MIL and Facebook

[3rdrockfromthesun]

I know I am probably being U but my MIL has just announced my engagement on Facebook!!! It only happened last night and I didn't want it on Facebook just yet! I am fuming and am posting here to stop myself ringing her or even worse putting something catty on Facebook

So when is she 'allowed' to tell people that her son is engaged?

It was ill thought out by your mil, but I'd agree with those who say that it's best not to turn it into a big thing. See it as a positive that she was excited about your news. She might not have realised it would be seen by your friends if she's not aware of how FB works - might have thought it was the equivalent of tuning her friends. If you would like her to take it down I'd definitely ask your fiancée to make a polite request. If you both agree that it wasn't really on, then it should be him that raises it - not you. Much harder for her to take umbrage at her own son (and allows you to stay out of it).

YANBU. Is onhold the mother in law?

If she is run now op.

Not a chance I'd let my son get engaged to anyone on MN

Why tag the op? Why not just announce it on her page so they op's audience didnt see it?

I have some family members not on facebook and they would be upset if they found out from acquaintances that i was engaged/ pregnant.

ohhold

Mil from hell, right there, written all over you.

Yeah sure. Beats being a whinging DiL from hell though

Onhold This thread is a rare beast in which we know and can expect that the OP will be back here in a few years outlining her MiLs unreasonable expectations to meet her new grandchild.

I don't know how I'll cope with having sons - not because of them - as I'm certain I'd love them unconditionally, but I can't be sure of the DiL. She might be all brands of uptight, highly strung-crazy.

My mum was the first person to know (from me, dp called his mum at the same time) that I was engaged. She then had a phone call from her mum, was really excited,but didn't say anything as it was our news, not hers.
I took me ages to put it up on Facebook, I have a large family, and wanted to tell everyone first. I have uncles and aunts and cousins who I'm really close to on facebook and they would have been really upset to find out that way.

Bless you OP. Hope DP asking her to take it down works, especially as she told you last night she wouldn't tell anyone! My MiL can be very liberal with news on Facebook (like you I'm a bit more private with what I share) so we've had to be clear when our child is born that I don't want anything on facebook. My SiL told a bunch of our mutual friends that I was pregnant which really hurt, so I do feel your pain!

Most of all... congratulations on your engagement! 😊🍾 xx

I'd be cross too, OP. It's your news to share first.
My mum's friend is like this and her daughters have had to put a blanket ban in place on anything on fb, she just doesn't quite get social media etiquette (she shares lost dog appeals etc from a couple of years ago). When her youngest had her baby (so grandson for mum's friend) she DMed loads of her fb friends to tell them (including me!) so that daughter couldn't see that she'd done it!

There a lot of people (mumsnet and not mumsnet) who like to announce their own news on their own terms. Being somebody's mother doesn't make you their owner. The news "effects" you but it doesn't actively involve you until the wedding.

Not a chance I'd let my son get engaged to anyone on MN

I'll let you in on a secret. You don't get to choose his bride

I've a lovely MIL - she's very involved in our lives and we have lots of mutual respect for each other. Once or twice she's overstepped and I've had a wee rant to my friends. No doubt I've done likewise to her over the years and she's had a moan to hers about me to. But by and large we rub along fine. I'm very fond of her and I think that feeling is mutual.

I'll let you into a secret. I was joking. Hence the

I knew it would get the MiL haters of MN frothing though. So so easy to wind them up

I'll let you into a secret. I was joking. Hence the

I knew it would get the MiL haters of MN frothing though. So so easy to wind them up

The MIL and the associated angst from some posters is a red herring. It wouldn't matter if it was the future MIL, or the OP's boss, or close friend, anyone announcing someone else's news on Facebook is being rude. It's basic social media etiquette. Maybe the OP and her fiancé wanted to tell people in person to share their pleasure and excitement in person, rather than announce it over Facebook - which is pretty impersonal. Worse, it can actually cause trouble if the OP has been given the wonderful present of touchy relatives who resent it when family news isn't told to them personally.

I have had this same problem for years with my MIL (once, she actually put a holiday photo of me in my bikini on Facebook even though I specifically told her not to cos I thought I looked fat! Her argument was that she thought it was a nice photo! I made DH log into her Facebook and take it down!!).

This has all actually resulted in her being the last to find out any news from us. We only ever tell her things once we have already told everyone else face to face. She's totally lost our trust.

no mother in law would look like satan if they didn't act like it

look. Not all women are nice. Not all pairs of women can get along even if one or both is nice. If you are mother and daughter it normally is easier to get along, so you get less posts about bad mothers - though there are still plenty. And the main relationships you're going to have are your family and whatever family you marry into, because it doesn't move. You can't ditch them like colleagues or other friends. So it's obvious that many posts here will be about MILs, because many women have MILs as important relationships

but when your mother in law apparently thinks she owns her son and you are trying to steal the ownership, she makes herself look bad. Many of the posters on this thread have made themselves look like satan. No-one did it for them! They came into a thread and made themselves look evil!

I love my mother in law because she's not horrible, she doesn't see herself as in competition with me. I am also not horrible and don't see myself as in competition with her. So we get on great. We are great friends, I really love her. I'm not a "mother in law hater" at all but I can read what people write on here and if they say they own their adult sons, yes they look bad! I'm not a saint and I don't think my MIL is (though she's close), it's not hard to just get along. It starts with not trying to own your son

I will never, ever understand the whole "MIL are perfect angels who can DO NO WRONG" attitude that seems to rule MN. It's an unwritten rule that if a post involves a MIL, some posters will be against the OP regardless of the actual complaint. There's a thread at the moment where someone complained about their own mother and a few of the usual suspects couldn't resist piping up with, "Typical, people bitching about poor innocent MILS again" when it wasn't even a MIL.

Typical MIL thread:
Poster: "My MIL stole my baby and breastfed it."
Poster: "My MIL told my son to leave me."
Poster: "My MIL hired an assassin to kill me."
Poster: "My MIL invaded a small Eastern European country."

MN: Ugh the MIL bashing on MN is terrible!

Literally any thread involving a MIL is shouted down by the obsessive MILs-can-do-no-wrong brigade. Yes, there are some posters who bitch about minor complaints, but it's still their right to bitch, and the majority of the serious MIL complaints here involve MILs behaving very badly and being abusive or obviously having no boundaries. Yet somehow it's always the DIL's fault who is just engaging in petty MIL-bashing? I really do not understand this psychotic DIL hatred. Someone literally said they hate all daughters-in-law (not their own DIL, but apparently every single married woman on the entire face of the earth whose husband's mother is still living)!

Quite frankly I find mothers talking about how they dread their child ever finding a partner and are praying they remain single forever deeply disturbing. It's not normal to wish a lifetime of lonelineless and unhappiness on your own child, and the fact you'd rather them be unhappy than 'lose' them to another woman, indicates very poor and inappropriate familial boundaries. Perhaps you resent and get defensive over badly behaved MIL threads because you know you'd act the same way?

If the OP was complaining about literally anyone other than a MIL posting her engagement news on FB after promising not to tell anyone (meaning all her friends and family had to find out second hand from a random FB post) everyone would be supporting her.

But it's a MIL and apparently therefore automatically in the right.

Every DiL that ever lived is always right, They are never horrible,are they? It's never ever the DiLs fault on MN.

Every MiL thread has post after post from other posters trying to outdo each other in the evil MiL stakes. It's quite funny really.

Poster: "My MIL invaded a small Eastern European country."

I do agree though. I can't see how it's reasonable for anyone to announce someone else's news?