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?

I can see it now from ex-mil

My dil assaulted me. It was over nothing my DGS didn't need the clothes dil had bought as he was dead. Maybe selling them before the funeral was a bit premature but I really needed a week in Blackpool after all the stress.

She actually says this to people

My mil was wonderful till I told her ds1 had SEN. Her total denial of ds1's issues and absolute persistence in saying so ruined our relationship for years.
From her point of view I was the awful DIL who was claiming her dgs had SEN when he 'was clearly fine' and was making her son go along with it. She also is clearly totally baffled by the fact that I struggle with being a full time sahm as that is 'obviously' the only way to do it.
Tbf now ds1 is older and so clearly not age appropriate she is finally starting to acknowledge he might actually have some issues.
She does clearly love my children deeply and is very clear on DH's flaws but I think I totally baffle her. Very different back grounds and views on life.

I should think my ILs all dislike me heavily. They are generally too polite to make it obvious though.

But there are always hints. About why we don't accept invites, return phone calls, pop in to see anyone, miss birthdays, don't treat the DCs like pieces of meat to share. It's actually because DH doesn't like them enough to bother and I'm not going to manage a grown man's relationships for him. Problem is, his ex immediately before me did all for him. So I suspect it's assumed the problem is me.

Out of my 2 SILs, one of them my DM adores because she is lovely and thoughtful and polite. The other SIL my DM can't stand because she is rude, arrogant and obnoxious with filthy dirty habits and appalling table manners.

Unborn - I am beyond shocked at your post. Truly, that is the most heartrending thing - what an unfeeling cow she is! So sorry :(

*I'm a rubbish DIL. Stole her baby boy and am also crap in my duties as DH's personal secretary. To be fair, she's quite a nice woman, just not somebody that I would ever in a million years gravitate towards naturally (or vice versa) and it shows.

I get on great with SMIL though, she's a hoot. It's a much easier relationship because she's not DH's mum so there's none of the boring power struggle stuff and I don't feel like I'm in a tug of war.*

THIS!!!

Many of my friends talk sadly about their DILS and money. I have heard so many of them explain that they contributed to their son and daughter in laws wedding but this was never acknowledged. Ditto money for house deposits. I often read threads from DILS complaining about wills and inheritance.
I think for some DILS it is all about the money. They hate their sons having families but don't want to completely cut contact if it means losing out on family dosh.
I am sure there are lovely DILS out there but I hear a lot of stories about DILS who are keen to take family money but not keen to allow a close relationship between son and his family.

Thumb thanks she has a shit load of separate issues to be fair. She's no longer my mil and we tolerate each other for DD's sake.

Current mil is great.

I think mn gives a skewed version of mil. We are obviously more likely to post about bad relationships then good or even average ones.

And charlie just read my past posts before you get goady love, my mil almost ruined my dh's life

Seriously? You honestly think someone should research your life history before responding to a post on this thread? Get over yourself.

HackAttack

It was - I actually had a thread about it at the time (in 30 days) and MN unanimously agreed that they were being unreasonable...

However, In fairness to MIL I probably did come across as uncommunicative/rude but I was under immense stress due to being heavily pregnant with no choice other than to live with them if I wanted to live with DP and felt completely out of control of the situation.

It got to the point where I was so cross and frustrated with their inaction/delaying that I didn't feel comfortable being around them other than when absolutely necessary in case I snapped. I was on the verge of tears constantly and struggled to make anything more than brief conversation with them. I was a woman on the edge and it was making me increasingly irrational and me and everyone else miserable. I can see in hindsight how badly behaved that made me appear

The house is tied accommodation linked to DP and FILs employment and FIL is now retired, they always knew they would have to move out once he did and had planned accordingly. They were just reluctant to actually follow through on those plans! whether I existed or not they would still have had to move eventually. The pregnancy wasn't exactly expected and had I not been pregnant I would have left them to it for as long as they needed but it became clear very quickly that it would not be realistic for them still to be there once the baby arrived, and also that DP and I now needed more privacy than MIL was prepared to give us.

In reality they actually had six months to get their head round moving and start packing things up but buried their heads in the sand and just didn't do it, and instead started completely unnecessary improvements to their new house leading to a 3 month delay in them actually moving and my due date getting closer every week. They weren't being nasty just disorganised and couldn't contemplate just how long it would actually take to go through a lifetimes worth of stuff. In the end there was a huge row between them and DP and from that point they spent the next 3 weeks moving out one car load at a time. It was excruciating.

They certainly aren't banned from the house, they are welcome any time I just want them to knock and announce themselves in case I am breastfeeding or generally cavorting around naked as one is entitled to do on Mat Leave if one wishes FIL does actually still turn up every day to 'work' bless him but due to complete lack of social awareness and personal boundaries has been asked by DP to try and stick to the kitchen if he does come in the house rather than wandering round the house. MIL hasn't been back once since she left.

Also turned out MIL thankfully didn't have cancer after all.

I like to think i'm not actually a horrible person but it was a horrible time and I can see how from another point of view I am a very badly behaved DIL.

I just hope I can fix it.

Oops that was a bit of an epic post/rant. Sorry everyone

I think I'd be classed as a sort of bad DIL if my MIL was to ever start one.

I don't like guests and limit visits to 4nights maximum over any period (or else we have guests for weeks and weeks - this is a compromise between DP and I).

I don't believe that what when we have children that it will be solely down to me to provide care. I hope to go back to work after 6months. Her son WILL be helping me with night feeds, as we both will work. I don't care if she thinks he would be tired.

I probably would breastfeed my baby just to stop her from being able to hold/feed it all the time/prevent overnight stays.

I've said outright that I wouldn't have elderly parents living in our home to care for them. Proper care and appropriate living arrangements will be sorted, but I wont have them all living with me (I was asked).

But we get on quite well as long as boundaries are kept. She's very opinionated, but in a passive way. She will also seek to 'get around' a decision by collaring DP when he's on his own where he feels he can't say no. This has caused grief before now - but ultimately she's like us all, we all want our own agendas and things our own way, I do notice that she pushes for hers more so than my own mother though. Luckily DP is good at juggling us both and keeping everyone happy.

unborn that is way beyond nastiness, I'm sorry that you had that to deal with on top of the loss of your child
So many people who have been treated so shockingly, yes I know there are two sides to every story.

I was neglecting her son as I went to work and DH was SAHD.
I forced him into having to change his children's nappies, whilst I was swanning about at work.
An ectopic and miscarriage were obviously due to my family and their bad genes, it was obviously for the best. Less nappies too.
Due to My bad parenting and genes the children have autism, none of that in their family, oh no.
Oh wait a minute, they don't have autism, nothing a good smack and being fed meat wouldn't sort out anyway.
I didn't know how to be a mother as I grew up in childrens homes, as even my own mother didn't want me, this was more evidence of the faulty genes.
DH and his brother went to live with their grandparents at 9 &14 as she needed her space and had a new boyfriend.
Whatever I did was always wrong, I couldn't even make a cup of tea how DH liked it.
We saw them as little as possible, their family BBQs and parties were mostly child free.
The stress of living with us caused DHs brain tumour, towards the end of DHs life MILs visits at our house were supervised by 2 oncology SW due to threats and abuse to me and nursing staff, she made countless complaints about people involved in DHs care.
She stood up shouting and swearing at the funeral service, me and the children had police bouncers on hand.
Reported me to social services for abusing the children.
We've not seen them since the funeral, it's since come out that they were physically abusive to our children over a number of years.
She tells everyone that I refused to let her see her dying son.
I never raised my voice to her, I tried to think how awful it was for her.
Blimey that was long, but therapeutic.

Unborn

I had to read your post 3 times to understand what you were saying because I couldn't believe what I was reason. So sorry for your loss.

Klaptout

I'm sorry you went through such an awful time

I've a decent relationship with my MIL. I'd have liked if she reared her children with more gender equality - her girls did the housework, boys did the farm etc, but DH is self-housetrained from all the years he flat shared so he shares the housework equally with me. I know she genuinely loves me and has never interfered in my parenting apart from slipping DC secret chocolate despite my new-fangled hippy ways of breastfeeding and baby wearing, she's never criticised. .

I could have done a hell of a lot worse in the MIL stakes. And I think she's wise enough to recognise that she's got lucky too with genuinely lovely DILS/ SILS for her kids. None of us are perfect obviously but a long way off psycho.

I was an ok, actually pretty good dil until dc were born.
Then I became a bad dil
I was selfish with my dcs (yet my Mil had to tell lies about stuff to make it seem as though I excluded her on purpose it's ok because 'you know what she's like')

We've kind of got past it but I don't.think I will ever be a good dil again.
Too late to give as much time.as they want with the grandchildren now as they aren't babies anymore.
I still like her, just think she made her first few years as a grandma a bit shit for herself by being a demanding stroppy brat and cutting nose off to spite face.
She's a good mum and a fantastic grandma. She's a lovely lady but I think she knows she fucked up by being such a brat and now is clearly a bit uncomfortable around me...it's either guilt because I confronted her as did dh or she thinks I'm a twat

I find that really odd, mrsmuddles. I'm not sure why DIL should be the one making a huge effort because some money was given to the couple. Surely that's still DS's responsibility to the main point of contact with his own family?

My pils gave us nowt towards wedding or house deposit (no issue with this of course) but mil still wanted lots of say in both (didn't get a say) and generally tarnished the wedding a bit by being a brat.

Yep terrible DIL here too and do not get on well with MIL. I suspect it simply comes down to MIL and I having completely different views of what the DIL and MIL 'roles' should be.

for Unborn and Klaptout

I'm an amazing DIL. Visiting the in laws today actually - in the cemetery

Seriously though, my in laws ADORED me and I them

But it was very odd. Their entire family are super dysfunctional, lots of mental illness and lots of interlinked family feuds and a huge complicated history of abuse - physical and mental - and so so many of them were sexually abused outside of the family

I was like a breath of fresh air , very very young, super confident and opinionated in my own way. I knew what life was all about and I joked and teased and took the mickey and they loved it
They were bloody AMAZING in laws, unbelievably FANTASTIC grandparents but awfully utterly SHIT parents
Mil had munchausens and I think that's why she let so many bad things happen to her kids, (she had munchausens herself not the proxy one so it was her that was always dying) whilst she spent the last 45 years of her life 'seriously ill and or dying'. I've had counselling MYSELF to deal with how she let her son (DH) down, I fell apart eventually when all was revealed. It was like she wanted her kids 'to suffer but unlike the 'by proxy' bit she didn't want the attention of having sick or dmanaged children, she just wanted them to be unhappy and unsupported
It's very complex
Jesus this is long and therapeutic!

I loved them both very very much but I didn't like the people they had been when their 5 kids were destroyed brought up

I want to be a good mil as I want my dd to always chose us at least half of the time
I love her BF but try not to over involve myself as they are so young. Try to support him when she's mean but not interfere. I'm not a perfect parent and I've got a lot wrong but I hope I'm a whole lot better than DH's parents and mine. We always put her first

CharlieSierra - you don't want to read someone's past posts to learn their history - fair enough. But having been told that your post was so far off the mark, wouldn't an apology to ollie have been in order?

Mrs muddles I respectfully disagree. Whilst most people would find a cash gift very useful I don't think these gifts should come with ties. Just because you want to give your son a lump sum at wedding time doesn't mean you get to have a hold over them forever. My MIL wants to sell her house as she wants to "see the money in use when she is alive" both sons want her to spend her own money on herself as the last thing they want is constant questioning on what they intend to do with it and constant reminders about how grateful they should be. Now imagine not wanting to be gifted £150k, it's ridiculous.

Unborn and Klaptout

I would have been a fantastic dil if my mil had been a good mil.

they say men marry women just like their mothers

I will admit I can see similarities between me and my MIL.

But I'm not:-
abusive. I won't hit my kids because im not getting my own way
An emotional blackmailer. Again i won't threaten suicide because I'm not getting my own way
Theif. I won't steal money from my children to fund my shopping addiction
Interfering. She just won't stop

And Dh hates her for everything she's done

mrsmuddles

It's possible that this is how MIL feels. She wanted to lay for the whole wedding, I told her that there would be many guests and that it would be expensive. She still insisted. DH talked to her again, she luckily agreed to laying just half of it.

However, after that she was offended that the wedding wasn't in the UK but in Switzerland (my family is much bigger than DH's, housing 16 additional people to Switzerland is easier than housing more than 100 additional people in the UK).
Then she wanted to boost their numbers (because it wasn't fair... as if it's my fault that one of my grandfathers had 13 and my nonna 7 siblings!) which she did. So there were some people present DH had maybe (!!!) seen once or twice.

And then she complained to DH that my family was loud, 'common', and scary. How dare that woman'!!

And she was unhappy with my wedding party and didn't want us to go on a shooting weekend. I even invited the witch. Gah!

I honestly think that she maybe wanted to pay because she thought this way she had more of a say? I'm just happy we didn't let her pay for the whole wedding.
I'm not trying to sound ungrateful. But Idk,