To think MIL is rubbish/favouritising

[Happygoclucky]

Husband has a sister who has a son and daughter. We have 2 sons and a daughter. MIL frequently favours her daughters children and spends lots of time with them. My children often feel like an afterthought. Most recent issue was halfterm. My MIL does not work, she chose to spend 3 out of the 5 days in the week of halfterm with her daughter and daughters DC. She didn’t ask me to come along on their days out and didn’t call or text once to arrange something with my children. Previous halfterm I asked her to spend time with myself and my DC but she had plans. She also spent time with her daughter and daughters DC that week too.
When she is around my children (when we take them to visit their gran) she is great with them and seems to care about them. Other than that she doesn’t make any effort. It is the noticeable favouring of the other grandchildren that hurts my feelings. For example she recently took her other grandkids out to the cinema, when I made it clear that my sons would have enjoyed going to the cinema too she gave me £10 to take them to see a film. The point I was making was that I wanted her to spend time with them, it seems to go over her head though.
I don’t think that she is completely oblivious to the fact that she spends more time with sister in laws DC though because if I ask her what she’s been up to (when I know she’s been out with sis in law and children) she will change the subject and will miss out the parts where she’s taken the kids out.

we have butted heads over the years over similar issues and it always ends in tears, she doesn’t take criticism well and I’m afraid of the arguments if I do speak my mind.

My MiL is the same. She's never bothered with DH so I had reasonable cause to expect she'd extend that lack of interest to his DC. I was surprised when for the first year she was never away from our place (lives 2 hours drive away). But once DC had passed the cute baby stage she got bored of playing with the pretty dolly and reverted to type.

I don't know what manner of relationship she has with his sister's children, but assume this is a lot more interactive.

Competition is pointless in these situations: either you're willing to accept the relationship (if it benefits your DC) on the terms on which the DGP offer it, or you're not, in which case you can withdraw. Relationships differ, and I don't necessarily think the social fixation with making everything completely equal is conducive to harmonious family relationships. A lot of the DiL/MiL conflict seems to stem from that sense of competition, or concern with how other family relationships are conducted and how much time they are getting as opposed to you.

IMO all that is pointless. It seems to be the natural order of things that a DiL will prefer her own parents, and that when in-laws have both sons and daughters, they will tend to favour the daughter's children.

That's just the way it is.

Have you ever invited her to something just you and her?

In fairness though, her relationship with her own daughter is always going to be different to the one with you.

I get you feeling jealous that your mum works and you get less time with your mum than sil gets with her mum. But that’s kind of just the way things are.

Mother of adult men often are told they want to see their grandkids too much or feel they are imposing. It’s often more relaxed with their daughters. I have seen this quite a lot in real life. It’s rarely the same

I don’t know why you want to spend time with her, she sounds like she’s annoyed you taking her youngest boy away from her and is still punishing you for that. Someone like that is never going to be capable to logical thought.

Just step back and let DH manage how much the kids see her. You don’t need to facilitate this as she’s acting like a spoilt brat.

How much is being organised/instigated by her though vs by her daughter? If it's just that her daughter instigates a lot and organises things earlier than you, your MIL can hardly be said to be at fault for accepting the invitations when she has no plans.

Have you actually asked your MIL if she'd like to do x and then asked her to let you know what date would work? If you're expecting her to instigate everything or be available for selected dates you choose, you're not being very fair/ making it easy for her.

If she's taking them the cinema it should be all or none.

It’s not always that simple though
. I did loads of things with my mum when the kids were young, that they shouldn’t have had to duplicate with my nephews just because they did them with mine. We often went to the zoo in the summer with my parents-I arranged it and paid and they drove/made a picnic. I wouldn’t expect them to have to arrange a similar visit for my nephews just to even things up.

Could have written the same, except MIL's other GC are BIL's.... So we don't even have the mother/daughter bond excuse!

My mother has always been dreadful at conflict management, as were my grandparents (her PiL). Occasionally it hurt me that they saw more of my cousins but I knew neither were going to extend an olive branch to the other so I just got on with my life.

If you want your MiL to have more contact with your children then it’s your responsibility to facilitate this.

And like you, she's generally good with them when we see her one on one.... But the difference is oh so noticeable if we're altogether. Extra attention and just things like eg, if at a wider family picnic, she brings food for them, whereas we bring our own etc. We all stayed at a big house together one summer and she got up with the other GC, made them breakfast, didn't offer our DC any, etc.

Latest thing is her thinking DC2's birthday is earlier than what it actually is!! No way would she forget the birthdays of her golden GC 🙄

I think you have sabotaged the relationship yourselves by demanding that she spends time with your kids and now your DH "calling her out" when he finds out she has spent time with her other grandkids. It's not a surprise that she wants to spend much more time with her daughter and her kids if that relationship is nice and uncomplicated. I know I would feel the same as I hate that type of confrontational behaviour and I value my own happiness too.

It won't be equal, I don't know much in life that is, I am happy and have taking my child be happy what you do have not what you don't

You are the only one to lose in all this to be honest no matter how much you try and convince yourself you are thinking about your kids, it is you feeling jealous that is causing you issues

My exPIL are exactly the same.
My ex has three siblings. All their kids are favoured over mine, and always have been. MIL especially has a hierarchy of favouritism, with the children of her daughters being favoured over those of her sons, then the daughters of her daughters being favoured over the boys.

She also favours her daughters over her sons. I have told my children that it is not personal to them. I'd happily never have them see my children again, but sadly I can't stop their father taking them to see them. And my kids do like to see their cousins, which doesn't happen unless they see the grandparents.

If she's taking them the cinema it should be all or none.

Piffle. In our family we had one GC who was 20 and the youngest was about 2. Why on earth should the grandparents not have taken the 20 year old to the pub because the 2 year old couldn't go?

It is what it is, and if the MIL doesn't want to spend time with OP, her DH or their DCs that is up to her.

I cannot believe how many here find MIL behaviour acceptable. OP has said her children have noticed how they are being treated differently. This is not acceptable. I constantly read here how behaviour like this is very damaging to children and I agree.

You have to prioritise your children and put their welfare and wellbeing first. If that means staying away from her and keeping your children from her then so be it. She has made her choices clear. She knows what she is doing is wrong but does it anyway. Stop forcing the relationship, stay away with your children and do something they will enjoy without being made to feel second best.

Yes I can relate.

If we do see them all together it is painfully obvious. She will move mountains for her daughters kids. The ask nanny for something and they get it straight away. Mine ask for attention and she tells them to wait or she’s busy etc. she jumps out the chair for the other children. I avoid seeing them all together for that reason because my eldest children have made the odd comment about it and I don’t want them to notice or feel second best.

the complicating fact is my husband supports his mom financially (it’s too complicated to go into) so she relies on him.

This is a more common than people think. We have a similar situation with DP's parents. Only saw our DCs when we/DP took them there, never made the effort in the other direction. DP has asked them repeatedly over the years to spend time with our DCs and they always responded they would, but nothing came of it. Even after youngest was diagnosed with autism and DP virtually begged them to have a closer relationship with DS. Responded as before, but again it was just talk.

They moved near to us a few years ago and we thought this would be the ideal time to try and forge some kind of relationship between them and the kids, but shortly afterwards SIL decided to move too so she could live close to them, so the status quo remained. We've just given up now. Oldest is 18, youngest 14 and the movement has passed. DCs see the difference in how their cousins are favoured, basically have zero relationship with DP's parents and have no desire to have one now either.

She’s not telling you, because she knows you get funny about it, so now she feels guilty for spending time with her own daughter and grandchildren and ends up lying about. Either way she can’t win unless she invites you to everything too. But it may be that it’s too much for her with all the grandchildren. It’ll never be equal, she will always favour her daughter over you. You hit the nail on the head when you said you’re jealous, because your Mum still works. You just need to accept it.

We are very tied in with them, without out-ing possible details that make me identifiable! so can’t cut contact with them.

I do feel as though my mental health is better the less time we spend with them, it’s easier when I don’t have to have a front row seat to my children being ignored.

Yes, I try and avoid too much time altogether. I think though that the only way to avoid building up resentment is to just try and accept it as it is. At the end of the day, you can't change her behaviour, only the way you react to it.

It is hard, it's still a work in progress for me, but easier than it was.

The difficult thing for me is that my own mother died when the DC were tiny (and am LC with my father due to alcoholism), so MIL is their only grandmother.

I am sorry to hear about your Mum. That must be hard.

yes you are so right, I can only control the way I react. I can’t force her to be the gran I want my children to have.

thankyou for replying to me.

Stop trying to compete for her time versus what she spends with her grown-up daughter, because you're never going to win that one. Accept that you are her DIL and therefore your relationship is going to be as close and adjust your expectations accordingly.

She's probably off with you because she thinks you're trying to catch her out every time you see her about what she's been up to with her other DGC. She must be tired of having to justify herself and is probably avoiding you rather than face another grilling.

I meant to say, Accept that you are her DIL and therefore your relationship ISN'T going to be as close!

So she isn't willing to start the conversation about how much time she spends with your kids like even trying to arrange an afternoon out together, but she is willing to take money from their father and thereby reduce the amount of money that you have to spend on your own children???
(this is in relation to this comment you made @Happygoclucky: "the complicating fact is my husband supports his mom financially (it’s too complicated to go into) so she relies on him.")

My honest advice is talk to your DH and as he has already seen that his mother clearly favours one set of grandchildren to the other, he gets to make a decision. Does he continue to financially support a person who doesn't want to make any time to spend with his children or not? Does he continue to expose his children to someone who, without their father (i.e. him) intervening, wouldn't actively seek them out to spend time with them?

The fact that she is so blatant in her actions is shocking.

Your DH has some serious soul searching to do and some hard truths are in his future. Some even harder truths and reality are in your MiL's future I would wager too.

The kids are going to spot it sooner rather than later and they are going to start commenting on how one set of cousins gets to spend more time with Granny than the other, do more things with Granny than the other.

I wouldn't be allowing the kids to be around someone that didn't want them around (unless I brought them around, if you get me).

This sounds like a very complex dynamic. I know lots of female friends who see their mums/get on with their mums way more than they’re in laws. I don’t know anyone that financially supports their MIL. In my
group of friends/family, it’s generally the parents who have much more spare cash! Is she struggling for money? Does her daughter pay for days out they do? Is this arrangement likely to end at any point? I wouldn’t be taking cinema money off her if she has no cash!

Tbh she's spending time with her dd. Dds and mothers tend to have a close relationship. Me and my dm went to the pantomime with my dc. My dbro invited dm when he was up in the area to go and see the pantomime when it was Christmas time with his dc. The point I'm making its likely her dd is inviting her to these events and they spent the time together op. Do you invite her out with you and your dc other than the one time she had plans? The fact you've butted heads is very telling she doesn't feel particularly close with you in the same way as she does her dd.

My DC’s cousins were taken on a camping trip by PIL years ago and my DC of the same age was not asked. MIL tried to keep it quiet- just said they were away with friends (which was true) when I suggested an activity. It got awkward when I invited BIL & SIL plus their Dc to something on that weekend and SIL had to tell me that the Dc were away with the PIL.
SIL said they were only taking her DC because their friends were taking their GDC but I think what upset more was the secrecy and SIL wasn’t happy about it either.