favouritism from MIL, a rant!

[vodkacoke]

My MIL and I have a wary relationship with each other. I have been with H for 22 years, and our relationship is very precarious at the moment.
My MIL thinks I am spoilt rich kid cos I am an only child and my parents worked hard to achieve good careers. She has very little materially, but thinks her rather dysfunctional large family is wonderful. (H has 2 alcoholic sibs, 1 in prison, amongst others).
My SIL has children similar age to mine (13 and 10) and a younger dd, and has always sent at least 2 dc to her mum for the whole weekend, every weekend.
Last year MIL accused me of not being able to cope with my children because I shouted in her presence. My H works abroad, and comes home every 2 months for a week. I work full time, and never palm my kids off on anyone. It is bl**dy hard sometimes.

Today I have spent 4 hours in her presence, and all she has done is tell me how wonderful her other 3 grandchildren are. She does not listen when I tell her what we have been up to, and I am really fed up. Today I gave her a copy of a paperback, that contains a poem written by my DD.
I don't see her very often when H is away because of this, but he was there today.

GRRR I feel better for getting that off my chest.

Rant away. If she feels you are slightly superior to her, she may just do all this so you can see they are as good as you deep down. Personally,I never bothered trying to work my MIL's out, and they could eat sh*t and die for all I cared. When people are determined not to like you, you're wasting your energy trying. Very, very hard on you, for your dc's sake, though, and I wonder if dh can't have a word?

my other favorite site

I don't care about her or any of them tbh, they are so dysfunctional, and I don't like so many of their behaviours, I do try and keep the children away when H is away.
She thinks I am a snob, and I really am not bothered by that.
Of course, the issue is my dc. They do notice, but never say very much. Even stupid things like her making them eat all their dinner, but letting the others not eat then plying them with chocolate. They notice issues like that, more than the constant 'he did this and she did that', which is what upsets me.

Luckily they have a fantastic relationship with my parents.
I am sure I am more sensitive to things like this cos H is here and I have some serious talking to do with him this week.

paros, I love that!

seriously good site . LOL

What do you think would happen if you were to say " no, they don't have to eat all of their dinner if the others don't"?

When you are brought up to be considerate of others' feelings, it probably makes you cringe to think of saying such a thing. I really don't know if I could do that myself, and would probably end up just sneaking things of their plates and putting them in the bin. Do you think your MIL knows you won't be rude, so gives herself a free reign?

Great site, btw, Paros.

rein lol. Freudian slip, that one was!!

My MIL isn't too bothered about my DD but is central to my BIL's child's life- it got so bad that she didn't come to her 2nd birthday party, which we organised around MIL's bloody schedule.
My BIL's child's birthday was a week later and when we went along, my MIL had co-organised the whole thing, was serving up the food etc...we just shrugged it off but shortly afterwards, when I visited BIL's house and MIL and FIL were there, they snubbed DD and MIL accused ME of ignoring her because I turned my back to her whilst having a conversation with my SIL.

Bullshit.

That's the last time I saw her as I refused to apologise. My DH loves them but can't stand how they behave (also ignorant generally- racist etc) so he has backed me 100%. You have my sympathies...