Why are some MIL so bad?

[Cupofteaandbiscuits]

Genuine question. What happens to some seemingly lovely women when they become MILs? Why do they go from nice to nasty?

mine was lovely until we had DC then nothing I did was right. Constant criticism of our parenting my favourite being that I should be feeding DD her allergen as it will toughen her up!

I do think about this and hope that I don’t become a MIL that future daughter / son in laws don’t hate me.

Could that be because this is MUMSnet and DILs vastly outnumber MILs?

I’m not just basing this on mumsnet

That's a good point! I wonder if it's the opposite on Gransnet

I’m generalising but I think the demographic that I imagine largely post on MN - young mothers 30-40 - are very unforgiving and intolerant toward older people and particularly those outside of their biological family.

I can understand this, they’re the social group most likely to be juggling a thousand and one things and probably in survival mode. But what happens in survival mode is less capacity for patience and empathy. I’ve seen it in my own family - the strained, irritable DIL becomes the MIL herself and maybe understands some of that behaviour she was once so hyper-critical of.

So it’s not necessarily that MILs are ‘so bad’ - it’s that those judging MILs as being ‘bad’ are at a point in their lives where they have the least capacity for anything outside of their own worldview.

I have a horrible mother in law. She hates me but because her son married me and we now have a dd, she is pretend nice to me. She judges me, criticises me amd continues her shitty ways, but with a sickly sweet voice instead of out and out shouting.

Meanwhile, my son is getting married this year and I adore my future dil. She is an angel and I've told her so from day one. I couldn't be more supportive and basically, kind and lovely to them both.

I am not dumb enough to be mean to her even if I didn't like her, because I value my son and respect his choices!

Maybe it's because MILS don't post or are of an older generation that won't wash their dirty linen in public?

Not the bashing ,no . Gransnet is no way near the venomous trash pit as mumsnet

My MIL is an angry narcissist. My FIL only cares about himself and money. Vile people.

My MIL never liked me from moment she met me. I detest visiting but try to view the situation with compassion. I don't dislike her but wish we got on better and she could see beyond my background. She isn't very nice to my partner either. The other day I asked him was she always this negative and he said "yes, always."
It is what it is.

Mine was just an evil person who now seems to have the beginnings of dementia from long term alcohol abuse and no longer hides her disdain. She engineered that contact with DH’s siblings only went through her, and sadly told lies about me to the others to make me look like the bad guy stealing her son. They don’t know anything of what she’s said and done. She wanted to keep her son smashed into the ground so she could rescue him. When he became successful and just wanted to see her socially, she cut him off, but told everyone it was me stopping him see her! She still tries to beat him down still so she can swoop in.

My MIL basically has no life of her own outside of her grown children (who are all in their 30s and 40s). It leads to no end of trouble because she is constantly obsessing over what they do and interfering. I'm her only daughter in law - my husband has two brothers but they go home to mummy every holidays like good boys. I really don't think she likes that DH puts me above her - not that he normally has to choose, but e.g. she was put out that he cancelled a visit to her because I was in hospital having a complicated miscarriage.

My (STBX)MIL was, I am convinced, never a lovely woman. I think she’s just always been a misanthropic, nasty person. She really, really is awful. No one partnered with her sons have ever had an even vaguely decent relationship with her (and even STBXH doesn’t like his mum). I can’t imagine anyone getting on with her. She goes out of her way to make that impossible.

in contrast, I still genuinely love an exP’s mum. ExP and I were together for a decade - his parents are absolutely lovely people and, when we split up, the thought of losing them was the saddest part. I didn’t and years later we are still in contact. My ex not-MIL is great. She has always had good relationships with her son’s partners - even where the partner is hard work (exP’s brother’s partner is Very Hard Work) she still does her best to maintain a good relationship.

In short: some people are just not as nice as others. The horrible ones become horrible MILs. Sometimes that context brings out the worst in those people in really spectacular ways.

My one time MIL was a nasty bitch - but she was nasty to a lot of people, not just me!

Sometines they're just horrid people who happen to have children. Said children get married and they become MIL.

Never again would I pursue a relationship with someone with horrible, batshit parents, especially if they tend to make excuses for them or fear upsetting them and causing 'drama'. Lesson well and truly learned!

I ponder along similar lines. My mum was a lovely mum to me and a very lovely and generous MIL to my DH. However I suspect she’d have been an awful MIL had my brother not been gay and if he had married a woman.

My mum was a generation older than the current crop of Mumsnet MILS will be but she was in general much more critical of women than of men and men had a very low bar to meet to be wonderful. She craved male approval (I’m making her sound awful which she really wasn’t as a whole). She was quite competitive with other women and I can imagine she would have viewed any DIL as a non-sexual rival. Therefore she would have gleefully picked up on any “deficiencies” she perceived in a DIL as it would have bolstered her confidence that she was actually the better mother/woman. She wouldn’t have been outright hostile and nasty and would initially have been very warm and welcoming to her precious boy’s girlfriend, she liked to be liked, but I think that once a precious grandchild arrived the cracks would have shown. My brother was the eldest and although as a young child I didn’t think she had a favourite and she was always very fair, I think she and some other women, felt something particularly visceral about her firstborn boy. He actually put her through hell as an adolescent and adult after being a very loving little boy for whom she was the centre of his universe, but as an adult I think he was definitely her favourite although she also dreaded him at times.

I don’t have boys and I do wonder if I would have felt the same. I mean I doubt it but who knows? Many people who have had boys and girls say their girls were more independent and it’s their boys who were the cuddliest and most dependent: one women with three of each also bred English Setters and said it was the same with them 😂

I can imagine that giving birth to this male baby from your female body and him being so dependent on you and loving in those early years might have a particular intoxication. Particularly if you live in a fairly conservatively gendered culture/family.

Because MsIL know perfectly well that if they complained, it'll always be their fault.

I don't have a DIL, before you all assume.

I truly loved my late ex MIL she was wonderful to me. My new MIL is awful and I've cut contact. DP says she's never liked one of his girlfriends. Then she does some weird idolisation thing once DP has split up with them. I don't think she's that nice to DP and punishes him for being in a relationship. MIL is amazingly supportive to DP as long as he's single. It's all so weird.

Surely this has also damaged your relationship with your dh

I wonder why you married a child of theirs?

@baileybrosbuildingandloan

Well you will also be a MIL if your daughter gets a partner too!!

Well obviously

But the issues are generally MIL v DIL not SILN

Mine was okay until she realised that DH wasn’t going to move home and be available to her. This apparently was my fault (it wasn’t). When FIL was away/busy she wanted DH there to do all the jobs he did for her, go to the shops etc. she did used to ring and ask him - we live over 300 miles away. When FIL died she didn’t understand why he couldn’t move back in with her.

She was one of those people who had no hobbies or interests or friends. She was incredibly hard work. She was only interested in what she was interested in and couldn’t understand people making any other choices.

My SIL seemed to cope with her better but she was local. I think the fact the only time me and MIL saw each other was staying in each others homes it didn’t help. She hated coming here because she didn’t like leaving home. I loathed being at hers for many many reasons, lack of privacy and cigarette smell being the main ones. It means either one of us was already in a bad mood to start with.

Isn't that just because currently the demographic on here is probably younger? So they're more likely to be DILs then MILs?

I'm a lovely mil but my own mil is a disgrace.
She actively encouraged her son to have an affair because apparently I'm not enough fun because I chose to stay home with our disabled children instead of going out drinking three nights a week!
My children are better off without them in their lives 🤷‍♀️

I have all boys and I also have 2 dials.
I love the bones of them and we've a pretty good relationship.
I think the solution is
Don't get involved in their rows
Don't give unsolicited advise
Don't over rule the parents.
And more importantly don't be to proud to say you're sorry if you've been a tit.

I only know one person in real life who doesn’t really like her mil and actually she’s even admitted it’s because they’re both too alike!!! It’s probably everybody and everything, when you think of it you’re wrecked tired, under pressure parenting, they want to help/think they’re helping- it probably creates a bottleneck!! I get on excellently with in laws but didn’t always but it was probably all of us at the time!

My mil is ok . She can be lovely but sometimes makes shitty comments. I think she feels protective over dh and worries he isn't bringing looked after properly!
She's good with ds.