To not forgive my MIL

[BrokeTheDietAgain]

My mum died almost two years ago.

A few weeks before she died, my MIL said something REALLY horrible about her. I didn't react at the time, just changed the subject. But I can't get it out of my head.

Now each time I see MIL I just feel full of rage. I've always been pleasant to her, but recently when I see her I just struggle to be nice and polite. I mean, I am generally polite, but sometimes I'm a bit off because I just can't forgive. She probably doesn't even remember what she said

I'm seeing her this weekend. I just can't face it. I just don't like her, and that sense has increased since the last thing she said about my mum before she died was so horrible.

Don't even know what I'm asking! Maybe, how do I let this go?

@BrokeTheDietAgain Thank you. And yes, it is very hard. What helps me is knowing in my head that I'm putting on act and reminding myself it's all fake. Knowing that I'm not genuinely trying to be nice to this horrible person and I'm doing it for myself and dh to get through the event as best I can.

Seeing her does still cause me anxiety though so I understand why you don't want to.

I shared research (there is a lot) that step mothers find relationships with step children much harder and more conflict driven than those of step fathers. The same is true of relationships with MILS and SILs. Women find it much harder to bond and form relationships with MILS and SILs and stepdaughters than men do. MN likes to deal in personal anecdotal evidence. It is the nature of a forum. However, statistically it is harder for women to embrace in laws than for me. I am sure that there are a lot of sociological reasons for this but it is worth bearing in mind that most women are more likely to be hostile to their MILS than to their mothers. If you can accept this and work with it, it makes relationships easier.

If your husband takes the kids without you is she likely to say anything nasty to them or belittle them in some way?

I don't bother with my ILs & haven't for years.

We are in a different country so it makes it easier!

How does your DH feel when his mum attacks him? Instead of staying neutral, I wonder if he might actually like his wife to have his back? Then you can tell him what she said and he can help you deal with it, because presumably he’s had a lot of practice doing it!

I get it. I tolerate my MIL for the sake of my DH and 3 children who love her dearly. She and FIL are in their 80s with hardly anything wrong with them. My Dad is 10 years younger and has Alzheimers- it just seems so unfair. My parents and in laws dont get on at all, like wont even say hello to each other and it has caused many problems over the years. MIL is so patronising now about my dad. I just want to scream at her shut up, it should be you, which I know is unreasonable.

Perhaps it would make the in law haters feel better if they accepted that women find it harder to warm to in laws and step children. Men are far more tolerant in this respect. I am sure that anecdotally there will be lots of posters with valid reasons for ignoring in laws. However, many men put up with negativity from in laws and just live with it. Think of the poor son in law in Derry Girls. It is statistically so common for women to hate their MILS. It is so much easier to accept that relationships are challenging and make the best of them without driving yourself mad with fury

This is exactly how I felt. My mum was the best granny, and I always felt like the wrong grandmother had gone first. MIL was useless.

@BrokeTheDietAgain I think this might be the source of your anger - that MIL is still here and your lovely mum has gone. I get it.

I just sucked it up and tolerated as best I could. DH has elevated his mother to the sainthood, especially since she died 6 years after my mum did. Sometimes I have to insert my tongue very firmly in my cheek....

@BrokeTheDietAgain

When mum was alive I felt annoyed with my mum that she couldn't make an effort to be nice, for me. But now she's died, my anger has moved to MIL....

I think this tells us a lot - you say you have kept the peace for years and now you can't. Freud said that grief is a temporary form of insanity so it's understandable that you are experiencing feelings that are out of character for you. Are you (completely unconsciously) replicating your mums behaviour?

I think you have a lot of pent up anger and repressed words and the trauma of your mum's loss (and I am so sorry for that) is making it harder and harder to keep all that in.

You are as entitled to express your feelings and opinions as your mum or your MIL but you haven't been doing that. I think it's time for them to come out - but don't just explode at MIL and possibly say things that can't be forgotten. Do it in a safe way. Find a therapist, one experienced in dealing with bereavement and tell them how you feel. Once you have unburdened yourself in a way that can't hurt your family you will begin to see things more clearly and might be able to have a productive talk with your MIL. Or you might find you didn't need to any more.

I agree with wildlog. Your Mil made an unpleasant comment, but nobody's perfect. Unless you think your kids are at risk by spending time with her, just wave your DH off and don't see her.

If you do think your kids are at risk of harm then tell your DH why.

I don't understand the in law thing on mumsnet. Our own families are usually annoying, chaotic and maddening but we accept it because we love them. We're probably a pain in the arse ourselves. You don't have a lifelong relationship with your in laws so inevitably when they're annoying it feels worse because we don't just love them anyway.

Unless it's abusive, it doesn't matter. You didn't marry them. You can't change them so let them crack on. If you can tolerate a smear test for your health or having the footie on all afternoon for your relationship, you can nod and smile on the rare occasions you can't avoid your in laws.

How do your ‘statistics’ help the OP deal with the horrible hurtful comment her MIL made?

How do they explain the other nasty comments her MIL has made about other people?

Emotions are complex and difficult to manage at times. Everybody understands that relationships are challenging sometimes. But equally nobody has to accept any behaviour in any relationship that hurts or upsets them.

I fail to see how any of your posts are actually helpful.

Does mutual support work both ways.

So if my in laws insult me, should I expect support from my husband?

I'm so sorry for your loss.

You are grieving.

When we are grieving we find it harder to manage other people's sh*t and poor behaviour. It's totally OK if you don't want to see your MIL for a while, just say you a grieving.

If you still feel like you don't want to see her months later then that's also understandable.

You’ve lost a parent and it is fundamentally destabilising - your foundations have taken a blow.
Anger is a very normal part of grief. Knowing that intellectually didn’t prepare me for the visceral rage I would feel when my dad died.
My only advice is to give it time - maybe avoid your mil as much as you can for now. Fake a headache last minute, or whatever works in your circumstances. just step back and put your needs first for a while.

@browneyes77 Because anecdotal stories just encourage the hatred and make people feel so much worse. Accepting that such feelings are natural can make life easier. I think it is true that we are all so much more vulnerable after loss and looking for someone to blame albeit subconsciously.
Hating your MIL, probably won't make you feel better, OP. It might well create unhappiness for your husband and children. Understanding and accepting the reasons why you feel like this, might well do some good.
Hatred is such a negative and depressing emotion.You can end up feeling so conflicted and bad about yourself. It is a good thing to explore why you feel like this so that you can take steps to overcome the hatred.

I’m sorry about your Mum. You did mention that because your Mum didn’t like mil you were angry at her but then when she died you transferred the anger to mil. I mean this in the kindest way, but perhaps it may be worth you speaking to a counsellor.

You seem to think that factually explaining to your DH something that your MIL said and how it made you feel is a criticism of her; it's not, it's the truth.

"DH, I'm not going to come with you to see your parents because in X month, your mum said YZ and it still hurts. I don't think I'll be able to see her until that hurt subsides."

If you said "I think your mum is a nasty old bitch" that's different, but I'm genuinely not understanding how you wouldn't want to tell your partner in life something that's making you sad; who are you protecting here?

Do you have a relationship where you have to be jolly all the time? Women don't have to be like that anymore, it's 2023, we can point out bad behaviour, how it's made us feel and still be a good person and a good wife.

MIL says whatever she wants. About your Mum, about your DH and anyone else by the sound of it.

So, why is it that you have to stay silent? Why haven't you even told your husband what she said?

Decades of pretending! No wonder you're ready to explode! Stop being so repressed. Start speaking to your MIL in language she understands. Show your children it's not OK.

I agree with this.
You are not criticising you are telling your DH about how it made you feel - and you have a right to those feelings.
It’s about how it made YOU feel - and so the example @TheCatterall gives above is a perfect way to say it - using ‘I’ and ‘Me’

Suggestions of what the OP can do to try and regulate their emotions and deal with how they’re feeling is what will help more.

Quoting statistics on how it’s mainly women who dislike their MIL’s and telling someone to ‘accept relationships are challenging’ (which is what you said), doesn’t really seem very helpful.

Kindly, was what she said that bad? I know myself I can demonise people I don't like and make things sound worse.

A friend of mine has a mil who at times has made the odd smart/nasty comment to her. My friend has always been pleasant and helped her mil out several times since she married her husband. Recently my friend was sick and in hospital. She has a few kids and her husband is self employed. Mil meanwhile did not even ring her to see how she was and never offered to look after her grandkids despite living close by.
My friend has decided that rather confront mil that going forward she will have less contact with her and unfortunately she will be to busy when mil needs care or a taxi service.

I think in your situation you need to tell your husband what his mother said to you and how it made you feel. Let him tell his mother what she said and that it was unacceptable for her to say this. If your mil ends up with low contact from you both it's her fault.

A few years ago one of my friends told her husband one evening what she overhead his mother say about her after mil thought she hung up the phone. Her husband went to his mother's house and told his mother what she said and she was no longer welcome in his house. The mil had being doing and saying things before this they let go.
They went NC for a while after this and then due to family circumstances it became low contact.
Now mil has altizmers, her husband died recently and all mil care is on her adult kid's. My friend told me I have refused to help out on more than one occasion and I don't have time.

My SIL lost her mum and then suddenly started to really dislike our MIL. I partly understood her thoughts, her own mum was a gentle, kind and quiet lady, while our MIL is opinionated, rude and materialistic.
However, she withdrew from MIL and put her dh and dc in a position where they had to more or less disown MIL and siblings to appease her.

This has caused so much upset in the family and her dh and dc have also suffered as a result. In your situation, I would reduce the frequency of my visits to her and encourage dh to take the children to see his mum without you more often. No need for drama, it solves nothing.

My MIL has a history of storming off from us because of perceived slights. I last saw her at Easter when she said something absolutely dreadful to me and then stormed off.
I decided that was enough and I now have no contact at all. No more wife work, no more digs about my house. DP will have to step up and do the ‘wife work’ himself.
I realised that I really don’t need to see her to keep the peace. Why should I? It helps that DD is 17 so I know longer need to keep the peace in order to facilitate her seeing her grandmother. She can organise that herself.

To me, the best way forward is to speak to her on a 1:1. Tell her how you feel. Choose discomfort (i.e. having the conversation with her) over resentment. Choose your words carefully so she listens and doesn't feel attacked. I used to get very upset with my MIL almost every stay with her as she would make cutting remarks about my style of eating almost every meal time. e.g. I had a habit of adding salt 'n pepper to my food and if I couldn't see any on the table would politely ask for some. She would say "dont you like the flavour of my food!" This was just one comment of many. If I said no thank you for dessert because I was full up after the main meal, she got offended etc etc. It changed when I told her on her own how those comments made me feel.

For the sake of your DH and children I would be polite. You don't have to visit frequently but when you do why cause an issue. You just don't like her. That's fine. But your DH and children do.