MIL is for MONSTER In Law....

[bubblez]

I really didn't want my first thread to be a rant but please tell me am I the only one who is unfortunate enough to have a true MONSTER in law??

Ok I dealt with the 'trapping my son' comments, and took the conversations that had the, 'my sons an angel and could do better' undertone (when he clearly is not an angel) with a pinch of salt. I even tried to handle the MIL's assumtions, 'she's not good mother material, she'll get depressed', with poise and control of my tounge. All this and she is not even my official 'in law'.

But really, how much is enough??

Sunday, MIL fancied greek food, (im greek, MIL and DP are not) of course i was asked to pick the restaurant. I went for quality and informed her that it would be a lil exp (btw she can more than afford it). After askin for a translation of the menu and cussing the restaurant she ordered, the food came and in true Monster in law fashion she 'hated' it and made it clear (obviously my fault for not giving an accurate description of all the ingredients). She then proceeded to point out a female waiter to my dp and comment on how pretty she is and how she is 'much prettier then the greek you have'. Now im no greek goddess but IMO im not a dog either and that just felt uncalled for. At the end of the meal she insisted on paying the lions share (even though she didnt need to) so how can I be mad at her without feeling bad...?!?

Her other favourite things to do are saying the complete opposite to me (if i think something is right its wrong), snapping (very loudly) at me in public (like i am 4 not 24 and one of her children), taking her ds side even if he is being blatently out of order, and doggig my relationship at every given op. (then she'll be extra nice so i dont feel like i can moan)

For a year her ds didnt want to see her cos of an argument and if it wasnt for me they still wouldnt be talking, now i regrett helping out.

Is it only me that goes through this??

I try to respect my elders but when is enough, enough??

Got sent this joke today and thought of tihs thread

It is a known fact that all daughter-in-laws have problems with their mother-in-laws.

Anyway... One day all the daughter-in-laws got together and decided to apologise to their mother-in-laws for everything they had supposedly done wrong. A week later the daughter-in-laws decided to take their families (including their mother-in-laws) on a picnic. The mother-in-laws were all in one bus, which was the first to leave. On the way their bus had an accident and all the mother-in-laws died. The daughter-in-laws were devastated but one in particular was more heart broken than the rest. Everyone tried to console her by telling her that at least her mother-in-law had died without any tension between them.

But still she cried. Eventually when she was calm enough to speak. The other women asked her, "Why are you crying so much? Was your mother-in-law that special?"

The woman sobbing uncontrollably replied... "No, she missed the bus!"

Littlemisspiggy. It was Dh that suggested asking his mate, so he knew before MIL emailed him. I had been saying to him that i may not get to parents evening as all my friends Dh's were on night shift.He only gets 20 mins a week to call me, so he will email me tonight and will probably forward me the email his mum sent so i can read it. Knowing him there will be a nasty reply to her, especially at the insinutaions that i would have an affair and leave the Ds with someone i didn't trust. Silly mare that she is

Glad to hear he sticks up for you.

That mother in law site made me cringe.Three stories on home page and one happened to me.M.I.L asked me to step aside so she could have one of the family too.We were paying as well.We had a row in the wedding car on way to reception

My late wifes mother has been a complete nightmare. My wife could very easily handle 2 little ones both under 2yrs old. I'll never know how she did it but my MIL was always sticking her nose in where it wasn't wanted and nothing was ever good enough for my daughters. she would always be coming round and used lame excuses for doing so. The worst being "I was in the area" when she knew no one in the area except for her daughter. When my wife passed away she became even worse and tried to insinuate I was a bad father because I didn't give up my job for the sake of the girls. In the end I couldn't take it any longer and quit my job just to keep her happy. After re-evaluating my finances and my sanity I had to get away from her and start afresh with no one except me and my daughters. I moved away and started a new job and got an excellent childminder. My MIL can still see her granddaughters but we're not so accessible now and the 20mile journey to see us doesn't happen so often now. After my wife passing, quitting my job, moving away and getting a new job, all I want now is quality time with my little ones but I've never felt so lonely in my entire life.

My MIL may have been the biggest pain in the backside but she had her uses. That's an unfortunate way of looking at a member of the family but in the end that's all I saw her as. We do get along better now I'm not so local to her anymore but she will always be "that pain in the backside woman" to me.

there is a vein runnung through this. Never expect your husbands/partners to stand up for you when their darling mummies are being vile bitches.

JC Hpw are you feeling now?

Its terribly lonely/boring being at home wi kids, despite the fact that they are the most amazing things in our lives.

Hiya Jackconnor,are you new, or have just changed your name?

Anyway if you are new Welcome to Mumsnet !!!

Hi Jack Connor

Read your post and sorry to hear about anyone feeling lonely, especially someone who sounds like such a fantastic dad and strong person.

Nickinoo is bang on, it can be very lonely looking after kids. Totally different scenario but I felt desperately loney at home with my DS when he was a small baby. We lived in a new town and new no-one. Was so starved of adult conversation I ended up changing gas suppliers twice because i let sales people in our house! But then I started making a real effort to meet people. Went to baby groups and have met some fantastic people, great for DS too.

Its good to put yourself out there. Having children enables you to relate to almost anyone else with them! Have you thought about evening classes, toddler groups etc? They made a huge difference to me.

Sorry for hijacking your post Bubblez, my MIL used to be a nightmare until we started holding our ground with her. I have some blinding MIL horror-stories but she's so great now (esp with DS) that I'd feel bad about telling them.

Holding your ground is the key. Also, don't let her get away with ANY nasty little comments. Even if it feels uncomfortable, sticking up for yourself politely but firmly will let walk away feeling proud of yourself and she'll soon learn. Make her feel small and embaressed for any pathetic, rude behaviour.

No cause I divorced her son - I do have a step monster though but praying for her to drop dead very shortly from some flesh eating disease that will consume her miserable little body from the inside out!!

leonsmum LOL at the gas suppliers thing. I have been told off by DP for letting strange men in the house (all have been old and very harmless).

Nikkinoo - that's not the worse of it. I even bought a grotty highchair (which I later sold for £20 less than I paid for it) as an excuse to talk to the lady up the street. How sad is that?!!!

Am v. grateful to have a bunch of friends around here now or I dread to think what my boredom would have led me to next!

Nikkinoo - that's not the worse of it. I even bought a grotty highchair (which I later sold for £20 less than I paid for it) as an excuse to talk to the lady up the street. How sad is that?!!!

Am v. grateful to have a bunch of friends around here now or I dread to think what my boredom would have led me to next!

I'm now looking at my MIL in a new light! Had always thought of her as being quite difficult, but I've got it easy compared to some of you. Some of them sound like living nightmares .

Since becoming pregnant (I'm now 27 weeks with first child/grandchild) I've discovered that my role is now that of a walking incubator for her grandchild. She will often address the bump before ackowledging my presence!

I've had a pretty grotty pregnancy (sick/fainting/suspected problems with baby/scatica.....) and so have been going out as little as possible, just because I need to be at home resting. I got a phone call on my mobile one day saying that they needed to speak to my DH VERY URGENTLY (why didn't they ring his mobile?!) and could we come over right away.

Suspecting that someone had died/been taken ill we went over to their house immediately (surely they knew that I needed rest - so this must be really serious - right?)

WRONG!

When we got there we were panicking a little as to what the news would be. We were sat down quite seriously in the front room and were told the news - they were thinking of selling something on e-bay - did we think that was a good idea?!

I very nearly flipped! I sat there for the next hour in a sort of daze that this was considered so important compared to my health! DH was not too impressed either!

Still, my in-laws are actually very nice the vast majority of the time, so I'm treating that little episode as a lapse of judgement. However, I will NOT be going/summoned anywhere in future without first knowing why!

I just remembered this "gem" that my MIL did to me last year. I'd had a miscarriage and was given a pregnancy test to do by the hospital 2 weeks afterwards. I didn't know that DH told his parents this the day he rang to tell them that I'd lost the baby. 5 days after the m/c, the 'phone rang. Normally I'd ignore it in case it's the ILs (I go out of my way never to speak to them) but I was expecting my family to ring to see how I was and DH was out. I answered it and it was MIL. After asking how I was, she straight away launched in to, "I'm just ringing to see if you've taken the pregnancy test yet." I was gobsmacked, it wasn't just what she said it was the way she said it. And it wasn't that she actually cared. It was so that she could gossip and pass it on to her DD. Of course, it went straight over DHs head, and it eventually took a good hour of me crying my eyes out before he admitted that it was a really tactless thing to do. The thing was that after she'd asked me about the test, she went on and on about how she could "empathise" with me, like she was some great councellor.

I'm now 7 1/2 mths pregnant and I'm so glad that she was the last to know about this pregnancy. We only told her 2 1/2 months ago!

Honeychild, I didn't know whether to weep or laugh when I read your story. Bob the Builder loves you

Like others I'm now grateful for my sometimes irritating and selfish and mildly loopy but mostly great MIL. Mind you, I have vile parents who I don't speak to and whom have refused to meet my daughter, their only grandchild.

Bubblez, I agree that your husband's reaction is important. You've said that you don't want him to react to her but have you told her that? What I'm wondering is why he just doesn't do it anyway, isn't it a kneejerk reaction for him to defend you? What your MIL said about the waitress is deeply offensive on many levels. You really have to put your foot down now and make sure your husband does so too, otherwise one day she's going to undermine you in front of your child/children and you should not let that happen.

Oops, meant to type have you told HIM that. I just couldn't understand why he didn't say anything to your MIL, so I wondered whether you had a pact that he wouldn't react.

Gosh I thought my MIL was bad! Apart from the usual stuff stemming from jealousy, which is bad enough, she's picked a fight with my dh infront of our daughter, and then told my dd what a horrible daddy she's got and how horrible he is to her etc with the result that dd ran away screaming that she hated daddy etc. She has no respect for me, undermines me at every opportunity and stands behind me pulling faces when I'm trying to tell dd things like it's wrong to tell lies! I thought it was impossible to attain 75 years of life and still behave the way she does, and the worst thing was that dh only ever said she's an old lady, be patient (my mum's even older and has never, and would never behave like that). The incident with dh though, finally opened his eyes, and we've (mostly coincidentally) moved away and he's spoken to her once on the phone in the last 3 months. Hip hip hooray. Oh dear, we don't have a spare bedroom either.

my MIL is no monster, she's just carazeeeee

she plays with dolls and invents ghosts. luckily she lives on the other side of the world

A friend of mine sent me this - sorry if it's a bit scruffy, but I've just copied it. THought it fitted this rant.

A Woman's Poem

He didn't like the casserole

And he didn't like my cake.

My biscuits were too hard...

Not like his mother used to make.

I didn't perk the coffee right

He didn't like the stew,

I didn't mend his socks

The way his mother used to do.

I pondered for an answer

I was looking for a clue.

Then I turned around and smacked him...

Like his Mother used to do.

just wanted to say a big thank you for all of your responses and for reasuring me that im not the only one with a mil (monster not mother)

oh and the joke and the poem...pmsl

Poorbubblez! Frumpygrumpy's advice is brilliant.bubblez, dont let ANYONE speak to you like that and IF that happens in a restaurant or anywhere again and your dh does not LEAP to your defence THROW FOOD SCREAM and run AWAY. Say it is your hormones if challenged. Seriously, if they can do it why can't you?
I have an actual mother like that. Last Christmas she gave me a very small purple plastic storage basket as my only present then proceeded to fall out with me when she asked what I thought and I said it was an odd present.Once during an argument with her I got exasperated and poured a pint of milk behind her kitchen units- badly fitted; gap there, did her a favour really...