Can a MIL who hates her DIL love her grandchildren?

[Cookiecrumblepie]

AIBU to think this is not possible? So if MIL has always been nasty and hateful to DIL, she can’t genuinely love the DILs children and have a great relationship with them? Or is it possible for a MIL to separate the two?

It's entirely possible to separate the two

The GC will be partly MIL's blood for a start

Speaking personally, mine tolerated the ones who looked like DH but wanted nothing to do with the one who looked like me.
She now has nothing to do with any of them.

It is certainly possible, but it won't be pleasant or beneficial for those kids to witness someone being nasty to their mother.

Yes I do think it’s absolutely possible. And I think a MIL to a DIL is the only relationship you’d ask this about. If a woman didn’t like her brother’s wife, for example, I don’t think you’d say it wasn’t possible for her to love her nieces and nephews.

Yes, absolutely this.

As a parent, I would not facilitate a relationship between my kids and a grandparent who was openly hostile towards me.

The MIL will see the kids as her child’s children and ignore the DIL’s genetic influence.

Of course it’s possible. Just like it’s possible for anybody else to disregard their feelings about one person when it comes to their feelings of another.

My late Mil was a conplicated woman but unconditionally loved her grandchildren she didn't hate her DiLs but she struggled to be close to us,but she was a fantastic grandmother.

Of course, am assuming the dislike goes both ways?
is the DIL able to love her husband as the MILs son?

My grandmother really didn’t like my mum. She loved me. Why wouldn’t she? I’m her son’s child. My mum really didn’t like my brothers wife. She adored his kids. Same thing. No one was nasty or hateful though. Well, actually my SIL could be a real piece of work

I think most mils who don’t get on with their dils rightfully fret that they’ll be punished via the grandkids. If they didn’t love the grandkids, why would they care?

Of course it's possible, human relationships are extremely complex. However if the DIL isn't liked because of racism/classism etc and not behaviour, things start to change when the child hits teens ime. So the relationship can still break down.

I always look it at as I'm not very fond of my children's dad but I'd die for my children .
I suppose it's the same thing ,she will see them as a part of her obviously not as a mother but definitely in some sense .

Assuming in this situation DIL is a reasonable person, and MIL is the 'baddie', then I think you need to be clearer about what you mean by love.

Love as a feeling (largely beyond our control): yes, MIL could feel loving feelings towards her grandchildren.

Love as an action: I would argue that a MIL who truly wanted to show love towards her grandchildren would never act or speak poorly towards their mother, for the grandchildren's own sake. Children benefit from growing up in a strife free family, so if she wants to show love towards them, she will force herself to treat her DIL well, and hide any personal feelings of dislike.

There is racism underpinning some of the hatred from MIL, along with just her generally competitive and domineering personality. I suspect she will hate the ethnic part of her grandchildren, so for example their ethnic names and them learning a different language, but she might like them when they do things she wants them to do.

It makes me wonder whether she would actually like them for who they are, or whether she just likes grandchildren in the way she wants them to be.

No, because MIL will use the children in her pathetic games with DIL, desperately wanting the children to prefer her! Trust me - experience with this type of MIL!!

I don't really know... since my MIL started a war with my husband when I was pregnant, we've never given her the chance to meet DD.

I know she dislikes me, and it's mutual now tbh.

I expect it is possible in theory, what you're saying... but only a shitty grandparent would treat the parent of their grandchild poorly. You don't have to 'love' someone to treat them with kindness and respect.

I think it is possible. However it would rely on mil making an effort with dil and the father of the child making an effort to facilitate the relationship between his child and his mother.

Yes of course. My brother in law is a waste of space but my nephews are the light of my life!

Possible, but keep a cautious eye. It might be okay, but never let your guard down as nastiness can suddenly leak out.

I'm NC with my PIL after years of unpleasant and unkind behaviour, but allowed DH to take our DDs to see them as long as none of their nastiness appeared towards them, and they never bad mouthed me in front of them.

I also didn't bad mouth them in front of DDs, but I did teach them that unkindness is unacceptable from ANYONE, including family - and should always be discussed with us. It was just part of their life lessons growing up, but I'll admit I was always setting them up in case PIL's turned.

No problems until the day DH went to the bathroom, and in that 1-2 minute opportunity MIL dressed down my 9 yo, selectively-mute, autistic DD2. By the time DH returned they were all smiles. DD2 couldn't say why she was out of sorts to him at the time. The dig was along the lines of her being rude, 'just like your mother'. Possibly as she hadn't spoken to them (she hadn't spoken at school for 18 months at this point, and was in the process of getting her first diagnosis - a speech processing disorder) though we didn't get to the bottom of what was said and why, as MIL denied saying it.

They're obviously too thick to understand what 'selective' mutism is. DD2 told me what happened the moment she got home. She's now also NC with them. I wonder if part of why they had a dig at her was that she looks a lot like me, and since I won't see them, this was the closest they could get.

Says it all

Yes she can.
I know a lady whose DIL is a right controlling piece of work. Barred her from meeting the children for 2 months despite letting her mother in, has long lists of excessive rules, and is generally a nasty piece of work.
No back story.
The children are delightful (and fortunate nothing like her)

All depends from where the animosity has started - who is the unreasonable narcissist? Is the MIL a horrendous witch or is the DIL a coercive manipulative...

Because if the animosity starts because the DIL is toxic,, it doesnt matter if the MIL wants involvement because the children will become a weapon...

If its the MIL thats toxic; its likely she will look past the DIL and see her blood in the GC but will still have the toxicity in her thats being exposed to the children.

MIL really struggled with both her sons marrying non-Jewish wives. They're secular, only go to synagogue for weddings and funerals type thing, DH and BIL weren't brought up in the faith, so to speak, so I think there was a level of bafflement at MIL's outrage about it since they hadn't had any sort of religious upbringing, but this stuff runs deep I guess. My family is a mixed bag of Catholic on one side and Orthodox, Catholic and Jewish from Eastern Europe on the other, and nobody has ever made a thing of it. It did cause a real rift, but I'll give her some credit for never taking it out on any of her non-Jewish grandchildren.

If your mother in law is racist/bigotted what does her son have to say about it?

Yes, this has happened to us too. Although the little one, who is my mirror image, is also severely disabled, so her opinion that he is "broken" may be the reason she has chosen not to see him in three years (and probably the only reason I am not currently in jail). My daughter, however, who looks a lot like my husband and doesn't have disabilities, is the apple of MIL's eye - receives cards, presents, cash gifts and is generally treated as the only child in our household. Luckily my son has no understanding of it - and I have no desire to force him to have contact with someone who views him as 'less'. May have to do something about it soon as my daughter is now picking up on the fact that she is given lots of cash when visiting that side of the family, while her brother, who is unable to travel (and nobody bothers to come to us), receives notably less/nothing at all.