I have to say it somewhere… I HATE HER ARGHHHHH

[Aaa456789]

Does anyone else have a MIL who has to much to say. Thinks she knows it all, but doesn’t realise how ridiculous she looks wile spouting all wrong information?

I can’t say it to anyone in RL, I visit as less as I can but yet she still infuriates me the sh*t she comes out with!!

Is this a normal MIL issue? Are they all the same?

How will I survive 🤣

[CoverYourselfInChocolateGlory]

I love my MiL. It's my FIL who makes me want to throw things.

[Staffymumma]

I am NC with my MIL and despise her. She is a cruel, nasty woman and a typical narc. Her latest thing is trying to prevent me and OH from getting married and trying to turn the rest of the family against me.

One prime example of her behaviour/comments is the day after delivering my stillborn son, she asked how the labour was, all I could say was ‘painful’ and she replied ‘well..it’s less painful when the baby is actually alive at the end!’ (She’s a midwife aswell) she then went on to have a go at my OH for not mowing our lawn(in our own house)..as if he wasn’t a bit pre occupied with losing his son. I’ll never forgive her for that.

Not all MILs are awful though, I got on so well with my ex MIL, she was lovely and kind. We’d meet up without my ex there to go shopping or have a coffee etc! I loved spending time with her and was sad I’d not see her anymore when ex and I split.

[Ivalueloyaltyaboveallelse]

I get on well with my MIL she has her moments as I’m sure I do mine! But I love her and she adores her grandchildren. We’re really luckily, as we have good relationships with both sets of parents.

[Greygreenblue]

My MIL is pretty good. SMIL is a bit more work but she means well. It’s actually SFIL and FIL that like to spout crap.

[THisbackwithavengeance]

@LoveFall

I'm curious. Is there something about giving birth to a son that makes women turn to the dark side?

If you went by Mumsnet, there truly is. Having a son makes a woman evil, interfering, nasty, bossy, know it all, and completely devoid of tact. And, horror of horrors, she wants to hold her baby grandchildren.

It has been said before, but if you are the mother of a son, he just might grow up and get married. You will become a MIL. I hope you are ready for the sad consequences.

Exactly.

I read some of the vitriol written on here by some (not all) OPs about their own DH's mother and I want to write, "it's not your MIL that's the issue here, it's you, you cannot bear any other women having a claim on your DH."

It stands to reason that jealous and spiteful DILs will eventually morph into jealous and spiteful MILs. They always have to be the Alpha Female and try and kill off the competition for Number One.

[LoveFall]

I'm curious. Is there something about giving birth to a son that makes women turn to the dark side?

If you went by Mumsnet, there truly is. Having a son makes a woman evil, interfering, nasty, bossy, know it all, and completely devoid of tact. And, horror of horrors, she wants to hold her baby grandchildren.

It has been said before, but if you are the mother of a son, he just might grow up and get married. You will become a MIL. I hope you are ready for the sad consequences.

[GingerScallop]

@Justarandompersonontheinternet

For all of you berating those of us who don’t have a wonderful mother in law, please try to understand that some people are just not nice people - their behaviour and interactions can be harmful to others. Someone early on in the thread mentioned that they can’t be that bad if they raised your husband (or something along those lines). This comment is rather flippant. There are people in the world who don’t have a great mother or father, sister or brother. Is that not so? I am delighted for everyone who has a lovely mother in law, my husband is one of those people. Unfortunately I do not, and not for lack of trying. My mil has shown me how not to do it in many ways. I am looking forward to being a mil myself and I will love my daughter and son in law as though they are my own children. My mil is a very bitter and difficult woman but she just happens to be the mother of my husband. I chose not to end our relationship because of her, despite her numerous attempts to split us up. She has no relationship with any of her daughter in laws (she has three).

I agree with you. But it was ridiculous for OP to suggest all MILs are the same. And as you say, your ML is bitter and difficult woman she just happens to be a MIL. But some of the posts have been she is bitter/difficult because she is a MIL implying once an MIL women are universally horrible.

Also OP didnt say what makes her MIL so terrible in her original post. So that could mean anything from she is a racists to she consorts with black and brown people. She got vaccine or is an anti-vaxxer. It would just be her perspective and her side of the fence but we simply cant guess what she means by terrible and which side of the fence she is on. Some women/men are good others are bad. Ditto with MILs

I am completely aware that I am blessed with a particularly good MIL and not everyone is that lucky.

[Justilou1]

My own mother was at best, batshit, at worst, evil. She was an abusive mother and a source of tension and trauma in my life and my marriage even after she died. (Loooong story.)

My issues with MIL involve both her behaviours and a DH problem. (Trust me - I’m well aware of this and he knows don’t respect it.) MIL is a user of people. She also likes to divide and conquer. When we returned from our honeymoon, she was quite literally on our doorstep with tears and packed bags, complaining of being beaten by BF du jour. Started a cycle of returning to him and demanding rescues until I lost my shit at DH when I was pregnant with DD1, pointed out that he needed to stop parenting her and focus on us, etc… (literally had to draw a diagram showing his order of priorities.) I was left to tell her that it wasn’t happening again.
When we refused to rescue her again, she packed her bags (leaving all her furniture for us to sort out later) and moved 6000kms away to where her younger son lived. (We’re in Aus, btw.) He rang me up and explained that he’d moved there at 17 to get away from her and his Dad, confirmed a lot of my theories about the whole family set up, and explained that his mum was on her own there too!
She promptly met a newly widowed miner (vulnerable) and married him. All of his policies have become her own - including open racism, homophobia and right wing politics (all focused on those first two things.). She has been hostile to the son that she had adopted at 15 (another story) because it suits the narrative of her new family who had a negative experience with their dying mother’s secret baby turning up and “taking up her last months.”
Most importantly, she has tried to play my three kids off against each other and against me. She plays favourites. She called my eldest DD (then 12) a slut because she had spent her pocket money on an eyeshadow palette to play with. I told her to apologize and she refused. I then said that she needed to book her flight home and leave earlier. She denied calling DD this to my DH and he refused to believe me or DD. We had two weeks of her swanning around our house, making toxic comments and being a smug arsehole. The kids and I didn’t even wave her off in the taxi. He was underwhelmed. Then a month later, she sent my (then 10yo) twins birthday presents. DD2 received (ironically) a giant box full of makeup and nail polish, and other tat like earrings, etc, and a very florid card “To my special Granddaughter” with $50.00 amd a whole heap of sentimental (and inaccurate) guff about how close they were and how much they look alike, etc… Her twin brother received a ziplock bag with filthy, fake lego that had either been found in a charity shop or handed down from her new family, and $5.00 in a card that said “Try not to be naughty.” Not blowing own trumpet, but he’s an easy-going, placid kind of guy. Always was. He was utterly crushed. My DH saw all of this unfold. He immediately tried to minimize the problem by saying that the lego was worth more than the box of tat, so Nanna must have spent the same on each. Neither of them bought that for a second, and I said that was it for me. I wasn’t going to engage with her at all from now on. He could choose to, but he couldn’t force me or the kids to interact.
Then I found out that he WAS forcing the kids to reply to her texts (very infrequent) and phone calls in the car. He has also somehow decided that it is easier to live with the idea of me being a bitch than his mother, so he now believes his own story about the lego, etc. He also believes that I have refused to answer her calls, thank her for all her birthday and Christmas presents and respond to her many messages. (This came after he went to visit her.) I pointed out that none of these things had happened. Handed him my phone on the spot and asked him to check. I had also kept all the Christmas cards and handed them to him - showing that my name wasn’t mentioned.

He might as well have been walking around with his fingers in his ears going “Lah lah lah I can’t hear you!” His maternal rose-coloured glasses are superglued on. Meanwhile, this woman has doneand continues to try the same kind of shit with my BIL’s family, only he won’t tolerate it. He’s going to set my DH straight on a few things when travel gets normal here.

[Silverjellybean71]

Mine too! She comes to stay and behaves like a grandmother to my son with my current husband. He loves her too!!

[JengaNonConfirming]

I love my mil and I haven't been married to her son for the last 5 years. She's a wonderful and kind lady though and she's been in my life for 25 years. I appreciate I'm very lucky.

[Justarandompersonontheinternet]

For all of you berating those of us who don’t have a wonderful mother in law, please try to understand that some people are just not nice people - their behaviour and interactions can be harmful to others. Someone early on in the thread mentioned that they can’t be that bad if they raised your husband (or something along those lines). This comment is rather flippant. There are people in the world who don’t have a great mother or father, sister or brother. Is that not so? I am delighted for everyone who has a lovely mother in law, my husband is one of those people. Unfortunately I do not, and not for lack of trying. My mil has shown me how not to do it in many ways. I am looking forward to being a mil myself and I will love my daughter and son in law as though they are my own children. My mil is a very bitter and difficult woman but she just happens to be the mother of my husband. I chose not to end our relationship because of her, despite her numerous attempts to split us up. She has no relationship with any of her daughter in laws (she has three).

[grapewine]

These threads. Your husbands may well think and feel similiar about about your mothers, not to mention how a future daughter-in-law might feel about you.

[MinnieJackson]

I love my MIL so much. Since she entered her sixties and retired a few years ago she's really living her best life. She's in so many clubs and organisations now, she visits us regularly and it's never a chore. we had one cross word once when ds was 3 and wanted me to pick him up and she told me not to in public (he's autistic and was having a massive meltdown, but was undiagnosed). I'm so glad she's so lovely. She would do anything she could for us and vice versa.

[BeyondMyWits]

My MIL is just fine. A normal ordinary person, nice enough. What is a big plus is that she raised a wonderful son whom I chose to marry. Can't be much wrong with her....

[Fink]

I struggled with my MIL, but in retrospect I think a lot of it was due to not being able to be as open and direct with her as I would with my own family. If my own mother had done some of the stuff MIL did, I would have confronted her about it and we could have discussed it like adults. But it's always different when it's not your own family, I feel I have to be more polite and on a more formal setting with PIL. And they're just naturally not as open for discussion as my family is, even with ex-h. So yes, I found the relationship strained (and still do, as my dc's grandmother, even though she's no longer my MIL), but I wouldn't say it's entirely to do with her personality, it's more to do with the dynamics of how we interact.

[Echobelly]

I've made peace with my MIL, though she's difficult.

She has a habit of calling totally normal behaviour, like a co-worker asking what was in her salad, 'weird' or 'rude', and of using massively over the top expressions to describe minor things she doesn't like - 'vile', 'disgusting', 'pathetic'. She also doesn't realise that the rest of the world isn't as judgemental as she can be and just because she thinks some actually trivial thing is 'weird' or 'unprofessional' or 'gross' doesn't mean anyone else even bats an eyelid at it.

She can also be really helpful and constructive, but I've learned that no one is ever always in her good books and I don't take it personally anymore when it happens.

[Foxyloxy1plus1]

It’s saddening to read many of these and I wonder if future DiL’s will be saying similar things in the future.

Many of you will be a MiL and I hope you have good relationships with your MiLs. Someone will love your boys as much as you do, but may not be what you you would choose.

MiL’s can’t help getting older- it happens to all of us and isn’t something we’re generally happy about. I would be so upset if my DiL spoke of me so harshly. I love her and I think and hope we get on well.

[gemandjule]

My son and his partner live with us. We have a big house, my son went back to university to do graduate entry medicine and they need to save money. I give them as much space as possible. We share a kitchen. She often sits down and chats but equally they often take their food to their sitting room to eat. It works really well. I think she likes me; if not she deserves an Oscar!
As has been pointed out, everyone on here who has kids is likely to be a MIL one day

[ravenmum]

My dd's just moved in with her bf so this may be just round the corner for me. I'm trying to pre-empt it - every time the kids complain about the latest antics of my ex-FIL, I remind them that I can also be quite annoying and these habits only get worse with age. They laugh but I can see the fear in their eyes

[unicornpower]

My MIL is pretty harmless. She’s a bit opinionated and annoying at times but she wouldn’t knowingly hurt or upset anyone! She has her faults but I know she’s loves me and she’s a good grandma to our baby.

My ex’s mum is wonderful, but their whole family was! I still speak to his sister occasionally.

My first boyfriends mum was utterly vile to me, she didn’t think I was good enough for her son. All because I was blonde (so stupid apparently?!)

[ThrobbingToothacheOfTheMind]

No they're not all the same. What a stupid question.

[Figgit]

Get on really well with My MIL. Probably better than I do my own mum. She’s not overbearing at all, is quite eccentric, can be wickedly funny, and has a very kind heart. We all adore her.
They do say that men marry their mothers. I wonder how true that is of posters here.

[noirchatsdeux]

I've had 2 MILs...

1st Never attempted to get to know me in the 3 and a half years I was dating her son before we married (I was very young, very shy and was a bit scared of her). They were a pretty weird family though, very unemotional, there didn't seem to be any genuine affection between any of them.

2nd I got on well with her, because I didn't kow-tow to her at all, treated her like I do everyone - we ended up getting on really well, she was a great support to both of us. Sadly she died of breast cancer 11 years ago.

My current partners parents...oof, less said the better. They (in particular FIL) are the worst. Racist, sexist, homophobic old bastards. I've not seen either of them in 7 years, and I intend to keep it that way.

My paternal grandmother was horrible to my mother...who is in turn horrible to my SIL. I decided not to have children when I was 9, so I that's that cycle broken!

[Immaculatemisconception]

Yes entirely normal

Only on Mumsnet. Don't forget, some of you will one day be MILs. I hope your DILs aren't Mumsnetters.

[Fairyflaps]

I was lucky: I loved my MIL. But I would very happily never see or speak to my FIL again. He behaves appallingly - on purpose. He made the last months of my MIL's life far harder than they needed to have been. My DH, though he does not have much of a relationship with his father, still feels he has a duty to him, so would never cut him off.