Mother in law issues - help!!

[Sophieweston]

Hi everyone.
I've been with my partner over a year, we're very serious and looking to move in together within the next year.
We live around 4hrs from his parents, and I've met them properly around 4-5 times now.
Background:
In short, his parents are very different to me. They are quiet and very traditional, don't drink at all, quite easily offended (I find it hard to have a 'laugh' with them) but all in all, I genuinely think they are really lovely people.
Because of the above, I have found it difficult to connect with them. We visited them last weekend and it was particularly hard for me - I felt like I was a spare part. They didn't ask me a single question all weekend and I just felt a little left out. To try and help the situation, and to seem appreciative of their hosting, I offered to cook on the Monday evening and I left feeling OK with how things went.

The issue:
I was working close to their house during the week so I left my boyfriend there for a few days whilst I worked away. When I picked him up, it had been clear that he had been crying. He wouldn't tell me what was wrong whilst we were there and waited until after the 4 hr journey home to tell me.
Once home, he told me why he was upset. Whilst I had been away, his mum had been really off with him. Before I arrived, he probed her as to why she had been acting the way she had.
She said that I had upset her for a number of reasons and these were the examples she gave him:

• I was bossy in the kitchen when I cooked (I simply said "go and sit down and take a rest, I've got this") - I genuinely thought I was helping and doing a nice thing, but she's obviously taken this the wrong way.
• I was rude because I didn't eat the cake she had made and only had a small slice of the one I made and bought to their house (I didn't eat her cake because it contained cream which gives me a dodgy tummy)
• I only talk about myself in conversations (I've racked every conversation I had with her over the weekend and I really don't think this is true - like I said above, I've found that they take no interest with me and I was the one feeling like the spare part)

I don't know whether I am being deluded, and maybe I am a bossy, self indulgent rude person but I genuinely don't think I am. I've always been polite and appreciative when I stay, even feeling the way I do.

I don't know how best to approach this now. My boyfriend said he was going to have an in depth conversation with her this week. But how do I go about things my end? Should I ring/ message her, do I send flowers apologising (even though I don't agree!). I've never had this problem with anyone before and I feel genuinely cut up about the whole situation and questioning every part of my personality and who I am because of this. As you can imagine, it's taken a real toll on our relationship and I feel like (or maybe imagining) my boyfriend is questioning who I am as a person because of the things his mum has said.

Thanks for reading the lengthy post and help!!!

Utter rubbish.

If they genuinely cared about their son, they would be doing their best to be accommodating and supportive of his relationships and not imposing their strict routines on a guest. That’s very poor hosting!

The OP says they’re very religious Christians which doesn’t surprise me as the one’s I’ve met like that often have very fixed black and white views about things and are not good on compromise. They genuinely believe they are morally superior and therefore their way of living is divinely inspired and 100% correct. They’d also prefer that their son has a relationship with someone linked to their church. These are not people that can admit to making mistakes very easily, if at all.

I had trouble with my mother-in-law, whose only stock in trade was being the perfect housewife. She made it clear she preferred my husband’s previous girl friend. This ex married my husband’s brother and guess what? They abandoned his parents completely, didn’t even attend their funerals. Stay cool and remember that ( as someone told me ) Christians will always let you down. They simply ( not all of them of course) cannot live up to the standards set by Jesus Christ. Your mother-in-law may have a self esteem problem which makes her act in this ridiculous way.

I don't like other people cooking in my kitchen at all. I find it a pain in the arse, you can't relax because every 5 minutes you have to get up and show them where to find things, or explain how to use something, and they do things like chop onions on the wooden breadboard so my toast tastes of onions for days afterwards. And no-one treats my much loved knives with the same tender care as I do!

I'm 67, but it's not an age thing, I've been like it since I was in my 20s.

If you’re ever considering in the future starting a family with this guy then you really need to make sure he’s got your back and not just going to bend to his mother over everything. It’s quite easy to maintain a distance as you have been doing when you’re just two adults together but as soon as kids come then you’ll likely inevitably be expected to see more of them and then the cracks (and digs) will deepen especially if it’s a clash of values and “ways of doing things”.

Ultimately only you know if it’s something you can deal with (your MIL is unlikely to change and now she’s “snapped” once I don’t see why she won’t continue her point checking of you) so can you actually be a part of this family, or would you rather have in-laws who you can socialise with freely and easily?

OK, so this is quite like my situation with my inlaws about 12 years ago. This sounds like it's all about control: everyone has to agree with everything all the time, and conflict is avoided but by the introduction of passive-aggressive bullying.

In contrast to those saying that the husband in these situations can't change, my DH actually did. He went from being stuck in fear, obligation and guilt to his parents to seeing what they were really like, putting the relationship on a bounded footing, and reducing contact. Admittedly, we had some fun and games along the way. There was the time his mother invited us to a party ostensibly as guests, and then gave me waiting clothes and told me to serve drinks to her friends without ever asking me if I was OK with that. There was the time when we begged her to get organised to leave the house before a certain hour because we had to be somewhere, and she refused, so we were stuck in a traffic jam that made a 3 hour journey into an 8 hour one, causing us to miss our event. There was the time when we were at a family wedding when she said "Do you realise now how STAID your wedding was?" (Our wedding was not what either of us wanted but something tremendously traumatic had happened that made our much nicer original plans impossible, so this was more deeply rude and offensive than it even sounds). She's basically an outrageous cow who has no friends because she's so AWFULLLLL!

Anyway, sorting it all out was a cumulative thing, and a process, and it took time and patience, and frankly if DH hadn't been as brilliant as he is I would have cut and run. But it can be done. I think an important thing to bear in mind is that the person who is going through it is essentially undergoing a grieving process. They're often themselves participants in the family narrative that everything is lovely and happy, and realising that actually they are actually victims of bullying and control can come as quite a shock, which entails a kind of loss.

Whether your partner is worth all this trouble is very much up to you!

Your partners mum comes across to me as being quietly controlling. Shame on your partner if he’s remotely questioning your relationship. As parents imo it’s our job to love our kids and be supportive of their choices. Not for us to pick who they can or cannot love! I think it was thoughtful of you to make food and honestly the cake thing wtf?! How is that even a thing. Your partner needs to rectify this and stand firm with his mother.

@BaconChops Thanks for your message (and everyone else who's replied!! All much appreciated). I agree - I've taken some time to reflect the last few days, and although I can understand about the cooking saga to some extent, the cake comment was really scraping the bottom of the barrel.

Not mums and their sons. This mum and this son. Sometimes women don't like their son's girlfriends. Sometimes they have good cause. Sometimes the mothers are unreasonable and behave badly, like in this situation. We shouldn't perpetuate the myth that it is commonplace for mothers to have unhealthy attachments to their children, making them jealous of their partners, just because those children are boys. It's very unfair to mothers of boys, and implies the OP is likely to encounter this sort of thing regularly, when it's actually pretty extreme.

Ok