Mother in law issues. Who does not have it?

[Nadiff]

Hi everyone. Its my first time here.. So i was having problems with my MIL. We dont get along very well. We dont hate eachother but personally i find her extremely overbearing. So i thought I'll look up the internet for some advice or read stories of DILS in similar situation. What i found, dumbfounded me. Hundreds of websites and blogs and forum over how women hate their mils. Or MILS hate their Dils. Its a nightmare out there where in most cases the mother eventually ends up loosing her son. And no consideration is given to the fact that the DIL might be wrong as well. Now, after reading all that, I am wondering if there is anyone, anyone at all who get along with their inlaws. Im not asking for pure love, but managing a civil polite relationship would do. All i read was how DILS got offended and had their husbands give their mums a bashing. Is it really like this? Even if i dont like seeing my MIL , i would never stop my husband or my kids from seeing her or cause a fight between them. Shes his mum!!. Ive asked a lot of questions in one post but im really for thoughts and experiences over what do you do with your Mil when you dont get along with her and does anyone ever get along with her at all!!
Thanks for reading.

I love my MIL dearly and she loves me. She has been an enormous help to me at times and I think I have done the same for her. All of her daughters in law love her (but I'm her favourite :))

She told me once that her own mother in law was lovely and only said supportive things to her and she modelled herself on her. I will certainly be modeling myself on MIL when my kids have partners/spouses.

i get on with my in-laws. they are not perfect - neither am I.
dh gets on with my dm (df passed away but they also got on well)

nothing to write on a website or blog about....like most normal families

I love my mother in law. She’s a really good friend and I go out for coffee and cake with her regularly. I’ve experienced loss at an early age and I don’t want to have any regrets. My parents in law are both awesome frankly!

My mil is actually great too. I can be a bit of a dick sometimes in feeling appropriated or smothered but it’s actually not the case, she is lovely and would do anything for us and only ever wants to please me!

She raised my husband to be a strong confident and happy person and I will definitely take some tips from that.

Mine has a double personality. One minute she's as nice as pie couldn't do enough for us, next she's critical, nasty and downright cruel

It's a relationship made for strain isn't it? I met my DH 18 years ago. He is divorced from his first wife and they have a DS and a DD together and they are/were lovely kids. I really liked them and they seemed close to their Dad. DS gets married and the DIL has gradually worked it so that DS, DD and even DH's sister no longer speaks to him/us. I have watched these relationships unravel and DIL is at the heart of all the problems. It was clever, subtle and there wasn't a damn thing DH or I could have done as small situations were engineered to bring about this end result. DIL has turned DSS against his boss and all his friends too so he is alienated from everyone around him but her. If you read what has happened in a book you wouldn't believe it. On the odd occasion her behaviour has been brazen and still people can't see her as manipulative! We have backed off as our means of trying to get people to see what is going on is weaponised instantly and we look in the wrong and this is what she wants. Wills have been changed and we have decided to back off and have a nice life and leave everything we have to my side of the family and have enclosed emails with our wills in the event the will was contested as being lopsided. It's so sad as they were all so close until DIL came along.

I think it is a difficult relationship, because you have no choice over the matter. My MIL was lovely but one of the things that helped was that I was no longer living with her son and we still sought each other out.

I get on well with my MIL and FIL.

I do sometimes find them difficult but they are completely unaware of this. I work very hard to facilitate their relationship with their grandchildren.

Most of my friends are the same. They find the relationship with their PIL trying post children but make the best of things and maintain a perfectly cordial relationship.

The internet doesn’t provide a balanced view. Unhappy people post. Those that rub along quite well rarely do.

My MIL died when my DH was a teenager. I never knew her.

I understand that some women really do have intense issues with their MIL, but I've had women say to me that I'm lucky she's dead, asked me if I'm happy she's dead, etc. It's beyond rude; it's really hateful.

I would never say that someone was lucky to have lost their mother! (If they say it about their own mum, that's up to them).

Sadly, I don't have a great MIL. I started off really wanting to like her, after all she's now part of my family. She has fallen out with every single member of the family except DH, me & our DD. Everyone else is "dead to her" and she has even re-written history so that some people never existed to begin with. Apparently, none of this is her fault. The rest of the family have very different stories.

We keep contact to a minimum and I insist that DH is with me when I visit (as a teacher, I used to use some of my summer time to visit with DD, but the last couple of times she was awful to DD, so I've stopped that now). It's all incredibly tricky, and I wish that we could have an easier relationship. But she's DH's mum and I would never cut her out unless that was what he wanted.

I honestly believe that the best thing she did for DH was to ignore him as much as possible. It's the only thing that made him human.

I love my MIL and FIL, prefer them to my own family if I'm honest.

I am not a fan of my mil. Her odd behaviour has got worse as she has got older.

However i am always civil. We dont see her that much as they live 2.5 hours away. So its not hard.

But i also recognise her behaviour isnt easy for dh. Its his mum. She raised him. I dont believe that when you get married your relationship with your parents ends. I dont want him to be in the middle and bring civil to her doesnt hurt me.

Tbh most people i know with mil or dil problems never recognise that they are half the problem. A friend of mine is awful to her mil and then wonders why her mil and fil arent her biggest fans. But they still help her out when asked etc.

When stories are posted on the internet its usually quite bad to even post about it and its only from one persons sides.

I am sure there are mils and dils out there who are to blame entirely. But most situations will have blame on one side.

My MIL doesn't have two brain cells to rub together but she is a whole lot nicer than my dad and I genuinally (sp?) like spending time with her.

I do take her out once in a while and DH and I buy and cook most of the christmas dinner. So it's not a one way street.

Well I get on well with my mil and fil. They are nice people. They are sometimes a bit annoying but aren’t we all. On the other hand my Sil can’t stand them. She looks for offence in everything they do, they really can’t to right for wrong. They are on egg shells round her all the time. So there are always two sides to every story

I don't, mine was thoughtful and kind. She passed away far too young and we miss her

I often find my MIL and FIL really annoying and don’t feel that we have much in common. But we are all polite and civil, I speak positively about them in front of the DC and try not to moan too much about them when it’s just me and DH.

Funnily enough DH’s relationship with my parents is quite similar to the above, even though my parents are lovely! I think this means it’s much easier to tolerate your own parents being irritating than your in laws!

I adore my mil. She is a wonderfully patient and gentle woman who does not pass judgement on me when I mess up!

Because we are between houses we are currently staying with my inlaws, even though they have a lot less room than my own parents. I much prefer my inlaws to my parents and that saddens me. But having sons as well as daughters, in future, if I am half the mother in law mine is to me, I shall be very content.

I love my MIL. I see her most days (we work together) and she is one of my favourite people. I genuinely love all of my ILs. They're my family.

Well my mil is dying and not expected to make the end of the week. She has been the most supportive person to me..she's a wonderful lady and I'll miss her terribly

My mil passed away 18 months ago and I do miss her. I found her a little bit frustrating but she meant well and was very kind so I let the frustrations wash over me. I was very fond of her.

My ex mil (and fil) is awesome, been divorced for 19 years but am still close which annoys my ex and new wife (other woman) tremendously. I keep away from family dos and see the ex in laws privately so as to minimimise disruptions.

I think the relationship with in-laws has a tendency to be more strained as you can never be as honest with them as you would be with your own family. My MIL shows massive favouritism to her DGD and practically ignores my DS's. She doesn't seem to think this is an issue so that's why I don't have a great relationship with her. If my parents did this, I would just have it out with them straightaway.

Plus my MIL rarely has anything positive to say about me e.g. when we meet she nearly always makes a snide comment over my outfit looking uncomfortable or similar. If I had a friend like that, I'd just drop them but you have to be a bit more tolerant of in-laws.

But as a poster said above, my DH doesn't have a great relationship with my parents either despite me thinking they are lovely so maybe it's just that we are generally less tolerant of irritating behaviour from in-laws.

My inlaws gave us a cheque as a wedding present. A few days later mil took my husband to the bank to open a joint account with the cheque. Not him and me though...him and her!

She told me the reason my child had colic was because my milk was obviously no good.

Lied about something that almost ended our marriage.

Even though my sil sympathised with me and said I was lucky I lived so far away because mil was a nightmare, mil managed to turn sil against me and the last I heard from her was when she told me that my behaviour had caused the whole debacle.

I don't have anything to do with any of my inlaws now and haven't for years. Life is so much less stressful. Now my husband only gets in contact on birthdays and Christmas because I'm not nagging him to keep in touch with them.

Actually ILoveChocolate no you do not have to be more tolerant when it comes to ILs. Where are your boundaries here re these people; they are certainly too low and these need urgent raising. They are people too, same as anyone else. They should not be treated with kid gloves and the same "rules" you would use on friends should apply to them too.

Not all people are nice and kind by any means. You state they are lovely; they are clearly not lovely at all if they treat you and in turn your children like they have. You're showing your children that you never speak up for yourself and this awful behaviour from them should be itself tolerated.

Favouritism should not be at all tolerated because of the damage it causes. Has your DH himself noticed this favouring of your DGD over his children?.

I don't have MIL issues as she died 3 months before our wedding. I wish she was still here.

Stayed with mine last weekend. She's lovely. Sometimes have been known to stay without dp too.