perfectably nice and sociably appropriate with eveyone she meets except me?

[Cocolepew]

Bertrand, sorry sausage fingers.