Tell me your funny IL tales

[Frankola]

Sometimes I really can't help but think that my DHs family are genuinely insane 😂

My SIL is currently playing a game of "hide the wedding date".

So the story here is that she has booked her wedding. Announced this on Facebook (obviously). And asked my DH, her brother, to be a part of the groomsmen.

DH said lovely, yes and asked what date the wedding was. She is genuinely, honestly, no word of a lie refusing to tell him?!!!

How can he agree to a date he doesn't know? Why would she hide this?! 😂

It's almost as funny as them turning up to our wedding with a full tin foil packed picnic as they didn't know if a hotel venue booked for the entire day would provide food? 😒

Or the time that my DH hurt his back back was bed bound for a week. His mum and sister turned up and took over the house. Insisting on doing everything for DH and in turn insisting I do everything for them! This ended up with them telling everyone who'd listen that they had to "come to help care" for DH, making out I did nothing for him in that time. Well obviously I didn't when they made it so I was relegated to waiting on THEM hand and foot instead!

Do I have the strangest ILs? Please say it isn't so?!

Ah, ok. Sounds like she has treated dd's birth as a way of concentrating her grief. Not fair on dd at all. How terrible for her though.

[quote toomuchtooold]@CandyLeBonBon

Deliberately chose spicy pizza for my eldest (by this time dx with adhd/asd) even though he hated spicy food and I'd told her that, because she 'thought he might eat it for her

Oh my mother used to do this! She thought she was the child whisperer. (Nothing could be further from the truth. She has about as much empathy as a great white shark.) Every time 2yo DD2 (now older and diagnosed with ADHD) would throw a wobbler about shoes/breakfast/the unbearable lightness of being she'd be like "let's see if she'll do it for me." The answer to that question was invariably no. It's petty of me but I used to enjoy it immensely every time.

DD2 was amazing at trolling her, though. She was still not talking much aged 3, but then there was this time that she ate a daisy, and my mother was like "no! no! Bad girl! That's poison!" trying to get it out of her mouth and then shortly after, we walked past a garden full of daisies and she pointed to it and went "ahahahaha lunch."[/quote]
Clever dd!!

@NamechangeApril21 touché!

My ex MIL ignored the fact that we were getting married, changed the subject pointedly whenever it was mentioned and wanted nothing to do with any of the plans. Then she wore black to the wedding, cried throughout the whole thing, insulted my family and left before we cut the cake. And then complained to me at length about how she didn't feel included.

She had made the cake! I don't even like cake and we weren't going to have one but she wanted to make it and so I agreed. She then deducted £300 from the £500 she had contributed to the wedding to pay for the cake she made. And it was horrible, it tasted like stale bread.

When I was pregnant she totally ignored that too. Just pretended it wasn't happening. We went to a family funeral when I was 36 weeks and people's jaws dropped to the floor at my enormous bump as she clearly hadn't told anyone at all that I was pregnant.

Luckily she is an ex mother in law now. She hasn't spoken a single word to me since me and ex-H split up, despite the fact that I'm the mother of her granddaughter, who was one when we split up.

When DH mentioned to his mum we needed some addresses for the wedding invites she was totally floored and demanded to know what wedding.
He said well mine of course, I did tell you. She said he thought he was joking that we had got engaged.
She went to an long ago ex girlfriend to get her hair done on the morning of the wedding, and cried that it wasn't her he was marrying, his ex gf was going out with a friend of mine and told me about it. She was mortified.

@MusicWithRocksIn1t

Omg, why on earth do they not open their post? What's the reason behind it? Does you dh open his post now? That is the most bizarre thing iv read in ages lol

Some of these stories are outrageous. Some people are so odd and have no awareness for others at all.

@MusicWithRocksIn1t

Just starting to leave me H and could give you some awful stories. This is one I find kind of funny and weird.

None of his family, him included, open their post except for hand addressed birthday cards. He had a vehicle almost repossessed as he hadn't bothered opening the letters warning that he hadn't changed his bank account details.
His mother had her power cut off she hadn't opened the letters telling her the supplier had gone gone bust and ended up with no power over new years.
She also called up going crazy at H as we hadn't sent her a birthday card... we had but as it was a moon pig card but the address wasn't hand written so she hadn't opened it.
SIL missed her sons first lot of vaccines and even his school induction.
There's way more happened because they won't open letters but they still refuse to open them and every time something goes wrong they say "that's just what happens when you don't open your post" and nod like it's an unavoidable part of life!

Oh my god this would drive me absolutely crazy.

My MIL has many special qualities, so I don't know why these ones stick with me, but they do. The first time she came to mine she walked out into our tiny courtyard garden, looked at the little apple tree we'd trained along the wall, and calmly wrenched off an unripe apple (plus branch), took a bite, then chucked it on the floor. I was so surprised said 'did you see what your mum just did' to SIL who was totally confused - she thought it was really normal.

A bit later my parents were renting a holiday cottage and we all met up there for a meal; she wandered round the (beautiful, very clearly expensively maintained) holiday house garden and announced she wanted a cutting of a particular plant. My slightly gobsmacked dad pointed out it wasn't actually their garden. So she wrenched off a large piece.

It's the same if you go out anywhere - she just nicks stuff. A while back we went to a restaurant that was selling copies of its own recipe books for a tenner, and when we got home she produced one and told us it was a present. I went back a few weeks later and the owners (who were very nice about it) had to tell me she'd stolen it.

@MusicWithRocksIn1t they sound a bit thick really! How can you not open your post? Then go nuts at other people. Are they an entitled bunch who blame everyone else except themselves?

very first time i met my mil i decided to bake a cake. I arrived said id made a cake she responded by saying she didnt eat chocolate cake and was going to bed. at 3:30 in the afternoon.

Love this thread! My PIL are just very normal. My DP laughs though because every time we visit my parents, my mum sneaks him a bag of his favourite cakes and biscuits as were leaving as he's "looking too skinny" and I must not be feeding him. He's 6"4 and 16 stone. 😂 I get nothing.

@Longdistance

I would, but I give a key to fil who helps with childcare and the odd thing here and there. He’s a sap like my dh who won’t say anything. I thought it was the end when somehow mil had a spare set of keys. I asked for them back as the house was for sale. It didn’t sell, so we’re back to square one 🤦🏼‍♀️

I would have an additional lock fitted and made sure that I used it when I went on holiday.

Loads with mine it’s hard to remember them all.

• was obsessed I should go to A&E for the most random things. Sneezing 4 times, itching the top of my foot because it wasn’t ‘normal’. Also I should I go because when I took one pill from a 14 day antibiotic prescription I wasn’t magically cured.
• kept all tins with meat/fish in the fridge. All unopened. Never had room to put fresh food in there.
• brushed her teeth in the kitchen as she had seen on This Morning about toothbrushes/toilets. Her toilet was in a separate room to her bathroom.
• said when we told her when I was pregnant that she didn’t want anymore grandchildren so why were we doing it and did we have to do it.
• believed newborns should sleep through the night and then should be sleeping to 11am by toddler years.
• frequently bought me size 6 clothing to diet into.
• rang us whenever it was BIL/SIL birthday to remind us as otherwise we would forget. We never have. I’ve never had a card or present off them in 20 years which MIL didn’t believe.
• used to be furious in restaurants because I wouldn’t eat exactly the same as her. Didn’t expect this of anyone else.
• furious we wouldn’t go on holiday to the same place as them BUT not at the same time as they didn’t want to see us.
• hated that I had friends and I went out and did anything. Didn’t believe I should leave the house without DH to chaperone me at all times. If I went out to buy milk she would grill me as to ‘who are you meeting up with’.
• we used to live in a small village (biggest shop was a small co-op). She lived a huge city. Constantly giving me lists of things she wanted from places like John Lewis as we ‘lived in a big city so easy to get them as she just lived in a small town’. She lived 10 minutes by bus from John Lewis and huge city centre.

Millions more. She passed away 3 years ago and I am a lot less stressed.

@pasbeaucoupdegendarme

Mine has just offloaded onto DH and I several boxes of food for our use. (She is moving house and can’t put food in storage.) The most recent expiry date is 2017. This is modern by quite a long shot. The oldest item has an expiry date of 1989.

@pasbeaucoupdegendarme😅😅😅will she want it back do you think???

I have many but one of my favourites was when ds1 was born and I was asked to step out of a family photo so it could be of "just family" despite my marrying in 5 years previously.

@TheMostHappy

I have many but one of my favourites was when ds1 was born and I was asked to step out of a family photo so it could be of "just family" despite my marrying in 5 years previously.

I hope your H told them to jog on?!

@rjacksmiss

Love this thread! My PIL are just very normal. My DP laughs though because every time we visit my parents, my mum sneaks him a bag of his favourite cakes and biscuits as were leaving as he's "looking too skinny" and I must not be feeding him. He's 6"4 and 16 stone. 😂 I get nothing.

That reminds me of my mum. When I was late teens/early 20's and still lived with my parents, she would buy desserts like individual steamed puddings for when my now DH came round to have his 2nd tea and dessert. But would never buy me or my sister desserts. 😂

My MIL is a good cook but used to feeding hungry rugby boys. One meal she did a full sized plate of spaghetti bolognaise as a starter. I couldn't even finish that and was getting serious social anxiety about not being able to eat any of the main course.

My FIL loves to ponder on life, love and relationships when writing our birthday and Christmas cards. The last one had a full analysis of my personality followed by a comment that he'd never understand me (by way of background, I am a normal middle aged mum, not a mercurial will-o-the-wisp). When I tried to brush it off with an embarrassed half joke, he told me that one day he would sit down one on one and talk to me about it. Thankfully I have managed to avoid that day thus far.

If I go out for the day with my mum, without fail she will ask me if I need to get home to make lunch for my husband. No I fucking do not.

My MIL is just weird. She turned up unannounced (with a friend) at about 9:30 one night, and then said we were obviously having sex as we didn't open the door straight away.

She insists on buying my son clothes for his age, and not his actual size.

She often buys us things we've already got. She scoffed at a bath thermometer we bought when I was pregnant as surely we'd just use our elbow. Then bought us a bath thermometer...

Obviously not as bad as these stories but she's draining and I don't have a lot of time for her.

@TheMostHappy

I have many but one of my favourites was when ds1 was born and I was asked to step out of a family photo so it could be of "just family" despite my marrying in 5 years previously.

My mother used to place boyfriends or girlfriends on the outside of family group photos so she could cut them out if they split up with my brother/sister. There's one photo from our childhood where she's cut out my sister (very untidily) as she was apparently spoiling the photo. My mother's scissors were an early iteration of photo shopping, she'd be unstoppable now with electronic editing if only she was tech savvy.

My in-laws drove 90mins out of their way when we were moving to a new village to look at our new house before we’d moved in. We knew nothing about it until the next time they saw us and grumbled that they drove around for an hour, but couldn’t find the house because they didn’t know the exact address from looking on Rightmove. If they’d asked we would have told them but it was complete news to us they were going. It’s probably just as well they didn’t find it, I’m not sure the people still living there would have taken too kindly to MIL & FIL nosing through the windows!

@Clearthinking

Offered our spare rooms to family in Ireland to come over and stay in, we didn't know anything about it

Gosh don't leave it there - what happened next? Did you find out about your "guests" before they turned up on your doorstep? 🌹

Well apart from varying madly between tight as a gnat’s and crazily generous my fil sometimes “forgot” to mention things, like bil was getting married, fil was widowed but in a long term relationship. Dh was best man. I expected to be sat with my parents, had made a nice outfit, but nothing fancy. Got to the wedding and I’m presented with a corsage,suddenly I’m on family pics and told I’m there as fil’s plus one. What? (Took the biscuit when I overheard one of sil’s relations say “Well, she’s a bit young for him.” Yeah because I’m 23!)

My PIL don't often give or receive Christmas/Birthday presents. They grew up in a poor country and it just isn't part of their background. One Christmas my SIL who was then a teenager encouraged her parents to buy presents for the visiting family. MIL was so excited by this that she kept opening presents meant for other people. The best bit was when she opened the present labelled to "Confused love from MIL and FIL'. It was a very nice black sweater dress. She absolutely loved it, thought it was a great coincidence that I had bought her the same thing as she had chosen for me and she kept it. She was aware that we were all laughing but couldn't understand why.

We went back to not exchanging family gifts after that!