To start a DIL bashing thread?

[Iwasjustabouttosaythat]

No it's not really! But a threat inspired by a thread. This MIL one is quite enjoyable: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/2816733-Aibu-to-think-this-about-MILs?pg=1&order=

Any MILs who care to share their perspective on the relationship? Why do you think DILs are so difficult? Is this a thing?

My MIL could resent me - her son moved 140 miles away to marry me. Then her daughter loved it here and met a bloke from the NE and moved here too.
But MIL has welcomed me with open arms, as has FIL.

They are not like my parents were - they are younger - mid 60s whereas my parents would have been early 80s now. They are educated- both ex-deputy Heads (him primary and her secondary) but have things in common with my parents and the same values, just more socially confident. They are quite moral - we were not allowed to sleep together in their house until we were engaged; we were 30

At first, nice as they are, I kept my distance. MY dad had just died and I had my own mum and they were 2 1/2 hours away. We got on well, just were not that close. When my mum died 3 years ago, MIL was the one person who I could bear to let help me and she was wonderful. She drove straight up here and just quietly and in a sensitive but practical way helped me sort out my mum's flat. She was fantastic.

Her view is we have our own life, we are adults and it is ours to live.

When I got pregnant she minded her own business and did not once interfere. We had said no one could come and see him for the first week because we just wanted some time but as soon as he was born we both wanted them to see him and DH rang them and they were on the next train and at the hospital that night, over the moon, and then on a train home.

She is funny and kind and stands no nonsense from DH (but loves him to bits) and likes that I have the measure of him. She thinks I am really good for him but says she has no idea how I put up with him (he is a lovely man). She is definitely in charge in their house. Quite unusually, FIL stayed at home with the children when DH and SIL were born and took a 4 year break from work to look after them and she worked full time throughout her career.
She and FIL are slightly eccentric and I certainly couldn't live with them - there are things that drive me barmy- but I have grown to love them. They are great grandparents. Don't know how much more difficult it would be if they lived closer - we see them about every two months and DH speaks to them about 2 or 3 times a week.

If she was moaning about me it would be about both of us and how we waste money on things we don't need. She thinks I have encouraged that side of him. needs no encouragement

DH says his mum would have loved me. I hope so :)

I think that the younger generation are socialised differently so there can be a sort of tension similar to that between Americans and English people where the English people expect to be invited into a gentle euphemistic dance about preferences, but the Americans just say "shall we do what I want? Yes? OK!"

there is a complicating factor in that the older generation expect to be pandered to by young women in a way that just might not happen.

So you get conversations like this:

MIL:" I'm sure you won't mind, dear, if I do [inconvenient thing]"
DIL: "actually that doesn't really work. Maybe we could do [other thing] instead?"
MIL (aghast that the DIL has actually had the temerity not to agree; AND not being socialised herself to disagree freely, weakly says) "yes dear, that would be just as good."

Later she tells people that DIL is "selfish" "headstrong" and so on.

September that situation sounds terrible!!

Oh come on, Ollie! That's not even half of it. What about her using her hospital contacts to try to gain access to your medical records?

Ah, I remember some of that tale.

As for my late MIL, she'd have said I was too immature initially (I was 40 years younger than her, so attitudes were so different, it was hard to make a connection) and I'm sure she was less than impressed by the fact DP and I raise our DCs differently to the way she did it. It was different again to my mum's way of doing things.

But she did seem to like me a little, but I could never be sure as she was so superficial about it and never talked about emotions. Apart from the one time she dropped her guard after FIL died. She admitted she'd have been happy to stay and sleep overnight in a chair in our house (no spare bed) but would never have gone home again, so she didn't ask to stay.

My MIL is great. I hope she feels the same about me. We don't agree on everything, she has some annoying features, but I bet she feels the same about me. Mostly she's a loving, generous, kind and caring woman who I wish lived closer as I think if we were more comfortable together it'd be easier again.

She and FIL (they're divorced) raised a wonderful son. And for all our differences I know she'd do as much for me if I needed her as she would for him.

you yep that's right, she did... Not even sorry about it, she even tries to joke about it.

And charlie just read my past posts before you get goady love, my mil almost ruined my dh's life, he has massive confidence issues and I was the only one holding them together.

And no, my own mother didn't find out I was pregnant before 12 weeks, as we have a history of miscarriages in our family and I didn't want another disappointment for her if things went wrong. Happy?

Thanks for the flowers TheMrsD.
I have loads more

I think PILs have always considered me a good DIL and I consider I have been exceptionally lucky with my MIL. I probably have her MIL to thank for that. Apparently they had a "tricky" relationship so she was determined not to make the same mistakes with her DILs.

Clearly not foolproof though. Her MIL was prone to popping in unexpectedly and was very free with "advice". Hence MIL would never visit without prior warning and didn't interfere in child rearing or anything. This seemed ideal to me but ex-SIL came from a family of poppers in who liked to live in each others pockets and be involved and she thought MIL standoffish. It didn't end well.

I'm a bad DIL. I had the audacity to marry MIL's son. The first wife wasn't acceptable either. Neither the other son's wife.

Can't help noticing the common factor in each of these relationships...

I'm always surprised that DH is so normal , Fil is a bastard too.
Dh has no time for mil and we are completely NC with fil. He worked for his parents they were always thinking up hare brained schemes.
Dh eventually broke away, years, before he met me, but he told me that he heard mil blaming me .

I was a bad DIL to exH's mother. The last straw was that I left her abusive son and she had to confront his difficult, emotional blackmailing behaviour. (The source of which was principally her treatment of him) Thought she'd found some mugging (me) to take care of him and absolve her of worry.

My mil is so nice.

I look on in horror at the mil threads on here.

As a dil she probably thinks I'm lazy but is too diplomatic to ever say so.

My sil seems to not be able to do much wrong. Despite all of her excentricites. My mother and her husband gave brother/sil the money to pay for their entire wedding. They got professional photographers and sil decided not to use their photos and forbade my brother from giving mother their details. Why? Because sil thought they'd been a bit lecherous. So because sil didn't want the professional photos, no one else was allowed them either (some of the money they'd been given was to cover photos I believe). Sil has screamed at my mother and she just takes it. Mother does drive sil to distraction as she does have some OCD's and is rather narcissistic. Both not easy women. I'm sure both could be on here complaining about the other. They both have strong opinions, which they willingly share and neither bends to the will of others.

I think the key to having a good relationship with someone, is seeing and accepting who they are and not judging them for any perceived weaknesses. It's not always easy to do that.

DH has just reminded me she did get twitched when I said she had to knock on our room door before she came in to bring us a cup of tea in the mornings when we went to stay with them- she would just come in quietly not wanting to wake us but we like early morning sleepy spoon sex. She said she was just being thoughtful and I said I would prefer it if she knocked and DH looked sheepish. DH solved the problem by moving the rug back so the door caught on it and stuck, not that she did it again but it would have stuck and stopped the door. She just stopped bringing us the tea and was slightly offended.

I'm not sure what my MIL thinks of me, because on the one hand I was the one who instigated mine and dh's 5 year split, and in the letter I wrote him, I did call his parents out on their blatant favouritism of dh's nieces. But they weren't meant to see that, so that's on him really. On the other hand, during that five years, I did everything I could to keep things stable for the kids. Contact was never restricted, they went to all the family parties and there was no animosity or game-playing between me and their dad. I know she is pleased we got back together. Unfortunately, she is gravely ill and likely to be in her final months. I will bloody miss her.

I'm not quite a MIL yet, my dd isn't married to her dp, but they've been together about 7 years and I adore him. He's a great fella.

They say men tend to marry women just like their mothers...

round

If anything I'm like DH's FIL,, but DH does resemble DM. He's just much calmer than she is... weird ;)

I get on quite well with my MIL. She's very different to me; I'm loud and outspoken and confident, she's spent her life pleasing others and never really putting herself first; for her that's a virtue, for me that's a loss and we sometimes disagree about what constitutes selfish versus self-care.

However, she is an incredibly Grandparent to the DCs and loves them to the point of madness. They spend time with her by themselves, we go on adventures with her without DH, I'd trust her with them more than anyone else on earth. It's a lovely relationship to have a MIL I can rely on, especially after reading some of the threads on here.

I feel incredibly blessed to have PIL's like mine after reading many threads on here. No interfering with my relationship with their Ds/wedding/pregnancies/bringing up our DC. I'd like to think the reason for this is due to being a good DIL, however, I may be wrong, it's only been 6 years, there's time yet! Or they could be yapping behind my back!

I'm not a good DIL either.
I don't "look after" DH properly, not like what she did.
I don't defer to him either, like she did with his dad.
I stand up for myself, unlike her.

She's not a bad MIL by any measure - but she herself had no experience of having an older woman interfere in her married life, because her own mother died when MIL was in her teens, and her own MIL lived 10,500 miles away. So she overstepped the mark a few times in the early days because she had never had anyone do that to her, so didn't realise how annoying it could be (she found out!)

And I make my DS do stuff for themselves, rather like I make DH do stuff for himself (something she should have done but didn't). DH has to do half the cooking and washing up, despite being in paid employment, because it's a good role model for our sons. He does other home stuff as well, bins, garden, tidying (mostly the bedroom and his office, but at least some) - so the boys see this as "housework" not "women's work". I plan to raise boys who understand that work in the house is the responsibility of everyone who lives in it, not just the woman-by-default.

MIL doesn't really agree with this, because she never had the opportunity to do this (or will? who knows) so every now and then I get a little dig about it. Meh.

I despise my mother in law and she knows it. I fully expect to see a thread on here about me one day.

Whoooo, I have that problem with MIL too. She seems to think I should be an exhausted mess in tears doing everything all by myself because that's what a good mother does. She calls it "burnt pork chop syndrome" as in the mother always takes the burnt thing and gives the best to her family. She applies this to everything! The other day she was eating some old fruit and made a big show about how she didn't actually want it but it needed to be used and she'd take the fruit bullet for her family because burnt pork chop syndrome - ie I am not a good DIL for not loudly suffering my way through off fruit. I'd just chuck it. What a waste of her son's money!

That said, it turns out her DH was emotionally abusive and would have told her off if she didn't do stuff like this. She was forbidden to have any household help because what would people think if the woman couldn't keep her house beautiful with perfectly well-behaved and turned out children while baking their own bread daily etc?

So basically she thinks I'm wasteful and lazy compared to what she went through BUT it's only occasionally she puts this out there. She's generally a very good and supportive person so I let it gooooo.

I'm chuckling away thinking of my STBX-MIL's hypothetical gransnet posts about me.