How did/does your relationship go with your partner if their mum doesn’t like you?

[Theonlywayisup22]

I’m just wondering whether it caused issues for you. My MIL doesn’t have any time for me. She only likes particular people. Mostly ones that give her lots of attention and she seems to go for overly needy people who need her approval who make her look like this kind giving women when in actual fact she really isn’t. She has favourites and other family members she ostracises. Classic narc in my opinion.

Anyway has this caused issues for other people? I’m nice enough when we meet, although we tend to not get invited to family things. I invite them over but she often doesn’t come and when she does she ignores me. My partner is absolutely oblivious to it all. She has raised her kids to be very needy of her and they see her as this person who always knows the answer and her opinion is fact. I do not talk about it to my partner because I doubt he’d understand and I don’t want to give her the satisfaction of causing issues.

In pretty much all of these cases, you have a DP problem, not an MiL problem. The solution is to talk to your DP. Your DP should be on your side and manage the issue for you.

I bonded with exMiL by pretending to like her food and talking about the kids.

@DadJoke yeah I definitely have a problem that I’ve grown to understand that when it comes to his mum it’s not a place I can go to. He sees her very differently to me. I know he gets confused at times that she doesn’t come to visit and never sees her grandchildren but he thinks he has to try harder. He shouldn’t have to try harder. But they do visit their other grandchildren but he doesn’t think it’s odd. It’s like he accepts less.

As mentioned by the pp, I think its only an issue if your partner doesn't support you.
My MIL didn't like me initially and didn't want us to get married but my husband said okay, well I'm going to marry her and if you don't accept that then you're not going to be a part of my life.
She's improved in terms of how she feels about me but she's an intensely difficult person to deal with so we limit interactions as much as possible and my husband always supports me and never puts me in a situation where I'm the bad guy.

My ex-MIL was extremely passive aggressive and it caused issues between me and my ex-DH. He would never, ever say anything. I don’t think he could really be bothered to see things from my point of view - just buried his head in the sand and pretended that everything was fine. In the end we split up.

If she’s just not making an effort, can you ignore her in turn? Try to distance yourself from his family so that their behavior isn’t as hurtful?

I’m not sure what to advise re your partner, clearly he is deep in denial. It took years and years for my ex to acknowledge how I’d been treated (and I’d been treated awfully!), are you ok to carry on with this sort of treatment? What would happen if you put your foot down with your MIL or said she wasn’t welcome in your home anymore? His reaction will tell you everything you need to know, I think.

I fear my MIL has too much grip. She has mentioned that I’m unstable in the past when we met because I had a former abusive relationship in the past. I think she would and does use this against me in his ear. I would just be acting in a way she has already said about me. I’m not unstable by the way. I have my own family and friends it’s just her that has this problem.

'Toxic in laws' by Susan Forward might be enlightening. You could be describing mine. I'm pretty much NC with her and make absolutely no effort now (I tried for many years). She's the classic covert narcissist matriarch of their family. There's no point in trying to undo half a century of brainwashing of DH. He adores her, but doesn't side with her over me. It's a compromise, one I can live with.

How does he feel about the way she is with you? Does he see what you see?

@Theonlywayisup22 I also would recommend this book!!! It helped me a lot! I have now reasonable expectations, putting boundaries and things improved a lot.

Did things improve in that they accepted you and was respectful?

I had a very troublesome MIL. She disliked anyone who stood up to her. She liked me at first because I'm quite quiet and polite but once I did stand up to her, all hell broke loose.

My husband, FIL and the siblings would say behind her back that she was wrong, but that she was so difficult they all just gave in and obeyed her for a quiet life and I should do the same. I just ended up distancing myself and having little to do with her. (Guess what, that was wrong as well.) My husband did stand up to her more once we had a child, though that caused a lot more unpleasantness.

I'm afraid to say it only properly got better once she had died and even that took some time. Her family had been in her thrall so long they acted like a saint had died and that I was a monster for not having tolerated her terrible behaviour.

It was a shame as she was a clever, funny, interesting person and things could have been so different but she was hell bent on being difficult and the only two options were too kowtow or check out and walk away.

Sorry I didn't mean to write all that. My point is that sometimes there isn't really anything you can do to improve the situation; you just decide what your own personal boundaries are going to be.

That’s the thing, im not loud or horrible or difficult but I do know weird shitty behaviour and I won’t tolerate it. I haven’t agreed with her opinion on many things. To me totally insignificant things, we are all different but she has taken it very personally. I don’t agree with her methods of raising children. She told me to just leave the baby to cry and I didn’t agree.

My in-laws disliked me , probably because FIL was used to having nobody disagree with anything he said and from the outset I voiced my opinions . Anyhow we trudged on and eventually about 10 yrs in and after the birth of our first child I told my husband exactly what the issue was and he went and relayed that to his parents . They then declined to speak to him for about a month and me for over 20 yrs , which was brilliant . FIL died about 12 /13 yrs ago and I started talking to my MIL ( who is in her 90s now) about 3 yrs ago really just to help my husband out by taking her to appointments etc , we don’t chat on the phone or anything and I still don’t visit regularly. Our children , who are now adults have literally no relationship with MIL or him when he was alive .

@Theonlywayisup22 I think it is not do much they accepted me, but I don't expect them to behave this way or that way. I know more which phrases to just leave (because they stopped hurting me, I react in a different way). I am more confident in my reaction and expectations from them. And in majority of cases they just accept it and stop comments.
I still work on my reaction and review the book though 😅

My MIL was (is) an awful woman. She hated women coming into the family. She referred to family as ‘blood family’.
She used to make digs at me all of the time or just ignore me. If she saw a weakness she would pour salt into the wounds. She also had an expectation that I would be a slave to her son (thankfully he doesn’t have the same expectation of me, but she hates that he does equal stuff around the house and with the DC and calls me lazy).
After we had DC it got worse. My DH didn’t like her much because she had always been controlling and infantilising towards him.
We went very LC in the end, it was easy because we were on the same page. We are so low contact that I realise I’ve written most of this reply in past tense. 😬
She is the only one who misses out.

They miss out on a lot but they aren’t bothered or interested at all. My partner is still young, 34. I’m 5 years older. I’m hoping that maybe as he grows and matures he will notice his mums behaviour as she does talk to him like a young boy.

A lot to unpick there. He is 34, he is a grown man not a kid. You are talking about him in a very infantilising way. He HAS matured, this is it, this is what/who he is. Frankly you talk more like he is your son rather than your partner.

He isn't going to change and neither is she, so it comes down to whether you can live like this for the rest of your life. It really is that simple.

My ex mil was/is awful. The type that no one would ever be good enough for her boys. She slightly preferred the sil to me, but only because that son didn’t let her treat his wife like shit. I married the wrong brother there. Anyway I’d say she was over 50% of why we didn’t last. She almost revelled in it when we had breaks and split up. Desperately wanted her precious son all to herself, even at the expense of her Grandchild. Now as an ex I have zero contact with her and my son (her grandson) calls her “horrible Grandma”. The kids will always pick up on you being treated differently.

I’m honestly starting to doubt my relationship.
My partner doesn’t have the backbone to stand up for me or his children. He is pathetic when it comes to his mum especially. He is ok for them to not bother visiting his children for months and he is ok going into social media like FB and seeing pictures of his BIL and their kids with his parents all the time and even liking the photos. He doesn’t mention anything all he does is pass onto me their excuses for not visiting and he is absolutely ok with it. He is getting on my nerves.