Warning - "You can't choose who your children marry"

[MHMIL]

If your mother in law, in front of you, proclaimed to your spouse and their siblings.

"Parenting doesn't get easier as the kids get older. Just remember you can't choose who they decide to marry."

Would you take it to mean anything other than that she hates that her son chose you to marry?

(No other of her children in law were in the room at the time. I'm the only daughter in law. DH has sisters.)

I'm letting DH visit without me next weekend after this 'discussion' last weekend.

It's not the first time she's made it perfectly clear she thinks my family get everything wrong and her way is the right way.

It's just not worth the damage to my mental health.

You know when you meet someone then meet their family then decide to marry them, that's when you choose your in laws...except if you've been forced to marry someone against your will. Assuming that's pretty rare, marry someone whose family relationships will work for you whether that's living together, no contact or anything in between. Choose wisely.

Should have retorted that the problem with getting married is that there's no accounting for your partners parents.

@MHMIL And thankfully DH is firmly in my camp. Breaks his heart to see me upset and he gets very angry at her - although I the stop him saying anything to her as I know it wouldn't help and I'd rather just he tell her I'm busy/unwell than try and create any drama.

If I could give myself one piece of advice for the last 20 odd years, it would be not to keep quiet to try and avoid the drama. It doesn't work, or it didn't in our case. It just escalated. Any tiny attempts to point out poor behaviour were met with the criticism of being too sensitive and she'd carry on regardless so we'd just pull back and keep quiet for the sake of peace. It didn't create peace though, it created a monster. She became very underhand, quietly garnering support by being untruthful about events etc. It was toxic and deeply unpleasant to have to deal with. Hopefully, your situation isn't as bad, but I just wanted to flag keeping quiet isn't always the best policy. Good luck x

Tbh, because you were in the room I’d assume she didn’t mean you, either one of the sisters’ husbands or some friend’s child’s spouse was on her mind.

But if you’re convinced you know her tone and it meant you then you know best. My MiL makes her views on my inadequacies pretty clear, mostly I just ignore her these days as I can’t deal with the drama.

True. The same goes for that trite expression 'a wedding is the joining of two families!' No it isn't. It's the joining of two individuals. And this is true in both a legal and (usually) a practical sense.

I married my husband, not my in-laws. I doubt many people are under the illusion that, beyond other weddings and funerals, the two 'joined' families will have any really meaningful interaction in the future.