to start a blatent ultimate MIL thread

[ollieplimsoles]

Well, more of a 'crazy things your IL's have done' but in my case its all about MIL. Alot of mil/ill threads lately I thought it might be good to have most if them in one place.

Ive spoken about some things on here but I'm not sure I ever mentioned my wedding dress so here goes: I showed mil my wedding dress, I was trying to include her in the planning of the day as she only has sons and I didn't want her to feel left out. It was a second hand cream lace full length dress and I loved it.

The following weekend we were at ILs and mil brings out the dress she has bought to wear for the wedding... Its cream lace. I didn't know what to say at the time but thankfully dh said that she would look a bit strange standing next to me in that dress. She had paid a lot of money for it, it cost more than my wedding dress and she was determined to wear it.
After many weeks of arguments and strops leading up to the day, she finally agreed to wear a different dress.
She turned up in the exact same dress, but in black lace, not cream. It was July, the hottest day of the year, and she sat and sulked all day long in a very heavy, tight black lace dress...

Just for balance:

I have a fabulous MiL, we live 10 minutes away but in the 26 years I've known her :

She's never dropped in unannounced and overstepped the mark.
She would babysit when they were little if we asked her.
She's never interfered in how we brought up the boys.

My MIL is a kind, thoughtful generous woman who always remembers birthdays and gives fantastic hugs.

My MIL tried to make our whole wedding planning process absolutely miserable, and screamed at DMum and I in the middle of a shopping centre when she found out we were going to get married in a room with, shock horror, a bar so we could invite more guests!

She also rolled her eyes during our speeches and said to my bridesmaids (one is only 15), on seeing they had got changed for the reception "Oh. You shouldn't have got changed, you looked nicer before. Ooops, I shouldn't have said that..."

We got married less than 2 weeks ago. I love DH so much and our wedding was wonderful, but she is a very unhappy and unpleasant woman to know.

When my dad died, DP and I arrived home after the funeral.

MIL phoned (very unusual, she rarely phones) and asked to speak to me. I took the phone thinking that I would be receiving condolences.

"Now Kidnapped, I hope that you are not thinking that you'll be spending all Christmases with your mum from now on. That wouldn't be fair on us".

I just handed the phone back to DP without saying anything.

Mine told (now ex) H that I wasn't to be trusted because I had long legs
She once said at a huge family dinner "savage doesn't like me". I agreed with her.
Things went downhill after that.

Omg Lucia

Mine is lovely - it's quite a new thing for me having a MIL - but she's an old hand at it due to her sons' number of marriages and divorces.

But, I am under no illusion that if she thought I'd wronged her son, I'd be under the patio before you could blink. I think it's best we are all clear on that.

Actually omg at a lot of these.

I don't have a mil as she passed on before I met dh. I have no idea if we'd have got on or not. I hope we would have.
Sadly, all the funny and awful mil stories i have are 2nd hand from friends and family so sharing them on here would probably be against some sort of rule. for those who have to suffer and for those who love their mils - just remember a lot of people aren't so lucky and having a space for a safe vent is very useful.

Love my future MIL to pieces, would do absolutely anything for both me and OH, but she is a bit crackers sometimes. A favourite of mine was her coming round for a cuppa and to meet new kitten, who had fallen asleep perched on the radiator, and proceeded to get hysterical about how the cat can't sleep on the radiator as she will catch fire and the house will burn down and she would call the RSPCA if we didn't move her....

OK for those of you who want batshit ones:

Whilst our house got work done we had to stay with PILs. I had reservations from the start.
I won't go into details but it was unbearable. I decided to leave, 2 yo dd was picking up vibes.
They'd locked my suitcases away and refused to give me them. Their excuse was I hadn't sorted my clothes into appropriate piles
DH had to come home from work and force them to give me them back. I was at the point of putting everything into bin bags and legging it.

My MIL is a vile, petty, mean woman and her daughters are cut from the same cloth. We've had no contact with them for almost three years and it's been blissful. DH refers to her as 'that woman' because he says she's no mother to him.

My MIL is lovely. If she wasn't we wouldn't be going on holiday with her and FIL again this year!

My MIL gives me cash for my birthdays and gives me more than she does DH! It's because women have more personal expenses apparently.

My (future) MIL is okay, nice enough and I don't think she means any harm.

She can be a bit bonkers at times, and tends to overstep boundaries sometimes though, intentionally or otherwise, which makes me uncomfortable. Usually in the form of asking questions which (imo) are a bit too personal for me. Things like asking questions about my weight, asking how my stitches are healing after giving birth. Even my own mum doesn't comment on my weight so I was a bit confused/offended at that one.

I tried to post up a lighthearted funnyish story first but I'm frankly quite shocked at some of these..

Ollie, I still remember your thread about when you were pregnant and she was interfering then. How did that turn out?

Well, everything I predicted happened really. We did need to tell staff not to let her in the hospital, and warn them that she is a staff member and may try and use that to get in. DD was born at 5.45am, at 6.30 the midwife comes in to delivery room ans asks if we were up for a visit? Dh suspected it was her and sure enough it was! She was told to go away and she could come back when I was feeling up to it, at proper visiting times on the ward.

Since then she has done just about everything to interfere with dd, from hating her name and telling us so, to having a go at the way I feed, what I dress her in, its exhausting! for Dh too D:

My MIL (well step-MIL as my DH's Mum sadly died not too long after we got together) is lovely but she and my FIL have given us some...unusual presents.

She is Spanish so we have had a scale model bullfighter with bull and those things that they stick in them plus some decorative duelling pistols!

Neither DH or I have ever show, nor ever had, any interest in bullfighting or duelling .

I think both are now in the bin loft!!

Oh I remember you now, Ollie Well done on not letting her in.

kidnapped I actually gasped at that.

MIL also didn't come to our wedding as she would be uncomfortable (no idea why as this was pre telling my dh she hated him on his birthday) and then a couple of months later when to dh's ex's and had a great time.

She also took down photos of our dc as ex had given her a new photo of ex's dd (not dh's) so she replaced the one of our dc with that one.

She's a classic narcissist. Fell out with all of her nieces and nephews after their mother's funeral because she wasn't getting enough attention from them. Seriously.

Fucking nutter.

Ollie, at least you were forewarned of her craziness.

Just what you don't need though, less than an hour after giving birth.

My mum was the total opposite of exh's mum. Gave me space. Only gave me advice when I asked for it. She was brilliant.

My mil died shortly after I met DH. Very opinionated and a bit claustrophobic but lovely with it. The only time she stopped talking was when she slept. Literally. She used to sit there with a tea towel covering her mouth so she could talk and eat at the same time. Shame she never met DD. FIL has always been whispered about behind his back as the family "don't say anything but there's something not right" person. From discussions with people with autistic family members, I now believe he's autistic. Very insular, more than a bit ocd (unless he's at my house and he treats my place like a hotel), awkward in social settings, cannot cope with routine change, does strange things like needing a drink and not knowing where a glass is so cups his hands under the tap, or licking his knife to warm it to cut the butter, rinsing his false teeth under the tap in the loo and wiping them on the communal towel - bits of mashed up food everywhere. He's French and we lived in France for a while. Before we left, I decided I'd help him to improve his living conditions. What do I want with the inheritance? We took him out to various places to get general stuff for the house like towels and kitchen utensils as well as big stuff. We got him to change his sofas and mattress as they had holes in them, shower update, new kitchen as it was falling apart (eg the kitchen tap was broken and he'd attached a piece of hose pipe in the hole). Now for the kitchen, I explained in detail and made a list of 3 shops for him to go to and choose the kitchen style by himself and wrote exactly what he needed to do (I'm fluent in French). I'd then come and plan it in the shop with him - I now realise this was too complicated. He put the list down and promptly forgot about it. A couple of weeks later he announced he'd put a deposit on a kitchen from the place round the corner. I called the company and asked them to put the plan on hold. The next day, I took time off, zoomed an hour and a halfs drive and spent two effing exhausting hours debating with him that his plan was crap. He had basically re planned the pre war style kitchen with a couple of units - all neatly tucked behind the main exit door. He has a big heart but he infuriates me incredibly. I hate the way he frowns at me all the time because he has to process what I am saying. I imagine what I talk about is out of his comfort zone as well as my accent being strange. The last time he visited I went out and took my puppy with me because I wouldn't have trusted him with it let alone my DD when she was younger - mil constantly told him what to do and he always lived with his mother (even after marriage). Now dd's almost 8 she wouldn't stay with him anyway. He has to be forced to play with her and gets bored after 10 minutes. He likes the status of being "Papi" (grandad) but nothing more. As for my mother, she is controlling and an absolute bitch to me and has berated dd as well although she is a better grandma than mother. Father decreased. Her husband is unable to move or speak, tube fed and since Xmas in a nursing home (she looked after him till then). He is very sad that he can't be a hands on grandpa - DD doesnt remember playing with him when she was really little. He is also a nice man but very manipulated and hen pecked by my mother. I am dreading his passing as mother will be free to visit us more and she is unfortunately just so nasty. And breathe.

Mine is difficult to describe. She is a wonderful GM and the DC adore her. She treats me like a daughter, which on one hand is lovely and on the other is quite difficult as she is rather interfering. She drives DH round the bend, and he is sure she has NPD, but I don't think she is as bad as that.

She tries to dictate where we live, if I (not DH please note) work, holidays etc and uses money as a tool. Thankfully DH and I are on the same page, and we now refuse all offers of financial help. It is all wrapped up in being helpful - which I'm sure on some level she genuinely thinks she is being - but it is actually controlling.

I probably haven't described that very well, and come across as an ungrateful cow. One of those situations where you have to experience it to understand...

Ijust oh my goodness

I would have just bin bagged it and legged it!

We've just had to tell PILs for the third time that we don't want anything from them and they were not to try and send DS a birthday card or present (long story, lots of bad history, present ban a result of them turning up at our house last year with bags of presents and scaring the crap out of DS).

I never felt comfortable accepting things anyway as we were not in any other sort of contact, but family pressure on us made me let that go on longer than felt right. DS being scared was yet another final straw and we told them so at the time.

We also told them so at Christmas when they tried to get someone else to sneak presents in for them, and again recently for DS's birthday, when they told DH he is killing them and is to blame for everything wrong in their lives.

They have now responded to the ban by buying SIL a very expensive gift (costing thousands of pounds) and sticking photo's all over Facebook so we can see what we could have had if we weren't being so awful to them.

I think they hope we would get in touch begging for presents of the same value, but we're not that type of people and our DS is not for sale.

My MiL is fab. Just this morning I called her on the way to work as I'm worried about DHs depression returning and I felt he needed a mummy hug. Within 10 minutes she had called him and arranged to meet-up today.