MIL getting me down

[Avocad1sh]

I’m not a very confrontational person, but I really feel like I need to say something to my soon to be MIL. Either that, or I need DP to say something, but she doesn’t bother him as much as me. He can ignore her, whereas everything she says gets me down.

We have been together for 10 years and she has always been like this with everything in our lives, but the examples I’ll give are recent ones to do with our wedding.

She likes to give her opinion on everything, and she likes to try and control our decisions as if she gets a say! Problem is, every single opinion is negative. We chose our wedding venue and she wanted to have a look around it. While we were there I was looking at a flower display of the colours and types of flowers I really like and were considering. She walked over and said “see, I would never choose these flowers, they are awful” I said aww I like them because I like colour. It’s a spring wedding so I’d like some colour and these are pretty. She said “just no, at my wedding we had white and sage green and I stand by that. I just think that’s the way to go” I responded by saying no, I like colour and will be having colourful flowers.

We went to her house a few days after viewing the venue and she told us she doesn’t understand what we see in it and just can’t picture the day there at all. We told her the venue gave us a feeling as soon as we saw it that it was “the one” and every other place we looked just didn’t compare. She was gobsmacked and continued to tell us “I just don’t get it” she also didn’t like another wedding we went to because the wooden beams were “too orange” she’s just never pleased. She has to pick fault with everything.

She asked me if my mum will be wearing a hat. I said I don’t know, but probably. She responded by saying “ugh I hate hats!” I said well that’s ok you don’t have to wear one. She said “I do otherwise she will upstage me”

I briefly mentioned to someone else that I quite like off the shoulder or sleeveless wedding dresses and she butted in to tell me she doesn’t like them.

unrelated to the wedding, but the last example that I’ll give is when we bought our house we were sampling shades of paint on the wall. We finally chose one and began painting and she came round to help clear some things out. As she was leaving the room she stopped and said “actually.. I’m not sure I like that green you know” NO ONE ASKED YOU!! and it doesn’t matter if you don’t like it, we do! Your opinion is not needed, we have already chosen the colour. I responded saying well it’s a good job it’s our house and not yours.

DP tells me to just ignore her, the things she says don’t bother him at all. It’s just going to create drama by saying something to her but I can’t take it any more. Everything we decide about the wedding, she shits on. I told DP to just stop telling her what we are doing so that she can’t pass judgement. Any other advice please?

“I don’t like that”

“That’s fair enough. We have very different tastes”

this, how would she react to a taste of her own medicine?
next time in her house…
’am assuming you’re changing the paint in your living room soon? It’s very putrid!’
’are you wanting to change/do your hair before we go out in public so people don’t see you looking like that?’

I agree that the real issue is your partner. She needs an information diet and no involvement in decisions. Just inform her when they are made. In your position I’d be making it very clear to my partner that I am not willing to spend the rest of my life with a moaning minny backseat driving all my decisions so if he does, it is going to cause conflict. Eg in you example where he invited her to the wedding fair, my response would have been to partner, ok, you two have fun. I’m not going with you. If he kicks off about ‘what is he supposed to tell his mum, my answer is ‘tell her your future wife can’t be around her constant negativity’. If he can’t do that, well, don’t invite her without checking with me then. If I really wanted to attend, I’d make my own way, maybe with a friend, and not go around with them. If you are not around her, you can’t hear her negativity. Any chance you could move a good distance away? Final option is to threaten (and mean it) to call off the wedding and tell him you can’t marry until you can be sure you are only marrying him and not his mother too as he puts her first. Currently he doesn’t have enough incentive to sort this. He wants to keep everyone happy and sees the solution as you learning to put up with it. Persuade him otherwise.

moaning minny backseat driving 😆
This had me rolling 🤣 it summed it up perfectly 👌 💯 👏

my MIL was the same when we got married. Her stance was ‘well I didn’t have a big wedding I don’t see why you have too’. My response every time was ‘it’s not your wedding’. I also didn’t involve her in anything, DH could if he wanted to but I told him I wouldn’t be as all she would do was make negative comments. Funnily enough she had the best day at the wedding and now goes on about what a great day it was. She’s turned to the house now, ‘I don’t like that air fresher’ again my reply is ‘it’s not your house’. DH will also call her out which is helpful. She will then sit and sulk but at least she isn’t talking and we just get on with our day and don’t react. Don’t pander to her.

I don’t think it’s going to be feasible to change her if that’s her communication style. I imagine that’s how she approaches life.
I think you need to train yourself to look past it.
Having said that MN certainly is the place to be for anti MIL fodder, so I’m sure you will get plenty of sympathy.

I have that opinion about ignoring it because I used to feel like that about my MIL but eventually learned not to rise to it.
It certainly sounds like you’re standing up for yourself , which I did not do.

Thank you, you are right. A lot of people tell me to just ignore her or change the way I react and think about it etc but it is incredibly draining to have constant negativity towards every life decision I am making. I have told him to stop telling her things and stop inviting her to things and he says he agrees with me. But I think he forgets sometimes because he doesn’t feel the same way I do about it, I’m assuming because he has grown up with her and is used to her. He is a very easygoing and laid back guy and he can shrug a lot of things off. It’s easy for him to not care about what people think and say. For example a few weeks ago he said “my mums on her way, she’s made us some food so going to drop it off” and I said do not invite her in because I really can’t be bothered with her moaning at me that we have left our shoes in the hallway or a pile of washing on the table. He said “if she does moan about those things just ignore her. Who cares what she says?” He genuinely can’t fathom how it upsets me because he thinks I should just be able to ignore her.

She text me once saying “I’ve just driven past your house, why have you got the big light on if you’re not in the room?!” Like WTF????

I hope you just ignored her text. Just don’t even interact or show a reaction.

I didn’t ignore her at the time unfortunately. That was a couple of years ago. However I do now ignore her texts all the time

Ok. So I would literally start disengaging with her. This is the least traumatic way of dealing with her and will cause you the least angst. Just avoid her. If she makes a rude remark just say nothing. The silence will speak for itself. If she starts wittering just either walk away mid sentence or start scrolling.

when she is nice, be nice towards her. She’ll soon either play ball or avoid you.

also I just say it how it is. So last week she told me that she hand washes her drinking glasses as she doesn’t like getting ‘all horrible and streaky like yours’. I just replied with calmly with ‘I don’t care what other people do, I don’t have time for that’. She soon sloped off to the living room.

"who cares what she says?"

YOU care! She is downright rude and judgemental, even if he can't/won't see it. Does he not care that it bothers you?

Does he ignore and brush off your opinions/requests about other things or just his Mother?

"Can you please not buy the seeded bread, I'm not keen on the texture"
" Just ignore the seeds, who cares if the bread has them?"
A daft example maybe but it's early on a Sunday morning and my brain isn't quite up to speed yet 😆
Anyway, every time he brushes you off I would reply with "I care/mind/am upset by it, why don't you care that it upsets me?"

Edited for typo.

It's a standing joke in our house that my mother's favourite phrase is 'but I want . . .' with a hurt tone and baffled expression.

I've dealt with it over the years by simply not telling her anything, which is fine in the short term, but longer term is quite tricky, because I find myself very hurt by the fact that I can't include my mother in anything I do, I can't talk to her about anything, and I can't rely on her for any kind of support. But then when I do involve her, I get very hurt by the fact that she says mean things and doesn't understand why she can't have things her own way all the time.

Stepping back and looking at the bigger picture, I think you have to consider how your husband has ended up where he is and why he invites his mother to things and is then deaf to her rude comments. It's likely this has been going on his entire life, and this is his coping mechanism. It's pretty much impossible to challenge parents like this when you are a child, and by the time you hit adulthood, the coping mechanism you've developed has become habitual and it's very difficult to step out of it and do something different, partly because of the fear of the upset it will cause, and partly because you mostly likely had some failed attempts to change things in childhood and it feels like there is no point in trying to change things now. It's relatively new to you, so you feel differently. My DH shrugs off my mother's mean comments. I am hurt to the very core by them every single time and therefore avoid her as much as possible. For a long time I coped by not admitting to myself how awful she can be, which may well be where your DH is at the moment.

It is very difficult to deal with and very difficult to fix. She is highly unlikely to change. You might find it helpful to read some of the stuff Lindsay Gibson has done on emotionally immature parents.

There is no way I would be putting up with this shit. All the comments like, just say mmm, or give her a job. All very weak and feeble. Stand up for yourself. You owe her nothing. Foxtrot Oscar

i am sorry…if it is him and he keeps doing it when you say no…I would say. Divorce. Go away coz in the end, after years and years of trying to figure out how to make him understand…the blunt truth is: he knows what he does and you don’t mean that much to him.