To think some DILs are so horrible to their MILs, especially when they have their own children?

[ivftake1]

Mumsnet makes me so sad that maybe one day I'll have a DIL who just wants to shut me out.

My own mil used to do my head in, but I really started to examine why, and it was largely a territorial thing. Which is utterly ridiculous and I've managed to let 99% of it go.

As my son gets older I realise the love she has for my husband is the same as the love I have for my son and I would hate to be pushed out just because a wife appears on the scene!

Devlesko

the only time when parents are not equal is around pregnancy and birth. Yes it's all about the woman who has gone through labour and just given birth.

It's more than natural to be comfortable with your own parents, not with virtual strangers. Just because you shagged their son doesn't make you close to your in-laws.

As someone who has given birth herself, the MIL should get that.

there is blatantly a societal norm that it's okay to complain about MILs

I didn't realise it wasn't ok to complain about your own mother too
Your own parents are easier to handle in most cases, you can be more honest and know what to expect.

In-Laws are complete strangers that you are suddenly expected to treat like "family"!

I’m the same as @Kitty2018
My MILs detached behaviour has progressed to the point where my DH and children must take up little head space for her.
It’s hard not to feel strong disappointment when you felt you were entering a ‘loving family’. DH would say that my parents are strange sometimes and past trauma has then running around after my brother but ultimately they want the best for all of us and show it in their own way which at least they’re actually trying and they include DH in everything.

I think most of it comes down to upbringings and expectations.

My MIL and I have a polite relationship and I have been nothing but nice to her. However, I have no idea where I stand with her due to the way she treats me compared to her other dil and our children compared to her other grandchildren. She has said some head turners and I’ve let them slide and have kept them to myself and not told my husband knowing he would be upset. I see her and FIL only about a handful of times a year so it’s easy to ignore them, but harder to forget.

My husband began to notice her differential treatment towards me when I was in my third trimester with our second due to something she did and it brought attention to other things that she has done in the past and it came to a head when she let us down to watch our boys before we were heading out somewhere despite weeks of advance notice and she had ample time to say something instead of doing so minutes before we were walking out the door. It brought attention to how not only she treated me, but how she treated our sons since she watches her other grandchildren quite often but we can’t even get two hours planned in advance.

She also makes comments that I shouldn’t go out on my own because our boys are too much for her son/their father despite us having no family help except from when my parents visit once a year or every other year (they live in the States) and jump at the chance to take the boys on their own and tell them every week via video chat how much they miss them. Yet, she offers to watch her other grandsons while my BIL works so my SIL can get some rest. She has said that she would take our boys on a weekend holiday if we lived closer but she hasn’t watched them in two years (she hasn’t offered and we didn’t ask after last time) and my husband quickly pointed out she couldn’t watch them last time so why would she think she could take them for a few days.

We were planning to go up for Christmas but chose not too and if I’m honest I’m more upset about not going on my day trip to Scotland than I am about seeing her and.

I am a strong believer in family and accepting people for who they are. This means compromises all round but it also provides a strong team . I have been brought up differently to my husband , it doesn't mean that what mil did was wrong just different to what my DM did. They both love their children and their DGC . I hate so many of the anti mil posts , the issue is often just a lack communication and acceptance that people have different ideas. 'It takes a village... ' is a helpful aphorism . I can understand so many of the frustrations that others have , my own mil was far from easy but she loved the children and that was enough for me.

*and thanks to Covid she only now just started to talk to the boys via video chat otherwise she would have just continued to talk to her son and ask about them.

’My boyfriend doesn't have a great relationship with his parents and I've always advocated for them, feeling like he should make more of an effort with them and repair some of the distance that had grown between them.’

That’s how I felt about my ILs. Like you I finally realised that there were reasons my ( now ex)DH kept them at a distance. He found it really stressful to be around them. If he needed any kind of emotional support they were utterly useless. If he was ill in any way they had no interest. They had no interest in his life apart from loudly judging when they considered he’d fallen short of what they expected.

I hope I will be a MiL someday, and hopefully my sons will marry lovely people. I have noticed the MiL threads on here and the constant advice to go no contact for what is described as pretty awful behaviour by the MiL concerned. I also read the Estrangement posts on Gransnet which are also very sad, especially where grandparents cannot se their grandchildren. It is very hard to understand where the truth lies in both these type of posts.

The problem I found, was I thought my relationship was with a man but then discovered I was supposed to be the new best friend to my MIL, and we had nothing in common.

She wanted to change me to be a junior version of herself and I just wanted to get on with my life and be left alone.

I happily went out when she was coming over so she could have time with her son but that wasn't enough. She wanted to run the house, choose the crockery, buy his pants. My ex didn't want to spend time with his mum and thought he could offload her onto me.

I couldn't understand it. I recognised that my mum was too chatty for my ex so I made sure they didn't spend too much time in each other's company. I expected the same courtesy but didn't get it. MIL became more and more controlling in her attempt to insert herself into my life, and I spent more and more time at work to avoid her. I didn't want to be used like that so in the end I left.

Ex has been divorced twice now, his mother is still determined to run his house, and driving his girlfriend's away. I feel terribly sorry for him, but he should be able to deal with it himself.

I've sworn to keep as far away from my son's marriage as I can, at least a couple of hundred miles.

I sometimes go out of the way for my mil. She's a fab grandparent but ultimately her relationship is with the kids not me.
We used to be fairly close but have pissed each other off a bit over the years, since I had the kids.

The MIL-DIL relationship puts two people together who would never normally have had a relationship. Like colleagues who find themselves working longterm in the same small office, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

If I simply met her socially, I would find my MIL commonplace, bossy, overbearing, chronically unimaginative and insensitive, with zero insight into any way of life which doesn't close resemble her own. All of which she is. But, knowing her through DH, I also recognise that she developed all those qualities to cope with a particularly difficult and impoverished family environment (she is the eldest of 14), which she unfortunately but perhaps unsurprisingly started to replicate when she had five children by her 22nd birthday, while living in two rooms over a shop with a husband who had a series of short-term unskilled manual jobs. There was no place for sensitivity or imaginativeness, or developing close individual relationships with her children, or considering the validity of other ways to live or points of view.

@LavaCake

It’s a two way street. I have an amazing relationship with my MIL because she’s amazing. She’s thoughtful, generous, respectful, kind, welcoming and considerate. She doesn’t behave in an entitled way, she respects the decisions we make, she offers advice when asked but otherwise keeps it to herself, she makes me feel like a welcome addition to her family rather than someone muscling in on her relationship with her son.

As a result, I go out of my way to be inclusive and considerate to her. I involved her very closely in our wedding planning knowing she didn’t have daughters. I’ve been sharing as much with her in my pregnancy as I have with my own mum. I often arrange to spend time with her on my own accord because we get on so well.

Had she been overbearing or critical, or seen me as a threat, or been territorial, we would have a rubbish relationship now and instead of being a lovely harmonious group who enjoy each other’s company, we would be avoiding on another and dealing with rivalry and resentment.

She sounds adorable and you sound lovely too. My own MIL was exactly the same. She died about ten years ago and I miss her so much, especially as my own step mother was an absolute witch.

Late MIL & I got caught in a power play when DH left home to move in with me (Italian, in Italy, not unusual). Picked up steam when DS was born.

Her behaviour was far, far from perfect. But mine wasn't exactly anything to write home about either. It would have been fine if we were both just enjoying/hating our own little personal battle of "who is the most important woman in his life". But between us we made life harder than it needed to be for FIL, DH and eventually DS as well.

Regrets, I have a few.

When I get a DIL of my own I'm going to pray she's more mature than I was during that phase AND bash myself over the head repeatedly if "Power Play Round II - The View From The Other Side" starts to look like a good idea.

I'll always be his mum. What being his mum looks like will change as the years pass. Like all the other stages of his life, I have to be ready to roll with the changes they bring.

And worst case scenario, if I get a DIL who actively looks for slights or offence where none were intended (as I've seen a few friends do over the decades, takes one to know one) well hello Nemesis.

What I won't do is make a piggy in the middle of my boy. I still remember DH's face at a few moments I'm really not proud of. I can't turn back the clock and make it different, but I can avoid making my son look as defeated and torn down the middle as I helped make my husband look from time to time.

And the only reason FIL/SIL relationships aren't similar is that men aren't socialised to take responsibility for the social and emotional life of the extended family in the way that women still are.

My own mil used to do my head in, but I really started to examine why, and it was largely a territorial thing. Which is utterly ridiculous and I've managed to let 99% of it go.

Your answer lies in your question OP.

And no, in fact I get on better with my MIL than I do my own mother.

That's a nice post, @NebbiaZanzareebbia. I hear interesting things about such things from non-Italian friends who've had longterm relationships in Italy with Italian men -- significant that none actually married their Italian boyfriend, and several of them ended up with Germans...

My MIL is a kind and thoughtful person, and she loves her grandchildren. We get on well, I send her little news and photos of the girls by whatsapp quasi every day (we live in different countries and Covid has made traveling tough).

She herself had a difficult MIL, who wailed and sobbed at her wedding that she was “stealing her son”, as just one example.

I have 3 daughters and a 5 year old grandson (daughter a single parent) My MIL is fantastic. Just about the right amount of contact. Very kind etc etc. BUT I feel when my grandson gets married I probably will be that kind of GMIL ha ha. I think my daughter will be the same as me. Weve had to protect him alot the last 5 years and its been rough so any partner that wants to be with him in the future needs to be very very special (I'm only kidding......... ) But I do agree that MILs do get a bad deal alot of the times esp where sons are concerned. But then we only get one side of the story and some do sound quite deranged 🤣

My own mil used to do my head in, but I really started to examine why, and it was largely a territorial thing

This, from the OP stood out to me. I think it’s very true. I can see it in myself sometimes and I have to remind myself that my DH is her son and was once her little boy. My children are her grandchildren. I have to remind myself because otherwise I’d be wincing and grumbling every time I saw her!

My MIL has always been nice to me and we have a decent relationship. But we do t have much in common and it’s become clear over the years that she’s interested in her children- not her grandchildren and certainly not me. If DH was run over by a bus tomorrow, I’m pretty sure my PIL wouldn’t offer any support (I don’t mean financial support, more emotional or practical) to myself or the children. We just happen to be DH’s family and if we make him happy, that’s OK.
It surprises me, but I’ve accepted it.

I don’t doubt that there are some DILs that aren’t very nice... but if it was as widespread as troublesome MILs, why are there rarely any threads on here about horrible DILs?

I don't have a great relationship with my MIL. I wish we did, but she's not very friendly with me. She favours SIL over my husband, and by extension is more interested in SIL's boyfriends than me.

She never misses an opportunity to jump down my throat, and occasionally has been shockingly rude to me. We were once playing a board game, I was losing, and she said out of nowhere in a sneery tone, "I think actually, [my name] you're VERY competitive. My friends like playing with me because I'm NOT competitive."

why are there rarely any threads on here about horrible DILs?

Because the OP would get roasted with an apple in her mouth. Every post would make it her fault.

I don’t doubt that there are some DILs that aren’t very nice... but if it was as widespread as troublesome MILs, why are there rarely any threads on here about horrible DILs?

I agree. And many of these DILs will themselves become MILs...

I read the lst post She favours SIL over my husband, and by extension is more interested in SIL's boyfriends than me.

And so what quite honestly?? Does any of that really matter? I am far too busy to worry about where I come in other people's pecking order. As long as I have a decent relationship with others it is none of my concern whether they value me or my OH more than other people in their world.

I mean seriously. We are grown ups.
Stand firm in your own world.

My MIL is more of a mum to me than my mother ever was

Same here. I was far from the prefect DIL in the early days, but she was accepting and loving throughout. I adore her, though now her dementia is so advanced she has no idea who I am.