To not want MIL involved in the same way as my mum

[mtrkk]

I know how this sounds, but I’m wondering if I’m being unfair.

I’m a SAHM with 3 kids. DH’s family are very wealthy, mine are ordinary. I sometimes feel MIL thinks being generous should automatically make us really close.

My mum is the person I ring if I’ve had a bad day, have something exciting to share, just fancy a chat or need advice how to wash a stubborn stain off. She’s… my mum. MIL wants that sort of relationship too, but it doesn’t feel natural because we don’t have that history.

When I had my youngest, my mum came over and cleaned the kitchen because I’d been up all night. MIL arrived with loads of expensive baby clothes (which was lovely), but kept saying she’d take the baby so I could “do something useful”. I actually just wanted to sit cuddling my newborn.

She’s also very organised. It’ll be “I’ve booked lunch for everyone on Sunday” or “We’re all going to the country house next weekend.” It feels more like an expectation than an invitation. She’s surprised if I say lunch at 1 won’t work and mumbles something about the fact that if my baby’s tired he can just nap in the pram or my middle child will learn to enjoy seafood if I expose her to it enough.

The money side makes me uncomfortable too. She paid for BIL and SIL to go on an amazing holiday last year, and now they’re at her house all the time. MIL is forever treating them to holidays, shopping trips and things for the children. She’s offered us the same sort of things, but it feels like there’s an expectation that we’ll become just as involved. The other day she actually said “Your SIL always says yes, why can’t you”. I also cringe a little at big logo t clothes and MIL asks why is my daughter rarely dressed in outfits that have DIOR written in large font on the front.

My mum sees the children more because she lives nearby and she’ll pop over if I need to take one child to the dentist or if I’ve run out of milk. It’s just everyday life.

MIL gets upset that she’s not included in those sorts of things too, but I don’t know how to explain that you can’t recreate the relationship I have with my own mum. Also MIL wants to come over as often as my mum but for things that’ll be fun for her rather than useful to me (ie she’d like to come over and play with our toddler for only as long as the toddler is in a good mood, in case of tantrum I should swoop in or if anyone gets dirty I clean them up, my mum is happy to come over for 2hrs whilst I pop to the hairdressers and she’ll handle all the tantrums, snack requests in the meantime)

It’s not that I don’t like her. We see her regularly, she’s involved with birthdays, Christmas and school events.

DH thinks I’m being unfair because if my mum can come and go as she pleases, why shouldn’t his?

To me they’re completely different relationships.

Yeah, how often does DH arrange for his mother to do things? Thought not. But happy to complain. Yeah. Great

My ex-MIL got the cob on when I went away on a spa weekend with just my mum a couple of weeks before I married her son - felt she ought to have been invited. No.
Also wanted me to call her Mum. Most definitely a no.
My now in-laws are lovely and I am grateful for them every day ❤️

She has done nothing wrong. It sounds like you just don't like her much.

She's got a relationship with her. No need for op to be forced to do any more than she wishes.

Why should op be forced to lie? She doesn't want to see her more. She sees her plenty.

The husband can see his own mother more.

Invented problem solved.

Not the topic of this thread, but you sound very passive. Speaking from experience, it's perfectly possible to build a good relationship as adults. When you do see your grandmother, have you tried asking about her life? Maybe even let her know directly how much you regret not having been given the opportunity you be closer?

It’s obvious the MIL will need to speak to OP more to arrange seeing the kids, because OP is a SAHM and is with the kids far more.

It's funny how it's a running joke and everybody sympathise with men who have to put up with overbearing MIL ,

but women are expected to be grateful and are in the wrong when THEY have overbearing MIL

OP sees her plenty. Husband will have to organise himself to see his own mother more since Ops time and attention aren't his resource to distribute to demanding family members.

Yes, I was forgetting the transactional English view point. In Italy family isn't seen as "resources". They are quite happy to share time with grandparents and to all go out to lunch with mum, dad, aunties, cousins etc. Everyone mucks in and the kids have a great extended network. It helps them with social and conversational skills, meal time etiquette etc. Here people are more reserved and isolated.

YANBU for feeling this way.. however I think that you should recognise how lucky you and your DC are to have 2 grandparents who want to be involved. A lot of people have no offers of help or any sort of relationship to speak of - you have your DM for the every day stuff and offers of holidays, involvement and more from your MIL. I’m not saying it’s not annoying.. I’m sure it is but It might help you to reframe this and see it as something that you / everyone could benefit from if you made the effort to take her up on some (not all) of the offers.

I didn’t say she doesn’t see her plenty. Not sure the thread is even about DH not seeing his mother enough but yeah obviously if he wants to see his mum more he needs to organise that.

No one has ever told me they are upset/offended. Usually whichever are the “chosen” grandparents one weekend, the next weekend the other grandparents get them. And typically it’s both! Often my parents/in-laws work together and create a schedule that works for them, swapping kids out as and when. It does mean we spend approximately 1 weekend a month with our kids and virtually never see them during the holidays, but they all have a really close bond! It’s ace!

But presumably the husband is off on a weekend and 5/6 weeks holiday a year? (Otherwise I’m not sure why he would have had children if he was going to be an absent father). Every weekend is plenty of time for a grandparent. The op can organise mon-Fri with her mum, the husband can organise sat/sun and holidays with his.

Yup, your husband is the one that should facilitate their relationship, not you.

i no longer have contact with my MIL, part of that was the expectation that on the days when she would normally help look after the children it would be absolutely fine if she made other plans and could no longer do it, but god forbid the children decided they wanted to do something else and not go.
I have said that I have a childcare contract with my childminder, and no one else.
if my partner wants his mum to have them, he can organise it, and organise back up with when she makes other plans.
and that’s what happens.

as others has said, perhaps when the baby is older she can take them out for a few hours, so you don’t have to entertain and she can spend time with them.

i also hate the expectation that if someone gifts you with something then you are forever indebted to them and must be at their beck and call!

Well he can facilitate that then can’t he

The onus was should mostly be on my dad when I was younger but my mum didn't get along with her because of a personality clash, so that exacerbated the situation. My dad also died when I was 13, and my mum never made arrangements for visits, that said the horse had bolted by that point.

This isn't at all the same scenario. Mil sees them plenty, has a relationship with the grandkids and op specifically said she likes her. However mil wants to act as though she's Ops mum and be treated as though she's Ops mum. Which she's not.

Dh can see his own mother more as OPs not his resource to be doled out to demanding family members.

If your family is that transactional and your husbands family are limited to 2 days rather than 5 like you are running a business then I feel sorry for you and your kids.

You want to exclude one of the grandparents and want reassurance that thats not nasty?
Wait till its you

Well dh certainly can't instruct OP that his mother gets to come and go as she likes on Ops time, as he's attempted and so far failed to do. That's not his place.

So as mil already sees them plenty, that's that.

And if mil is demanding more time, dh can see more of his own mother. That's the only other option.

Your mil does not sound demanding, just wanting to be involved. Do you have any idea how lucky you are for your childeen to have this amount of family? My children have no grandparents, aunts, uncles or cousins!

It's great that Ops definitely not excluding anyone.

I can see why you're excluded though.

on this site, the MIL is only second in the vilification stakes to the much loathed stepmother - and neither can do right for doing wrong.

Here your MIL is doing her best to be punctiliously fair in offering the same opportunities to both offspring and you resent and blame her for it. If she wasn’t I’d bet my bottom dollar you’d be on here bleating about your DH’s sibling was the golden child and it was all so unfair.

Stop putting boundaries between the children
and their grandmother. Do better.

Fortunately she's already involved. So there's no problem.

Stop trying to instruct women that their lives are resources to be doled out to demanding family members. Mil sees them plenty.

Do better.