Regarding this evil MIL issue - how might we become them?

[snowleopard]

This has been on MN tonight and is of course a perennial topic. And I do often wonder, as someone else has posted, how do so many loving mothers end up being evil bitch MILs - there must be a discrepancy somewhere?

Yesterday I caught myself thinking about DS's possible future choice of girlfriend (assuming he's straight - he's not even 2 yet!) I thought "I hope he fancies someone like [female toddler chum A] who is so feisty and funny, and not [female toddler chum B] who is so drippy and whingey".

I know it's terrible and do feel free to jump on me. But I'm also interested to know if anyone else has had similar thoughts and would like a particular kind of woman for their son - however wrong that is - and how would/will you cope/behave if your son ends up with someone you can't get on with or disapprove of?

I have 3 dss and 1 dd and often wonder how I'll turn out...assuming, as you say, they'll be straight !

I think where some of these monster-in-law women go wrong is thinking

a. nobody is good enough for my ds; they're all cheap/not clever enough/ too clever/insert personal bugbear
b. nobody will love him like I do, therefore I'll compete with dil to make sure he's loved
c. control freak...

I think some MILs find it hard to let go, basically. My MIL isn't a monster really but she is irritatingly over focussed on her adult children to the extent she doesn't really have a proper adult relationship with her dils/sils (total of 4).

I've learned a lot from her...

Message withdrawn

I think we will become evil MILs simply by having DILs who are suspicious and hostile and see everything we do as an overstepping of our territory.

I do sometimes wonder if evil MILs are more prevalent than evil DILs and if they are not just given a bad press...

But that's easy for me to say as I no longer have one and never had much to do with her in the first place.

tis a bit of a worry but clearly these evil MILs are not capable of reflecting on their own actions - if you are thinking along those lines now snowleopard, it probably won;t be you in the crazy seat in 30 years time . everyone wants the best for their child but you must accept that their tastes in women aren't going to be the same as yours!

although i do agree caligula that dils should be open minded and try to engage in polite honest adult dialogue with mils. it is possible to have a 'working relationship' with a mil you've nothing in common with apart from shared love of same man.

By the time we're MILs hopefully Mumsnet will have produced the definitive guide to how to be a good one!

Even if they're gay, you can still be a MIL...
My DS is an only child with no cousins. There's so much invested in him. I do catch myself thinking that my only hope is that he'll marry into a large family so he's got people around. I dread to think how I'll react if I don't like his choice.

MILsnet? An opportunity for the future?

It's a power thing.
Mil does something without getting permission and dil feels undermined so goes on the offensive. Trivial things are blown up out of all proportion.

OK, possibly controversial now, but I remember seeing a programme about Chinese writing and its pictorial qualities, and that the symbol for "stress" or "strife" or something like that, was bascially two women under the same roof. (I'm quite happy to be corrected on this)
but it just strikes me that two women so closely associated with one man are going to disagree on how best to relate with him and that we have to agree to disagree, or alternatively, just enjoy the different perspective.
Having said that, my MIL's weird.

ah but i got along with mil before i started dating dp she became territorial with me i def noticed a change after dp and i got together. Some mil's deliberately try to exlude their dil's instead of inviting them in as part of the family.

Yep, I agree quangle wangle (love yr nickname btw - I feel like an elderly qw most of the time!!). It is a power and control issue. Mothers feel that they still have an element of control over their daughter's lives and their daughter's children. Not so with sons. However, my mil's behaviour can be so monstrous (despite me trying to do everything to please her for eleven years before giving up and realising that nothing ever will!!) that I hope that in future it will have the reverse effect in that I aspire to be the sweetest, most non-judgemental, most non-interfering mil on earth!! Having said al that, I have a dd and not a ds ... !! I have a close older friend who absolutely loves her daughter's husband and is horrified by her son's choice of partner and she's an extremely reasonable, sensible and kind person. Perhaps this attitude is genetically programmed in to us - that is - when we were living in caves having survived our husbands, we were dependent on our sons to give us our share of the kill!! And the more competition we had - the less we ate!! And now I'm rambling ....!!

also its a matter of respect my mil doesnt respect the way i want to bring my ds up. She doesnt respect the fact i may have been brought up differently to dp and have different views not to mention we are a different generation.I dont mind advice but not when its your wrong if you dont take it.

i guess its also a personality issue because i am quite happy to listen to my mil talking ruuuubiish and just say 'oh really i dont know about that' and we both leave it at that happy agreeing to disagree. i am still the one who lives with dh and she doesn;t so i can afford to be magnanimous. but not everyone is as lukewarm as me on the old opinion front. woe betide, for instance, the woman who gets MY mum as a MIL - she is physically incapable of letting an opinion other than her own be countenanced but thinks she is a very reasonable person (a typical Aries?)

I do think it's an emotional thing as well though - when a girl gets married it's always said that "we're not losing a daughter, but gaining a son", and IMO that's because lots of women still maintain a fairly close relationship with their mothers and count on them for advice/support re the children etc whereas boys see their mothers as their carers almost, the one who cooks/cleans/washes their clothes and once they meet a partner that partner becomes the caring one and the mother is pushed out to an extent. There's a saying isn't there "a daughter is yours for life, but a son will be yours till he takes a wife".

Also there's almost a stigma attached to a man having a close relationship with his mother - if a woman is close to her mum it's seen as a lovely thing, but if a man is close to his mum he's seen as a mummy's boy.

I also think that there are a lot of DILs who are not without blame - I think that they need to be able to assert their authority and if you get on with your mil it's almost seen as unacceptable.

Pobblestoes I'm liking your competitive cavepersons theory! And there is something about it being another woman - I just don't think a gay male partner would present the same problems, though you might not like them there wouldn't be that sense of competition.

Daisey re respect, I agree with you and I think that's one reason why I have a good (if not ultra-close) relationship with my MIL - she may be as mad as a bucket of snakes, but she doesn't judge and she respects my decisions, especially re childrearing - and in turn I try to respect her. BUT - what if DS married a fundamentalist Christian, right-wing little wifey who had never heard of equal rights and thought it her mission in life to scrub his socks? I mean, I know I should respect other people but I would actually find that hard in some cases (apologies to anyone who fits the above description...)

I think it's worth keeping an eye on myself and I'd better start practising being a bit less judgemental right now!

MILsnet is a great idea. Would be useful if it were here already so the Mumsnet EMILs could sign up and we could see what makes them tick...

I've read this thread with interest because my mother in law has caused a great deal of hurt towards me and my DH - the latest 'row' being over the horrendous way she has acted towards us both when we told her recently that I am pregnant with what will be our first grandchild. (A long story, but, in short, she behaved terribly, caused no end of stress and really has really upset us).

Ulimately, the way she behaves is all tied in a huge lack of self awareness and frustration on her part. Her family was quite screwed up - not immensely so but enough for her to get married and have children pretty young. She never had a career and lives in a rural area, so the family are her focus, her 'creation', and these cannot bear the fact that it's changing and her children now have people other than her at the centre of their lives. She has two sons (the oldest my DH) and a husband (lovely but henpecked) and clearly cannot stand 'losing control' of her son to another woman. It's sad really - as her behaviour becomes increasingly adolescent and difficult she's actually achieving what she was always afraid of - losing her family. Her son has had his eyes opened to how screwed up she is, I can't stand her and have had to make some 'rules' in order to get through any contact with her in the future. (TBH I would love her to NOT be in my life at all, but for the sake of my DH and sprog to be, I'll grin and bear X visits a year, put my foot down and refuse certain things such as visiting their horrible holiday home - boundaries, you get the picture!)

The silver lining in it (and hopefully all those with evil mother in laws can take comfort from this) is that it's made me think more about the child I'm going to have and how welcoming I intend to be towards who they choose as partners when they get older. If we have self awareness (something so many women of my MIL's generation seem to lack) then we will hopefully never be like them!

ps - sorry, that should have read 'her' first grandchild, not 'our'!

also, sorry, re-reading that i'm not trying to suggest that screwed up families of course result in people marrying young, just that she clearly felt the need to 'escape' and create her own family in some ways as a result of her background...

Congratulations glittercaz!

That must be awful - announcing your pregnancy, only to get a nasty reaction from the grandma-to-be.

I think glittercatz' story also illustrates a weakness in our culture, which is that we don't really think very much about family and how it develops and changes and how we deal with that and what each of the roles are. So lots of MILs (like hers) are completely unequipped to deal with the radical changes that their family, which they have brought up, undergoes. People are brought into a family with no right of veto (this is of course, true for all members of the family - I can't stand my BIL, for example, but hey, he's there, he's been there for 20 years and no doubt he'll be there for another 20 and I'll just have to put up with him); because there is no such thing as the "correct" way to do things, every family does it differently so a DIL may enter a family where her expectations are very different from that of her MIL and vice versa.

One of the things about being a MIL is that in a "normal" family (whatever that is), a MIL is not a very powerful person in it - on the surface anyway. An older woman in our society becomes marginalised, her job done. As a grandmother, you are kept on the periphery of the new family, rather than being at the heart of it. Unlike in Asian cultures, for example, where as a MIL, you retain some control of your family.

If you haven't developed other interests and also some kind of agreeement with your DIL about what your role in the family should be (and because we don't have a specific homogenous model which everyone follows), then conflict is bound to be inevitable because no-one really knows where their boundaries are and where their remit ends.

I think to avoid being an EMIL is to accept that your children are grown up now and may not necessarily want your advice/help/nosing in their business unless asked. I think the best policy is 'snout out' until asked.

Also, to accept that the way your children bring up their children could be completely different to the way you parented. To expect things to be the same is daft, unfair and could create conflict.

And to regard your granchildren as wonderful, fun little people to play with and to spoil (within reason and always with permission from parents). Grandparenthood is NOT your opportunity to be a parent all over again, making decisions etc. Nor are grandchildren your opportunity to fill up your (empty) days and keep you busy.

The most important thing I feel is make sure you have a busy, full, active and engaging life of your own. This would avoid putting pressure and guilt on your children. You can bet that if you're busy and engaged with life, then they'll want to see you a whole lot more than if you're constantly stalking them with phone calls etc.

Those posters jumping on MNers who complain about their EMILs seem to be those with lovely MILs. It's peculiar that they don't jump on the posters who have constant problems with DHs and accuse them of being over sensitive etc.