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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Does anyone like their MIL?!

237 replies

cinnamoned · 22/08/2019 14:06

A bit lighthearted really, I get the impression that many people on here can’t stand their MILs and I was just thinking, if my DH thought those things about my mother, or didn’t want my mother to come for Christmas, I would be upset. So I suppose I always said I would be kind to my MIL from the get go.

AIBU to ask if anyone actually gets on with their MIL?

I do but then again, MIL, DHs Ex wife and I go on city breaks around Europe 2/3 times a year together so I’m quite odd Grin

OP posts:
SweetAsSpice · 22/08/2019 14:21

I do. She lives on a different continent though Grin

NightIbble · 22/08/2019 14:21

I get on with mine very well, we recently went on holiday with the whole of DH's family. I know she doesn't always agree with my parenting choices (DS2) but just says well it was all different in my day and then does it my way! My own DM is dead so it's nice to still have a mother figure in my life especially when I had DS.

Itsallgonewoowoo · 22/08/2019 14:22

My MIL was very disappointed in her sons choice of wife. She was convinced he was making a mistake and tried to get him to rethink. She then was expecting us to divorce soon after marriage. So we have had strained relationships BUT she has always been an amazing GP to our kids and now after 18 yes we get on too. We are completely different people with little in common but we both love the family and I would hope are quite fond of each other now.

pallisers · 22/08/2019 14:22

I love my MIL and she loves me. All of her daughters in law love her. She is a brilliant grandmother, a wonderful mother and a great friend. Yeah she can annoy me sometimes (especially if she is staying with me for a while) but my own lovely mother used to irritate me more. When I really needed her after the birth of my first baby when I was very sick she dropped everything to help, didn't take over just helped in the best way. I really love her and happily organise her mothers' day flowers and birthday presents etc. not because it is wife work but because she matters to me.

cinnamoned · 22/08/2019 14:22

@kings MIL and I joke that DSD is her born again, if she was born decades earlier, they could have been twins!

OP posts:
Shufflebumnessie · 22/08/2019 14:23

Mine is absolutely lovely (as is my FiL). She's kind, thoughtful and dotes on both DGC.
I actually really enjoy spending time with both MiL & FiL and they've often both referred to me as the daughter they never had.
Reading so many posts on here I realise how truly luck I am.

karala · 22/08/2019 14:23

I like my MIL too - there aren't enough threads on MN demonstrating how well people get on because sadly they aren't as interesting to read as the demons-from-hell type

user1493494961 · 22/08/2019 14:23

Yes, she's lovely. I get the impression that a lot of the people on here who dislike their MILs are hard work themselves.

Lamentations · 22/08/2019 14:23

Mine is pretty much my best friend.

SugarPlumLairy2 · 22/08/2019 14:23

I tried for years to like mine but she is a hugely bitter, racist, sexist, snide waste of skin and air.
If she wasn’t my Mil I would have nothing to do with her.
He’ll, if she was MY MOTHER I’d have nothing to do with her.

I don’t like her, not because she is my Mil but because she is quite a nasty individual to everyone.

Sarahisthatyou · 22/08/2019 14:25

I do, but she's still a mad old bag at times! My DW adores my DM but most people do.

Gobbolinocat · 22/08/2019 14:26

Your post makes no sense op.

Do people like thier mils. I would be hurt if my dp didn't want my mum around so I've always been kind to my Mil from the off.

Do you think people who have Mil trouble havant also been kind from the off?

Would you still be kind to your own dm if your dm was cruel and nasty to your partner? On an on going basis? Would you not try and reign her in? Would you see her less? Would you understand if your partner didn't want to be around someone who was so continually nasty to him?

Do you not think that people who have suffered at the hands of Mil wouldn't also rather to be able to be cordial with them but that as it clearly shows on here time and time and time again (for those who read the threads) it's the mils who want more and can't see their own behaviour that causes the problems?

Just now we have one thread where Mil has actually - without asking her son or dil-organised a party for the child's 1st bday on the actual day, excluding dils own family and done it to fit in with bils times and commitments.

Another has pils seeing gc twice a week and that's not enough and they need baby alone?

We have had others two I can think if using their medical pass to gain access to dils birth room! Snatch babies away insisting on being there moments after birth when they are not wanted.
And on and on and on.
If anyone thinks that's reasonable behaviour....

eenymeenyminyme · 22/08/2019 14:26

I love mine so much that I kept her after I divorced her lying cheating scumbag son Grin

junenotoffred · 22/08/2019 14:27

Genuinely love my MIL, just waiting for her to collect me to go out for afternoon tea in fact. I'm not even married to her waste of space son any more, yet we get on really well - and argue/disagree like mother & daughter but it means nothing because we're family despite everything.

Jebuschristchocolatebar · 22/08/2019 14:27

I detest my mil but so does her son who is my dh. She is appallingly badly behaved. My dh and my mum get on really well and we all often do stuff together.

doskant · 22/08/2019 14:27

@user1493494961 Do you think @SugarPlumLairy2 is hard work then... you know... preferring people aren’t “bitter, racist, sexist, snide”?

TequilaMockingbird0 · 22/08/2019 14:28

I don't dislike mine, but have absolutely nothing in common with her and don't particularly enjoy her company. When I first met DH she was a bit overwhelming (only has sons so tried to make me a surrogate daughter and it was too intense) and I know deep down she blames me as the reason he left the tiny village they live in for the big, bad city.
She means well but is of such a small-town mindset that I struggle to relate to her in any way. She also has some very questionable attitudes that I don't want passed onto the DC. We see them 3-4 times a year so it's not an issue really luckily.

pennypineapple · 22/08/2019 14:28

Mine is great. She has her moments when she can be a bit annoying but I'm sure I do too, nobody's perfect! Overall we have a good relationship.

covetingthepreciousthings · 22/08/2019 14:28

Yes I do, I speak to her via text most days & see her at least once a week. I consider myself lucky to have a good relationship with her, my husband is the same with my mum as well.

Jeremybearimybaby · 22/08/2019 14:28

Yep, mine is lovely, she gasp lives less than a mile away, and has a key to our house too! She has her own life, we have ours, and we see her frequently, but not too frequently! My DH gets on well with my mum too, and it's all terribly boring! I do feel for people who don't get on with their in laws, as I like my DC to have as many people in their corner as possible. My SIL and BIL can be...a bit different, but I believe they are inherently good people, who can be dicks a little annoying at times. I'm under no illusion I can be a dick annoying too, so it all works itself out.

champagneplanet · 22/08/2019 14:28

Mine is wonderful, she looks after the DCs while i'm in work, offers to do my washing (I don't let her), is ridiculously generous (again I try not to let her). We go on days out, go on some holidays together and even tells DH off when she thinks he's out of order Wink.

She is a lovely woman, not high maintenance, doesn't interfere unless she's asked to and I feel very lucky as I know so many people who have a strained relationship with their MILs.

nagynolonger · 22/08/2019 14:29

I found my MIL difficult at first but she was the age of my grandmother so I'm sure that was a lot to do with it. Her DD my SIL was a bitch too which didn't help. I did grow to like her though. She was a very good cook and I learnt quite a bit from watching her. She also knitted some lovely things. I only wish I could knit as well. She was fine really. I ignored her child rearing advice and in the later years she stopped giving it.

The best compliment I've had was her telling me she was proud to have me for a DiL and what a great job I'd done with DC!

My eldest son hates is mother-in-law. She is a difficult woman.

ThePolishWombat · 22/08/2019 14:29

I like my DH’s biological mum - she’s brilliant! She worships our DCs, doesn’t stick her oar in, she’s very good at reading a situation where advice may or may not be welcomed and acts accordingly....
DH’s step other is the exact opposite. I would go as far as to say that I actively hate her - but so does DH, so it doesn’t really matter Grin

Chirico · 22/08/2019 14:29

I was just thinking, if my DH thought those things about my mother, or didn’t want my mother to come for Christmas, I would be upset

But that's a bit unreasonable you love your mother (if you love her, obviously I mean in general, not just you, OP) because she's your mother, and you've always known her, and have grown up making allowances for her foibles, understanding what causes them etc etc. Thinking that it's realistic for someone who only knows your mother because they married you to feel the same way is a bit mad. You might be lucky and find your DP's parents are great, but equally, you might not.

Both DH and I are deeply realistic about our own parents and one another's, although we are fond of them. He is more easily irritated by my mother's extremely passive 'I don't mind' attitude to life, because he hasn't learned, as my sisters and I have all our lives, to cut through it briskly. Likewise, he has childhood good memories of a shared passion for sport to set against his mother's dogmatism, annoying small-mindedness and lack of imagination, whereas I don't and I just find them irritating.

Perhaps the key thing is that neither of us is the kind of spouse our mothers would have chosen for their children at all. My mother would have liked a nice, jolly, teetotal electrician or plumber who kept me local, preferably with a large number of children and 'let me have a little job'. His mother would have liked him to marry someone who deferred to her as matriarch, lived nearby, was a SAHM with a lot of children, hosted family occasions in my shiny kitchen and went to Weight Watchers with her.

Instead both mothers got a couple with multiple postgraduate degrees and demanding professional careers they don't understand, who have lived in several different countries over the past few decades, and had one child by choice late in life. Grin

Topseyt · 22/08/2019 14:30

My MIL died a few years ago now.

We got on OK but it wasn't without it's tensions. She could be very prickly at times and DH's younger brother was the golden child who could do no wrong. She favouritised him very much, although would have denied that hotly.

She wasn't a bad person, but could be difficult. I didn't dislike her, but found it hard fully warm to her.

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