When my MIL says I should be no more than a bystander?

[QueenofLindean]

My intervention, on behalf of my husband, (triggered after our kids had also been on the receiving end of a disproportionate admonishment this morning by MIL) got roundly rebuffed in this way. Making the point that I should be no more than a 'bystander' in a discussion - which had centred on trying to help restore a happy state of mind in my husband - really cut me to the quick - and probably not least as this was the only time in 17 years I have expressed a difference of opinion to my MIL. I was essentially told to butt out when trying to resolve everyone's equanimity. To get perspective, keen to get a sense of the general standing of the role /resps of a daughter in law in other family dynamics? Are you given equal pegging? Feel so churned up that my voice was dismissed by a woman who purports to be all for the sisterhood...

Thing is you don't necessarily want to be treated "like a daughter" as that varies from family to family. As in, many mums see their children as permanent kids and not the matriarch of their own family.

My own mum is quite intense, especially at the moment for various health reasons. I'd far rather my MiL did her own daily chats with/constant worry about her own daughter than me, which she does. Not the case for all of course but I have a mum plus all the complexities of that relationship to navigate.

I agree with the poster who said you'd have still been told to butt out if you were a different relative.

I’m sorry this must be a very difficult situation but I really can’t get past your spewing out various traditional phrases at every turn - feels like an intro to Wren and Martin’s grammar book. Perhaps communicating without these tucked in everywhere might help.

Sounds like MIL wasn't enjoying the holiday anyway. Lots of people used to peace and quiet at home would struggle with suddenly dharinf space with a family of 4.

Then you told her how to behave towards her grandson so she probably feels really criticised by you. So she left in a bit of a strop.

You shouldn't have criticised her. She shouldn't have stropped off.

I'd probably give her a quick text and say sorry, didn't intend to criticise you, it's just that DS has had a really tough time with his mental health. Hope you're ok.
Then I'd leave some space and let your DH take things forward with her.

OP I think what some (me included) are struggling with is when you say “DH lambasted by mum and son”, for example, whilst we all understand that as a sentence, it could describe a thousand different versions of the event. We’re having to interpret your interpretation of what happened so we have no real idea of the events that took place.
I like your writing style generally (and I love your vocabulary) but on forums like this, it’s probably better to stick to “he said x, she did y, I thought z”.

To answer your question though, does my mil think of me as a daughter? No I don’t think so but why would she? She loves me and I love her. She’s a wonderful mil, doesn’t interfere and is lovely to me every time we see each other but I am an extension of her relationship with her son and we don’t meet up on our own often at all (maybe 3 in 15 years!).

@Gemma2019 I couldn’t work out if you were being sarcastic or not. I think you are though “immediately desist”

Even the update is unclear, when you said to tell son he was loved that sounds like your son, however if she responded with don’t tell her how to parent and your op states you were butting in on behalf of your husband, the context reads it was her son. Which is it, because people are reading it both ways,

Not everyone can write coherently and sometimes it’s better to stick to fewer words.

If you had both made the house a mess, and then you told her she should show her son some love then quite frankly she was right to tell you to do one.

@QueenofLindean

Because my take on it is that your MIL told you to get lost when you reminded her that her grandson has MH issues and could do with support and being shown he is still loved (despite the argument about water on the bathroom floor ).

family resps

What does this mean? OP has used it in both plots and I can't work it out!

*posts

"Responsibilities" I think. Which is quite telling - seeing family isn't meant to be a chore you tick off!

Your MIL felt criticised, even tho she quite happily criticises herself. Often the way with people.

I mean if you speak to people like this in real life, I can see why they get annoyed with you

Sounds to me like everyone WBU due to highly strung emotions and the environment.

I'd personally just draw a line under it on this occasion if it was my first run in with MIL and start afresh at the next meeting/conversation. But then I haven't time for any drama. Life is too short.

I'd suggest next time you stay in a hotel or something. It probably seemed a great idea to her and you to all stay together but she clearly struggled with going from living alone to having what felt like teenagers invading her home.

I can understand you not wanting to upset your son over what seems to be a minor event to you, but you are used to the chaos and mess teenagers bring and from her point of view they were disrespecting her home. The older generation can often have a hardened approach to parenting, mental health issues for the young is not always understood by a generation that we're about getting on with it mentality.

I hope you all resolve cos after 17 years it all seems a bit silly to carry forward and influence relationships going forward.

Ah! Thanks Tokyo.
It's certainly a strange OP in lots of ways.

OP, I think you were fairly clear although I’m not sure exactly who said what at the pitch n putt, just that there was a general family row due to what happened earlier.

Having been a depressed teen myself, I think you were absolutely right to protect your 14 year old son recovering from depression from a huge bollocking over leaving too much water in the bathroom. It would be different if the depression had not occurred and I think the poster saying he “should be resilient enough” for his grandmother (or dad on behalf of grandmother) to tell him off about this, this is like saying he should not be ill and someone without a good understanding of mental illness (you would not say someone with a broken leg shouldn’t limp - a depressive type mental illness directly impacts on resilience by definition. Depending how fragile your teen still is at this point, it may or may not be appropriate for you or dad to have given him a very gentle reminder about not leaving a trail of destruction behind him (as many teenage boys do).

I am guessing grandmother was still seething about this as thinks you should parent more strictly, having not perhaps grasped how bad things had been with your son (or being someone from an older generation who can sometimes have very unenlightened attitudes to mental illness), and so your husband felt he was walking on eggshells a bit and was perhaps overly critical/strict with your teen at pitch and putt about something which would not normally have been an issue away from an environment where he felt his parenting style was up for scrutiny. And then arguments broke out all round with both son and grandmother getting at your husband and he then got upset (perhaps his mental health is also a bit fragile?).

I think it was a supportive thing to do as a wife and an understandable attempt to keep the peace generally that you said to your MIL that your husband could do with a hug and a reminder that not everyone hates him. However in the moment emotions were clearly running high and just like you were concerned your husband was feeling isolated and that nobody except you was “on his side”, this may have resulted in your MIL feeling isolated in that the family had essentially “closed ranks” with nobody at all “on her side” and kind of on the outside and cut out from the family, having already been criticised in how she wanted to handle things with the earlier conflict with your son. I don’t know her background but maybe spare a thought that the lockdown probably hasn’t been easy for MIL either, and I think saying she doesn’t want grandchildren disrupting her routines sounds overly harsh unless there is more to it.

If you all get on well usually this is probably all a bit of a storm in a teacup and will pass if it is allowed to and everyone kind of stays out of each other’s way a little bit and doesn’t keep things going on purpose. I know I once had a huge blow up fight with my sister when I was depressed one Christmas time and she said something really insensitive (honestly I can’t even recall the details of the fight), I said something horrible to her - which is out of character for me, but she had really wounded me and pressed my buttons on purpose at a sensitive moment like only a sister knows how to do. I was not long divorced and feeling particularly lonely/upset (my child may have been with my ex that Christmas also which doesn’t help). And then her husband got involved and said “don’t you ever speak to my wife like that again” really angrily. He was “right” that I was out of order and had stepped over the line. And I understand why as a husband he stepped in (and it’s nice that he wants to protect my sister and look out for her). However she had been pretty mean to me too at a vulnerable moment and I do remember in that moment just feeling so isolated and that it wasn’t a fair “fight” as I didn’t have a man by my side speaking up for me (which was half the reason I was feeling so upset and irritable anyway), and feeling like my sister now also wasn’t really my sister any more and like I was “cut out” from my own family. We’ve all put it behind us now and get on really well, I don’t think he holds what I said against me long term and I don’t hold what he said against him either, but I still think he should have let me and my sister resolve things on our own!

So on balance I think you were right over the shower thing but possibly it wasn’t a good move to try to intervene between your husband and mother-in-law and should have let them resolve that in their own time and way. And MIL may be feeling very much like she is “not wanted/cared about” herself and doesn’t have someone to tell your husband to give her a hug! However like I said, if you all get on ok normally it will blow over but I’d try to keep out of it now, even though I get why you stepped in too.

Yikes.. not surprised she got annoyed and left.
You criticised her and have the cheek to say it was her fault?
Blimey.

Your DS really ought to be resilient enough to being told that he's made an unacceptable mess in the bathroom by granny.

This comment made me laugh out loud, but not in a good way. Shoulds and lights are all very well, until you are dealing with a dc who just doesn’t have that resilience, and then you have to parent differently because the objective is just to keep them alive.

Sorry @fourminutestosavetheworld if it sounds like I’m getting at you. I’ve been through lockdown with a dc in emotional crisis @ODFOxQueenofLindean and I’m going to guess that, despite being told on zoom, your mil doesn’t understand; I’m not sure anyone can if they haven’t lived it.

I have an exasperated sympathy for your dh, because my mil can have a similar effect on my parenting too, if I’m not very mindful. It might be worth exploring how he feels he was parented. The ideal is to be high on love/warmth and high on boundaries/rules, and I’m guessing that your perception is that mil might be lacking on warmth?

How have you and dh come to your understanding of how to deal with ds in this crisis? Given how he faltered around his dm, I wondered if he was following your lead, rather than being part of the decision making. Has he read up or sought advice on this? Or is he just following the lead of the nearest dominant female?

It’s hard to get parenting back on track after a crisis and it’s important to work out where you’re going. Ultimately I think fourminutestosavetheworld has expressed what the goal is, and it’s important to have your eyes on that and not always be focused on avoiding the worst case scenario (something I’m grappling with too).

I don’t have a daughter relationship with my mil (thankfully), or an equal one (hah!). I think mutually tolerant and unfailingly polite is as good as it gets. Obviously I have a daughter relationship with my own dm, who does criticise me and pull me up at times because there’s a deep relationship of love and acceptance behind it. If mil spoke as freely as dm/or I spoke to her as openly as I do to my dm, we would fall out. But I’d characterise our relationship as good. But there are a lot of things off limits - I don’t get involved in her disputes with dh, and dh takes the lead in resolving problems between her and the dc or myself. Family will make up but in-law relationships are fragile.

Oh and I love your writing style.

Shoulds and lights = shoulds and oughts

It sounds like after all having your own space (in your ds' case not a good one, bless him) you were all lumped in together. OP telling your mil closing the door on a crazy bedroom and ignoring a wet bathroom after probably having a spick and span house- unfortunately I can imagine if you're all under pressure that most people I know would have been irritated. I think your DH would have been the one I'd have spoken to before my mil, he knows ds' story after all. I don't think any of you reflects any relationship, I think you're all just too cooped up and out of your comfort zone. Hope your son is ok, and that you can all end up with some form of a break after this

So you talked to you MIL about being kind to your DS, who has had a bad 18 months. She responded by telling you not to tell her how to show her love for her child. Her child is your DH though, not your DS, who is her grandchild. So this does not make a lot of sense, or, you got your wires crossed.

She's allowed to express her irritation with your DS's behaviour to her son. She may be doing this as a way of getting it out, without having a go at your DS, who she is doing her best to be kind to. She might also be saying, more practically, that if your DS is going to make a mess, your DH needs to clear it up.

This doesn't sound much to do with MIL / DIL relationships at all really. More to do with two families who have become deeply entrenched in their own ways of doing things over lockdown and are both struggling to adapt to others' company, in close proximity, for an extended period.

If the holiday house is MIL's, she will see you all as her guests, herself as your host and expect you to fit in with her ways of doing things. As guests you have to respect that. Her response to you is more about that than about who you are.

I'd be pretty pissed off with my guests, or anyone anywhere actually, telling me how to behave towards other people and specifically to be more touchy-feely, when that is not my style. It's incredibly disrespectful, patronising, arrogant, over-stepping behaviour on your part.

You can tell her about your DS's problems and what you are doing to be kind to him, in the hope she'll understand and follow suit. You cannot tell her how to behave. She is not your agent to direct.

So, from what you've said, I think the person getting the MIL / DIL relationship badly wrong here, as well as the host / guest one, was you.

You've been stuck in your own family bubble for far too long, it's altered your perspective and your behaviour. You need to re-learn social interaction.

I've just come back from a family trip visiting in laws and I have started to absolutely resent them. No, I don't think you will ever be equal to their children, that's why the "difficult MIL" is such an enduring joke/stereotype. For me, from this last visit it was every little thing from the seemingly innocuous (eg not replying to my plans on family WhatsApp but replying immediately if DH asked same questions) to just literally treating me as a second class citizen in their homes. Be proud you stood up for your son and try (as difficult as it is) to ignore MIL's tantrum.

the giant 2nd post makes it more confusing but my take away before my eyes glazed over was that your 14 year old son left a load of water on the bathroom floor, your MIL (rightly, IMO) complained and you decided not to tell him off because... no reason.

If i were your MIL I'd have gone directly to him and made him mop it up and silently judged your 60s style anti-authoritarian wishy-washy parenting.

Also OP, paragraphs can be useful. I certainly find them so

No @Brefugee you've got the second part of that all wrong. OP clearly states there have been mental health issues.