How was your first meeting with your in-laws?

[Echobelly]

I came across a very old post (nearly 20 years!) online where I was referring to having recently had a first meeting with the people who would become my in-laws when I went for dinner at their house.

It did not go well.

I am a talker, and FIL, who is very quiet, found me too much. Most people think I sound fairly well-spoken but MIL is very judgemental and found me 'common'-sounding and thought I was getting ideas above my station with now-DH, even though we come from exactly the same kind of background. I know now she is someone who likes to be 'impressed' by people or 'charmed' by very specific behaviours. But unfortunately I didn't have, to her mind an impressive (read: private) education or job either, and I didn't fit her idea of a confident, socially-assertive person. A few months into our relationship, she was still trying to push him towards a private-educated girl she knew who had a City job 😅

I was both devastated and to some extent annoyed for quite some time - I'm a person who gets on with people and I didn't know what to do with someone I had to deal with who didn't like me, and I was also annoyed at her assumption I was in any way socially inferior to DH. I spent too long obsessing over how I could get her to see I was actually quite a good catch, thanks very much.

In the end it was mostly solved by us getting engaged, they accepted me at that point. I have also learned she blows hot and cold with everyone, so although I have been in the doghouse with her (usually for not reading her mind for some social rule only she adheres to) she has also said that DH did well in choosing me. I try to see the best in people and we get on most of the time, and I have learned to accept that, while she can be ridiculous in what she expects of people some of the times, and other points she does have a point and I can take it on board.

We got on fine at first but it went downhill from there when they realised we were serious. I'm NC with them now, and DH sees them very occasionally.

First time I met MIL she shut the door on my face and left me standing on the doorstep waiting for my now DH. Nothing much has changed. She doesn't like me. Told DH she never wanted him to marry me and cried on our wedding day which is a whole other story (tried her best to ruin it) She's vile.

Introduced to future MIL
"That's a Welsh name. Are you Welsh?"
' er, well,'
"Very deceitful, the Welsh"
'Maybe. But at least we're polite.'
Set the pattern really.

It was a little awkward because I had to stay at their house for a week (they live abroad). I'm white and they're Indian. They were very polite and welcoming to me but I knew I was not what they wanted for their son and that it caused some embarrassment within the wider family. Cultural differences aside we are also very different in terms of personality (like complete opposites!). So for the first few years there was awkwardness as we tried to understand each other.
21 years later and we couldn't be closer! We now understand and accept each other - and love each other.

Awful. I was allowed in the house but completely ignored. Just glared at. At a later meeting she looked me up and down in public and humiliated me by declining Dhs suggestion we have coffee together. I ripped him apart for putting me in that situation and he never suggested it again. Took years, a house and an engagement for her to like me and then she decided she has a right of opinion on what goes on in my ovaries and womb. She is nasty to the core and I kick myself for allowing myself to soften to her when she appeared kind in a crisis. Turns out it was just another ploy to attempt to fill my womb again 🙄Truly awful woman

I first met my MIL and FIL after a plane and coach journey, lasting 22 hours in total. I was an absolute mess and was dying for a shower and a nap. Instead, we all went out for a meal before I was given a chance to have a wash and change my clothes. It was kind of awful - although the food was spectacular!

At my MIL’s funeral, one of her friends told me that she had been most unimpressed with my appearance on first sight, but that I “scrubbed up well afterwards“!

She had a wicked, wicked tongue, and was often unbelievably rude about people around her, but was also wonderful and hilarious, and is much missed.

I was so nervous the first time meeting DPs mum and step-dad (not for any reason other than that he had been with his ex for 15 years and so I worried they wouldn't be "accepting" of someone new) but the second I met them I loved them. His mum is bonkers (in a brilliant way) and his step-dad is like the dad I never had. They've taken me under their wing and treat me like their own. I speak to them both regularly and we go and stay with them at least once a month for a takeaway and film night :) We are both really family-orientated so not sure I could be with someone whose family I didn't get along with. I know not everyone is the same though...

Wow, some pretty shocking stories here. I always knew I got off lightly compared to some, but even so!

My parents actually met DH before we were an item, we all went out with them and a friend of theirs, who asked them afterwards if he was my boyfriend and my mum said 'I don't know, but I hope so!' So rather easier at his end.

My parents meeting his was also rather strained, which happened at my parents' house. My mum is very warm and welcoming, MIL took it as overfriendliness because she wanted me to 'Marry up' to DH. To be fair she grew to like my mum , I think she initially just got her totally wrong and underestimated her.

I should point out that none of this is classic 'no one's good enough for my son', more that she worried her son wasn't good enough and I wasn't the person to make him 'good enough', which is an odd dynamic.

My MIL refused to meet me for the first 2 years of our relationship.

15 years in we get on quite well although there have been ups and downs.

She actually gave me a massive hug the other week after we ended out marriage saying I'm always welcome and still very much part of the family.

Strange how things change.

Yeah my mil has always been a sneaky manipulator so I don't take it personally

We hardly see either of them now due mainly to their joint toxic behaviour and ways but when we do there's always some kind of reminder of her dislike for me.

Everyone got their birthday card last year as usual with the cash gift in it yet I got a second hand gift set clearly given to her at some point. She even gave it to me in a gift bag I had given her a gift in previously

My small token Xmas gift was a bottle of men's aftershave and before anyone says maybe she thought it was women's etc it says for men and aftershave on the box.

If I ever mentioned it she would feign being old and silly but we all know it's done deliberately which is why I don't react

I was very lucky. DH's mother (his dad had died before we met) was very welcoming from the first day. She and I had a lot in common (liked the same authors, movies, etc.) and we spent time together even without DH. She died several years ago and I still miss her very much.

The first time I met the MIL I looked horrified as she was supposed to be abroad.

Her darling son (who still lived at home at that point) had got the date she was due back wrong and were having fun while she was away.

She flung open the front door to see me in the hall, with mussed hair, in a tiny silk scrap of something flirty and two huge glasses of wine.

While Mr P did have permission for me to be there it was NOT the way I wanted to be introduced for the first time.

Luckily she saw the funny side and 20 years on we still get on well.

Some terrible stories here, I feel rather lucky! Meeting my now-in-laws was very pleasant all round. I was invited for Sunday lunch, I brought flowers and good wine, MIL made my favourite dessert (asked DH beforehand), they made me feel instantly welcomed, I made them laugh and we all got on swimmingly and still do now, nearly a decade later.

I have learned not to take MIL too personally, she's hyper-critical of everyone, so I know it's not just me.

Yeah it went really well, I remember I was dead nervous because I really wanted her to like me. We met his mum and sister at the train station and we went to a coffee shop and chatted. In the loos she thanked me for making him so happy.

Was a few months before I met his dad, but we'd gone to stay and he seemed to like me from the off although /I was terrified of him.

I had been with dh a year and had met lovely fil several times.. Dh and mil had previously been estranged (mil had cheated on fil) but were making the effort.. We took them for tea. Mil ordered the most expensive steak and wrapped it up in a napkin to take home for the dog. Never ate out again with her... She actually dumped us when dc was born 6 months later . Been 9 years since we set eyes on her.

Mine went well though I was somewhat overwhelmed.

Easter Sunday lunch with literally ALL the family. Parents, brother, aunties, uncles, cousins... 24 people!

It was also our third "date"! (First on Thursday, second on Saturday... then Easter Sunday lunch)

I was apparently liked by all because I hung my own coat up and asked what I could do to help. (The bar had been set quite low by some previous girlfriends)

Still married. Still surrounded by a big family. Still slightly overwhelmed.

We got on fine but my MIL really didn't understand that I was studying Civil Engineering, she did say things like 'it's a shame your not a hairdresser', I just laughed it off.

Mother in law pinched the flesh on my upper arm, turned to my now husband and said to him, “Oh but you like them like that don’t you?” I’m a size 12.

Awful. She was frosty and hostile as hell. In her defence, now DH had had a series of failed relationships (I knew he was a fixer upper 🤣) I am younger and she was convinced I was after his money, she couldn’t quite believe that I earned my own. The frostiness continued for about 5 years, she thawed a bit after that. But it was only when she was dying (we’d been together 12 years by that point) that she made any reference to it. Two weeks before she died, she randomly said to me “I was wrong about you. He’s happy”. That’s as far as she ever went but I knew what she meant. I have learned from it to be a much kinder MIL!

I just want to go against a grain a bit. Although I was from a completely different culture and a completely different country. My mother-in-law was absolutely as fantastic as anyone could wish. She died four years ago and I miss her every day.

I've had two sets of in-laws.

1st - I was very young, 17 when I started dating ex husband, 21 when we married. Very odd family, very British (I'm not)...I found them cold and unemotional. Never saw any real affection between any of them. They didn't like me as I was too young, too foreign and had been bought up wealthy (they were very working-class). For the 3 years we were dating I was basically ignored...I tried so bloody hard with them all and got nowhere. MIL thawed when we married (she was thinking grandchildren) but for me it was too little, too late. The only met my parents twice - once before the wedding and at the wedding, as my parents split up while I was on honeymoon. They had absolutely nothing in common with my parents, my mother really didn't like my MIL. I left ex husband when I was 23 and we were divorced a year later. Don't know how they took me leaving, don't care.

2nd - Met when I was 30. Total difference. Very friendly family (also British), made me feel very welcome right from the start. Were interested in my background and family, even though they never met any of them. MIL was a bit of a bully and could be prickly, but I got on well with her. I was genuinely sad when she died of cancer.

I was already pregnant when I first met MIL and after the hellos she went straight to quizzing me on how I planned on earning money after I’d had the baby. My partner worked in a cash per job role and I was already supporting him (all change now btw!) so I wasn’t worried about money- it was the insinuation I was going got be scrounging off him and his £25 a shift 😂 (I owned my own house and car and had a decent freelance income)

She hated me from that moment (first mother of a boyfriend to hate me) and I’ve never been good enough for her son despite encouraging him to chase his dream, supporting him into a fantastic career and helping them to rebuild their own relationship. She couldn’t bully me and that annoyed her and she couldnt work out how I worked which also annoyed her.

almost 2 decades on we’re going strong. It boils her piss.

My first meeting with MIL and her partner was basically Dh and I bumbling out of Heathrow arrivals together after meeting working abroad for 6 months. Our passports got stolen and despite paying all the right bribes (a country where this is the done thing) we couldn’t sort out our work visas so basically had 48 hours to pack and get out, so decided to come back to the UK (I could get in for 3 months on a tourist visa). Dh was basically like, hey family, I met a girl and she’s the one but we’re getting deported, so you’ve never met her but can she come stay with us for 3 months?! (Dh had given up his flat to move overseas) And there I was, shell shocked and jet lagged and ready to move in for a few months when we met. 😂

It was fine. I don’t remember anything particularly eventful about it, other than all the above. There has been a lot of water under that bridge since. We are NC with MIL’s partner and were NC with MIL for a couple years, but the early days were fine. They were certainly nicer and more normal than my family.

ILs were really happy to meet me, thought the idea of me was A Good Thing and wanted to see the best in me. We've had our odd moments, but they've welcomed me into their family and I feel glad to be a part of it.

SIL and DH were very close at the time we got together and we were all part of a wide social circle but SIL really disliked me and thought I'd be a load of trouble for DH. But as far as I know, she hasn't ever told her parents that and just said she didn't know me when they first heard I was a thing. A couple of decades on, we get on really well, live within shouting distance of each other, and she's one of my most important relationships.