the worst MIL thread you've read

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What's the worst story about a MIL have you read on here? What were her antics? I read another thread that mentioned that there are some awful stories here on MN. Just wanted to know what they were? Alternatively, what about DILs... are there any stories that you've read on here which have shocked youm it's such a tricky relationship sometimes.

Agreed on that.

Have a visit to Gransnet for some vicious DIL stories - it's not just one way traffic and some people are crackers...

It's such a personal relationship which sort of get a foisted on you - you can choose your dp, but you can't choose their family so there's bound to be some stories from both sides

I don't get why it's unacceptable to be angry at an MIL. Why should people who do vile things be defended? I get on well with my MIL now but I went through 7 years of her doing her best to undermine me, hurting me and trying to destroy my relationship with dh. We get on fine now because I stood up to her and proved that I was a decent wife to her 'baby', swallowed my pride and encouraged her relationship with our children. It was hard but in pleased I did it.

However, if anyone had tried to blame me for her telling me it was my fault I wasn't able to have children or tried to defend her reasons for saying this I'd be furious. She was vile to me. No excuses. Just vile.

I think the problem is that there is only going to be a really, genuinely lovely relationship where both the mil and dil and nice, dare I say "normal", caring people.

Nice mil/shit dil = not a nice relationship
Shit mil/nice dil = not a nice relationship
Shit mil/shit dil = either not a nice relationship with a very unhappy man in the middle, or NC

And all of us have nice days and shit days - we're never 100% of one thing all of the time.

But each situation needs to be looked at on its own merit. Being a mil doesn't necessarily mean that you're a wicked, evil old bat, but being a dil doesn't necessarily mean that they are controlling, son stealing harridans.

I love my PIL. If I've ever found their behaviour irksome, I don't blame the fact that they are my PIL.

I do know people with awful, manipulative PIL.

My Grannie and her DIL (my mum) never really got on - they had v different views and my Grannie was extremely tactless. My mum took this v personally - that's just how she is.

Some MIL are vile though.

Mine (foolishly) told me she was going to go for custody of my extremely sick SCBU baby

She's a borderline alcohol who treated her sons appallingly.

To be fair though, I use MN to vent about my quite nice MIL. We get on fine but are 2 very different people who have a very different outlook on life (she doesn't understand the concept of feminism for example and thinks women these days just whine about anything and everything and I need to raise DD to be more passive otherwise no man with want her, DD is 4 BTW).

Rather than end up arguing with her I come on here to vent my frustrations, in the same way I vent to friends offline. And believe me, with our differences our relationship would be non-existant if I didn't have somewhere I could come and rant. I'm sure she doesn't understand my point of view a lot and she complains endlessly about me to her friends and sister (yes I've caught her a few times doing this)

I'm sure lots of others do the same.

Oh and if anyone took my newborn from me, including especially my mother, DH, siblings or friends I'd probably have harmed them. I don't care if they think they are helping, if help was wanted I can ask.

why not start a thread on DILs? Let the other side put their story!

(fwiw my MIL is brilliant, not seen her for 3 weeks and really missing her, she was amazing during my pregs and there at the birth of our two boys).

aha, lottegirl already did it DILs causing problems!

How refreshing, a nasty mil bashing thread.

Mine is lovely, we do have to make an effort to get along because their are massive cultural differences. But she is a lovely woman and welcomed me to her family. She is as important in our lives as my mum. She is welcome in our home any time and I would never put restrictions on how much contact she can have with her son, as we see so much of on here.

ComfortOfStrangers- I think the "mil took my baby off me in the night" might be referring to me.

First baby, first night home. Baby had cried for less than 30 seconds. I was naked from the waist up in bed, trying to latch him on when she walked into my bedroom unannounced (I'm a very private and shy person so this was horrible. She wasn't even meant to be there, they had announced they were coming to stay, so I had to leave hospital early to prepare the house for three unexpected visitors, and then she stayed 9 days) It wasn't hours of screaming, I wasn't desperate or frustrated, I was just learning how to breastfeed him. She just came in and said "give him to me"

She wasn't/isn't an evil mil, she probably thought she would help, but there was no need! he wanted feeding, not anyone/anything else. I refused to let her take him.

There were many other things that happened in that 9 days but I won't bore you with them again. She's not evil, but quite controlling, and in hindsight, determined to teach me how to be a mother by criticising everything I did that she didn't approve of, and by keeping my own family away (so I didn't get tired, having too many visitors...) it soured my first week or so with my baby. It's hard to forget that.

To be fair, things have calmed down a lot now she's realised that I am the mother to my children, and stopped trying to undermine me and take over. I'm only asking to be a mum the same as she got to be with her kids, nothing more so no need to feel sorry for her! We visit her, she sees her gc, we get along, no rows.

I got on great with mil until I announced I was pg with ds, she straight away went into Mammy mode teaching me about how to be amother, how we had to do it her way as that's the way the nuns did it, dh asked her how would they jbiw

Ahh posted to ssoon, dh asked how the nuns would know which led to mil pulling Cats bum face, me nearly falling Off my chair and things went down hill from there,

Now I know I'm not that easy to get on with all the time as I'm a stubborn mare with my own ways, but I took great exception to be told how to look after a new born baby as ds was my second baby but dd doesn't count as apparently my mother raised her for the first five years

Then add in my weird hippy tendencies to breastfeed, sling wear and use shock horror a car seat and things went from bad to worse!

After I was told rd was too old to be breastfed at around 3 months and informed it was disgusting things took a real nasty turn with me and mil not speaking any more than would you like a cup of tea? No thanks? FOR AGES,

Thankfully, as ds is getting older, I get less hippier by the month, and I am almost a half decent mother know, I just need to give ds a few smacks to scare him so he knows whose Boss,

She's hard work, was a lot harder to take when ds was tiny, now I just look back with rrose tinted glasses,

Whsts truly worrying is that dh reckons I will be world's worst mil as I would be very annoyed if dil didn't breastfeed, and he's bloody right God help the poor girl!!!
At least I will have the sense not to announce my dil pg at 5 week's to the world on facebook

I might have missed it but I don't think the OP has come back on the thread, even though she has been asked several times why she wanted to know.....I felt my hackles rise when I read the OP - "what were her antics" - that's a phrase you might use about a young child or a new puppy.

OK hands up - I am one of them.........the mother of sons, a grandparent and of course a MIL, but I'm also a partner, an aunt, a cousin, a sister, a friend. I just get so damn fed up of these MIL bashing threads and I think the worst thing is how so many posters come piling in, advising the DIL on how to treat the MIL/what to say to her/ etc etc. And some of the posts are just so spiteful - I suspect they are posts from DILs who also hate their MILs. OK some of the stories on here sound pretty awful but we only ever hear one side of the story.

I have been SO encouraged to see posts from a few others who are deeply critical of MIL bashing - so good to see. It can be a tricky relationship (my MIL was not my sort of person at all but she was essentially kind and she was the grandmother of my sons) and I made the effort to ensure that she saw her grandchildren often and I found some middle ground with her and I supported her in her last few years of life when she became elderly and frail.

Sometimes I think MILs can never do the right thing.

I have seen MILs on these threads criticised for:

Visiting too often
Not visiting often enough
Taking over with the new baby
Not doing enough to help with the new baby
Buying too may toys, clothes etc
Not buying gifts for the children
Phoning too often
Not phoning often enough

I could go on but I think I've made my point.

I think when the children come along a lot of you young mothers seem to forget that your ILs are just as much grandparents to your baby as your own family. Children have the right to enjoy a relationship with both sets of grandparents and members of both extended families, so long s this is positive for the child.

In my group of friends, many of us are MILs and grandparents and I have DIL stories that just as awful as the MIL stories. It IS a 2 way street. I am fortunate with my DILs but I made a vow when I was a young mother (almost 50 years ago) and my MIL was a bit interfering and telling me what to do, that I would never be like that if ever I was a MIL and I have stuck to that pledge that I made all those years ago. It has paid off and I have good relationships with my DILs. Having said that the older I get the more I miss having a daughter. Of course I love my sons unconditionally but I just think a daughter would have been more empathetic and I suppose supportive.

And I wonder if people would think it odd if someone started a thread:

What's the worst Mother/Father story you've read on here, the worse sister story, brother story, SIL story (there are quite a few of those especially when the SIL is the MIL's DD!) uncle story aunt story etc etc. OK so the OP mentions DILs stories and I saw a link upthread that I might look at.

I usually end my posts on MIL bashing threads by saying that if you young mothers have sons, you will in all probability be a MIL yourself one day to a DIL and maybe you will see things very differently. And I know it seems a long way off, but you'll be astonished at how quickly the years fly by.............

PS - forgot to say that I am amazed at how many times MILs are called toxic or narcs - I never heard of narcs before MN......I actually looked it up recently and Narcissistic Personality Disorder is a very serious disorder and I think the way it is banded about, especially on MIL threads is just plain silly. Some MILs are called narcs for the most trivial "offences" usually just because they are different types of person from their DILs.

It's not bashing when someone has a genuine problem with their MIL. I fail to understand why some can't accept that some mother in laws are toxic and some of us find dealing with our MILs challenging. Being a MIL does not give you an automatic sainthood or entitlement to 24/7 access to dgcs or whatever. There are some horrible stories on here. I am sure that they are not the norm but they do exist.

No one is bashing all MILs and no one is saying all dils are blameless. It can be a particularly difficult relationship to manage. In my circumstance I have just spent all day being told how to raise my daughter and how wrong I am going about it. It's bloody wearing and annoying to keep smiling - why the fuck should I because I am somehow supposed to be always placate as the dil smoothing over the relationship for some obscure family unity reason? It's rude and intrusive to tell someone else how to raise their child, I find it bizarre that my dd is used as a status symbol in their very large status driven family. I refuse to allow that to happen and I have no compulsion in making that clear. Yet some would brand me a bitch dil for daring to control how I want my daughter raised.

I am fortunate that my DH is in complete agreement with me and has had to tell his mother off for her overbearing behaviour several times. He equally does not appreciate it although I also know he has found the adjustment of seeing his mother in this light difficult. But he stands up to it and it makes all the relationships easier in the long run. Many partners do not and I wonder if that is where the real problem lies.

Also as an aside if my MIL came in in the middle of the night and took my newborn baby away from me without my permission there would be hell to pay, crying or no. What a presumptuous arrogant thing to do.

I haven't got all day , it would go on forever but trust me mine is horrific

I think the dynamic changes when you're pregnant and I'm finding it a learning curve. And my MIL is nice. Nice people can still be a pita! I feel bad for being bristly but mine is being OTT atm. I expect it is hard for them too because their role and position are changing.
It's compounded by the taboo involved in criticising your husband's Mum. Yet if you can't criticise, it breeds resentment.
The thing is, my Mum has known me forever; my MIL only a few years. So my Mum knows my ways; MIL only knows what she thinks is best.
There have been some heart wrenching stories though - usually involving MILs who take over far too much and criticise in the early days with a new baby.

NotQuite excellently put.

Strange that only mothers of DS's are dreadful! Threads show that women have toxic mothers too!

I'm damn sure that it's half-and-half - some MILs are awful, some DILs are awful.

It's notable that someone posted a thread for MILs for unreasonable DILs but no one answered. You can only post your views on the threads that you actually see. Can't post constructively if there's no thread to post on!

In the absence of DIL posts, it's hard to show that unreasonable DILs would get the same things said. But I do think they would. Just as people who are unreasonable friends or partners get told in no uncertain terms that they're unreasonable.

Also I think that by the time you're a MIL you've done it all - you've had a MIL of your own usually and have a reserve of experience, albeit from the other side. Some people might not need advice.

Also MILs who do post are more likely to post on gransnet simply becuase they'll find like minded people there!

But while you have to think with every post "okay, I can only go on what has been written here", at the same time you can keep in mind that you only ever hear one side of the story. But you -can- only go on what you see written and the small things that stand out, usually reported incidents rather than opinions or general claims.

I think some people here would simply rather not believe that people can be that nasty actually. Or they can't see that subtle stuff is as destructive as the obvious "she forced her way into the birth-room when I didn't want her there!"

There are certainly some dreadful DIL stories too!
Age has nothing to do with being toxic!
The toxic mother goes on to be the toxic grandparent.
If we had lots of men in here there would be dreadful mother of DW stories in droves!

My MIL wasn't a narc but my mother is, she ticks every box. I'm the object of her abuse and narcissistic rages. It's horrible.

I'm such a lucky girl - I have TWO MiLs. One nice, one nasty. Luckily DH thinks the nasty one is pretty damn nasty too and we've been NC since DS was born several years ago. The other MiL is just lovely and I wish she lived closer and didn't work full time, because it would be nice to spend more time with her - for me and for the DC.

As someone else has said I think the difficulty is in the nature of the relationship - most difficult people you can just steer clear of, but if it's your DP's mum then you are forced into (often quite intimate) contact and that's where things turn really nasty