To ask you what is the worst thing your MIL has done or said to you?

[IndigoIsMyFavouriteColour]

I’ll start. We lost a baby at 25 weeks pregnant, a little girl, the whole situation was awful. 6 months later I was pregnant with a little boy and we waited until 20+ weeks to tell anyone about him because we were nervous (understandably).

We phoned MIL on speaker phone to tell her our happy news about the new baby (we already had a son) and her first response was ‘well when am I going to get some granddaughters?’

There are many more examples but this really took the biscuit

and you hung up. Haven't spoken to her since and you OH has released holy hell (in private).

Stay away from that, let him deal with his mother. You stay far away

Congratulations on your pregnancy OP.

Wow, that's awful.

Meanwhile on another thread a poster is moaning about MIL not liking the flowers for her wedding!!!

That mil sounds awful too tbf
She gave numerous other examples not just about flowers..

so many offensive comments
a couple I can think of:
why don’t you sell your wedding dress (it was in storage at their (v large ) house? It’s not like you’ll wear it again even if you re marry ?
(With her son then and I still am !!)

or
(after getting my inheritance after loosing both my parents within 18 months of each other )
’don’t spend it all - you’ll only get one inheritance’
😳😳😳

High risk pregnancy, premature baby whisked off at birth to neonatal etc came to visit after a trip to a tropical country with fever and D&V. Wouldn’t let her into hospital to see baby obviously.

Said we’d ruined her experience of becoming a grandmother and didn’t speak to us for over a year.

Unfortunately she is still in our lives and doing the most INCREDIBLY thoughtless shit. Thank you as well for the pregnancy wishes, although this was many years ago and our boy is now 13! It’s just so close to Christmas now that I know we will have some contact with MIL so wanted some other stories in empathy.

She sounds delightful. I am guessing you have an OH like mine who won’t bring her up on the horrifically offensive things she says and does?

That’s gross OP! Congrats on your pregnancy (or child, if this was a while ago!).

MIL is fine but FIL is a vile piece of work. Too many things to list but asked DH to choose him or me 😂 obviously DH ‘chose’ his wife and mother of his children but there wasn’t really any active choice to make hence FIL throwing a strop and asking this in the first place.

That was 7 years ago and FIL still is in this 6-monthly cycle of sending loads of vile abuse, then ‘cutting us off forever and writing us out of the will’ (who cares?!) and going silent for 6 months (thank god), rinse and repeat 6 months later. Like clockwork. Last time was this week, I said to DH a couple of days before, ‘your dad will be in touch soon’. So boring and very draining and really sad for DH. I haven’t spoken to FIL in years, DH only in touch via text because the situation is complicated with his mum. Life isn’t black and white but we’re as NC as possible given we’re complex humans with hearts.

My mil took the approach of death by 1000 cuts. A couple of outstanding memories - telling me I needed to lose weight 12 hours after I had had my daughter by c section and loudly criticising the wedding venue during our wedding. The registrar also had to ask her to be quiet as she was talking through the ceremony.

We are nc with her now, should have done it years before we did. Don't be me!!

That is disgraceful. A really awful thing to say.

Also as a mum of 2 sons they are amazing. The might of my life.

Im sure daughters are great too but I really don’t think it matters what you have. As a grandmother you should just be grateful to have a healthy grandchild. It’s not important whether it’s a boy or a girl.

My one sounds really petty in comparison (it is) but this has annoyed me this week.
My partners mum has always said she would like us to be closer and she would like to see more of me (I’m at work a lot as I have a very demanding job).

My mum died just over a week ago and she said sorry to hear that is there anything g practical I can do?

She then sent me a really long random message that was general chit chat about her own mum. Really odd because if someone’s dog has just died I wouldn’t immediately send them a message about how great my dog was. So I thought I would give her a task to do to distract her from the odd messages so I asked her if she would mind dropping a me off for my 16 year old on one of the days I was visiting my 18 year old to make sure he was ok after the death of his gran. She said no and I haven’t heard from her since.

I just found it really odd. Why offer to help but not want to help. If someone’s just lost their mum you don’t talk about how great your own mum is immediately. I know people will talk about their mums and that’s fine it was just the odd timing of it.

So now I am just going to back off and basically never contact her again. I will be polite if I see her but I will make no effort.

It is her loss as I won’t be offering to help her in the future if she needs help. I’m surrounded by people at the moment who are being lovely to me about my mum. She hasn’t got any friends which is telling. She is much more likely to need a favour from me in the future than I am to need one. I wouldn’t ask again if my life depended on it.

Sounds like she dud you a favour not speaking to you for a year. Id have told her to fuck off when she did try speaking to me again

I'm a MIL. It's a bit like being the wicked stepmother in Snow White. At least on mumsnet where the MILs who help out with house deposits, provide free child care and are generally both happy and welcoming don't seem to exist. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could hear the other side of these stories?
OP, your husband's loyalty is to you. Your MIL made a cruel and clumsy remark and someone (your hubby) needs to explain that to her. Hopefully she will have the sense to make a meaningful apology.
Most of these issues do not need to descend into World War III. In all but the most horrendous cases, a quiet word and an apology will lay it to rest. I have heard of some MILs I wouldn't want to be in the same room with - and also some DILs. We're not ogres. Most of us dearly wish to see our sons make a success of their marriage. Give us a break, yes?

Mine didn’t like the wedding venue we had chosen and booked, so she rang and booked somewhere else instead! She wasn’t paying a penny towards it. We had our choice. Said if we didn’t have a catholic church wedding she wouldn’t come, I was only 21 and I caved, can’t believe I did that! There was lots, she is deceased now so don’t want to speak ill of the dead but she was awful.

My mil said we were cursed because the child was born with a cleft palate...urg

My mil has behaved poorly for years totally enabled by my husband who has been conditioned not to set boundaries. She really is dreadful.

Discussing my son’s latest appointment for one of his disabilities. She proceeded to say “do you think if you had breastfed for longer he would have all these problems?”
another corker, I was petting the family dog and said “my goodness your getting chunky or is that your winter coat?”
MIL looked me up and down and said “pot and kettle black”
I was 5 months pregnant.

needless to say I haven’t spoken to her in over a year because every time I seen her she would spill her venom and I refuse to have that around our children

Saying loudly in DS1's hearing when I was pregnant with DC2 "Tom is going to be so upset when the baby is born, just like his Dad was when Laura (SIL) was born."
Fuck off MiL.
In fact as it happened, Tom loved his baby sibling and they are still close 20 years later.
Fortunately, as you can see, although I don't like the woman, if that's the worst thing she's done, our relationship is OK compared to all the other horror stories being told.

That’s awful!
My MIL sat me down when my first DC was 3 months old and told me he would be autistic so I needed to be aware of the signs. But when I got my DH and asked her to also tell him she tried to deny she’d said it. So it was very clear she was being nasty rather than helpful. Which was an eye opener for DH (not for me as she had form for saying nasty stuff to me out of his earshot).
The worst bit though was that my DM had died less than a month before (from a cancer diagnosed the week I found out I was pregnant).

God that’s awful 😢

Nowhere near as bad as yours but mine had me photoshopped out of my own wedding photos as she wanted photos of ‘just their family’

A couple of weeks after the birth of my first baby (which nearly killed me as I lost 3 litres of blood and needed loads of transfusions and was left with ptsd and awful birth injuries) she put on a baby voice pretended to be my baby and said ‘I need a brother or sister I’m feeling lonely!!’

Funnily enough we aren’t close.

I’m sure not all MIL’s are the same, just like not all people are the same. Unfortunately my husband has always been unable to deal with his family’s attitude towards me and our family so we are NC/LC with all of them, including MIL. I could write a book with the amount of ‘clumsy’ things MIL has said or done over the years, none of which have been pulled up by husband so no apologise or humility forthcoming. It is coming up Christmas so we will have to engage with her to some extent hence me wanting to start this thread. It’s cathartic to know we aren’t the only ones!

You know what, my MIL is a walking bitch and I am NC and when I read your thread title one example jumped to my mind that is actually not the worst by any stretch but it genuinely upset me.

I was being treated for cancer and had horrendous symptoms. I got no peace ever from these symptoms. We were invited to a family wedding and it was close to where my MIL lived so we arranged to stay with her there. On the way there we nearly turned back three times as I was suffering so badly. It was out first time away together without DC and I felt such a combination of guilt for my DH who was doing everything, frustration, sadness, fear etc. I remember my DH pulling the car over at one point, me bawling crying and him saying it was ok whatever I decided.

We got to MIL's house, he explained the whole thing but she said nothing to me in reference to it but kept telling me off for scratching my skin. We went to the wedding and the most unbelievable thing happened; all my symptoms vanished and I spent hours on the dancefloor. I hadn't felt like that in over a year (and it took a few years to feel like that again). We were on cloud nine. Early in the morning DH shook me to take a tablet and said he was going for a run. I realised I had slept all night which again was unheard of. I was so happy.

I took the tablet and had just drifted off when I felt hands on my arms shaking me hard. I woke totally startled and found MIL sitting on the bed. She began tutting about us leaving last night's clothes on the chair and saying I was bad at housework. I just stared at her. I felt so robbed. Then she began asking loads of questions about my family - the answers which she knew well - and shaking her head in disapproval; my parents are divorced, we don't go to church. My symptoms began to ripple through me and by the time DH was back I was deep breathing through nausea and tearing my skin off.

I actually feel like crying again thinking about it. She is the most poisonous nasty woman. I have nothing to do with her these days.

😮😧

My MIL died recently but three days after giving birth to my 1st set of twins, who were both born with facial birth defects and feeding issues, I came down the stairs to greet her when she showed up unannounced and she looked right at me and said "Wow! You look FAT!". ANother time it might not have bothered me so much, but I was crushed. I held it together while she was there and then I called my husband just sobbing. He pulled over his car and called her right away and told her that if she ever did something that deliberately unkind that she would not see her grandchildren.

This has stood out to me as truly wicked. How dare she?

My mil, the day after my husband died (suddenly/ unexpectedly)... Keeping in mind this was her son... Said to me something along the lines of "well you're lucky, you're young, you can remarry"

She often blurted out things that were inappropriate, and I didn't hold this against her (grief makes people say really weird things) but I never forgot it.