Future DIL WWYD

[Notwavingimdrowning]

Huge backstory that I've posted about before under a different username, so I will keep it quite brief ! My future DIL hates my family for some reason that we don't know about, despite practically begging for her to explain what we did / do that makes her hate us so much and therefore be able to sort it out. I know that MIL get a really bad time on MN, but can honestly say that we have been nothing but kind and welcoming to her from the beginning, if anything I admit probably over compensating for the rude way she behaves. She is coldly polite in front of my DS, but will completely blank us if we bump into her when she is on her own. ( in a relationship with DS for 10 years and she has always been this way). I have spent so much time analysing every conversation that we have had to figure out if I have offended her in some way but she hates us all as a family and refers to us as losers, overheard by a very close friend that she didn't realise knew who she was. We are just a normal family, live in a lovely but modest house and have never been in trouble so I don't understand why she considers us to be losers.
Anyway, we work in the same field but not in the same place, but recently I had to visit the department where she works, several times in the same day. I was with a very senior member of staff who knows both of us and knows she is engaged to my DS but is not aware of how she behaves towards me. On 3 separate occasions she saw me and though I said hello, made a point of turning her back to me in order to not have to acknowledge me. At one point I was actually close enough to reach out and touch her ( I didn't !) before she marched off to a different area away from me. By this point it was completely obvious to the manager that there was an issue and when we left he discreetly asked me about it and to my utter shame I started to cry and told him everything. I felt totally humiliated and embarrassed, but he was lovely and advised me to speak to my DS. I did and he must have asked her about it as I've now received a text from her to say that she's sorry, she didn't see me, I was mistaken as she was so busy, she would never deliberately ignore me, blah blah blah, but it just isn't true and definitely not how it happened. I decided today that enough is enough and I will no longer spend any more time worrying about her and trying to make her like us. I know that you cannot force someone to be respectful and I finally decided to leave them to get on with their lives and stop trying to be part of it, as much as it breaks my heart to essentially cut off my DS, as I also realised that I actually blame my DS for allowing this to go on for 10 years.
WWYD ? So far I haven't replied to the text. Would you ignore ? Reply with the truth, so essentially call her a liar ? I'm not going to say I was mistaken because I wasn't ! I know she saw me, she knows she saw me. Please wise people of MN tell me what to do.

You DIL might be like I was in my 1st marriage.

And I was an absolute arse of a DIL the first time round.

I was young, emotionally unstable, inclined to create drama and well versed with MIL stereotypes. I went in expecting MIL stereotype problems, and when they didn't materialise I was disappointed enough with the lost victimhood/drama potential to create some out of thin air.

My constructed Big Bad MIL Problem distracted me from my real problems. And it fed my sense of victimhood and injustice. All the better for feeling sorry for myself and taking fuck all responsibility for the crappy choices I was making. Which in turn meant I didn't have to focus on where I was damaged and the work that would have to go into making sure said damage didn't steal "contended life" potential from me.

In retrospect I have a shedload of respect for MIL 1.0. She didn't rise to what was pretty evident provocation. I created a habit of behaving very much like you DIL and managed to convince myself it was justified. My friends and family (who didn't know former MIL very well) were only too willing to believe my "awful MIL" version of events. Despite it being so detail-life, vague, or even downright untrue. The MIL stereotype was so well ingrained that the benefit of the doubt was handed over to me without much thought and no careful examination of my not exactly unbiased version of events.

If she is anything like what I was, in your place I would stop trying to "find out the cause and resolve it" with her. I would have LOVED the drama/crisis potential I could have wrung out of any kind of confrontation (aka "attempt to clear the air" to less unstable people). Cos that would mean that my strategies were working, and I was managing to create a big hoo-har out of thin air just by carrying on like there was an actual, genuine rift from which all the perceived animosity emanated.

As hard as this must be (and it must be hard, god knows when I think back I feel so ashamed of how upsetting and painful I must have made things for ex-MIL) maybe a more positive way forward would be to focus on keeping up the lines of communication with your son.

If she doesn't turn up to family events, make the most of it, maybe even organise more of them. Make no references to DIL's absence. Just focus on having the pleasure of your boy's company. If he is anything like my ex, that'll work like a charm. I suspect people in a similar set ups find it easier to see the contrast of reasonable and unreasonable behavoir when they don't feel obliged to defend their spouse. Especially when mounting a spouse-defence feels like a most uncomfortable "bottom of barrel scraping" process.

love. I don't have to work my imagination too hard to understand how horrible this must be for you. Not least cos while I don't believe in karma... part of me worries it might turn out to be true when my own son chooses a life partner.

Perhaps she could find her manners and knock on the door, Bluepeppers? Nothing wrong with wanting to go if it was supposed to be a five minute visit but sitting in the car and tooting the horn is something a five year old would do.

It's the DS visiting 2 or 3 times a week and usually men aren't people pleasers so he must be doing this of his own volition.

If you can't change the situation, change the way you feel about it.

Accept that DIL is not going to change, and let your son know that you now realise this, so he is no longer in the middle, always on the back foot with one of you.

I think you will be happier once you stop hoping for a 'normal' family life and accept that with this couple, 'normal' will be a relationship only with your DS (and hopefully, future grandchildren).

Above all, hang on in there with your DS - he needs you to see the bigger picture.

Online are you me???

I expect you have replied by now but I would text back "Great to know we're on the same page" as you now know she's so entrenched in her opinion she thinks you're stupid or gullible enough ("losers"??) to believe her and will lie her way out of trouble. Any barbed response you send will be shown to DS and anyone else to the tune of, "See what I have to put up with!"

A separate engagement party? I wonder what on earth she has told her family!
It's been ten years and your DS must know how things stand between you. At the same time you mention they're only living ten minutes away so she's not forced geographical isolation (yet).
DS must know how she feels but has he never tried mending fences?

It must be dreadful. There is no way I'd miss my child's wedding in the face of such animosity though. Show her family you guys are normal nice people. Beyond the wedding I would stay civil but the days of winning her round with a charm offensive are long gone. You don't want to signal to DS you aren't interested in him.

EdBall

Not unless I've been cloned. Which would be a pretty unforgivable thing to do to the world. One of me is enough

But if I am not the only Kind of Set Out to Be an Arse Of DIL Cos Of Own Issues And Undue Influence Of Much Wafted Sterotypes in existence, that'll cheer me up. Makes me more normal.

Ish.

That's a hugely honest post Online - I hope the op finds it helpful. Don't take this the wrong way but I am impressed (honestly)...a lot of people would not be able to dispassionately analyse their former bad behaviour and change positively

Online

The reason I ask is....se my post at 8.11 this morning!

Agree with hmc - excellent post, Online

I like Natalias text. You said that is what you would send. I hope you did. You've laid out your boundaries and asked for politeness and civility. That's all you can do now.

Make plans with your son not expecting anything of her. Make sure he is aware that you will always be holding the door open to her but you accept that at the moment she chooses not to walk through it.

I would say to him next time she stays in the car that it might be better if he sees you when there is no time pressure. BUT do you think he likes her giving him a get out clause by honking the horn when he see you, thus limiting his time with you? Or do you think he's actually being controlled by her and is uncomfortable about it but dare not stand up to her? I think this is a vital question to how the situation is.

a lot of people would not be able to dispassionately analyse their former bad behaviour and change positively

I like the way that sounds. Makes me look good.

Reality is... when you accumulate enough fucking things up in life stuff, it turns into a ten tonne leaden weight.

The only way I was going to have a fighting chance of a mainly contented life in the future was to understand the ways in which I'd been actively creating my own discontent for so long. With extra added collateral damage in the form of unfortunate humans who happened to be connected to me, not necesssrily by choice.

The reason I ask is....se my post at 8.11 this morning!

We are deffo potentially separated at birth

I would just focus on your son and maintaining that relationship, hope that your son will see the light.

Online what a Damascene conversion you seem to have had.

Online what a Damascene conversion you seem to have had.

Not sure I like your tone Season though I am wholly prepared to admit I may have misread it and if so, a gazillion apologies.

You could say that: ...or you could call it getting older and wiser and being prepared to learn from experience.

I can't believe this has gone on for 10 years that's a hell of a lot of excuses for your ds to have to make for her. I can be shy at times I also don't have much in common with my pil they are in their 70's and very little England BUT I always make an effort in their company and don't seek to avoid them actively. Imagine how much more difficult this will get if they have children.

I definitely think behaving like that at work is unprofessional and crosses a line but appreciate if it was that easy to tackle her behaviour you would have done by now.

I really like donthate suggestion
ok that's fine it was just x (boss' name) mentioned it so I thought I'd check.
I really think that covers it.
I'd be more concerned re DS to be honest. I couldn't contemplate being in a relationship with (let alone marrying) some who treated my parents like that. I'd be concerned as to why.

Good on you online, I am so pleased you realised how you were, it's not easy to admit that, it certainly sounds how the DIL is like and helps explain her behaviour very well. It's certainly a case of, it's her, not you.

If I were you OP, i think I would go and just sit in the car with her one time when she's waiting outside (before she beeps to let your DS know it's time to go, rude cow). Take her a tea and just ask her outright what her problem is. Her only option will be to get out of the car and walk home...or have a conversation with you. You have nothing to lose.

Could it be one of DS's siblings that has done something to upset her? She feels you'll ultimately want to stick up for DC, so she distances herself, as if to say if your DC treat me like this, then bugger the lot of you.

You do get it where a sibling does something, but the parents are lovely, but ultimately the parents will support the sibling, so it becomes one big mess of them or me, as the sibling will manipulate things to their advantage so it's lose / lose.

That's the best scenario, that it isn't you, it's a sibling who did something, now you're all getting punished. I would say that you don't know about it as DS knows if it's escalated the sibling will make themselves further the victim. Or they tried to resolve it to no avail, it's presumed said sibling is the favourite or strongest character.

She sounds like a huffing child who probably can't even remember the original reason for her decade-long huff. Personally, I'm very good at thickening my skin and would have written her off years ago but I appreciate you may not be able to do that. Honestly though, I doubt you can turn her around and all you are doing is continuing to torture yourself by trying. I would make it clear to her that in work I expect her to behave civilly and professionally or it will become an HR issue, apart from that I would forget about her. No more invites, no more attempts to engage and I'd be fucked if I'd be made to feel like a spare part at my own son's wedding. I'd also have a chat with my son, explain how I felt and that I didn't expect him to side with me against his partner but it was now down to him what sort of relationship, if any, we had going forward but I'm done with the hassle of it all.

I feel a sense of this is about to blow up for you. The work thing being the straw that breaks the camel's back.
Sometimes it's the best thing for it all to come to the surface. Even if it's just with your son.
I'm sorry but do not believe for a minute that in ten years he doesn't know what the issues are or doesn't questions why your not invited to things or engagement parties etc...He definitely knows.
He most likely doesn't agree with her, but he must bloody well know.
I'd have to have I out with him and tell him the whole entire work situation story and tell him things have come to a head now and can't continue this way in limbo

I think the problem with going to the car is it could be twisted to be an ambush very easily.

I would absolutely let go of any notion you can change her opinion, behaviour or get any tangible answers as to why you've never been given a chance. It'll be liberating to stop trying.

All you can do is focus on what you can control. So that's maintaining a relationship with your son and not getting drawn into futile arguments with his partner.

I'd also 100% be at that wedding. For one day if you, your husband and other three children stick together, I'm pretty sure you can rise above any unpleasantness.

Yes, you need to have it out with DS.

He is advertantly or inadvertently enabling this situation and it's his responsibility to provide some sort of answer for her behaviour. Surely out of respect for his DM's peace of mind if nothing else

Gamma has a point too. Although I can't imagine it being the nicest of situations for her OH to be in. It's brutally honest though, maybe she's really close to her family, that's how she prefers it.

I'm sure there must be something you have in common, but she's just not interested.

I know of a situation where DIL didn't get on with PIL, DS would visit, when she decided his time was up, she made sure he came home there and then.