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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

MIL lying again

133 replies

GlitterDustY · 17/06/2019 07:45

My MIL tells lies to manipulate people, always has. She pretends people are ill so we’ll travel up to her town (4-5 hour drive) and they’ve only got a cold and a visit could have waited. She pretends someone has asked for a particular expensive gift for Christmas and asks us all to chip in for it only to find they didn’t ask at all, she’s just decided that’s what happening.

These days I get DH to double check what he can with others because I will not be manipulated. (The last straw was being told we were invited to a party, travelled 5 hours and it was obvious we were not expected but the host was too polite to say anything and found us chairs and food. I will never be put in that position again so now we check.)

She’s done it again. Apparently someone is throwing a surprise baby shower for SIL and MIL says we are invited. We have no idea whether this is true. DH never sees his sister and I don’t like her and vice versa, so I’d be surprised if this person (her own SIL) would invite us. I’m surprised a man, DH, has been invited anyway. We can’t check because it’s a surprise apparently, if that part is even true. We don’t know SIL’s ILs.

It’s OK just to ignore MIL and not go isn't it it? We haven’t had an invitation from the host, MIL says it’s just invitation by word of mouth. Quite frankly I don’t believe her. She hates SIL’s ILs and I think she’s just wanting to control who goes. I fully expect that others turn up who are not invited either but her coup de grace would be us because we have to travel so far.

OP posts:
GreenTulips · 18/06/2019 21:30

Did you ever ring the host and explain you barging in?

Lovely13 · 18/06/2019 22:25

Just say you’re busy. Don’t get into a conversation with her. Send the mum to be a gift after the event. Mother-in-law sounds toxic. Keep away. Let your partner to deal with her.

Singlenotsingle · 18/06/2019 23:59

It's SIL's job to invite people, not MIL's. If you get an invitation from SIL, you can consider it. Not otherwise.

1forAll74 · 19/06/2019 00:33

It all sounds quite a crazy set up,and crazy MIL to me, I guess I would like to know why she does these things, but only because she is your MIL ha ha, I would not get involved with her really.

IGottaSeeJane · 19/06/2019 01:05

Nothing good ever comes out of passive aggression.

On the basis of personal experience I have to disagree.

Durgasarrow · 19/06/2019 04:30

I hope you will be able to come to a place of slightly amused disengagement in future. Where nothing is your problem and it all slides by you. Where you can observe her machinations from a great, great distance and with a remote curiosity that does not touch your feelings at all.

JocastaElastic · 19/06/2019 09:08

If you haven’t received an invitation from the host, then you haven’t been invited.

QuizzlyBear · 19/06/2019 10:36

@Nanny0gg yes, we still see her and it's a subject she still claims total ignorance about 'Silly me, I must have missed that on the invitation! Still, you're here now...'

She was diagnosed with cancer very shortly afterwards though so I let it lie. Now we just don't take her word for anything and, like a pp suggested, we just view her behaviour with amused tolerance.

She drives me a bit insane on the inside but it's become clear that she won't be about for that much longer and I don't want DH remembering a relationship filled with tension and backbiting. He loves her, the kids are fond of her, I tolerate her!

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