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?

Absolutely not, I wouldn’t dream of calling my Mil mum even though my mum died 26 years ago, it’s totally disrespectful to your mum and I wondered how she would feel if your husband called your mum MUM I expect she would be none to pleased.

You need to tell her I will not be calling you mum as you are NOT my mum and it is disrespectful to my mother to do so, but I will however call you MOTHER-in-law if you don’t like me using your name.

“You need to tell her I will not be calling you mum as you are NOT my mum and it is disrespectful to my mother to do so, but I will however call you MOTHER-in-law if you don’t like me using your name“

Bearing in mind that this thread shows that for some people this is entirely normal and try to handle the situation with sensitivity and tact. Different families have very different traditions.

Hilarious I couldn't but help laugh at the idea of this. I couldn't think of anything more ghastly.
Mils idea of being a parent are to be buy small gifts from her favourite bargain shop then expect goddess adulation in return for this incredible trouble she has taken.
Same with the food she serves that no one can eat the dc don't eat.

That's it. To call her mum, after all my own mum was and did...

If this ops Mil showed sensitivity in the first place op would not have posted.

Pushing the issue after asking shows zero lack of diplomacy or tact or sensitivity.

So OP, what happens when you call her by her name? what 'upset' does she show?

what does she actually say?

that would be weird.

it seems dated/something from the past but i can't put my finger on why - maybe i've heard the same on TV or in the movies or something.

still weird though.

Nope, I have one mum already thanks. Plus, in the future, I'd be upset if I heard ds calling someone else mum.

Just tell her no and call her by her name.

I don't think it is generational - I'm 58 and wouldn;t dream of asking my DDIL to call me Mum, she has a very lovely Mum already, I am her MIL - she calls me by my first name.

My XH called my parents by their first names, my late MIL wanted me to call her Mum, I called her Mary. (Weirdly she would have been very offended if her son had called my mother Mum as well as her)

I don't get all this pretending to be something you are not. I love my DDIL like a daughter, but I'm not her mother and I don't have that relationship with her, we don't need to use an inaccurate title to know we love each other.

I am a MiL twice over, I've never even thought that they should call me Mum, even though my son-in-law says I'm more of a mother than his ever was

It weirds me out when I hear people calling people who aren't their parents mum or dad. I've got a friend who does it with her in-laws and it makes me cringe.

I couldn't do it.

Can you come up with another sort of 'nickname' for her that just the two of you share?! Just a thought.

I call my MIL Venus and have done for years. FIL - Eduardo. Not their names.

Oh come on now OP, do you really think you were going to get posters saying " yes do it!! "?

My husband called my mum, mother, which she loved.

My mil was disgusted my ex called my mother by her first name but my mother had told him to! She felt it was disrespectful! (It was many years ago)
I didn't call my mil anything. I certainly wouldn't have called her mum. It was a ridiculous situation. If I could go back in time I would have just used her first name and let her like it or lump it.
My dil calls me by my name.
You can't be expected to call anyone but your mum, 'mum' unless you agree.

Crikey! That's a very old fashioned thing to do.

You're not being unreasonable at all in not wanting to call her mum. The only person I'd call Mam would be my own Mam. I think it would be perfectly reasonable to tell her you wouldn't want to upset her, but think that Mum should be reserved for your mum only.

I had a very awks conversation with my MIL about it, because we both have a background where it would be normal. We were both trying not to be rude to each other about it but after a bit of cross-purpose niceness we disc we both thought it was really weird.

My mum always did but she sounded so hesitant and weird when she did it I think she hated it.

@GreatDuckCookery I honestly wasn't sure, my husband clearly thinks it's ok to call MIL Mum and so do some other posters on here. True the majority of people have said they don't but not everyone!

This definitely used to be a thing in the past. You might find that your MIL was expected to call her MIL "Mum" (or Mother} so it's not odd to her as it is to us perhaps.

Obviously you're not comfortable with it (I can understand why) so I'd just say so, very nicely. She'll learn to live with it.

My MIL asked me to call her Mum - she sat me down especially to talk to me about it the day before our wedding. It was awful, simply a very awkward conversation. I had to say "er, ok" in the moment as I was so shocked, but I already have a mother! I just can't call anyone else Mum.

Fortunately, I became pregnant soon after this so I only had to get through a few awkward months calling her by her name before we could all switch to calling her Grandma.

I call my MIL 'mum'

My mother in law calls me her daughter.

I find it weird.
The other day i was at the hospital with her and she told a nurse "This is my daughter"
She was doing blood tests etc, she asked if i had any siblings and i had to explain i wasnt actually the daughter, but her sons partner, she was abit

@hissy she will just kind of correct me or go "oh lovey it's Mum (not first name) now" or "call me Mum" said in a kind of lighthearted way that everyone knows is not at all lighthearted. She is the type to get deeply offended by small things and hold a grudge/ make a fuss. She will then make little comments to Dh when I'm not there that he sometimes feeds back to me such as that I don't like her etc. She knows he will pass this on so I am inclined to think she wants to cause trouble. But maybe I'm reading too much into it.

Sunshine, she sounds like my MIL, who was always expected to call her PIL Mum and Dad, and wouldn't have thought of going against their wishes. Curiously, my DH has told me that his DF called her DF (his FIL) by his first name. So work that one out.

I refused right from the start, insisted on calling her by her first name, and it's made our relationship awkward ever since. She wanted me, and my SIL, to be daughters that she never had, but it doesn't work that way.

When she does that do you say 'no, i don't want to'? or do you then let it trail off? It sounds like you have to have that conversation and let her get upset, let it be awkward and let her get over it. And then if she says it again, say 'MIL we've been thru this, before i've told you i'm not comfortable with that'. Every time. Otherwise she will just keep doing it.

Also tell DH you don't want to hear it from him. You've explained why and that's the end of it.