To ask if you have a successful MIL/DIL relationship…how did you do?

[laraitopbanana]

Just that really. MIL seems to be the hardest job after Mother…

I am not even close to be a MIL but would love to hear your nice stories!

My dh and my bil loved my dad very much. I think DH misses him more than he missed his own father when he died.

But in general I agree - as always, the pressure is on women to make relationships/families work.

This. MIL and I are not alike, and there are definitely things on which we do not see eye to eye. But she's generally a lovely person and we get on fine. It probably helps that we don't see each other too often!

My MIL is amazing! We have a little boy on the way and she's the model I'd like to one day follow as a MIL myself. She is so kind, really funny and an amazing support to both of us. She offers so much practical help - she's been coming over to help paint our nursery as neither her or my DH wanted me sanding/painting while pregnant. She makes us food to take home, she did some cleaning while here and said to me "it's things you were going to do anyway but you've been busy so I took care of it for you" (I imagine she was worried I might take it personally but was just so grateful!)

She is very respectful of our relationship and choices. My PIL took us in for six months while we were buying a house after our wedding and she wouldn't let me do anything round the house. She was a huge emotional support after my mum died and always asks after and sends love to my family. My brother will be coming to us for Christmas this year now. If she wants to offer advice, she'll say "can I make a suggestion?" Before offering. Always saying it's up to us and what we might want to do.

When we lived together, my DH tried to ask her to settle a lighthearted disagreement between us about something silly, she laughed and said "I'm not getting involved!" But a lot of the time she'll tell my DH what she thinks he should do if she thinks he needs a push and it's something I would appreciate, eg to start painting sooner before the baby comes or to settle for a temporary form of decoration just to get the house sorted (so I would feel better) rather than delaying until we can afford what we ultimately wanted to do.

Both my PIL and all his family treat me like I was born into it and don't differentiate between me and DH. I can spend time on my own with his parents, call them mum and dad as well and have my own phone catch ups with his aunties too. I think it's fundamentally treating a DIL like she's blood, offering practical help that takes work away from her rather than trying to make choices for her and repeatedly showing that you understand and respect that her and your son will make their own choices and you're happy to follow those. In return I can't wait for her and my FIL to spend lots of time with their grandson and we see them at least once a week!

@DreadPirateRobots you can't have a good relationship with an IL who is operating in bad faith. I think you've put your finger on something here, in your great post.

You see so many unhappy MiL/DiL relationships on mumsnet and hear about them irl when people speak at all about them. You do only ever get one side of the story but sometimes it seems that nothing the DiL does will ever make the relationship work (or sometimes it's the MiL) because the other side is not fundamentally interested in making the relationship work in any reasonable way.

Super thread though, really nice to hear about the good relationships =)