To be fed up of mil treating my kids differently because she doesn't like me

[Wishfulmakeupping]

I'm just so mad.
To paint s picture -2 Dc with my dh. Mil has never really liked me but I've always been civil and respectful to her until this last year where she didn't give a shit that our youngest was in and out of hospital no offers of help or even phone calls to check how he was.
It was his first bday this week she gave him a ten pound gift. If all the go got this then that would be fine but she takes the others on holidays, to theme parks, lots of treats and many presents and he gets this one cheap toy?!
I know she doesn't like me and since the last time he was seriously ill in hosp I've not been able to make chit chat with her because I don't think I could manage to be civil so I've stayed out of her way but this just seems really unfair.
Don't know what I want from this thread but needed to get it out as dh doesn't see any issue with her gift

I didn't need to look up price of present I brought the same thing for my friends ds for Xmas last week.
The theme park/holiday thing that's just an example of what the other gc are doing with her in terms of money yes but also time on a very regular basis.
Before our relationship deteriorated this year due to ds' Ill health - she treated my eldest better than ds but not on a par with the other gc and I would imagine come Xmas eldest won't receive what they have in the past.
To be clear if each of the gc received an orange come Xmas day that's great as long as they all did not ours oranges while the others get all manner of things iyswim it's just fairness.
The hospital issue is obviously huge for me and as I've said it means that I can't trust my myself to be ok with her right now so I've purposely avoided her since then.

I agree with you op, that is not acceptable and not fair. Either your dh can have words with her about treating all grandchildren equally and about her behaviour, when your ds was in hospital, or you can cut her out of your lives. It sounds like she does not bring much to your lives anyway, so woulden't be a big loss.

I am shocked at excuses being made for her, what she is doing is downright nasty and spiteful, and the op children will find out some way or another when they are older, and there will probably be some animosity and resentment there, they might even cut their grandma out totally.

I'm with you OP, we have similar with my MIL, DH is a twin his brother is very much the golden child & after we had a fall out with him 2 years ago we've seen her 6 times. Once you know where you are in the pecking order it becomes extremely hard to even bother to be civil, wouldn't bother me if I never saw her again. She knows nothing about DD or our lives in general, rings DH about once every 2 months & then it's for appearances sake. All I will say is that children notice more than we realise & will form their own opinions when they are older. In the meantime DD has plenty of other loving & involved family in her life which I'm sure is the case with your little ones so it's MIL's loss in my opinion, years have passed that she'll never get back & I'll continue indifferent to her & grimace through her twice yearly half hour visits!!
Also I'm a firm believer in that if you have nothing from them it means you have nothing to be thankful or indebted to them for!!

You have a dh problem, what does he think of her lack of interest at her grandchild being seriously ill in hospital.

What he think of the unequal treatment of the gc.

I think he makes excuses along the lines of what's appeared here 'well we wouldn't have wanted to go on hols' , and then when ds was in hosp he said she would have known we'd update as needed and we wouldn't have wanted her looking after our eldest anyway just constant excuses. His dsis is very much the golden child and my dh has frankly been treating pretty shit himself over the years but especially so since the fall out this year

It's excuses on his part, his expectations of her are low. You need him on side. I personally woukd distance my children from her. Your kids don't need her in their lives

Even though I've stopped seeing her I've not wanted to stop the dc as I didn't want to be the reason she couldn't see her own gc but I think if dc start to notice they are being treated differently in any way then I need to really think about that

My MIL does this - treats older and younger GC differently to mine. Don't know why. It really used to bother me (but not DH) - he wasn't bothered and just said she was strange anyway. My son's first birthday present was a pull out puzzle from the charity shop wrapped in cling film but hey ho. He quite liked it! A bit different to the £200 gift given to a different GC for 1st birthday.

I have now "let it go" in my head and have minimal contact so anything nice that comes our way from her by way of attention or gift is a surprise (and not expected). i feel much happier in myself now that I don't seethe inwardly. I also avoid asking what [other GC] did for their birthday etc so I don't know!

That is sad allthe, it's disgusting how a grown adult can behave this way towards children. I think once they start noticing, you need to distance yourselves.

I just wish my dh could see how unfair this is towards our children or admit he can see what's happening

I think that you all realise that it's not the cost of the gift, it's what it represents.

Yes it is indeed what it represents, and the message it's conveying. Yiur dh is a whimp, you need to stick up for your kids.