How do I handle my mother-in-law favouring my sister-in-law's children?

[Willsoo]

Mother in law favouring her daughter's children. Please can I have some advice on how to manage this situation with my MIL. I have 3 chn now, including a baby girl who is 4 months old. My SIL has 2 chn and works full time. I have always had an up/down relationship with my MIL. I used to live down south where my husband is from and when I had one child my MIL was a great help, at times very involved and too much but I was very grateful for her help. She minded my children 2-3 days a week when I went back to work. When my SIL's children first born arrived, it all changed. She started to see us less and less, appeared to visit her new grand son a lot more than my children. It was upsetting but I had an idea it would happen as my SIL is very reliant on her parents for support and close to her mum. Nevertheless, I would often call her MIL my 'southern mum' as she replaced the family I had up north.

A few years ago we decided to move up north, mostly due to financial reasons and wanting a bigger house. This didn't go down well with my MIL. I knew she was unhappy about it. My family were up north but definitely haven't paid as much attention to the chn as I would of liked. We try and visit down south as much as possible and stay with my in laws. Sadly my chn rarely get quality time with their grand parents because my SIL/s chn are always there. My SIL has gone back to work full time and has the chn 4-5 days a week, which is obviously a lot. I understand the relationship is going to be different now we live 250 miles away but we never hear from my MIL anymore, rarely get a message asking how we are, lack of check ins with my new baby- it really hurts. Whenever she does visit, she talks about her other gran-children all the time and it winds me up so much. She takes my SIL's chn to see Father Christmas, offers more child care, minds them when her daughter is off work and capable of having them. I now don't talk to my SIL due to all this and has caused lots of problems. How can I get over my chn feeling second best?? It's so hard visiting and staying with them when her children are always there. Many thanks x

I think you need to get over yourself tbh.

You made the choice to move away.

If she lets you stay when you visit 'down south' then that's very kind of her. You can't possibly think it's reasonable to then also insist that she sends the other children away?! Not to mention that these are your children's cousins! It's surely nice for them to see each other.as.mucb as possible when they visit (given that you've moved them miles away thus preventing a close relationship).

What do you do for her? How do you help her?

My MIL favours her other grandchildren (even financially) & to be honest it took me years but I got over it. She sees them more as they lived closer & my mum lived closer to me so I relied on her more. I had umpteen arguments with my DH about it & I look back now and think the energy I wasted wasn’t worth it. She loves my kids, they love her & their relationship is fine. I couldn’t really expect her to be as close as she saw them less. I wish I’d given it much less energy, it ate me up and I regret that.

My MIL is a lovely person but very soft. She has my niece and nephew all the time because she believes my BIL and SIL need constant breaks because the kids are hard work. No help offered to us and if we ask she’s always unavailable so we haven’t asked for anything in years yet week in week out she has our niece and nephew. She will visit mine once every two weeks mostly out of courtesy. When she comes round we only get stories about our niece and nephew (both SEND) as they are all she talks about. My kids cottoned on to all the park visits, sleepovers, tea at nannas 3 times a week and it hit a nerve. My youngest is the same age as her cousins, 10, and I have a 14 year old son. She has said openly she won’t have both kids round at the same time as she doesn’t like the fighting so logistically if she was to have them, one would be left out and it wouldn’t help us out at all. My two don’t fight but my nephew is always hands on with my niece and she has them together all the time. I have noticed the pattern for years. DH didn’t step up and mention the favouritism and said I was overreacting. I just wanted to protect the interests of my kids because it wasn’t fair on them and where was our break? When our kids mentioned it at a later date he said he would say something but our eldest called his nanna out on it first. Caused a bit of uproar which could have been avoided years ago and MIL was really upset. My two rarely see their nanna now as they feel second best and when she comes round, still tells her stories of my nephew loving the park and my niece enjoying the ice cream from the park parlour, they just disappear out because of how it makes them feel. They are old enough to make their own decisions on this and I’m past the point of giving a shit and go out shopping leaving her to rattle on to my husband. He hates it but still won’t say anything despite his family leaving in droves when she comes round.

I never found a successful way to ensure my kids had focused PIL attention. We'd have the odd moment but it was often crowded out with having to pick up another child or take a lengthy phone call or meet them at some grim fun activity.
Mine were the eldest which always meant they had to watch the younger, needier kids get the attention.

It has definitely altered how my kids view those grandparents. Kids are developing ego, they want to be the centre of grandparent attention occasionally. We constantly heard how GC4 was a maths genius (dropped physics at GCSE as too hard) or GC5 a football star (can't cope with team sports) or GC5 had a healthy appetite (yep, eating disorder).

I'm sure the PIL took snippets of information and fed them back in a similar annoying way.

So I never found a way to effectively change the dynamic but I mourned that my in-laws weren't who I hoped for. Never fudged around when my kids spoke about the favouritism. And challenged ourselves to build strong relationships with others who were keen to say the sun shines from my kids arses!

Hi op I think situation is because it’s her daughter there is always a favourite and your dh isn’t it unfortunately. I don’t see why your doing all the contact let your dh do it and you just fade away it hurts less. You moved so that would affect the dynamics as well it hurts but you can’t change her.

I suspect it is quite usual to be closer to your daughter's children than your sons. Because it is your daughter.
If you overstep as a grandparent, your daughter will tell you to wind you neck in and you'll all move on. No grudges. No drama. Because you generally have that kind of close relationship with your own. It's rarely replicated with a daughter in law. Who's much more likely to decide that the best thing for her ( and therefore her husband too ) is to cut you off when you do something 'wrong'.
The relationship isn't the same, it can't be. Which will extend to the grandchildren. I'm basing this on the daily threads here, where mils are generally the devils spawn. Whatever they do. For many, it's probably easier to just avoid potential drama.
Also, you live 250 miles away.

Where is your mum op? Perhaps she thinks your mother is concentrating on you and your children as she is concentrating on her daughter and grandchildren?

Either I have misunderstood this or OP is insane
So, MIL was helping out with DC1 and OP complained she was interfering and pulled back - OP then moves 250 miles away
OP now complaining MIL is not spending time with her kids
But wait - MIL is spending time with SIL kids - since SIL hasn't complained and lives close by - so OP is refusing to speak to SIL
Have I got that right???

True.. I often see this on the step parent board too, where women are expected to love their step children as their own. Totally unrealistic. Op had you not moved away I would have had some sympathy. Of course you were entitled to make that choice. But you can’t expect things not to change!

I’m not a hugger . I have learnt over the years that some people are however , so I accept hugs from some people and hug back . A friend from work who always genuinely had my back (I’m retired but we still meet up) , a friend I’ve known for donkeys years due to a mutual hobby and another friend and her family (mother and sister) who again have become genuine friends. When I visited husbands family they always insisted on hugging and I felt truly uncomfortable.
This BIL however sounds like an oily oik and I would avoid his hus like the plague . How about growing talon like fingernails on both index fingers before family meetings and digging them in appropriately or developing a knee in the groin reaction and apologising by saying ‘oh, sorry, I’ve developed this uncontrollable body jerk when people get too close to me!!

My husband although the oldest was, according to his mother, the black sheep of his family. He had a 7yr old sister when we married so mil never really had anything to do with my oldest 2, although as I worked at night I was expected to have her during the day all of school holidays. We moved next door to them when my youngest was 3 so he saw more of them than the other 2 had. Cue sil who lived with them having a baby and they literally drove past my son sitting on the grass to take the 2 week old baby to the zoo, leaving my son asking me where they had gone. This from a mil who had told me she wouldn't treat the grandchildren any different. Then BIL (favourite child) met an older woman with 4 kids who then got more at birthdays, Xmas etc than mine ever did. They moved and I divorced my H and never heard from them again.

I agree with this.
But i also think there is very little you can do to change things, my mother had similar with her mil , my nan , she obviously favoured her daughters kids over us her sons kids even though she adored my dad .
It didn't affect me as i didn't like her and my other nan more than made up for it.
Some people are just weird, i can see how hurtful it can be but it's her loss really.

Stop comparing. Stop expecting. You’ll be happier.

You are being ridiculous.

You have 'stopped talking to your SiL' You need to give your head a wobble.

Obviously if you live 250 miles away, they are going to have a very different relationship than you did when you were close.

But when she did offer lots of support, you said that was over the top.

You don't need to "handle" your MiL at all.
But your whole family would be better off if you grew up a bit and nurtured a great relationship between them and their Grandparents, then and their Aunty, and them and their cousins.