To be fed up with MIL’s snide remarks about our finances

[Salsalx]

DH and I are early 30s and have no DC. We are lucky enough to both earn very good wages. Both of us have worked hard to get where we are and have been particularly fortunate over the last 18 months as a result of a promotion in my role and DH being headhunted for a new job with a significant pay increase.

We are able to live comfortably in that we have a (mortgaged) home in a very nice area and have enough disposable income to be able to save as well as affording luxuries without having to worry. We are by no means “rich” but we are comfortable. Over the last year or so, MIL has been making remarks about our financial situation. My SIL struggles financially as she is the main earner working PT. She has DC with her DH who chooses to also work PT in a low paid job (despite being offered FT hours). They are up to their eyeballs in debt yet have a brand new 4x4 on finance and enjoy lavish holidays and fancy things funded by credit cards. MIL is often making remarks about how we earn “all this money” yet poor SIL is barely able to get by. Any comments from DH about SIL’s poor financial choices in response are simply shut down. We announced 6 months ago that we were buying a new home and MIL looked very disappointed. Her only comment was “I wish poor SIL could afford a home” and “I bet your watch alone is worth over 6 months worth of poor SIL’s rent”. More recently she told all the family in front of us that she hoped DH and I would be treating them all for Christmas now we earn so much money. During a meal with DH’s extended family, MIL announced that she was treating everyone to the meal except DH and I as we have plenty of cash to treat ourselves. Whilst we would never ever expect anyone to pay for us, we were singled out and humiliated.

I feel I’ve been very patient but I am now just about done. DH feels we should not let it get to us and should just ignore it, but surely no one should tolerate this. I have kept my mouth shut for too long and am ready to either cut out her totally or explode and tell her exactly what I think. Surely I am not BU? Am I? How is best to handle this situation?!

I don't understand why so many posters are asking how MIL knows that OP and her DH are well off and implying that OP must have been bragging about money for anyone in their family to have any idea how much they earn. OP has stated that both she and her DH work in professions that are known for being well paid. It doesn't take a genius to work out that if OP is a FT Hospital Consultant and her DH is a FT solicitor, for example, they're going to be significantly better off than BIL and SIL if they both work PT in unskilled roles.

“Therefore she should telling DD and her Dzp to work more hours and progress their careers?”

She may well be! I wonder if the SIL’s version of events is that Op and her DH are constantly held up as an aspiration while her DM makes constant digs about her lack of money.

I wouldn't have shared my salary/promotion news in the first place in your position. I was waiting for you to say your mil had suggested you subsidise the sil, thankful that's not the case, but I'd still not be buying anything larger than you normally do at Xmas.

If your sil wants to have a nice lifestyle and earn more the obvious starting point is to up to full time working. If mil says anything else about the disparity in your incomes, I'd offer to give sil some advice on how to improve their earnings. It's patronising but it would shut your mil up.

Just keep any salary increases/promotions to yourselves in future. Oh and ignore the mil!

I suspect that it's more that MIL perceives that OP and DH have chosen financial prosperity over providing her with more grandchildren. She resents that and is expressing that by trying to make them feel bad about their wealth.

TBH she's just being rude. Me and DH have 1 DD (he has DSS also) and work is standard public sector jobs. DB works in a high flying IT job which he sort of fell in to but has clearly worked very hard at. There is a disparity in our lives and although I've got to the next stage of a big promotion that 20k extra is about 10% of DBs salary. We dont mention it much because ultimately he would still be DB if he sacked it all in to work at Tesco. The only time I did find myself making a snide remark was when he didnt acknowledge DDs 1st birthday (I had a highly traumatic birth so even a supportive msg for me would be nice) and I thought "well it's not like he couldn't afford a 99p card and a bloody stamp"! She should be proud of what you've both achieved and stop comparing apples and oranges. You've both chosen different lives and that's fine. Has she always pitched DH and SIL against each other?

Thank you everyone, some really helpful advice. To clarify, I don’t think SIL and BIL have any idea that we are told in so much detail about their financial situation. MIL and SIL are very close, so she has told her about their financial difficulties, level of debt and her frustration when BIL didn’t accept the full time position offered to him. I’m sure they believe that such information is kept confidential and I’m sure they’d be very upset if they knew it had been shared not only with us, but around DH’s large family.

With regards to helping out financially, SIL is not at all sensible with money or in the choices she makes, so we lack sympathy. Even if we did help her out financially, the money would be more likely to go on another holiday rather than paying off their debts.

I think as suggested the right thing to do in the first instance is for DH and I to have a quiet word with MIL. If things don’t change after that I think for me I will need to significantly reduce contact.

My MIL makes constant comments about my finances so I get your frustrations. Just back away and don't tell her anything. I've come to realise that my finances are my concern. No one else's.

Op, this would indicate it's about your sister in law and not you. You are the favourable comparison, her mother is frustrated about how she's behaving and concerned about it. Doesn't justify her big mouth but this one isn't all about you.

I would however be measured in my responses and not slag my sister in law off.

if she then starts with the whole "I just feel so sorry for poor SIL" routine or starts hinting that she thinks you and DH should be helping SIL out (which I suspect is at the root of all of this) then I would respond firmly with "As I understand it, BIL was offered FT hours and turned them down so if you're concerned about their finances perhaps it's him you should be talking to" and then refuse to discuss it any further.

This, exactly. She is being very rude.

Why have you told her anything at all about your salaries?

We’re in a similar position to you (two high incomes, no kids, lots of disposable income) and we tell people NOTHING. Nobody has a clue what we earn. It’s great.

Oh please - you don’t need to declare your salaries for people to know that you’re doing well financially.

The nice house in a lovely area and upgrading to a bigger one, regular holidays to far-flung destinations and an expensive car are all very clear indicators that someone has a good income.

It’s pretty obvious and yet threads like these always get the same silly responses of “don’t discuss your earnings then”

22HenriettaH Well you went down a path there, didn't you?

My MIL is like this. We earn enough to get by on a comfortable life whereas DBil lives on his ex fiances floor (through choice) and struggles with money despite spending it all on booze and drugs. Apparently we should help out MIL and DBil because we can afford to? MIL wastes money like its going out of fashion too. It took DP a few years but now he just says no we can't afford it.

We've had this all our married lives. All we hear from MIL is how poor sil has nothing and struggles. and how extravagant I am for buying nice clothes. SIL's situation has now morphed into having made a lifesryle choice. IMO a lifestyle choice to work part-time in a shop and paint whilst her dp works part-time making crafts. This means there is no money to telephone family, the dc have lived hand to mouth, one receiving no help for dyslexia because not bad enough for state intervention (not UK).

Frankly it is beyond tedious not least because the woman is supposed to be so very clever and talented and "special".

Thank goodness she lives thousands of miles away but I really feel for you op and wish I'd said 25 years ago "well if they got proper jobs, they wouldn't be skint and you, as her mother should be stating the obvious to her not me". But no instead I've put up with the passive aggressive sniping about how lucky we are. Not luck, bloidy hard work and sensible choices. Nip it now OP.

Ugh, this is a cautionary tale about telling others what you earn. Money discussions in general always seem to lead to bad feeling. Nightmare!

Poor SIL. Not only married to a man who won't work but cast forever as The Poor Relation. Then judged vigorously for going on holiday, the outrageousness of it.

MIL is stirring. OP, I get that you don't want to help them, and I get that you're keen to keep your money for yourself only. All fine. But you can't stop other people noticing. And you can't expect other people to pay for your lunch when you're way richer than they are.

As it happens, I think Generosity is Nice, but you may not entirely agree - so maybe hosting Xmas doesn't appeal. But MIL is making trouble, and if you change your mind, you might want to do it on your terms.

Ugh, this is a cautionary tale about telling others what you earn.

Dear god - how many times has it been said in this thread? You don't need to tell people how much you earn for them to work out if you have a good salary or not - the house, holidays, cars etc are usually a bit of a give away 🙄

And you can't expect other people to pay for your lunch when you're way richer than they are.

I don’t think the OP was expecting anyone else to pay!

Dh and I have more money than sil and bil as sister in law doesnt work,never has and bil had a good paid job until he got too lazy and jacked it in.If mil made comments like that dh would (and has) say well it's their fault for being lazy bastards.End of conversation.Their money worries arent your concern in the slightest just be blunt with mil that you reap what you sow.

IMO a lifestyle choice to work part-time in a shop and paint whilst her dp works part-time making crafts. This means there is no money to telephone family, the dc have lived hand to mouth, one receiving no help for dyslexia because not bad enough for state intervention (not UK).

Frankly it is beyond tedious not least because the woman is supposed to be so very clever and talented and "special".

It sounds like the life they want. I chose that kind of life as well, as I was entitled to. People want different things from life.

I wonder if the SIL’s version of events is that Op and her DH are constantly held up as an aspiration while her DM makes constant digs about her lack of money

DM managed to (inadvertently) drive a real wedge between me and DBro by constantly comparing our achievements on the one hand, and by throwing money at “poor DBro” on the other.

Apparently he “needed” a two bedroom flat in Chelsea all to himself throughout uni, whereas I had to live in a shared bedroom in pre-gentrification Peckham. His weekly rent was literally ten times what mine had been 2-3 years earlier, and he was getting Ocado shops when I had lived on rice and daal, so I felt pretty resentful - his standard of living as a student was higher than my standard of living as a thirty year old doctor.

But what I didn’t realise was that he was permanently being negatively compared to me and my achievements “Sashkin’s done this, maybe you should do this too. Sashkin says [random comment not aimed at DBro and certainly never intended to be repeated to him], you should take her advice”.

Falling out with DM and seeing DBro on his own a bit more did our relationship a world of good. As did DBro moving in with DSIL, because DM backed off a bit.

@HenriettaH

To be honest, we get these vibes off my MIL. My BIL is 19, earns a decent wage at home fully supported as an apprentice (we don't begrudge him that, but he's able to stay there until 21 rent free, and my husband couldn't earn anyway near the same amount through university).

He's a spoiled brat. He was incredibly sulky that my husband got him the "wrong" designer top for Christmas, then only perked up when he saw the right expensive cologne had been bought. What did he get us?

A gingerbread house kit. To share.

It's really easy to create a situation of entitlement, infantilisation and dependency when one person is always babied and given handouts. Not to mention eventual resentment! Far better for everyone to, as a norm, celebrate at the level everyone can afford.

It's really easy to create a situation of entitlement, infantilisation and dependency when one person is always babied and given handouts

Yep! Completely agree. But IME that handout has a sting in the tail - you get babied and spoilt to compensate for the fact that (the parent thinks) the recipient is incapable of doing anything for themselves, which is also a path to resentment when they are constantly compared to their “successful” siblings.

DH should deal with this.

If he’s close to his sibling perhaps he could speak to them and both could approach their mother in a double pronged attempt together to tell her to mind her own beeswax.

Lots of good ideas on lots of posts as to what to say to the mother.

I’d avoid all the really nasty ideas posted about avoiding her or being snippy with her yourself. Up to DH to decide what’s appropriate. Don’t forget she’s old, she wants the best for her daughter and grandkids, and back in the day family did help family more financially. She doesn’t realise what she’s doing is not done nowadays.

Once told by him (and perhaps his sibling jointly) she should shut up I hope.

Juells it isn't a problem if every time you visit you don't constsntly complain. "I only have one pair of shoes", "I can't afford to buy a coffee", "I only have £5 a month on my phone contract so don't make calls". It doesn't make it sound like a lifestyle choice. Actually if it is and one is highly educated and v v clever, shouldn't part of that lifestyle choice be about putting in an extra hour so you can afford to phone your mother when part of the lifestyle choice was to move thousands of miles away.

Yes she's entitled to her lifestyle choice but not to suck the joy from everyone else in taking that choice. I could feel happy for the choice if she were joyous about her life but it's one long whinge. Notwithstanding the fact she has before called her DB a capitalist bastard but hss still tapped him up for flights home which wouldn't be needed were it not for her lifestyle choices.

@Sashkin - I absolutely agree! Time will tell with my BIL, but it doesn't look good. He's less academic than my DH was, and ten years younger, but the way ILs act will leave him forever the baby.