I know I am so unreasonable thinking like this!! Mil related!

[ScafellPoke]

But how do I stop!!!

Mil is lovely, but she really grates on me and it drives me mad that I feel like this!

She will do anything for the kids, totally dotes on them, buys them excessive amounts of stuff they don’t need... this used to bother me but after constantly asking her to not go so overboard and it falling on deat ears I have now embraced it and it’s actually a great money saver!! 👍

But we are just very different people, I gues you can’t choose family so you just suck it up but I get so frustrated when I’m around her and don’t particularly like spending too much time with her, it’s tiring. But she’s not doing anything wrong! We’re just different.

I’m not very materialistic whereas she loves to shop. I’m very outdoorsy and love to be active but when she’s here we just sit about most of the day. She talks about celebs like they’re friends of hers... oh did you hear about such and such’s break up?... I have no idea who such and such are!
She’s a fusser!... Constant asking if food’s okay, am I warm enough etc. In think this is my biggest bugbear as I hate people fussing over me. She thinks I’m stubborn, I just want to be left alone!

I am massively U, I don’t need you to tell me that!! But I need to know why I feel like this towards someone who is genuinely lovely!!

Some people you click with, some you don't. It sounds like she's not the sort of person you would be friends with if she wasn't your MIL, purely down to having nothing in common. I'm like this with my FIL. He's nice, but I just can't warm to him. We have about 3 things we talk about each time he visits and I'm always so relieved when he leaves! (In my defence I try very hard to find things to talk about and engage him but he clearly feels as disinterested in me as I do in him - I'm just better at hiding it!)

Ha scattered I’m worried that I’m not too good at hiding it! I even apologised to her last time she was here for being distant!
I get on/like fil more, because he’s quiet and doesn’t talk your ear off or fuss!

OP I feel like that about my DM.

She asks if I watched a TV programme, I reply no I'm not really interested in whatever it was about, she then spends 20 minutes telling me about it!

I try really hard to be polite but god it's hard sometimes.

It’s like my sil. She is pleasant enough but we would not be friends if we hadn’t married brothers. I get annoyed as dh seems to think I should always go with him when he sees his family. He thinks I should want to hang around with them too. I’ve started to put my foot down as he never sees my parents etc ever.
I definitely said no when they expected me to go for mother’s day breakfast for his mum but without him!

That’s the kid of thing window

I just feel like I’m forced to spend time with someone I have nothing in common with.

Dh feels the same and moved out when he was 16. He’s found it quite hard aince having kids as he’s go e from seeing them maybe once a year to every few weeks!
He works away so they often visit when he’s not here too.

My worry now though is that my 9yr old is getting to the point where he’s not bothered about spending time with her. Mainly due tobthe fussing!

My 5yr old loves her, and my 9yr always has done, but I don’t want him to decide not to spend time with her.

That’s the IL conundrum, though. By definition, they’re not people we have chosen to have in our lives. I’m quite fond of my FIL, but my MIL is an uninformed, small-minded, bustling busybody who I don’t think has ever asked me a single question about myself in the twenty five years I’ve been with her son.

😮 norma I’d have said no too, I have my own mother!

My relationship with my mum is so so different, we’ve never been close close but we’ve always been friendly as we have things in common, she’s active like me so we join biking and running races together, along with my sis.
But my dh isn’t that interested my family just as much as he’s not interested in his own. This suits me fine as he works away alot so I visit my mum when he’s away.
But whenever his folks visit I am always there!!

Yep tulip it is just a case of sucking it up!

Well your DIL and/or SIL will no doubt feel the same about you, and so the cycle continues...

Probably carol but I will make it my effort to not be overbearinf

Oh God same. My mil is really nice but she bores the pants off me. Then I feel guilty about that so I get more spikes which exacerbates the difference. I find it helps me to think very clearly that theres nothing wrong with how I am and nothing wrong with how she is. And not see implicit criticism in the difference. Oh and not too much time together

Thanks lasttime good advice

I've had four sets of "in laws" (long story). None of them ever liked me but all for various reasons. For one I was Too Fussy As I was a vegetarian who didn't drink tea or coffee. Another didn't like me because their son had decided to get married rather than buy a new car, the next never openly showed they didn't like me but very cool and distant and the last lot hated me because I left their son when he cheated on me and I should have "given him another chance for the sake of the kids" note, I had given him hundreds of chances.

What I am saying is that for many the in law relationship is so pressured and complicated that no matter how nice you are or how hands off you are they'll still find something to not like. It's all down to very different people suddenly being forced to be "family". I don't think bad in law relationships necessarily reflect on the behaviour of those involved. Some people just resent having to deal with people they'd never usually choose to. Not saying that's you. Just musing really.

Yeah, this is likely carol I just feel bad as mil tries very hard, and is genuinely lovely. But she tries in a way that she mostly assumes what we like or want or need. Never asks, or takes our views in to account.

I’m like this with my own Mother. I tolerate her but we have absolutely nothing in common and I really struggle to converse with her. She likes soaps and crappy ITV programmes, I don’t really watch TV and if I do, it’s a documentary she wouldn’t understand. She’s not hugely into celeb gossip but she will gossip about people she knows or relatives of ours, I don’t really care for gossip.

It’s ok to be different and to not click with people.

Can you send the DCs over to hers on their own? I mean drop them off and pick them up so you don’t have to spend time with her?

It's so hard when you don't click with someone, when you spend so much time with that person!

I do worry that the dc will start to think like me too though, is it normal for gc to drift from their gp as they get older?

Yeah, I am getting in to that a little more now nosauce but I'm one of these mums who feels guilty when I give my dc to other people! I am working on relaxing more though and realising that gp probably want to be with dc without me!