AIBU or is my friend - views on relationships between MILs and DILs

[lzn]

Settle a debate please: Why do MILs and DILs so often clash, while MILs and SILs usually get a pass?

My take: It’s mostly the DIL wanting total control. Once the couple settles down, the wife typically takes over—planning the kids’ lives, holidays, social calendars, everything—and the husband just goes along with it to keep the peace (“happy wife, happy life”). The DIL usually prioritizes her own parents, expects the MIL to stay in her lane, and sets the rules on who gets access to the family. So if the MIL wants any involvement, she has to walk on eggshells or be labeled overbearing.

My friend’s take: She thinks it’s the MIL who can’t let go. That some of them treat their sons like emotional husbands and feel threatened by another woman becoming the center of his life. They don’t want to lose that influence, so they insert themselves constantly, even when it’s not their place. Meanwhile, mothers of daughters seem to accept the shift more gracefully and don’t try to compete with their SIL.

So who’s the bigger problem—DILs who want total dominance, or MILs who won’t step aside?

YABU - your friend is right, you’re wrong
YANBU - you’re right, your friend is wrong

I don't think you can generalise. It depends on the people.
I've had 2 MILs. First one was a nightmare, very outdated views on how I "ran my marriage" (basically I expected exH to do stuff!)

Second MIL was wonderful. Warm, funny, caring, helpful when needed/wanted but would never dream of interfering. I miss her every day.

There’s literally a whole genre of joke based on SILs and MILs hating each other, so it really isn’t just DILs and MILs.

Both are wrong.

The son is lazy. So the wife is always the one making the plans. As she’s the one making plans she makes plans that suit her make her happy.

Mil will then be mad that DIl does everything with her family placing blame on DIl when she just has a lazy son who cnba to organise anything.

Wife works dying out thank fuck. Men are responsible for organising shit too.

Well you both let the son completely off the hook, so I'd say you're both unreasonable.

When I first met my MIL, it took her less than an hour to tell me she knew what her son’s favourite sex position was and I better not waste my time trying to use my boobs to get his attention because she has bigger boobs and he’s used to
them.
Within 7 months, she tried making me homeless so her son couldn’t move in with me/leave her.
He had no family connection but her when I met him.
After therapy and lots of new family connections that I encouraged, they’ve all come forward with stories of his Mum and how they’ve had to watch from afar as she cut them all off when he was a child.

I am very aware of the narrative she’s portraying about how I’m the wicked DIL who stole her son.
She’s a psychotic bitch and deserves absolutely zero empathy from anybody.

I don’t recognise either your or our friends views in either my relationship with my MIL or with any of my friends relationships with their MILs.

I got on really well with my MiL until we had children. While they were small it was really very difficult. Now they are teenagers we get on fine again.

Several of my friends get on better with their MILs that their own mothers.

Merging families with different personalities, cultures, traditions and approaches takes time, effort and tact. It’s generally the women who do the heavy lifting around family events and child rearing so clashes aren't really a surprise.

If men planned Christmas, weddings, birthday parties and les child care there would be just as many SIL/FIL clashes.

It’s definitely a lot to do with the son too. They don’t seem to know what they’re role is.
Some men can’t be bothered with their parents once they’re married, or take their mums side over their wife if there’s friction.
I’ve seen plenty of mils who expect to treat their dil as someone to control and plenty of dils who want to push out ils.
Lots tick along fine too.

Neither.

It is about good communication, tolerance, and compromise.

Just because another family do things differently to you, doesn't mean it is wrong.
Much of the unrest is because adults have come together in one family and are having to adapt to new things.

Neither as both are lazy stereotypes and actually quite insulting. It’s all individual and all the MIL/DIL relationships I know (including my own) are fine/good. Relationships are also not static and change and evolve over time.

I personally love my mother in law- she’s fab.

I think you can't really have a general rule when there are so many families in the world with all different dynamics.

But I will say I think my mil found being the paternal grandmother difficult to begin with.

I think it's a bit of both probably! I got on well with my MIL but we were very different and I did have to bite my tongue at times, she probably did too! I think I felt that I had to make the effort with them as DH did with my family. As she got older we definitely got closer as she didn't have any daughters and her sons, while they loved her, didn't always do the thoughtful things that daughters do. For example, buying the foods and drinks that she likes whenever she came to stay or buying her a new nightie and dressing gown and magazines when she had a hospital stay. Now she's gone and I miss her, she was an amazing woman ❤️

Neither and more often than not it is a DH/ Son problem.

I get on with my MIL but I’ll admit there was little interest in me until I was pregnant, had unnecessary remarks made after birth, her knowing her son and I had a traumatic experience with DS1 due to how we were treated. She didn’t like me being a SAHM, thought I shouldn’t have a break from our children because DH supposedly would struggle yet forgets that we aren’t near any family where we are so he has to for me to go out and do things alone, wanted us to move near them (we live in the SE, them in the NE, DH’s job is niche so few opportunities near them and DH hadn’t lived there in over a decade) and wanted us to christen our children (DH and I are not religious and both of us agreed to let our children decide their faith). DH shut that down with both children and told her she was being ridiculous especially when we hadn’t christened DS1. I tried for years and then just left DH to it. I’m not going to force a relationship or someone to like me. I didn’t say anything to DH and continued as normal. DH noticed things when I was pregnant with DS2 and then noticed more and more things as time went on and he lessened visits which was easy when the oldest entered school and then Covid. She warmed up after Covid, but by that time I had accepted our familial relationship for what it was.

FIL was completely different, more welcoming and sees me as one of his own.

DH talks to his family more than I talk to mine, but saying that he prefers having a certain amount of distance to them and the only reason he has talked about moving closer to them is for childcare which is not a good enough reason to me to uproot especially when his parents complain about the level they do for his sister and her husband every time they visit us and our kids are happy and settled where we are.

Both of you are right and wrong.

The biggest problem in families with that kind of dynamic is usually the husband/son telling both women what he thinks that they want to hear because he doesn’t want to be the bad guy rather than telling them what he thinks. The two women assume that the other is told the same as them so they think that the other must be difficult.

Families with that kind of dynamic usually have a Father who does the same as the son and agree with his wife for a quiet life.

This is me and my DIL is fab.
is the op a mil
my was ‘difficult’ at times , but she was with everyone, so it wasn’t just me.

"Once the couple settles down, the wife typically takes over—planning the kids’ lives, holidays, social calendars, everything—and the husband just goes along with it to keep the peace"

No, what often happens is that men don't step up and take on their fair sharing, leaving mothers no choice.

The real problem is that a lot of MIL's who son's can't be bothered to make proper arrangements to get together etc. then blame the wife rather than their own precious son

Or, option C. The arrival of a son in law, unless he is controlling, generally has minimal impact on the mother/daughter relationship. Mothers and daughters can continue to go on days out, holidays, lunches, buy each other thoughtful gifts, declare their love for each other, put each other first when they wish, share intimate details of their lives and give and accept advice, and very few husbands would think them 'weird' 'unhealthy' 'possessive' guilty of 'spousification' a 'mummy's girl' etc. Substitute son for daughter and there's a whole different set of rules. Which is pretty hard on mothers of sons, who don't love their adult child any less than mothers of daughters, but are expected to rein that in in a way mothers of daughters aren't.

Its very much a DH/ Son and relationship with their DM issue IMO. I expect my DH to organise and arrange things for his side of the family, SIL expects BIL to do the same. I'm pretty sure our MIL probably thinks we are toxic selfish women who don't let her have frequent access to the GC or arrange family time with her. She sees BIL's DC (begrudgingly) once every month for 40 minutes. She openly admits to her friends that she dreads it as BIL's DC have SEN and are "noisy and rude". - they had Asd and Pda. My DC she wishes to see fortnightly for 40 minutes - she's very much a children should be seen and not heard type so she doesn't interact with them. Just likes to take a picture with them and post on FB.

DH doesn't have the best relationship with his DM, nor does BIL as a result of their DM's behaviour and choices she made when they were children. MIL has always preferred to be with her horses and dogs over her children. As a result neither are highly motivated to arrange anything with MIL and only arrange something if forced or it's expected- Christmas, birthdays, Easter. My MIL is a difficult personality, very needy, takes offense easily, constantly on eggshells. She's hard work and her DP is very unpleasant.

Their Grandmother on the other hand (who basically brought DH and BIL up) gets regular visits from her Great Grandchildren and weekly phonecalls from both DH and BIL.

I'd like to add that sometimes it's the father in law too !

Every story is different it's not that black and white.

I wish I had nice inlaws but unfortunately not. it's not about control its boundaries!!

In law relationships are often tricky. I think 3-way relationships of all kinds have lots of potential for trickiness, and then when you add gender dynamics and patriarchy to the mix it gets harder. I found a book called ‘what do you want from me’ by the psychologist Terri Apter useful on my own IL relationships - it was recommended to me on here. amzn.eu/d/i92zNxF

I just don’t have a relationship outside of Facebook with my MIL, for no reason except that they don’t put the effort in. We used to live about a 5 hour coach ride or a 3 hour train ride away in the UK and they never visited, now we live abroad and there’s no chance they’ll ever visit. They didn’t even come to our wedding, and even if we make the effort to come visit, they don’t make time to see us.
They being PIL.

and the husband just goes along with it to keep the peace (“happy wife, happy life”

I fucking hate this misogynistic shit. The husband 'goes along' because he either has been so babied by his mother he expects to take no responsibility for running his own life, or because he is quite happy to take a step back and let his wife take the mental load. So if she prioritizes her own family, why wouldnt she? Men are perfectly capable of having opinions, keeping in touch, buying presents, making arrangements etc etc.

YABU.

It's up to the parents to make decisions for their child and their family life, not the grandmother. And if DIL is putting effort into seeing her parents then it's up to the son to put the effort into seeing his.

If she's actively isolating him from his family then that is domestic abuse and a different matter than DIL vs MIL drama.

Both your takes are soap operas and bring relationship to simplistic goody / baddy tropes

ive never wanted to control access to my family nor felt my mil wants control over my partner way too basic

whenever posters complain there is always back story going back years , cultural differences , tradition expectations difference's weak husbands/ FIL not helping to resolve conflict personally clashes perceived slights and offence taken , rudeness CFery … the list goes on

This. Completely pointless generalising in any way. I have a nice relationship with my MIL as does my brother's wide with my mum. DH gets on great with my mum and my brother gets on great with his MIL. Not every relationship, mot even most, is that complex and fractious.