to think FILs are tolerated more than MILs?

[HazelMember]

People talk endlessly about nightmare MILs. There are stereotypes, jokes and endless advice about setting boundaries. But when it comes to FILs, it feels like they often get a pass.

If a FIL is rude, dismissive, domineering or quietly undermining, it is brushed off as his personality, his generation or just how men are. If a MIL behaved in the same way, it would quickly be labelled toxic or controlling. With FILs, you are expected to ignore it, laugh it off or manage your own reaction.

What really gets me is how quickly the responsibility shifts onto women. You are told to be kind, to be patient, to not rock the boat and to keep the peace. There is very little expectation that the FIL reflects on his behaviour or changes it.

AIBU to think FILs are tolerated more than MILs? Or is this another example of bad behaviour being excused because it comes from older men?

Yes I am sure there are amazing FILs. I am not saying all FILs are nightmares.

The FiL from hell tries to constantly undermine his SiL by belittling his job, his efforts at 'man tasks' DIY and so on, his car, his salary.
He uses his money to control his DDs household by funding things for her family he thinks they should have, then never losing the opportunity to rub his SiLs nose in it.
He sets himself up as wiser alpha male and encourages his DD to defer to his advice, often with the carrot of financial help.
Often the DD doesn't see this. She believes her father just wants the best for her and she appreciates his generosity. She doesn't realised she has been socialised to consider him the head of the family, for life.
Sometimes the DD does see this, but is so used to her father running the show, she is scared to challenge it. She may also fear that it will cost her relationship with her mother, who is equally controlled by him.
We hear about this less as its usually the SiL takes the brunt of this and this is a woman's forum. However, it's just as toxic if not more so than the behaviour of any MiL.

I have also seen a lot where the DILs are the ones reminding the sons to call and talk to their mothers, buying the gifts, and practically doing the work that son should be doing to facilitate and continue their own relationship towards their own mum yet the DIL gets blamed when she stops doing those things and he chooses not to or even refuses to do it himself. MIL assumes that DIL is stopping son when really they either don’t know that DIL has been doing it all or do know and can’t accept that their son doesn’t care as much as they hoped and/or take it out on DIL because it is easier.

I think it really comes down to unsaid expectations on both sides and whether or not one decides how hard they want to hold onto them. Neither has control over the other and it is better to come to peace with what they can, and find a solution that at least has bare minimum basic politeness.

Yes to all of this!
My sisters MIL gets arsey with my sister, when her husband doesn’t visit enough or call. Never seems to blame her son.

Yes I remember early on I used to get his sibling doing the whole since his been with you he never comes round, get him to come see mum.

I wasn’t stopping him and nor could I force him. However since he got with me so it was my fault or problem to fix.

I do think his siblings twigged a bit now she’s married to a man who barely makes time for his mother but spends loads with his dad 😅She’s also not keen on her mil.

I think older men are less likely to try and insert themselves in to someone else’s space. My MIL is fine but a lot of older women on here seem very needy and demanding of younger relatives. They aren’t hatto just get on with their own lives

Happy to not hatto

oh gosh no, I haven't fallen out with my own MIL at all! We are not living in the same country, there's 0 risk of having to put up with an overbearing MIL from hell 😂. I am very safe, couldn't recommend it more 😂.

FILS are not ‘hated’ in the way that some posters on MN dislike their MILS.
again, for the reason most posters said. It's not gender as such, it's the interference and the lack of respect. Nothing to do with "competition", women are not fighting each other to be queen bee, how dismissive. Just lack of basic respect.

I stand by my point, if MIL behaved with their DIL the way they behave with everybody else, in the majority of cases, there would be no drama.

People (friends, neighbours etc) don't tend to barge in somebody's house, grab the child for a "cuddle", and give an opinion and judgement about the house and the people in it, or start rearranging the furniture or kitchen etc, complain about the fridge like some bonkers MIL , and demand to be hosted on Christmas Day because the wife spent some time with her own mother and it's not faiiiir, like some posters had to deal with on this forum!

Some MIL are deranged, honestly, who does that?

Just don’t be overbearing or demanding. A daughter will always prefer her mom around to help when having a baby, discuss problems etc. it’s rare a MIL will take that place in the DIL life. If you’re supportive & non judgmental then I’m sure you’ll have no issues the problem arises when MIL thinks she should have the dynamic & it just isn’t the case. I could talk to my mom about anything I don’t have that with MIL & when H wasn’t around I wasn’t willingly visiting my MIL but was my mom, meaning she had a closer relationship with my daughter

I think it’s because unfortunately a younger woman who comes into a family unsettles other women. They then often have children who are related to their MIL who from experience feel very strongly towards the children and can become critical, a bit possessive and sometimes make personal remarks towards DILs, sometimes at a time they are vulnerable (pregnancy/after childbirth). I think it can be because women are possessive of their adult sons, especially in cases where their own relationships have broken down.

Instead of supporting they often seem go into competition with DILs rather than building supportive relationships. Often seems to be worse if the relationship wasn’t great or built on before children then both mil and dil struggle with dynamics as mil wants access to children but dil naturally isn’t keen and wants their own mum.

This is not every MIL just seems to be about 60% of my friends group. Some have a lovely mils. Fils although just as bad in some cases do tend to sit back and say less personal stuff.

Also sons in law are not expected to take the grandchildren to his mother in laws house or have coffee dates with his mother in law, father in law or arrange play dates with cousins.

That all falls onto the women so again it’s more likely to have some kind of feelings about it.

You see it here mum on mat leave goes to coffee with her mother once a week. Well that’s not fair she should go to the mill aswell..

why? Because the mums getting to see the baby and mil isn’t. So the daughter stopped being a human in her own right visiting her mother as two adults, it’s become all about the baby who really just happens to be with mum.

If you don’t have a dropping in for tea or coffee or a let’s meet up in town relationship with your dil prior to Babies it’s crazy to expect it after just because she’s made a baby. Call your son ask to meet up with him. His a parent as well.

What you have said is all true.

However, you have left out one factor: the MIL has possibly witnessed that her DIL has chosen the role of domestic organiser.

While so many posts talk contemptuously of the DH as a man-child etc., this may be caused by the DIL's behaviour. So the MIL is not unreasonable to think her son's behaviour is controlled by DIL.

MIL may hate to see her DS emasculated.

Just another perspective!

"Please be respectful."

DILs on the other hand feel that once a son gets married he should give up his relationship with his mother

that's completely untrue.

Just accept and respect that once your precious son lives with his partner, it's HER house as well, and has nothing to do with you. She's not your daughter, she's known you for 5 minutes, you have no right on HER new baby, her house and her life. It's not impossible she'll be closer with her own mother, so what? The woman who has raised her and been with her from birth, as opposed to someone she had 3 diners with?

Respect people, especially around pregnancy and birth (again, the DIL doesn't know you!, and your son is less relevant here, he's not the one going through childbirth!)

If you respect her, and hopefully if your son is not a wet wipe and knows how to impose boundaries if needed, you'll be fine, why wouldn't you?

Relationships tend to break from the start, girlfriend not accepted or looked down, unreasonable and ridiculous behaviour when a child is born, then MIL are surprised they have no place. If you build it slowly and naturally, there's no issues.

Many women get on very well with their MIL.

Agree with this.
However, I would add that poor social skills and lack of sensitivity or imagination come into it.
The MIL may not have bad intentions.

She may be so unimaginative that she just can't imagine someone could do anything differently from how she does things.
DIL understandably takes things personally. In fact MIL was just being insensitive, not malicious and doesn't understand DIL's hostile reaction.

The worst thing that's happened to me was the day of my DM's funeral. Afterwards we came back to my family home. My SIL made tea and handed it round, saying "We (ie her and my father) drink out of mugs now". My DM always served tea in cups and saucers, typical of her generation. I was shocked and devastated at her insensitivity to my mother's passing.
Was she being deliberately unkind or just insensitive?

I think a lot of people don’t have FILs. Dh and I both lost our dads as teenagers. Even had they been alive, our parents were split up when they died. I can’t speak for Dh, but I only saw mine maybe 4 times a year. I can’t imagine he would have been in my life really at all as an adult. Our mothers are both quite dysfunctional in their own ways (I am now NC with mine), but they were certainly around more to cause more problems.

Disagree with the respectful bit.

Why should anyone respect someone who treats them poorly?

I stand by being polite.

I meant "Please be respectful to me"! 😅
When I post my views (which I think are completely normal), I can often expect some fairly savage responses!

btw, my own MIL treated me extremely poorly.

I think there can be several things going on, and I agree, a lot of misogyny.

I am very fortunate that my MIL & FIL really like me. By luck, i happen to fit what their idea of a suitable wife for their son is, part of that is simply down to hair colour, body type, height, part down to character type.

I have seen from the sidelines what a massive part MIL has played in the breakdown of BIL's 2 families. She had a real campaign against both women, shortly after their DC were born, when both DILs were quote vulnerable and blindsided (due to previously being the best thing since sliced bread). This was in large part due to BIL confiding in PILs how awful they were to him (they weren't) and MIL worships the ground BIL walks on.

I think it is a diluted form of what you see in other more extreme patriarchal cultures where a MIL can make a DIL's life extremely unpleasant, having finally gained the authority over someone, and becomes the enforcer of the patriarchal structure.

The DIL is physically, emotionally and economically weakened by becoming a mother and can no longer enforce boundaries and autonomy in the same way.

There are probably fewer FiLs due to divorce/ separation and differences in mortality rates/ health outcomes between males and females.

No FiL issues in this household as both of ours had passed away before DH and I met. Our mothers have/ had outlived them by decades. Not the typical situation, but males have shorter life expectancy and can be less proactive about early management of health issues.
We've been light on MiL issues anyway.

Maternal socialisation of females will put more pressure on DiL/ MiL relationships as they clash over active involvement over children. That doesn't mean that mothers and daughters don't but either that's massaged by family culture or can be managed more directly without a spouse's involvement in the middle.

There are more layers to MiLs.

With my FiL what you see is more what you get.

@SereneCoralExpert
You write 'Some MILS are just deranged". But the same can be said of DILS. The question posed by the OP concerns the issue of women blaming other women. You cannot deny that there is scientific evidence from academic research to show that women are much more likely to be aggressive to non biologically related women within the family unit. As I have pointed out repeatedly, the evidence shows that this is more pronounced in matriarchal societies ( I provided the links). Being aware of these issues can help make women more tolerant and understanding of issues around female relationships. There will always be exceptions. As you put it, there may occasional 'deranged MIL' or DIL but one hopes that most women do not turn on other women because of biology (or lack of it). Discussing issues can help make people understand the reasons for behaviour and make allowances.
I dislike those who stereotype.'MILS are deranged'. This is clearly not the case. It opens the door to misogynism. It is too easy to stereotype. Recognising why you have feelings of hostility to non kinship women can help overcome these feelings and make people more accepting. We expect men to change traditional behaviours. We need to do what we can to overcome barriers between women too.

This.
Time for a bit of common sense.
Of course there are horrid MILs (mine was, for the first quarter century or so, until she finally accepted me). But that doesn't mean there isn't another side to the story, or that all MILs are horrible.
IMO it's a big problem that the anti-MIL posts on MN are disproportionate in number, fail to represent the overall picture of MILs often making substantial personal sacrifices for their family, including DILs, and are unnecessarily and unreasonably unpleasant.

I wonder if things will change with the next generation - part of the problem MIL had with me was the way I lived - professional job, went to the gym, drove, had friends, had male friends, went shopping on my own, didn’t follow DH everywhere. One Christmas I went for a meal with some school friends and she was furious and kept asking why DH wasn’t coming too, she complained I didn’t go along to a stag do with him once and was shocked I was staying at home alone.
The funny thing is she complained about her own MIL being nosy and wanted to know everything about her life and criticising. She learn nothing from it.

I very much encouraged DH to go and visit his parents/MIL frequently on his own. But then there would be drama that I hadn’t followed him and I must be ‘up to something’. It gets very tiring.

Yes, I wrote SOME are just deranged, based on the threads on here.

the issue of women blaming other women when your MIL is a woman, you are not blaming womEN, you are blaming her, who is a woman!

women are much more likely to be aggressive to non biologically related women within the family unit.
but MIL are not part of the family unit are they? They are not family for the DIL, they just don't become family because the DIL happened to marry or move in with the son. It's a stranger and you build a relationship, as fast or slow as needed.

Recognising why you have feelings of hostility to non kinship women because they don't give you the respect they would give to anyone else that's not married to their son?

We need to do what we can to overcome barriers between women too.
I find women finally saying NO, and putting boundaries when they historically didn't is the way forward. NO, you cannot intrude on my wedding plans, NO, you cannot demand to intrude in hospital when I just gave birth to a child, NO you cannot visit me when I barely walked home after childbirth, give me space.

It's a very healthy and mature attitude. As long as the same women remember these boundaries when they themselves become MIL, progress is happening.

Thank you @SixtySomething. I totally agree. I am surprised by the posters who extrapolate from their own experience and try to apply across the board. Antagonism between non biologically related females is well documented. It is not new. A lot of it is down to gender(sex). Just as society has rejected the Les Dawson MIL vicious stereotypes of older women, I would hope that women don’t fall into the same discriminatory trap with regards to older women.
A reminder that this thread asks whether FILS have an easier time than MILS. 72% of posters say they do. It is not about venting about your sister’s MIL or your MIL. It is about recognition that some women do discriminate against other women and avoiding stereotypes where ever possible.

No savage responses from me. 🙂

I agree a lot of issues can be down to expectations and misunderstanding for the most part.

I think only a small percentage is out of pure intentional being mean that it’s to the point of low to no contact.