Mothers in Law

[Thesearepearls]

My children are both adult now, 18 & 20, and both are in relationships with people that I believe to be very nice and of course they are always welcome.

I know it's not going to happen anytime soon, but at some point, I am very likely going to be a MIL. Which is actually a pretty frightening prospect, given the general opprobrium on here. I've gathered what not to do. And generally the posts have centered around intrusive behaviour. I definitely won't be doing any of that.

I'm not sure I've picked up what, more positively, to do. What would your ideal MIL be like? What should the future me be doing to be an ideal MIL?

Fascinating that all these posts are about what the dial wants in a mil. I know very well that I was not what my mil wanted for her son. She had never met a woman like me before and she was incredibly worried about her son’s future happiness. Understandably. I was another world to her. She still doesn’t really get me. But she loves her son and her grandchildren, and they all love her. That’s all that matters.

@lizzie that's not true. My grandmother had a gem of a MIL who loved her to bits and who my GM loved deeply. Even after GM divorced her son. My MIL isn't terrible by accident.sge is a crazy bitch who likes to accused perfectly innocent people of having affairs and verbaly abuses her children. If a MIL behaves like a decent person and her DIL is a decent person innocent mistakes will be forgiven (hence the requirement to be thick skinned). For instance I have a great relationship with my SIL (who is more x like a mother to my DH than MIL). We have both made mistakes but have let it go because we love each other. I based my dexcription of am ideal MIL on her.

I didn't mean that there are no lovely MILs, I'm sorry if that's how it came across. My DSis has a lovely MIL. All I meant is that there will always be disagreements in any human relationship and we all get things wrong sometimes. I'm certainly not saying that it's not possible to have a close relationship with your MIL. I'm sure you'll be a lovely MIL when the time comes.