to dread my son getting married going on some of the attitudes to MIL on MN?

[Fairynufff]

I hope if my son ever does get married his wife will be more forgiving of me than some of the mumsnetters posting on here.

If I say absolutely anything to a prospective daughter in law I can expect it to be interpreted as possessive, arsy, interfering, not generous enough, too generous, the wrong kind of generous, want the grandchildren for themselves, want the grandchildren only at appointed times, favouring some grandchildren over others, not pc enough, not making enough effort, making too much effort, making the wrong kind of effort, not understanding, old fashioned, loony, mad, spiteful etc etc.

I appreciate some PEOPLE (not just MIL) will be any of the above but why do some women seem to really hate their MIL for trumped up reasons?

I dread it too. My eldest son is a lovely chap, very loving and caring. And if I'm honest it will hurt a bit when all that is directed to a woman. However.... I am going to pull out all the stops to be open, welcoming and accepting, even if she is a cow, so that I can never ever be accused of being like some of the MILs that MNers appear to be cursed with. It is such a shame.

My MIL is lovely, but like us all sometimes does/says something stupid. If my Mum did that, I'd yell at her, and we'd both forget it. Because it's MIL I have to smile and fume silently - which isn't her fault, it's just the different relationship.

I love my MIL, my DH loves my mum even more, I suppose because she lives so close to us, we tend to see more of her. She comes on all our holidays with us! They gang up on me - tis most annoying

My sis's MIL is a total PITA though - I've seen her in action, and it's not nice. She picks at her parenting, and is just one of those women who has a very negative outlook on live and of others, basically because she's miserable herself.

It's the total luck of the draw - if you are a nice person, your potential DIL's will like you and you can all rub along quite nicely. In fact, I just spent an entire weekend with mine while DH was otherwise engaged. It was lovely - we pottered around, did the parks, made some cakes.

I think some MILs probably are nightmares - My dad's mum was one - no other woman was good enough for her little boy. She even used to let herself into my parents house and rearrange the cupboards etc, as she said my mum wasn't doing it the way my dad was used to.
Having said that - my MIL is fab. I get on with her really well. (we live five mins walk away) She has even come round in the early hours to help out when DS won't sleep and I'm at the end of my tether.

I have a lovely MIL

DH sadly does not.

tis not just mums with sons who need fret, also us with DD's can be caned too!

'I think if you let your kids live their lives, don't interfere in child rearing or housework decisions and don't expect to be endlessly visiting and visited then things are usually OK.' This is so true. MIL refused to phone before visits as why should she have to 'make an appointment to see her own son?' (her words). She also said to DH that SHE and HIM were 'the family' and me and the kids were DH 'extended' family. She told DH she is on medication since he moved out and DH better watch it or step FIL will do him in.

HecateQueenOfGhosts re your comment on the MiL bringing up the wonderful men we fell in love with.

Hmm, if I'd got to know my ex-MiL better in the early days (ours was always a polite but slightly strained relationship - I would never have chosen her as a friend) I would have avoided her son like the plague (our marriage ended in a very bitter divorce with the two of them clearly in cahoots. His dad, to give him his due, refused to condone his son's behaviour and things are still frosty between them).

My new MiL is absolutely lovely, and a lot of fun. Her son is wonderful and her grandson (my DS) is showing every sign of being the most wonderful DS anyone ever had .

I love my mother-in-law! She's not the easiest person to live with (and we did, for 9 years), but she's been through a lot herself (death of her husband and older son in the space of 3 years) and is utterly supportive of us and adores her grandchildren. She coaches them in maths when needed (she's a former maths teacher) and comes to look after the children so that we can go away for the weekend sometimes. She dogsits for weeks on end while we're on holiday. There are some things she won't do (such as house sitting and looking after pet rodents and chickens, both of which give her the willies), but why wouldn't there be?

Whatever my MIL is like she has raised 2 wonderful sons. I cling to that thought when she says things like "maybe after this baby you can get back into shape (I am 12/14). And turns up the day after I get out of hospital with a premature baby to stay for the weekend and doesnt bring any food or bedding

jeee that (If my Mum did that, I'd yell at her, and we'd both forget it. Because it's MIL I have to smile and fume silently ) is sooo true.

I feel sorry for my mum actually as I don't let her off for nothing, even when she's trying to help me out. that is the relation between mother and daughter though. Lucky me I have too [worried emoticon]!

anything, not nothing obviously.

MrsMattie - I have one of those, but unfortunately she lives about 5 miles away .

She has openly admitted to me that she is not a 'womans woman' and you can see it sometimes even in her relationships with her grandkids (2 girls inc my DD, 1 boy) which is sad.

We do go through phases of getting on, but when we fall out - my God do we fall out.

That said, my first boyfriends Mum was a complete treasure, and I'm still friends with her, even though I split up with her son over 15 years ago. I would LOVE to trade her in for my MIL (although I suspect her own DIL doesn't feel the same!)

i think there's two main kinds of difficulty

1. the low-level, intensely irritating, differences of opinion/lifestyle which probably gets a high 'hit rate' on here, cos this is partly what mn is for. it depends on the maturity of both mil & dil to resolve

and

1. the less frequent, but harder to resolve, actually really messed up, these women aren't really in control of their lives & therefore spread misery & chaos around them, kind of issue, where the person probably proper counselling to make them have any hope of positive relationships.

my mil, fwiw, scores high on both counts (sigh), but i still retain a polite, friendly, (but slightly distant) relationship with her & try my hardest to treat her equal with my mum regarding, grandparental access etc.

also, there's the fact that she will never be 'my mummy', so i have less emotional investment in the relationship, and see her side a little less.

I find my problem with MIL is that you can't say what you really feel without MIL taking offence and (if I'm really honest) vice versa.#

I'd hate it if my MIL criticised my parenting although it sometimes leaves a lot to be desired (especially when MNing )

So theres a lot left unsaid between MIL and me. She is a lovely lady.

Lol at womblingfree still close relationship with mum of ex-1st-boyfriend/DIL comment. Can't see why that would raise any issues for DIL ...

Bit of a silly OP. Do you think people are making it up because -- why? because they're the possessive, thoughtless, defensive ones rather than the women they write about?

All you have to do is remember what it's like being a mother for the first time. Many MILs don't but they think they do.

They simply don't remember that it's not helpful to have someone else interfere with the way you are rearing your child. Somewhere along the line they dress it up as helpfulness and have no idea what's gone wrong.

my mum is lovely to my OH. i think most women just dont want to feel that there is someone looking over there shoulder.telling them that they did it better or could do better.
my advice take her out for a drink and befriend her so that u have a relashionship outside of the mil stuff then if u ever have something to say to her she will hopefully feel it is coming from a friend.

In my case my mum's parents lived a long way away but we saw them regularly, including every Xmas, birthdays and other times, and we went away on holiday with them. My dad's parents lived 10 minutes away across town. They never came to our house, we rarely saw them and they weren't really interested in either me or my brother (but when our cousin was born they managed to get on a long distance coach to see her several times a year..)

I grew up with the impression that only the mother's parents were the real grandparents.

I got married at 20 to the DS3 of a MIL with only DSs, who expected to be involved in every aspect of our life. As you can imagine this caused a lot of friction.

She started by threatening to disown DH when he said we were both going to use my surname instead of his. She caused no end of ructions over the wedding invites. She expected us to visit every Sunday and then had tears and tantrums when I didn't want to go.

There is lots more

When we had DC1 she practically landed on the doorstep. She phoned every day, they called round in the evenings (first weeks with a newborn ) and then just sat and sat. When she visits she is a "visitor" so she sits on the settee with the baby and doesn't move. It wouldn't occur to her to offer to help.

When talking about DH's brothers she'll say something like "SIL hadn't cleaned up" when moaning about the state of their houses- never that her son hadn't.

When my DB had a baby I realised that a lot of the MIL/DIL problems are just a different way of doing things. I do things the same as my mum but MIL is totally different and I don't get it.. Also my biggest problem is a DH with no backbone who will take his mother's side/ wishes over my needs

I do worry about being a MIL because there is no guarantee I will like DIL or her me.

You know, I was thinking about this, and I think it's a bit like stepmothers. Some are fabulous, and still can't do right for doing wrong. Some are appalling, and treat the kids like vermin. Most probably fall somewhere in the middle, and just do their best in a tricky situation. Some kids do treat great stepmothers as if they're awful ones... but that doesn't mean the awful don't exist!

The bottom line is that a new romantic relationship is muscling in on an existing, primeval, blood tie. And that's potentially explosive on both sides.

i think about this a lot. i agree that there are prob some awful MILs out there, but at the same time i do get really annoyed at the people who slag off their MIL cause of differing parenting attitudes. our mums generation brought up their kids in a time when medical advice was dif on a lot of things. why on earth should they have kept up to date with the latest nhs guidelines?

if in twenty years time, the WHO recommends feeding newborns every six hours on heston blumental-esque milk foams til the babs are weaned (at 8 weeks) on a diet of rare pork and fruit shoots, i would find it really bloody difficult to shut up if dgc wasnt taking to their EBM-shake .... there is nothing worse than unsolicited parenting advice, but the moment you have a kid eveyone dives in. we tend to choose our mates so they broadly agree with our values, we brainwash our dp's (..."well on MN, everyone reckons that..." ) and we can tell our own ma's where to stick it in a friendly voice.... we are more sensitives to MIL when it comes to parenting advice and perhaps less tolerant of generational changes.

quick 'nother thing. why is all the emphasis here on the MILs and the DILs? my brother's wife and my mum's relationship has gone downhill quite a lot since their first dc was born. its sad to see cause neither my mum or SIL doing anything wrong but they both seem to just hurt each other. as far as i am concerned, the one person who could sort this is my brother....

I quite like my MIL. I wouldn't swap her. She is not perfect but neither am I.

Her son, is rather nice and I thank her for making him so.

if my MIL had any more time for my kids I'd have more time for her

to me you get back what you give, I'd love a MIL who cared about my kids (her only grandkids),asked about them, took an interest, even knew what school they were at (she lives 10 mins away)

but no, she's only interested in dh's brother who is a complete waste of space (trouble with the police), so in my eyes she isn't worthy of the title "gran"

Helen - I doubt ex's Mrs doesn't has a problem with me being in touch with his parents - they are good friends of my parents too, so it's like a family thing, not just them having a relationship with me.

Ex's Mum is v. 'girly' and we have a lot of the same interests, ex's wife is like my MIL - not a 'woman's woman', hence they are not as close as they might be if they had more in common.

FWIW We also live miles apart these days so only see them once or twice a year and I haven't spoken to my ex for about 12 years.

Not sure I made that last point very well.

What I meant was that I'd like to swap MIL's - have no desire to swap husbands!

Sorry womblingfree if it wasn't clear that I was trying to make a (v. weak) joke, which I suspect reveals me to be the deeply jealous type! My ex's mum scared me, so I am in awe of anybody grown up enough to have that kind of relationship.