To ask what your relationship is like with your MIL/DP’s mother?

[Lila653]

Wondering whether the stereotype of woman struggling with mother in law is that true in reality. What is your relationship like? And has it changed over time? By stereotype I just mean it is often portrayed in TV/film.

I think I started off in a better place with MIL than I am now - several years down the line I find more and more grating/irritating, probably unfairly in some ways! Is this normal?

DH doesn’t have a great relationship with his parents so maybe this has something to do with it!

She's like a Mum to me. She lives with us and she sometimes gets on my nerves, just as I sometimes get on hers. Luckily we know each other well enough to just stay out of the way of each other on those (thankfully rare) occasions.

She's brilliant at giving advice and suggestions without any expectation that you accept them. When you ignore her suggestion and the water brings the ceiling down she just helps you mop up without a single hint of "I told you so".

It wasn't all plain sailing. DH was widowed when I met him and MIL was very, very hands on with his DS (he was only a toddler) so once we moved in together it was a massive change in MIL's life. She once admitted, drunk on a hen do, that she'd found it hard because it was a bad thing for her, as she got less time with DS, but a good thing for him and DH. I was surprised as I hadn't even realised she'd struggled, which cemented to me what a good Mum and Gran she is.

I'm also very lucky that DH's MIL, who is affectionately known as my Other-MIL, is wonderful. I can't imagine how difficult it must have been for her to see another woman involved in her grandson's life when her daughter had died so young. When DS decided at 9 he wanted to call me Mum I really wasn't sure how it would go down with people and she took me aside and said "My daughter was the proudest and happiest Mummy in the world. Her biggest fear was leaving DS behind. She'd be thrilled that he has a lovely Mum to look after him" and it's simply the nicest and kindest thing anyone has ever said to me.

I have two MILs. Step MIL is great, good laugh, lovely gran to kids, all round good egg. MIL is a strange character that I’ll never understand, and struggle to forgive for the many and varied ways she has let DH and DS down. I don’t think we will ever gel now, but it’s not a MIL/DIL thing so much as a complete personality mismatch.

My in-laws are so lovely. They are fantastic grandparents too.
Can't ask for more than that 🤗

She is ok but really wasn't interested once she was in a new relationship, kids have a very poor relationship and now they are adults only see her with bribery, now I've split from exh they don't even have me insisting they see her (I'm still in contact but I am unlikely to see her except weddings and funerals)

I love my MIL, she has her faults but then so do I. People expecting a perfect relationship only one person, the MIL, has to work at are being unreasonable and in many cases are being cruel to their DH and DC.

Not keen on her and reading some of the other comments I feel quite envious that many of you have such great relationships with your MILs.

I've never felt comfortable in her presence ever and have known her 20+ years. She has an edge to her and comes across as totally uninterested and cold. She just doesn't put me at ease. I've had a couple of ex's who had lovely mums but I didn't marry them!!

My dcs were always last in the pecking order of her other DGC and that hurt alot in the past. I'm over it now. My DCs can see what she was like now they're older and it's too late to try to build a relationship. The effort should have been made alot earlier.

Glad to get that off my chest 😁

I had my very lovely MIL for 33 years. She died this year and miss her very much. Good relationships all round, kindest woman I have ever known. So so lucky.

@OffredOfjune I could have written your first two paragraphs word for word! Third only applies if I'm (quite) tipsy

[quote whereisthejoy]@OffredOfjune I could have written your first two paragraphs word for word! Third only applies if I'm (quite) tipsy [/quote]
I'm glad someone can relate!

Don't see her very often so not close, but she treats all my children the same although they are not all biologically DHs. That told me everything I needed to know about her so she will always be welcome

We don't have a lot in common but I don't dislike her

Unfortunately, with the current Coronavirus situation, I think we are further apart than ever. We're being cautious and MIL is being reckless. There doesn't seem to be any middle ground so we are staying apart.

We are no longer on speaking terms, in the past out of love and respect for DH I have accepted apology and tried to cultivate a friendly relationship but ultimately she can’t stand me and i can’t stand her and I’m done trying now.

It wasn't great. There isn't a relationship now because she has advanced Alzheimer's. Not great with FIL either. They are/were both very snobby and think highly of themselves, for no good reason. They have no time for or interest in their grandchildren and are self-centred. Ever since I have known DH they have called him by his brother's name and even got his birthday wrong. Strange people.

Both my in-laws are the parents I never had. I’m very lucky to have them.

I don’t get on with my own mum, and MIL has been very kind. We don’t have a massive amount in common, but I like her very much, and she made me feel part of the family once she realised she was stuck with me.

Great, she's amazing and fabulous and I wish I could be half as kind natured as her. My poor fiance tho, his MIL (my DM) is vile.

Oh, but she is a person who “pops in” (not currently as no indoor mixing for months) which drives me completely insane. I teach and she was forever catching me watching daytime telly in my pyjamas with unwashed hair in the holidays until she was told to stop. (She gets up at 6 even though she’s retired, so my Homes Under the Hammer habit was very much frowned upon!)

My MIL is wonderful and I'm so lucky. As are my DC.

We're actually m

We're actually moving away from her soon, and I know she's heartbroken. The thing is, I euphoria genuinely have her live with us if she wanted to, but she's said no.

I'm hoping we can keep the relationship working well at a distance (3-4 hours' drive).

Before kids she was great. Had our differences and managed her manipulative behaviour easily as we could just distance.
Then I got pregnant and she turned very over bearing and wouldn’t take no for an answer. She’s now one of the worst women I’ve ever had to deal with and I would love it if we didn’t have a relationship at all.
When I had given birth at 4am, she cried because we didn’t tell her till 8am, we told her we didn’t want any visitors while in hospital and then she told me she was calling social services and in her own words - ‘I have waited 9 months for this moment and you’re not taking it away from me. That’s my baby and I deserve to be there’ (she then turned up at the hospital and as she was a nurse there, weasled her way in)

The distancing was immediate. I still struggle.

I love my mother in law... she sadly died very recently and I’m devastated. We all are. Best mum/grandma ever!

Used to have a better relationship but they are fairly jealous if we do anything with my parents and they are nosey. They always want to know what’s going on which I find irritating.

Things have come to a point at the moment where we haven’t seen them much since lockdown 1 so things feel awkward when we have called in.

I’m happy not going around there though so it suits me. I have my own mum to talk too.

Hl Op I found my former mother in law very weird as hell,

Must have been herditary, L.o.l 😊

she was a seriously Crap mother too, (telling my Arse hole ex that he was unwanted mistake etc,

I’m getting extremely jealous of people on this thread

For some weird reason I desperately wanted her to like me

But she is hostile and so we don’t get on.

She's a wolf in sheep's clothing unfortunately. I've been with DH for 20 years now, married for 10. First 10 years were ok but bang, as soon as we announced we were getting married she started getting difficult. She's intrusive (i've caught her in our house snooping around when we returned early from a shopping trip), has pushed her opinion on child rearing once too many times and has slagged off my SIL so many times that I can now see her for the poisonous dwarf that she really is. She treats my children differently and will treat her other grandchildren to gifts and experiences and not mine. She is one of the most unpleasant people I have ever met yet looks such a sweet little lady. There are some very lucky DIL's on here, I wish I was one of them, I really do.