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Original poster

MIL is a scrutinising critic!

53 replies

VWpurse · 31/01/2019 10:38

This is hard to explain but my MIL examines and watches people, I mean really stares at them at then comments. It’s got to the stage where it is uncomfortable to be around her.

For instance, she was walking behind DH and I the other day and then, when we stopped for coffee, gave a detailed account of how I walk slightly quicker than DH so he has to keep up and when I pointed something out in a shop window he didn’t look, he was on his phone and I took my hat off and put it back on...

And then she analyses. We’re “not in step in life” 🙄, we don’t have mutual interests and I am concerned about my appearance.

Actually.. I have longer legs, DH was looking up where we were going and my hat was coming off. So what?!

She does it about strangers too, always watching watching and picking picking picking at them. She’s always been an unkind gossip, has no friends because of that, but it’s really got bad now and I’m sick of it.

Is this a thing? I’m going to have to tell her to STFU but I don’t want to be u and if it’s some kind of disorder I’ll do it more kindly!

OP posts:
Original poster
VWpurse · 31/01/2019 11:52

KurriKurri 😂

OP posts:
longtimelurkerhelen · 31/01/2019 11:53

*I'd just be very tempted to give her something to critique - next time she's walking behind you swing your hips wildly from side to side, give a little jump every couple of steps, bob up and down, run your hands up and down your DH's bum, fling your hand up in the air with the middle finger raised.

Or do the same to her 'MIL, I've noticed you always stir your coffee anti clockwise - are you quite well ?? * Grin

LOL Please do this.

staydazzling · 31/01/2019 11:54

yup yup , and yup I can relate OP. I do think the whole MIL angle can make it more intense. what would happen if you were blunt? I let my mouth out the gate once and went "Oh god you dont half talk some shit!" my husband and BIL sniggered nervously and MIL looked taken aback, GrinBlush , but im from South Yorkshire and we call a spade a spade here.

Original poster
VWpurse · 31/01/2019 11:57

staydazzling I think that is why MIL and her sisters are estranged. From what I can gather they called a spade a spade!

OP posts:
Original poster
VWpurse · 31/01/2019 11:58

longtimelurkerhelen How can I not now?! Maybe just a little kick to the side every now in then, as if DH and I were in a chorus line 😂

OP posts:
staydazzling · 31/01/2019 12:01

Oh right i see , didnt go down well then

ClarabellaCTL · 31/01/2019 12:07

Urgh, my MIL does this. She's even started it with the kids and it does my head in. At Christmas we were watching the news and there was a lovely piece about a little girl who'd used her pocket money to buy gifts for the homeless in her town. I was watching with DS1 and MIL. I thought it was a really lovely thing and started talking about it with DS as it was a good example of kindness etc. MIL was making snarky comments like 'hm, she must get a lot of pocket money' and 'does that child have lipstick on??'. Piss off, it must be so miserable going through life finding the negative in everything.

Original poster
VWpurse · 31/01/2019 12:12

Piss off, it must be so miserable going through life finding the negative in everything.

And that’s it in a nutshell.

OP posts:
Barbarafromblackpool · 31/01/2019 12:13

Ah, here we have my mother. The Queen of comments, but saying nothing. I put it down to a lack of intelligence and not having anything to actually say. I'm not sure there is much to be done if she's always done it. I waver between ignoring, sighing or saying 'Oh yes'.

Feelsdeadpeople · 31/01/2019 12:15

Mm, mine does that zooming into photos thing. It has made me paranoid about the photos I send and only the perfect ones of DCs get sent. And even then she notices something. She can't even 'quietly' notice it, she has to flipping tell you.

She also watches me eat, and watches the order everyone eats their food. "You must like green beans! You always finish them first!" keep it to your fucking self, ffs. And that isn't even a rude thing to say, it's nothing really, just a constant reminder that you're being watched.

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 31/01/2019 12:22

As he says “she’s a gossip, she says nothing of interest”

Wouldn't you just be utterly heartbroken that your actions had led your own child (or indeed anybody you cared about) to sum you up this way and ignore everything you said? He's absolutely right, though - and she's 100% brought this on herself.

"MIL you've missed your life calling- you should have been a private detective/investigative journalist"

Or at least a net curtain demonstrator.

Original poster
VWpurse · 31/01/2019 12:24

Feelsdeadpeople Yes MIL gets very few photos from us now.

She once asked which perfume I was wearing and then told me she went to buy it but the shop assistant told her it was “trashy” (Hermes, 24 Faubourg). So she smells me as well!

OP posts:
WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 31/01/2019 12:39

Yes MIL gets very few photos from us now.

Can you plant messages in any that you do send her?

What appears to be a new poster on the wall, but which isn't easy to make out, when zoomed in on clearly displays the message "Hello MIL, you nosy old cow!"

Paperwork on the coffee table clearly saying "Australia Immigration Application Form".

If she doesn't explode with indignation/excitement, just feign ignorance whenever she mentions it. You're not lying: You haven't got a new poster in your living room (any more - it was just for the photo); You aren't moving to Australia (a form was just mocked up to freak her out).

SpinneyHill · 31/01/2019 12:40

"Wow! That level of scrutiny is really creepy. Serial killer creepy. Have you always been really creepy?"

Original poster
VWpurse · 31/01/2019 12:40

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll 😂

I’m loving this thread. Thank you all so much.

OP posts:
MsAdorabelleDearheartVonLipwig · 31/01/2019 12:41

Does anyone remember that thread about the Mil that went through bedroom drawers? The Op left travel brochures and visa forms about moving to Australia in her drawer and caught her out. Grin

Longtalljosie · 31/01/2019 12:45

“She once asked which perfume I was wearing and then told me she went to buy it but the shop assistant told her it was “trashy” (Hermes, 24 Faubourg). So she smells me as well!“

Yeah - because shop assistants always say that about the stuff they’re trying to sell! Your MIL was just being a bitch...

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 31/01/2019 12:46

This thread reminds me of the one from a little while ago about people with no internal monologue, who feel the need to narrate everything and provide the most tedious, unimportant detail.

Granted, most of them weren't doing it to be unkind, but the tangents they'd go on and the utterly superfluous scene-setting they'd do in order to spend a full 10 minutes eagerly regaling you of the time they saw the niece of an old acquaintance (both completely unknown to you) doing something shocking and life-changing like buying a bunch of bananas or getting a taxi.

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 31/01/2019 12:49

I’m loving this thread. Thank you all so much.

So are we - thank YOU!

NoParticularPattern · 31/01/2019 12:59

My MIL doesn’t quite do this to this extent but she is a professional sad story teller/assume the worst-er. Honestly if you pass her in the car on the road at a time when you “shouldn’t” be on the road then she immediately phones DH to ask what’s wrong with me. Whenever you have some news or are having a moan, she’s had it worse or has been there four times and each time was worse than the one before. It’s competitve whinging. She makes out that she’s got the worst eyesight of all time, yet when it comes to spotting people doing things out of the ordinary she’s basically fucking Hawkeye. I dare say she probably would do the zooming in to photos thing if she was capable of operating any sort of computer/iPad. Mostly she just shouts at Siri- which isn’t really that effective when you’re broad Yorkshire and asking Siri to open Safari goes a bit like “Siri go to the int-cough. Open the erm internet”. Siri’s good, but she’s not Yorkshire pensioner good. I also get irate phone calls asking why I’ve not replied to her messages. Which she hasn’t actually sent, because she needs WiFi to do it and she keeps somehow deleting the information for it from her iPad.

SandAndSea · 31/01/2019 13:09

I think I would handle this with a mixture of humour, ignoring it and straight comments. Eg.

"Don't hold back there, mil, you just come out and say it!"

"Have you thought of joining the WI / becoming a detective?"
"Oh really?... Tea or coffee?"

MorningRichie · 31/01/2019 13:18

Going NC might seem extreme, but her son cant be bothered with her and you can't relax for a moment when she's there or not.

Why do you have anything to do with someone who adds nothing but anxiety to your life?

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 31/01/2019 13:22

I wonder if it might work as a way to counter and infuriate people who delight in excitedly reporting on mundane minutiae if you started talking about other people and making stuff up - interspersing dull things with genuinely fascinating/outrageous things but in a monotonous, grey-rock tone and then refusing to be drawn on the juicy bits?

"Yes, Sarah from work asked me to pick her some Silver Spoon sugar up from the Tesco Metro when I went out in my lunch break!! I insisted on her giving me the money up front as I don't trust her with anything financial ever since that time she held up the post office at gunpoint and demanded the contents of the till."

MIL, eyes popping: "WHAAAAAATT?!?!?!?! How did that happen?!"

"Well, she starts late and finishes early as she has to do the school run, so she only gets 20 minutes for lunch whereas I have a full hour!! So I often do a bit of shopping!!"

"Aren't you shocked at her doing that, though? You can't have been expecting that, surely?!"

"No, you're right - I was gobsmacked!! In all the years I've known her, she's only EVER had Demerara sugar!! And she usually goes to Asda - she doesn't even have a Clubcard!! Wagon Wheels were on BOGOF too!!"

Aridane · 31/01/2019 13:30

You sound like a scrutinising critic of your MIL!

Togertiger · 31/01/2019 13:39

Aridane
You sound like a scrutinising critic of your MIL!

I’m surprised it took fifty comments before someone said that 🙄

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