To feel sad that I'll only be a MIL / other mother / other nan

[Thisismynamenow]

Following another post where OP is blatantly creating double standards between the frequency and allowance of MIL visiting over her DM, I feel very sad that this is the case for most people.

MN seems to demonise MILs and the 'Inlaw' family to a point where they should only be tolerated and visited as infrequently as possible and only out of duty not desire.

My MIL is hard work with multiple addition needs and narcissism as a result of past trauma so I don't have that usual MIL experience, but I do make lots of effort, go shopping with her, invite her for dinner regularly and spend alot of time with the DH side of the family.

My mom doesn't like her MIL either because my mom wasn't good enough for my dad apparently. I don't actually know anyone who likes their MIL :(

I have a baby son, and future children are likely to be sons (my DH family is mainly boys). I love my son massively but sad I'll likely always be a mother of sons. Sad because mother of sons always seem to be the other mother, the tolerated and hated one, some for good reason but others just because your not the DILs mom.

I hope to raise my son(s) to be independent, loving and committed, and would eventually love a DIL (or SIL whatever he wants) I could have a great relationship with rather than the negative one relayed on here. But reading all these posts makes me feel it's never going to happen and I'll just be the tolerated mother.

Is this just a MN thing hating MIL or is this reallife?

MN generally gives a negative view of everything. Look around you at RL relationships with MILs. Are they really all that bad? For every unpopular MIL who is not allowed to see the grandkids as much as she would like I can think of one paternal grandmother who is much more involved with her grandchildren than the maternal grandmother. It's the luck of the draw, whether you have a daughter or a son.

yabu my MIL is lovely and an equal grandparent to the DC.

She actually helps with childcare so is an angel imo :)

My husband is one of 4 boys. Only one of his brothers has kinds, 4 sons. I assumed we would have boys but we had 2 girls.

I get on ok with his mum. Don't see her that often even though she's down the road.

I really like my MIL. I've never had to post about her because there's nothing to ask advice about when it comes to our relationship.

You're making an awful lot of assumptions!

I'm a mother-in-law, and get on really well with my son's wife! She always involves us in our grandson's lives, makes sure they visit us, and we're just back from a few days looking after them.

You will be the key when your son meets the girl he wants to spend his life with, be friendly, welcoming, and don't judge their choices. I had a MiL who was interfering, and I learned from that experience. I embraced my role as grandmother, there to help when asked, but doing things their way. If I'm honest they're better parents than I ever was, because things have changed in the 30+ years since my children were born!

I was hopeful I'd get on with my MIL as she seemed straight talking but lovely and I adored my FIL who has sadly passed away. However my MIL has made it very clear she hates me and my family (she is jealous of my parents and resents her son spending any time with them). Despite trying to include her she has been vile over the years so now the end result is I see her as little as possible. Sad as I would have preferred for things to not be as they are now, but life is too short.

I absolutely adored my mother-in-law. She died just before lockdown and we all still miss her so much. I love my own mum, but my MIL was far more family oriented and to be honest the relationship was simpler and we were probably closer. I spoke to her several times a week, and came to stay with the kids whenever we were able (sometimes without my husband).

She treated me as family very quickly, didn’t interfere in me and my husband’s relationship, she loved him very much, but was never possessive in any way, just loved and supported us all. She really loved the kids. That made me so happy. No piece of family news was too small for her to care about. She had a busy life, but called regularly (as did I) but was never offended if it wasn’t a good time or we couldn’t visit. It wasn’t always perfect, and we had to do some negotiating around boundaries with the kids (grandma‘s rules and grandma‘s house, mine in ours, mine for all food and sleep), which we mostly managed calmly and tolerantly on both sides. I think I was a good daughter in law, but it was so easy to love her. Raise your sons to be good men and, treat your son’s future partners with love and kindness and don’t interfere in their relationship, and hopefully any future daughter-in-laws (or son-in-laws) will do the same!

YABU. MN isn’t a community with a hive mind so “MN demonises” doesn’t make sense. That’s your interpretation of comments that you see. When there’s a wish to wish to see in-laws less often than parents, there’s a reason for it based on those people’s bad behaviour and attitudes. Sometimes it’s the MIL who is preferred over the parent.
As pp have said, threads on MN are not representative of the majority of family relationships, because most of the time people are posting about a problem.

My MIL is one of my favourite people ever!

I love my MIL! I find the people that have issues with their MIL are usually the ones who are hard work themselves! (Not every time but the vast majority!)
At the end of the day, she raised my DH, and while he's not perfect, he's still the person I love and without her raising him the way she did, he wouldn't be. I don't see much difference between my own mum and my MIL, they're both lovely and both come with their challenges 😂
And they're both fabulous grandma's to my DC, so I couldn't really ask for more! 🥰

I don't have my Mum anymore, and I've always got on very well with my MIL - better than she does with her own son (now my ex).
I think only getting to know my MIL as an adult means our relationship is very different to the one I had with my Mum, which always had the child-mum element (wanting to please, sibling rivalry, reflecting on my own childhood when I became a mother myself). There's none of that with my MIL and we have a very mature relationship. She sadly has dementia now and I think (again because she is not my Mum) I am finding it easier than her daughter to spend time with her.

I hope my two sons can see it's a positive thing and that they will have good relationships with their MILs (if they have them!) and I won't feel threatened by this. I'd hope that any DIL's wouldn't stand in the way of my good relationship I have with my sons and in turn I hope I can be a good Mum to them as they grow their own families.

Not true in our case. I am very close to my mum but she lives further away. We also have a time limit of how long we can be be together before we start grating on each other. MIL lives closer, is younger and has more energy. We can also coexist more easily without the mum/daughter dynamic. She sees much more of our DD than my mum does for all these reasons.

Remember the people who come on mumsnet to moan about their MILs are the ones who are not happy. Most are rubbing along quite well and have no need to talk about that on a forum.

I loved my MIL. She treated me like a daughter. I miss her.

I have a very difficult relationship with my mil but my mother had a great one with hers and she has a great one with my brothers partners so I don't think it's clear cut..

Also, similar to a PP, I was very excited for who I would end up being with and looked forward to having a lovely mother in law, perhaps sisters in law too so have had a lot of grief to work through that the relationship has for the most part been very hurtful and horrible despite my best efforts

I despise my mother in-law. I’m always pleasant and try my best and there’s never been a fall out but we keep our distance. Our children see her three times a year and they see my parents twice a week.

I’m not close to my mum and she’s never been interested in spending much time with me or my dcs and had never given me any practical support with my dcs or spends any time with us really . My mil has a lot of issues and without going into it I can’t leave the dcs with her and she wouldn’t want to mind them anyway. So absolutely zero babysitting/childcare etc from mil or mother. I always treat them both with kindness and respect. As a mum of only boys I will do my best to be kind , respectful and hope for the best .
I honestly believe in investing time and energy into a good group of friends , i do think unfortunately that mils often can’t do anything right tbh and get excluded and made out to be the enemy so I hope to have my own life when older with my solid group of friends (who also all have boys!!) .
I have a genuine question ; my mil doesn’t and I’ve never expected any help from her but if I said nicely and respectfully that I didn’t want to do childcare but would love to spend whatever time together that works for them, would dils accept this do you think and be fine about it ?? I had dcs relatively young and now am back working and years later if I’m lucky do be alive to see my grandkids , I want to enjoy my life and not have to go back to minding kids . I think that’s a persons right but I’ve seen on here , “mil doesn’t ever look after the kids /help so then they aren’t allowed to have a relationship as they don’t want to help” .
I just think that’s so shit, my mil doesn’t help but I’m so happy to facilitate her relationship with our dcs.

I get on much better with my MIL than my own mother, to the extent that she'd be my first choice to look after my DC if it were necessary for some reason. If you have a good relationship with your son(s), are generally supportive and (when the time comes, and assuming that they choose nice partners) offer help if you want to but refrain from meddling/criticising you'll be fine.

I love my DIL and I know she feels the same about me. So no, it isn't a given that you have to be the other mother/grandmother.

I also have two daughters and one of them I never see because her husband doesn't like me, tbh he doesn't seem to like anyone, so I suspect that says more about him than me, and sadly, she seems to have taken on his opinion.

My other daughter has a lovely partner and I have a fantastic relationship with him.

My MIL and I didn't have a warm relationship, lets just say she tolerated me, as she did her other DIL.

A good MIL/DIL relationship is all about attitude. Make any future DIL feel welcomed and show her you want to get to know her and like her, even learn to love her.

The relationship doesn't have to be over shadowed by jealousy and bitchiness. Your DIL isn't your rival for your son's affections and she isn't, usually, trying to steal him away from you.

Treat her like a friend from the beginning and, again hopefully, she'll end up being a friend.

Obviously, this only works if the DIL is also willing to meet you half way but if you start out being warm towards her then you've done your best. The rest will be down to her.

It’s a bit like a single woman having a browse on Mumsnet then starting a thread about how she longs to have a loving and respectful relationship with someone but has now learned (from reading Mumsnet) that it will never happen. All men are abusive assholes who don’t help with the housework, can’t look after their own children, want sex on tap and will look elsewhere if you don’t provide it etc etc, according to the threads on here. But obviously I don’t start threads talking about my amazing husband who more than pulls his weight in all areas and never pressures me into sex, has never raised his voice to me or called me a nasty name, ditto for the other women in the same position as me. People also aren’t going to start threads going on about how amazing their MILs are and how well they get on with them.
Also agree with PP that your ‘issue’ is an invented one at the moment anyway, you have no idea what the sex of any other children will be!!

My MIL lives with us. And it was my suggestion,

My parents were abusive. From the age of 7 I was brought up by my paternal grandparents.

Its not automatic that the mothers of sons are lesser than the mothers of daughters. It’s about the relationship you build with your children and their partners.

My MIL built a relationship with me as a person, she took time to get to know me and my likes and interests. She and my late FIL have never just seen SIL or I as extensions of their sons or incubators of grandchildren.

Im going away next weekend with MIL and my Other-MIL (the Mum of DH’s late first wife). It’s not always doom and gloom.

You’ve made a lot of assertions for someone without both sides of the experience. Most of it rubbish. People come on here for a good moan, you’re hardly likely to get ‘we get on brilliantly’ posts a lot.

My MIL was utterly lovely and there's not a day that goes by that I don't miss her.
In fact, as grandparents go, they were the better ones. They got the balance between loving support/occasional assistance and respecting us as a family /giving us our space in that regard perfectly. If I'm half the MIL to my son's wife as MIL was to me, she'll be loved, supported and respected in her role as a mother and wife.

Im meh about this.

I'd be happy to not have a pain in the arse daughter like me who reaches out for mummy every time she needs a bit of help with the kids or whatever 🤣 bliss..... id be able to watch my biddy TV shows without interruption OR carry on working without feeling guilty I should do more as her mum.

But I'd probably be equally happy if one of my boys needed similar help and I could provide it if I wasn't working still.

My DP goes to his mums every weekend with the boys, they play footy n stuff or just watch netflix and slob about at grans house while I get a bit of peace. I don't see the IL's from one month to the next 😳 they don't seem to mind though😂

Its not a sex thing, its how they are raised combined with their personalities!

YANBU to want that - as a mum of three boys, I worry a little about this too. But YABU to be worried because of what you're reading on here. I genuinely don't know a single person that kept parents or parents-in-law away post birth, I don't know anyone who seems to have the very insular ideas about their own 'little family' <barf>. Most people seem to rub along quite well, so just don't be a nutter and everything should be ok