To not want to call MIL Mum?

[sunshinelolipops]

My MIL wants me to call her Mum and gets upset if I call her by her first name. I talked to Dh about it and he doesn't get the problem and thinks this is a normal thing to do. He is very defensive of his Mum.
I don't feel close to MIL and it feels awkward and weird to call her Mum. I am very close to my actual Mum. At the same time I don't want to upset her and have been humouring it but don't know how long I can keep it up for. I am also worried it might offend my actual mum if she heard me call her this.
My mum doesn't expect Dh to call her Mum, just by first name. I had never even heard of calling MILs Mum before.
Is this normal? What should I do?

YANBU

I find it weird

I'd really not want to do that! Who are these people who think they can dictate what other people do? Who gets offended by not doing that?

I am as close as close can be to my MIL. Love each other to bits but I don't call her my Mum because she isn't!

No, your mother is mum, she's not your mum, it makes your relationship with your DH incestuous yuk

Call her Mrs X Senior (or Mrs X if you don't share a surname). She might live it, fair enough, or hate it, meaning that her first name suddenly becomes acceptable.

Tortoise the talking pillow is a bit freaky..

I never called my MIL anything until I had children, then she became Grandma.

I've had this with my MIL. She refers to both her DM and her DMIL as mum and I never know who she's talking about. (They're both dead now.) I know that she's disappointed that neither I nor my SIL call her mum. I remember her being passive aggressive, saying to my DH in my hearing 'Your Grandma would have been so upset if I'd called her (her first name).'

But I stuck to my guns. I've never felt close to her, despite her efforts to create a mother/daughter relationship. I felt awful about it, but she just tried far too hard.

I think it was more common historically for young wives to call their MIL's 'Mum', as it was considered rude to call an older lady by her first name (Mrs X would have been the only other option).

My mil called her mil ‘mum’, but she had been her dil for about 45 years when I noticed this, her own mum had been gone for about 20 years, so I don’t know if that makes a difference.
My dad has started to call my nan (his mil) ‘mum’, but that’s quite recent and again, has been his mil for 40 years and his own mum died about 30 years ago.

Luckily my mil has never asked this. I wouldn’t want to call her mum, as she isn’t. I think I generally call her Nan as I generally only see her with the dc.

My parents used to call their mil /my nanny /grandma mum

Both called each other’s mum mum

I don’t have this scenerio as both my mum and df mum are sadly Dead

I'm can quite often see the mil's point on threads, but this is wrong.

I'll be a mil maybe twice in the next few years and I'd never suggest it, I'm not their mum, however much I love them both.
I think it's wrong to ask and if it was a natural feeling for the two concerned then that's different.
Please don't do it to save the peace, if it doesn't feel natural you shouldn't be presurised into this.

Urgh no! Even if I had a shit relationship with my mum, I still wouldn't call anyone else it, you have one mum.
I personally would love to call MIL a whole load of names but I don't think the ones I have in mind would be appreciated

I just don't use her name. You rarely need to. ' Have you offered your mum a cuppa?'

And now it's grandma. Easy.

A cultural thing. Can you call her Mums, or Mom, or Momma, or Mama explaining that you really appreciate the closeness and her desire but your mum is your mum?

My parents called each other's parents 'mum and dad' so I don't think it's weird personally I call my MIL by her first name but if I'm writing a card for her than I'll write Mum. It's strange she's so insistent on it though, you shouldn't be made to refer to her as anything that makes you uncomfortable.

My MIL had a conversation with DH on our wedding day to tell him that should address her and FIL as Mum and Dad from then on.

Not a chance in hell, they’re not my parents so why would I call them Mum & Dad?

Utterly bonkers!

When we first got married my MIL started signing cards from "mum & dad" and made a few comments that I could start calling them that. I just ignored it completely and they went back to pre-marriage conventions of signing things with their first names. we get on well but i'd feel weird calling them mum & dad as I already have a mum & dad.

My really weird, fairly recent, BIL calls our mum ‘ma’
Totally cringe.
She not his mum?

MIL used to refer to herself as Mum all the time when we met..and I wasn't comfortable with that at all. My own mum had passed a few years before, and it just seemed odd. I just kept referring to her by her first name, and eventually she got the message. She doesn't do it anymore.

In my dp's extended Yorkshire family this is the norm- my mil said that I could if I wanted- but I chose not to. She has 5 dils-3 call her mum, 2 don't. She called her own mil mum. I did call dp's grandparents Grandma and though.

My MIL wants her 3 DILs to call her mum. I get birthday cards signed from ‘mum & dad’ but only ever address them by their first names. They are not my parents.

Lick-arsey SIL no.2 does call her mum and MIL comments “oh I do love it when everyone calls me mum”. Makes me even more determined not to

Mil always struggles to sign cards or leave phone messages to us -trying to fit mum/grandma/her name in. It's very sweet.

I have this exact problem. My MIL wants me to call her mum but it weirds me out!! So after lots of her hin ting and telling my DH about it, I jokingly but seriously said "my mum is the only mum for me, never get to see her much" and I gave her a sad look. She hadn't forced ot since xxx

My mother (who would be in her 90s if still here) called her MiL, mum.

I didn't and my DC's spouses call me by my first name. I'm not their mum.

I do sign joint cards to them from Mum and Dad though.

My mother called her MIL mum. I don't think my father actually ever called his parents in law anything, but it certainly wasn't mum or dad. They were only about 10 years older than him so it would have been really weird.

It is a bit old-fashioned but it does still happen. I think the child-in-law should be the one who decides, not the parent-in-law, though.

If I write cards or gift labels that are from DH and me, I would write Mum/Dad for my IL's but would only call them by their name. They've never suggested I should but I reckon they've be ok if I did.