MIL meltdown - please make me be sensible

[minifingers]

Background: been with DH 20 years, married 15 years. MIL has always behaved in a 'correct' way with me, polite, kept her opinions to herself (mostly), but I have always felt a lack of genuine warmth and liking from her. Two days before we got married she told me she had a 'very bad feeling about this wedding', and she wasn't sure why. I never repeated it to DH, but I was devastated and it cast a cloud over the wedding for me. I have held it in my heart ever since. I have no idea why she felt she had to tell me that, other than to spoil my happiness and make me feel anxious.

Any way, roll on 15 years. DH and I have been fine, 3 children, a stable and happy marriage. The main difficulty in our life has been with our oldest, who is now nearly 15. We've had 2 years of absolute hell from her (violence, verbal aggression, school refusal), and earlier this year she went to stay with MIL as I had got to the point where I was on the verge of a breakdown with it. MIL lives just around the corner and we are back and forth from her house 3 or 4 times a week, as DH likes to visit a lot and helps her care for his dad, who is very disabled from a stroke. DD has been fine with MIL - compliant, helpful, polite, and very patient and good humoured with my FIL who is quite senile, incontinent, and who drives MIL mad. It's been good for dd being there and feeling useful and loved, and I'm very, very grateful to MIL.

To cut to the event which has upset me, yesterday dd was sick at school, and I picked her up half way through the day and bought her home. I had to be at work at 7.40 last night, and so drove dd over to MIL's on the way there. I was running late, so dropped her at the front door and started to drive off. As I did so I saw SIL walking down the road, and she flagged me down. I stopped and said hello, and we had a very brief discussion about why I was dropping dd back. I didn't get out the car.

I was just telling her I had to go as I was late for work when in my wing mirror I saw my elderly and not very fit MIL pelting down the road towards us in her dressing gown with a face like thunder, gesticulating angrily. It transpired she was furious that I hadn't come in and said hello when I'd dropped dd off. She told me she felt like I was treating her home as a travel lodge and that she was very angry with me. I just looked at her and said 'sorry, but I'm very late for work and couldn't stop', to which she answered 'well you could stop to talk to SIL'. SIL pointed out that she'd flagged me down and that I was just leaving. I said, 'I'm sorry that you feel like that, but I can't stop now', and drove off, shocked and shaken.

It sounds so trivial but I've been on the verge of tears all day today and feel like I don't want to see her again. All the feelings of not being liked that I've always had in her company, which I've pushed down for 2 decades, have come bubbling to the surface and I'm really distraught. Her fury was so out of proportion with my 'crime' - dropping dd off without coming in - I can only assume there's a whole heap of baggage there that is the real reason she's angry with me. I see her at least twice most weeks, DH talks to her every day and goes over at least 3 times a week. It's not like we've just dumped dd and left MIL to get on with raising her for us. Just to complicate things further, while dd is awful at school and sometimes with dh, I've been the main target of her teenage angst, and have been on the receiving end of some really horrible personal abuse from her. She tells me I'm the cause of all her problems and she behaves badly because of me. She can't explain why, but she's adamant it's all my fault. All of it. She has campaigned to try to get me to leave home so she can live with DH, and for me to just go away. I feel like a failure as a parent and suspect that my MIL compares me with my SIL's, whose teenage children are all polite, hard working, loving, well behaved. I feel judged and disliked.

I hate people being angry with me. Really, really hate it.

Is it crazy of me to be so upset about this? I'm beside myself about it. My current feeling is that a million wild horses couldn't drag me over to her house again. I hate confrontations and feel humiliated.

What is she like with 'manners' and what is 'publicly appropriate'? Did she ever work, or has her family always been her only priority?

Because that makes a large difference. If the only things she has ever had to rush off for are her family commitments, then she possibly thinks you behaved in a very inappropriate way, as she just can't comprehend how the 'mother' of the family is putting another commitment before family, IYSWIM?

If it were me (and I'm not saying it's the RIGHT thing to do, mind) I would cool it with her and just be civil.

And I would be working on getting my DD out of the house. NOT because I think she is poisoning her deliberately. But that same vibe the you get, your DD might also be getting.

She did not put a cloud over your wedding, your interpretation over one person's comment did that.

Yes she did! If my future MIL was to have said something like that to me I would have been very upset!!!! As it is I know my MIL had misgivings but I didn't at the time. What she was concerned might happen never did. If she had opened her mouth and voiced her concerns it would have left a real strain on the future relationship between us.

Please let's be careful about lapping in and assuming the MIL's at fault- even though this is Mumsnet. She may be- but leaping to the conclusion that it is her fault that the OP's dd is being difficult is ridiculous.

I think I might feel a bit used if I were her and the girl was just dumped on my doorstep. I probably would have yelled- but I might have done. And she was in her dressing gown- was she already in bed or going early? She's caring for a difficult senile husband as well as a challenging grand daughter and she's presumably not young- she's under a huge amount of strain. Cut her some slack!

Do you pay your MIL to have your D?

If not or if she will not accept payment perhaps you could agree a certain sum of money with your DH and use it in other ways to make your MIL's life nicer
Does she have a care package for your FIL..perhaps ensure that she has all the help that they can access.

I think that your MIL needs some respite every week and you could both agree that she gets it

Ronald, she let me know 2 days before our wedding that she wasn't happy about us marrying. You are damn right I didn't like it.

Yes, she is doing something wonderful for us.

And she dislikes me. Always has. Maybe now she feels she is morally justified in letting her feelings show - because she feels I'm rude and ungrateful.

I don't know how to move on from here. I can apologise and not do it again, but she'll still dislike me because she did before all this happened.

I can't continue to have my dd stay with her under these circumstances, knowing MIL is stressed by it. DD will have to come home. I will go back to the doctors and go back on anti-d's so I can cope.

Ronald - I didn't have time to go in to MIL's last night. I just didn't. I can't be late for work. I have dropped dd and not gone in maybe one other time in the last 2 months.

minifingers

Do you contribute financially to your daughters upbringing?

Minifingers. Might your daughter be having a reaction to contraception? Is she on a pill/coil ? Hormones can be down right nasty

Please don't let this one incident put you back on anti depressants. I can totally understand why your upset and I think you have been quite respectful towards your mil through out this thread.

I honestly think you should approach her in the very near future to say sorry that she felt you were being rude etc. you never know she might open up to you.

Hope your ok op, sounds like a shit situation.

I agree with attila on why you get the sense that MIL doesn't like you.

My mil 'tolerates' me - I'd take it personally but she has been hideous to dp exs in the past.

Does mil want dd to go as she might see her as company ? I think bringing her back though is best all round.

Dh has to stop pandering to her only talking to him, you are a unit. Dh is playing a part in this.

If it was my dd1 I would sit with dp and discuss why she has come home and what the consequences will be if she continues to behave like this. Eg. SS. It's not fair for the other dc to have to grow up seeing this.

Hope you get through it.

I would Q if you are thinking accurately about this. Stop making a giant deal over something fairly small on the face of it

Your MIL thought you were being rude and told you
You were being rude but had your reasons.

Apologise and bear her feelings in mind in future.

Nothing else has changed

Except that now you can spend time considering the amount of pressure others are under and how much they do to support you. That is a useful exercise for all of us busying about in our own lives.

It is okay for someone not to like you or even for them to actively dislike you. So what. Where does it say that you must be liked by everyone?
Examine where that comes from and why..I would.

It feels as though you are adding lots of things together and somehow trying to make this into a dramatisation.

You don't have to bring you D home.
You simply have to appreciate your MIL and her situation more. You have to spend time thinking about how kind this woman is being toward you. This may mean that you do have to be polite and kind back to someone who you have decided doesn't like you.

Maybe you will have to examine all the information regarding whether she does or doesn't like you. Perhaps also try to see the facts that dis-confirm your beliefs not just those that confirm them.
Maybe you will have to let go of old grudges that you have held for a while as they aren't helpful now? Maybe try to act in the here and now for a while and not in the past just to see if that helps?

Why would you have to go to your GP and get anti ds?
Are you currently depressed? Or again are you dramatising and predicting the worst possible case scenario.
Who know what would happen if your d comes home now. No one as we can't predict the future.
She possibly should and would have a say in where she stayed though depending on her age

mini...the wedding thing, it was 15 yrs ago, she had her reasons too, I'm sure, that I'd guess you never explored?...in the words of Elsa...Let it go.
It isn't helping you in anyway is it? No, so let it go

Lots of MIL feel like this before their son's weddings and lots say and do worse. It is your reaction to it that is key. You are still massively aggrieved about it 15 yrs later. Seek therapy to take the heat out of it. Life will be better without it hanging around.

Waffle, we pay for dd's clothes, books, all school expenses, lunches, pocket money, phone. She doesn't eat breakfast but has her evening meal with mil. DH has offered money and it has been turned down. Pil comfortably off. Multiple cruise-going comfortably off.

Mini you asked people to make you be sensible.

What you are proposing is not sensible and in fact you seem to be working yourself up more and more.

It's possible that this could be resolved with a conversation.

Why won't you explore that?

Why is it more sensible to nurse this wound, disregard the strain your MIL is under, pull your daughter out of a stable environment which works better for her, make a huge deal of this then go on anti-depressants?

Haha, more typos. I meant "what you are proposing is not sensible".

Everything Ronald said.

Try and have some compassion for your MIL, your anger towards her will only harm you.

Can I ask how your daughter's acne is being managed? Has it been treated effectively? IME acne can be exceptionally difficult to cope with, especially as a teenager.

I wonder if being the carer to her husband and her grandaughter made your MIL react OTT?

She might have been having any utterly crap day and not seen others/been out and just wanted to see another face for 5 mins?

Do your PIL go on many cruises now? What use is money if you are too unwell to use it?

It feels as though you only look at the facts that suit your purposes. If your D is living elsewhere you should have considered paying for that privilege. If not in money then in other ways.
Your H helps out with his father a few nights a week. What do you do?
What could you both do? Look at what you could give to match what your MIL has given to your d and you as a family.

I think you need to worry less (or not at all) about your MIL. I agree it's a lovely thing she's doing for you etc. but she has bragging rights for that. Ask yourself if she could tell no-one at all in the world what she is doing, would she stil be doing it?
You know she's a bit if a bitch and this sort of thing confirms it. You could turn up there with a winning Lotto ticket covered in bells and fecking whistles and you would still be a wrong un in their eyes OP. You need to get yourself to a place where you care less and it's not easy but it is possible. You ARE a nice person and that is why it hurts but you can only manage and govern your own behaviour not others. Stop giving so much of a shit basically. MIL is feeding off your guilt trip the mardy old cow. Your situation is crap but it's only you that can change how you feel, no-one else has the will to do so.

Telling someone they shouldn't marry into your family 2 days before the wedding is completely and utterly inexcusable. Decent people do not ever even think of saying something like that. Not liking them getting engaged and saying something then? That would be one thing. You do not say you have bad feelings about someone else's wedding 2 days before it unless you are concerned for that person's safety somehow.

So I understand why OP won't take advice from people who think telling someone not to marry their child 2 days before the wedding can be brushed under the carpet. Insinuating it's all in her head or she radiated equal hatred and is equally to blame? Bullshit. You just don't do that and I don't know what's wrong with anyone who doesn't realise that. It's not even like she apologised.

Not that I'm on OP's side, really, you say your daughter's problems stem back to the sudden onset of puberty. You say she's fat and has acne but she used to be a "tiny pretty little girl". It would have been enough to say that it was sudden, we all know children are smaller than adults. I wonder if you were making these observations about the loss of your "tiny pretty little girl" out loud. If she'd been properly supported it wouldn't have affected her nearly so badly as it has. I take it you've checked that she doesn't have hormonal problems?

You leaving will not fix anything, unless you're massively lying about your behaviour towards her. You need to work out what her problems are. She thinks they're you? Have you actually looked into that? Have you asked her what she thinks you've done? (It might be some things you've done, it might be some things you haven't done - protected her from someone else for example.) You need to put it right somehow. Being abandoned by your mother is not going to do her any favours, even if she doesn't like you right now.

Broken - I absolutely do have compassion for my MIL. I really do.

But I feel devastated by her hostility to me.

If we normally had a warm relationship I would forget it quickly and try to make amends, but it has made me feel hyper aware of the fact that she dislikes me and always has. I don't know where to put those feelings now - they're rushing around my head shrieking.

I feel like there's something deeply unpleasant about being beholden to someone who has contempt for you.

But mini, how have you been with her over the last 15 years?

Have you shown her genuine warmth and liking?

You need a good, constructive, clear the air conversation. Give her a chance to apologise for the pre-wedding nastiness, explain how it's affected your behaviour towards her, then apologise if she has felt taken for granted. Offer her support in an extremely difficult time.

You have a choice now: either build bridges or destroy them.

I would feel the same way, Mini

I have always taken a sincere interest in her and FIL - their well-being, holidays, day to day life and the lives of my nieces and nephews, but I feel inhibited by her dislike of me.

Is there any way that you and mil and dd could work together to sort out dd's low self esteem. Would she go to a slimming club, swimming or the gym with you a couple of times a week? How is her skin now? Has she seen a doctor about the acne?
What about her friends? Did you encourage her to bring them home? Is there anything she really really wants that she can work towards by addressin her relationship with you? The Summer holidays are coming up and you will have 6 weeks to try very hard to get to the root of why she behaves as she does. She is bullying you. Is she being bullied herself?