My mam always complementing SIL!

[RobertSmithdoesmyhair]

My SIL is lovely. She is also extremely pretty. My mam is slways telling me about her lovely new hairstyle/coat/clothes and about how stylish/graceful she is. She always tells her that she should be a model. Mam also tells me about her beautiful children.
AIBU to be upset that she never tells me i look nice? I'm no stunner, but not ugly either! And she never compliments my kids either?

I bet your SIL notices and she hates it deep down and she can tell that your mum has issues to be singling her out like that and bigging her up at your expense.

It puts pressure on her as it shows her that if she doesn’t live up to expectations she could lose that very conditional admiration and self esteem boost.

I bet your sil wishes your mum wouldn’t do that. And I bet she knows it’s absolutely nothing to do with her being special or beautiful but with your mum lacking empathy and awareness and projecting self esteem issues into you.

Plz don’t let this come in between you and SIL.

It’s a hard situation for you.. but the moment you let this turn you into SIL rival then your mum would’ve won.

I’m gonna have a wild guess.. I think your mum feels a bit of jealousy towards your SIL and she is trying to get you to react in a way that validates her feelings so that she can feel ok about it.. and so that she can have someone on her side..

The moment you turn into your SILs rival she will be able to connect with you. However that won’t send you to a happy place because that would be a mean thing to do.

So as you see. Your mother is incapable of giving self esteem boosting complements in general, she has made an exception with your SIL because somehow this is learnt behaviour that she does without much thought which probably resulted in her low self esteem. Perhaps her mother did the same to her.. or her mil.. and she is trying to subconsciously turn you into a version of her by passing down what she learnt to mould your own behaviour.

If you don’t want to turn into a version of her then don’t let it affect you

I never understand why it's so constantly stated on MN that of course mothers favour their own daughters over daughters in law.

I have a similar thing with my mother - my SIL can do no wrong, whereas I actually can't remember the last time my mother said anything nice to me.

I do wonder if it's something to do with mothers having higher expectations of their own daughters, and hence said daughters never being able to meet them!

My mum constantly goes on about my sisters kids, big deal she loves mine too and sometimes it’s something to talk about. She never says I look nice either but I don’t need her to, why would I, she’s my mum she loves me and I know she cares she’s a bit weird sometimes
I don’t tell her she looks nice either, do you tell your mum she looks nice. Perhaps she’s trying to ensure sil doesn’t hate her or something who knows maybe make a joke about her compliments but otherwise you could just tell her it’s making you feel a bit upset or you can seethe about it forever more, it’s crap but families are like that sometimes

I have faced this on both sides - with my dm to my SIL and my mil to my sil. It upset me for years. I said something to my dm and she said I was being ridiculous. Now I'm at a more secure place in my life, I really could care less. My dh loves me and is proud of me and I have a great relationship with my dcs. F&£k everything and everyone else!

Does she complement you to your SIL? Sometimes I've found that there are some people who rave about someone to other people but never to their face.

My grandad was the same. Always telling me how amazing my mum and auntie was etc. And my mum and auntie always telling me how he always yells them how amazing I am, and that he never complemented them to their faces. I think some people find it very difficult to say something nice about you to you. But have no problem telling other people.

Could it be a case of this?

Tells not yells

@ DingDongDenny
Bloody genius!

Greenwingmemories Comparing grandchildren is the worst. I’ve caught my mother telling my son he should be using the potty. “Your cousin xxx can use the potty. Why can’t you use the potty like him?” Arsehole. Doesn’t seem to matter that his cousin is more than a year older of course.

Some people believe that by building your confidence you will reach your potential and perform your best.

Some others believe that beating down your confidence gets you to reach ur potential and perform your best... errr... maybe not your potential but their expectations of you which is all they care about.

So I agree with the suggestion to bring someone into this.. if you don’t have a mil then maybe your aunt or something.. just indirectly bring up how they told u you are amazing or ur kids are amazing and and show some passion about how that makes you feel appreciated/motivated or u don’t even need to say it but ur actions show it.

Make sure it’s a real example though.

VisibleShantiLine

Do you think it would work if you said something along the lines of :

“We like to encourage my son through positive language and building his confidence as he doesn’t perform well when he is compared or have his self esteem knocked down”.

And Repeat ( a summarised version).

Aw I always feel sad for people who don’t have their mums say nice things to them, and I make a point of saying nice things to my DD’s like your hair looks lovely or you look really nice today because I think it’s important for their self esteem!

MrsNotNice I’ve tried speaking plainly with her countless times in the past. I just cop the old: “You’re being overly sensitive, Visible. You’ve always been overly sensitive. Ever since you were a little girl.”

I’ve told her not to speak to him like that and that he’s fine and will be ready when he’s ready.

I’m gonna have a wild guess.. I think your mum feels a bit of jealousy towards your SIL and she is trying to get you to react in a way that validates her feelings so that she can feel ok about it.. and so that she can have someone on her side..

I think there could be a fair bit of truth in this for many critical mothers. My mother loves a good bitching session so if I stay positive (or at least appear to) she gets bored and eases off.

GrumpyHoonMain "Just praise your mil over her."

The OP has said that she doesn't have a MIL.

CustardySergeant

How about praising SIL’s mother and how she treats her daughter!

Every time your mum says “your SIL looks amazing, her dress is stunning”

Just say “yes, she completely takes after her mother. I love her mothers taste in fashion. Her mum has the cutest nose”

Good grief there are some very immature Mothers out there . And some very long suffering daughters .
It’s almost like the Mums are becoming spiteful MILs with their own daughters!

If she calls you ridiculous, your only reply has to be that it’s ridiculous that she thinks it isn’t noticeable, or hurtful for you and your children.

If you don’t say anything you can’t expect for her to realise and stop.

My guess is OPs mum already knows that she is making her daughter insecure/sensitive when she does this and I feel she does it more because she believes her daughter should “get over it”.

If she is generally lacking in empathy then discussing her feelings with her mum will only make her feel invalidated and make her more upset/angry which will be a further opportunity for her mum to press that button.

So I would really suggest sticking to a factual response and giving no emotion.

And if OP was feeling particularly emotional then to throw it back by comparing her mum to someone she wouldn’t like be compared to.. and leave it at that.

Your mum is just fan-hurling here. It’s no reflection of love, only of your mums insecurities. Smile and let it run off you. I’m sure if it came down to it you’d be the one to get the life jacket!

Fan-girling

Comparing grandchildren is the worst. I’ve caught my mother telling my son he should be using the potty. “Your cousin xxx can use the potty. Why can’t you use the potty like him?”

My mother told DS that his cousin xxx already had 2 adult teeth and she was more than a year younger than him, and when was he going to get his adult teeth?

Aw I’d HATE this and have had a bit of this in my family I was surprised by how much it hurt me. I brought it up with my mum and she was like ‘of course you’re beautiful you know I think you are ! You’re my daughter!’ So it was like she was doing it subconsciously. It was a sort of step-cousin she would go on about though, who I think my mum wanted to impress a bit. So out came the compliments. It did stop eventually.

Also I’d like to add that complimenting someone else - an aunt, MIL or even mum of a close friend - used to get my mums back up. So it comes from insecurity.