AIBU to ask for theories on difficult MILs?

[pussincahoots]

Sooo many threads about difficult MILs. And before anyone starts, I’m appreciative of the fact there are loads of difficult DILs out there too. But I’d like to focus on MILs here.

Most mothers of previous partners I’ve had have been lovely. We’ve not seen eye-to-eye on absolutely everything, but clearly respected each other. And I’ve had two absolute shockers. Both shared the same traits. Both wanted to make a competitor out of me. Both undermined me. And neither treated me with respect, despite the fact I did them. Tried my guts out with both until I had to accept there was not going to be any resolution.

As a result they created tension for everyone. Instead of gaining a daughter they ended up alienating me and driving their own sons they were trying to hang onto further away, as well as their grandchildren. And for what? Unless I’m missing something there is only loss and no gain to be had by doing this. It could be win-win, but instead everyone loses. I truly do not get it.

People post about their MILs here every day, and often I don’t see the big deal. I wish my MIL was as tame as some described. But I have to say the overwhelming majority of MILs described on MN seem to share the same characteristics as the two shockers I’ve experienced. Sadly it seems I’m not alone.

If all their behaviour achieves is loss and upset, why do they do it?

@pussincahoots

I think that's the next (il)logical step, to be honest. Her and FIL want to know our exact incomings, outgoings, balances and financial plans. She has opened DH's credit card statement in the past, pushed A LOT to find out how much I sold my family flat for, has googled my salary because I get paid on a national scale, accuses DH of being frivolous because she once saw him buy a meal deal for lunch, and has accused me of going to "expensive restaurants" because I went to a gastro pub with a friend where the mains were £14 (she googled the menu)!

I think some of them think that their son will "pick" them eventually and that any alienation is temporary!

I also think that a lot of the gen before mine (I am 34) subscribe to wifework. That's why mumsnet DiLs post less about FiLs. DH only rings his dad about sport, whereas arrangements for visits and sending cards to distant relatives etc. is all via MiL.

'Wifework': ugh, ugh, ugh!

I only heard that term for the first time two days ago (on this site) but BOY is it accurate.

This quaintly outdated concept needs to die out - and fast.

My current MIL is lovely and I actually wish she contacted me more as I am not as close to my own mum as I would like. My DH is rubbish at contact and takes forever to reply to messages or call back but luckily she knows this and understands this is nothing to do with me. I am the one bugging him to call.

My ex MIL was a nightmare. She had three sons and still called them her babies all the time. She had an absolute fit when my ex proposed because I knew before she did. She didn't speak to us for six wonderful weeks as we got cats and she hates animals. But then she didn't speak to her own husband for a month as he built himself a pond and got koi. When we left a key to the house for emergencies while we were away on hols she let us in and repainted our living room as she preferred white. She expected him to be there every Christmas and birthday. She phoned our wedding caterer to change the menu. Oh and the one where she got in trouble was when she went to the hospital after BILs girlfriend had a baby and when girlfriend was asleep and BIL nipped to the canteen she took the baby and tried to leave the maternity ward without telling anyone. The girlfriend was hysterical.

I was not ‘babied’ anymore, and I was fiercely independent. After that stage we formed a friendship based on us all being adults as well as parent-child.

I think this is spot on. Describes my son and me perfectly. I have a fabulous relationship with his girlfriend. She calls me mummy mushroom.

In my mother in law's case I'm pretty sure she's a total bitch. She had her kids as some sort of hail Mary to save her marriage and took out the fact it all went to crap on her kids creating two children with so many social and self esteem issues I'm pretty sure it's abuse. she sill holds it all over their heads whilst rubbing in that they are somehow failures as they don't own houses her daughter doesn't work due to child care and I dont either. she did everything herself don't you know whilst working three jobs, with a mother on hand doing all the childcare or her working from home, in a house her mother owned out right and then sold to her for a fraction of market value. But it's all her own hard work don't you know with no assistance from anyone 🙄
She's still so rude and manipulative towa ds my partner that he's taken to recording Thier conversations and playing them back just to make sure he's not going crazy or all the bad things she says he is. It's sad really.
Some people just shouldn't be parents or in charge of anyrhings wellbeing bigger than a rock, when they have that level of control over some one they will not give it up easy and the person they perceive as taking over from them will not be well liked!

@user6949617

I think that's another reason to add to your list, OP - the MIL thinks the DIL has it easy compared to her own experiences and is jealous and/or wants to punish the DIL. This definitely rings bells with me.

For both my PILs it's about control and still seeing us as children and therefore subordinates rather than equal adults. If we don't do what we're told, when and exactly how we're told then it results in a tantrum from MIL and disapproval from FIL. The result being I have no contact with them and DH has limited contact. The last time it happened, when I refused to cancel a plan that had been in the diary for a year with a week's notice I decided enough was enough and there was absolutely no need for me to put up with the constant hounding and attempts at emotional blackmail when they didn't get their way. There's also the ridiculous misogyny, ranging from the assumption that my job is not important because it just keeps me busy because I don't have children while DH works to pay the bills, to when I used to see them my DH being presented with a genuine gift that he would want and me being presented with a pack of dish clothes and expected to be ecstatic about it.

Life is too short to waste it on people like that. I feel sorry for my DH because he has a really formal relationship with them because they have zero emotional intelligence and he then sees how laid back and at ease my parents and I are with each other.

Im putting the difficulties experienced with my MIL to be, that only started the day I got engaged to her son (after 7 years and a mortgage together) as the Freudian slip!

We got engaged during a time when my fiancé’s dear grand father was ill, high stress. she lashed out repeatedly, (to her detriment). Having 7 years getting on very well with her, she won’t even ask me to my face about wedding prep just standard small talk . The relationship has deteriorated, but amicable.
It’s not that she hates me, or not that she doesn’t think I’m good enough. It’s that, I am not the girl she would have wanted for her son.
I’m open minded, fiercely independent and we moved away, which needs a plane ride to get to us, and that’s just not what she wants. It’s not what all of her nieces and nephews have done (marry and live local and live in their parents pockets) so we break the tradition. It kills her!

So there ya have it, the Freudian slip, that couldn’t be overlooked by DP and I!

*wife work ': ugh, ugh, ugh!

I only heard that term for the first time two days ago (on this site) but BOY is it accurate.

This quaintly outdated concept needs to die out - and fast*

This^

My mil is like a stepford wife
Cards for everything
Soirées
Shopping is her passion

Wolf in sheep’s clothes

My ex finance has a mother like this. She was so close to being my mil it actually makes me shudder. She couldn’t stand me because I took her son away from them. He moved into my house (already been dating for 2 years by then) and she massively resented this. Even got my almost sil in on it. Apparently I was a gold digger (my house, my name on mortgage, I paid the bills), I was a whore (my first serious relationship and only my 2nd boyfriend) and I couldn’t be trusted. Even now I struggle to see what I did that was so wrong. In the end, she was the main reason we split up. I just couldn’t handle it anymore.

I left him a week before our wedding because she was insisting on wearing a bridal dress to our wedding and she wouldn’t back down. I had a moment of seeing my future and knew if I married into that family, I’d never be happy and everything would be a battle. I’m not proud of it, but I jumped on a plane to my grandparents and didn’t come back for a month.

Years later I bumped into his wife and kids and she told me they were getting divorced. I said I’m sorry to hear that and she just said ‘well I’m not’. Turns out his dm was even worse with her and talked badly about her to her own children.

It’s such a shame because ex is actually a decent guy. All she’s done is drive away anyone who’s ever loved him and now he’s alone and miserable. Thanks to her.

Most mums of sons struggle when a new woman comes into their sons life, even if they don't show it I bet. They feel threatened, all power has been lost.
Daughters tend to stay close to their mothers as adults, where as sons don't. Most sons have a partner nagging them in the background to go and see their mothers. Their mothers just don't realise this.
If i didn't remind my husband about family birthdays, to ring or go and visit, he never would. Months would pass. Yet they think the son shines out of him.
My father is the same with his 92 Year old mum.

Im lucky that my MIL is not that interfering. She has her quirks and she is not my type of person at all but in the 17 years I've known her she's not interfered with us. She has a younger daughter so is very much involved in her life.

I get on well with my MIL, but she does often comment on things to make a point. My DH is an excellent husband and father, and she commented several times when our DS was newborn about how hands on DH was. I often heard "when I had my kids, the day after giving birth I was in Tesco doing the shopping, their dad never lifted a finger to help" and the like. Well, thats a shame that the father of her kids was useless and she had to do pretty much all of the child rearing and domestic work herself, but she should be proud that despite a lazy father figure in his life, her DS has turned into a responsible man that takes care of his wife and child. Perhaps there is some jealousy in that, that there are a lot more "modern men" out there that share household duties then there were in the 80's, which comes across as criticising the DIL for not "pulling her weight" in the home.

One thing that always strikes me when people post about their MIL woes here is the amount of OPs that start 'I got on fantastically well with MIL and then I got pregnant and the problems started... now DC is 6mo and she is being very difficult' or something to that effect. There is obviously something in the power shift of the DIL becoming the 'mother' and MIL becoming the 'granny' that causes problems.

I agree with your first post @BertrandRussell And your comment about dil/mil being able to be friends who can share a cuppa and a chat but shouldn't expect much more struck me about something with my own MIL. You literally cannot just have a pleasant conversation with her.

Everything will be a lecture or a criticism of something or her imparting her unasked for opinion on something to do with my own life or that of DCs. DH totally agrees and says this is the reason he doesn't enjoy spending time with her or talking to her. As if she can't accept he (and me by extension) that he is a fully functioning adult now and doesn't need her to micromanage every aspect of his life. DH and his DB never rebelled so perhaps there is something to that theory also.

I'm about to have my second DS and am desperate to not have this dynamic with them when they are grown ups.

I think it's a generation thing that translates into judginess often based on insecurity from one or both sides.

With MIL, mostly I get on fine with her. She's not a person I'd have warmed to without the familial relationship but we get on quite well and it's mostly pretty cordial. But there are moments. There are things we do that she clearly disagrees with and will make comments about. I'm a pretty independent and confident person so I just let it roll past, but if I was less so, I think it would be upsetting.

And sometimes I think she feels like because we do things differently we're judging her.So there's an element of her trying to "defend" herself. Again, that's not me but I know lots of women who are like that.

And of course, the more it happens and there's a reaction, the worse it gets.

MIL did something this weekend I considered really pretty shitty. But I didn't take it personally. I simply told Dh that I thought it was pretty sad she was behaving that way and if that impacted her relationship with her DGC then so be it, that isn't my issue.

“Most sons have a partner nagging them in the background to go and see their mothers. Their mothers just don't realise this.“
Are you saying that sons very rarely have good relationships with their mothers?

I think there’s all sorts of reasons why some DILs and their MILs don’t get on. Some MILs are very controlling and can’t abide keeping their opinions to themselves or respecting boundaries. From what I read on here anyway, I’ve not met anyone with a MIL as bad as that in RL. It seems that some of them have no tact or diplomacy and say the wrong thing without thinking. I guess like in any walk of life they’re just human being with flaws.

Although I don’t think they’re always to blame, I think some DILs can’t stand the thought their DH still holds his mother in high esteem and I think some ( of the ones I’ve read about on MN ) are jealous of his relationship with her. Some of them appear to be very petty and mean towards their MIL too but their own mothers are treated so much better.

I had a husband for a few years. His mother kept a photo from our engagement party by her bed - of him and his sister. She walked out of my wedding because she couldn’t get a photo of the two of them done by the wedding photographer - paid for by my parents.

My MIL had issues with me because ‘I wouldn’t do what I was told’ - which meant where to live, what to eat, where to go on holiday...

She also wanted DH to become a replacement for FIL when he was gone, I’m sure she thought I was the only barrier to him quitting his job and living with her.

I got to a point where I just stopped making an effort. I organised many of the visits (big distance) I picked the (good) Christmas, birthday presents etc.
We lived a big distance away and often organised DH to visit on his own, I stopped doing that too.
I would speak to her but when she started with her ‘comments’ when we were alone I just used to walk out - I’m sure it drove her crazy.

She walked out of my wedding because she couldn’t get a photo of the two of them done by the wedding photographer - paid for by my parents.

See, I don't get this. Why not just let her have a picture of her and her son on his wedding day? I never bothered with a proper wedding album, just created a lovely poster collage from our wedding. One of the pictures is of DH with his mum and dad. I'm nowhere to be seen. It's a nice picture and they were so proud and happy.

Simple jealousy I don’t see any more than that and inability to control feelings and hold over son

All she’s done is drive away anyone who’s ever loved him and now he’s alone and miserable. Thanks to her.

I see what you are saying - but surely he is alone a miserable thanks to himself and his own inactions (unwillingness to stand up to his DM).

I remember my DM saying that she didn't know her sons - she had four - as well as their wives knew them as she didn't see them naked.

A slightly odd way of putting it, but the meaning is clear; her son's wives know them on a deeper level than a mother does. It's a shame more MILs don't have that attitude.

She wasn't always the easiest person in the world, but as pp said, which of us is, but she got on brilliantly with every one of her children's husbands and wives.

Do you think dils are ever jealous of their mils?

@BertrandRussell Yes, I am sure they are. I'm not jealous of MIL at all, but I do sometimes get frustrated that DH will drop everything for her or that he'll put up with things from her he wouldn't accept from anyone else. I wouldn't call it jealousy exactly, but if I'm honest, it's not a million miles away.

Again, while it irritates me I mostly just let it roll off my back. But I do sometimes find myself needing to vent to a friend or take myself away for a bit.