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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Interfering MIL or

87 replies

RosaRosa · 12/02/2008 22:39

I am a very happy and content SAHM of one two year old DD. In my previous life I worked and saved v.hard to enable me to stay at home and look after my DD, and we have a busy life together.

My MIL lives 30 mins away and has a daughter that lives around the corner from her with her family (inc. DD and DS). She works 4 days and my MIL looks after her kiddies a couple of days a week.

I have a v.close relationship with my Mum who lives 60 miles away and see her once a week. My MIL I think would like to enjoy the same privilege and spend a day a week with me and DD. However, I don't have a lot in common with her and she is a heavy smoker which I don't agree with in front of DD. I also feel that she thinks that her son pays for me to stay at home with my feet up (SO not true on both counts) and she is therefore not intruding.

I make excuses when she rings asking to come over and it's become a bit of a bug bear. I feel if she wants that kind of relationship she could spend time with her own daughter on her days off. DH and I make sure she sees us and DD once a fortnight.

Am I being unreasonable . . . ?

OP posts:

WilliamGray2009 · 07/07/2008 12:08

I agree with LLPJ. The poor woman hasn't actually said or done anything. The OP is full of "I think she feels" and "I feel she thinks".

jumpingbeans · 07/07/2008 12:11

How good of you to allow this woman to her her grandchild twice a month

Twelvelegs · 07/07/2008 12:15

I would visit when other children are around, kill two birds and all that. Just request that she doesn't smoke.

handlemecarefully · 07/07/2008 12:18

It wouldn't kill you to visit her or vice versa once per week and probably would be nice for dd. Why don't you go and see her (rather than the other way around) - that way you can leave after an hour or so.

I think MIL's get a raw deal, and I am only sorry (too late since she died a fortnight ago) that I didn't make more effort with mine

handlemecarefully · 07/07/2008 12:20

The thing about the thread re nice MILs - I should have contributed

ranting · 07/07/2008 12:23

Think that thread needs resurrecting, can't remember if I posted on it.

sparklesandnowinefor4months · 07/07/2008 12:24

I was just wondering why this thread had been brought up again? it was started in Feb

hopefully the OP has resolved her MIL problem

ranting · 07/07/2008 12:27

Didn't notice that, just saw it this morning in Active Convos.

AbbeyA · 07/07/2008 12:59

I was a bit surprised to find it come up again, I didn't notice that it was an old one to start with. I think that I will stop answering MIL threads-I don't know why they are so depressing.

handlemecarefully · 07/07/2008 14:43

I'm afraid that I am far too important, busy and involved in RL than do more than pop into Mumsnet for 5 minutes here and there. Simply can't be checking authenticity / date / origins of threads

right back at yer !

handlemecarefully · 07/07/2008 14:44

Sorry meant to add to demonstrate meant in levity!

Elkat · 07/07/2008 15:36

At the risk of being flamed, there always seem to be a big divide on these flames between women who have sons and those who have daughters.

Women who have daughters seem to accept/ think that it is natural that a woman wants to spend more time with their mum, and that closeness in a relationship is usually not replicated with a MIL (of course, there are always the exceptions...)

On the other hand, those mothers of boys who face the prospect of being the MIL in the future (rather than the mother's mother) always want to reject this view and say that the child should have equal access to both grandparents.

I fear never the twain shall meet. I have only got daughters, so guess which side of the fence I fall on?

That said, I agree with a pp that as it is your DHs family, its his responsibility to make arrangements with his family, not yours.

Elkat · 07/07/2008 15:37

sorry, posts and lots of otehr mistakes

JordTyler · 07/07/2008 16:03

Just wanted to say i don't have a MIL and i would give anything for my kids to have even 5 min with her as they never have, and never will (BC 9 years ago).

On my other hand her daughter is around(SIL) to more than make up for any aggravation i'm missing. In fact i have at times thought about large cliffs and the noise she would make being chucked off it! She lives right next door, never knocks and feeds my son what ever takes her fancy, whenever she wants, (breakfast, dinner, and tea times) which is always sweets. Steals my hoover(doesn't have 1?), smokes in my house(has been told hundred times) and is a general gob shite!!!

But loves my kids to death
I think she may be satan? or does someone else have him in there family. LOL

handlemecarefully · 07/07/2008 16:06

Lovely theory Elkat, but where do mothers of both fit in?

AbbeyA · 07/07/2008 21:21

Probably mothers of both are supposed to be closer to their DDs children!! The whole thing is rubbish! My mother has both and she is just as close to my brother's children as mine. I had absolutely no idea that there were 2 classes of grandparent until I started reading mumsnet!

tryingtoleave · 08/07/2008 05:21

I think both grandmothers should have equal access and involvement with their gcs (if that's what they want). But the personal relationship between daughter and mother cannot necessarily be replicated with a mil. My mil said she wanted me to be like a daughter. I guess that was nice of her, but I have a mother. And I find her intensly irritating and very different from me.. So although she stays with us as much (if not more) than my parents and I won't stand in her way as to her relationship with dgcs I can't actually enjoy her company or look to her for advice like I would my mother. And when it comes to issues of my comfort - like who I want around at the time of labour and birth - I am going to want my mother.

AbbeyA · 08/07/2008 08:29

I would agree, tryingtoleave, a mother/daughter relationship can't be replicated with a MIL. If I am completely honest with myself I feel the same way but I think that you have to work at it.
As a MIL I would expect it to be a different relationship, but valid in its own right.
I have always treated the grandmothers equally. I hate the sort of message where the MIL is cut out and is supposed to be the one that has to do all the understanding.
The sort of message where the mother is around at the birth but MIL is expected to wait 2 weeks because she is only a visitor and not family or where the mother is happy to let her DCs stay with her mother on their own but not the MIL or where DIL wouldn't dream of seeing MIL unless she is forced to and never without her DH.
It is like any other relationship, you have to work at it. My MIL has her irritating ways but over the years I have come to really appreciate her good points. (My own mother has her irritating ways and I certainly do!).

ssd · 08/07/2008 08:41

agree abbeya

WinkyWinkola · 08/07/2008 09:04

You will be a MIL one day. Same old, same old.

Each relationship is unique so you can't just say, "She's family therefore she deserves this, that or the other," That would be a carte blanche to bad behaviour. A lot of the MIL bashing that goes on here is because the MILs can (believe or not!) be witches who simply can't let go of their little boys who are now men and think they should be able to behave exactly as they wish regardless of their DILs preferences.

RosaRosa, you see her once a fortnight. That's plenty. Your DD can ask to see more of her when she's older, if that's what she wants.

You sound like you're doing quite enough already. After all, you have your own life and your own stuff to be getting with now.

YANBU. Definitely not. You do more than a lot of people including me!

leogirl · 09/07/2008 09:44

sometimes its easier for DILs to stay away and let the DH and GC visit the MIL themselves - esp if it means the MIL doesn't get a chance to upset the DIL and if it avoids any atmosphere (or worse) in front of the GC - surely??? I don't see it as being sad at all, in fact I think I'm pretty generous considering how hurtful my MIL has been in the past !!! Suits everyone, my DH sees her mum without the hassles of worrying about a cat fight, the GC see their gran - we're all happy.

seeker · 09/07/2008 09:55

I don't see how you can have threads complaining that grandparents treat their grandchildren differently in terms of presents and so on and lots of people agreeing, then another thread saying that it's OK for one set of grandparents to see their granchildren once a week and the other set only once a fortnight.

If I was the grandma who lived 30 minutes away I would be very sad that my dil was prepared to drive 120 miles a week to take the children to her parents but I wasn't welcome to pop in and see them once a week even though I live really close.

Oh well, what goes around comes around, I suppose.

Rosaline · 09/07/2008 09:55

totally agree with leogirl- this is how I do it now.

AbbeyA · 09/07/2008 10:08

I think that what goes around comes around. I treat my PIL like much loved members of the family as did my parents and so I fully expect to have a good relationship with any future DILs. Over possessive DILs will probably find that they have problems when they become MIL, unless they have learned to let go.

BananaSkin · 09/07/2008 10:15

As a Mum of three boys, I'd be disappointed in my DIL felt the same. I have the opposite problem though, a MIL who finds excuses not to see us!!

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