All these Mother-in-Law postings

[Extended]

When I read all these Mother-in-Law postings it makes me sad. Not that I doubt the sincerity of what people write but because I think they don?t appreciate what it is like for young couples when there is no parental support available.

In the three years we were at university, this was prior to getting married, we lost all four parents (two in a motorway crash, one in a accident on the farm and one with cancer). Quite a lot to cope with in your late teens and early 20?s!

Try having no parents at your wedding, no grandparents for your children and no sources of emotional support available 24/7.

The loss of our parents was life changing for both of us so just remember that in the vast majority of cases any parent is better than none.

When we lost my Dad.

I can remember all the neighbours coming round to offer us their love and support.

I can remember the newspaper on the kitchen table with the half done crossword.

I can remember the sound of the bull that crushed him to death being shot.

I can remember the drive from the University to the farm and the fact we couldn?t get in touch with our middle sister.

I can remember walking up to Mother?s grave to ?tell? her the news.

I can remember getting lost on the way to the Registrar of Births and Deaths.

I can remember telling the farm staff that we were their new boss.

I can remember the masses of paperwork that had to be filled in.

I can remember him not being there to walk me down the aisle.

Extended - love to you.

And thank you - you've reminded me about perspective.

I get what posters like FlamingoBingo are saying but I do think that many of us get het up about things that really are very trivial - and it really isn't worth it.

I thought Dollyparting and HerHonesty made good points - becoming a mother and becoming a mother-whose-children-are-independent/having-children-of-their-own are two huge transitional points in a woman's life.
They're both an emotional country that we have very few maps of - maybe we'll start working out a language for them. In the mean time - maybe we should try to cut each other a little slack.

WOW to Wannabe!! Brilliant post.

I am glad to have some support. I am a MIl of 3 dils (really good r/ship with 2 of them and slightly tricky one with 1)and several wonderful grandchildren.

I have been answering some of the MIL posts and trying to point out some of the issues you raise. There are so many over reaction type posts I feel, and they are answered with so many posts agreeing with the over reactions and urging on to keep MILs at bay etc etc.

I have no doubt that there are some awful MILs and I try very very hard to be a good one. I never interfere nor try to take over new babies etc and do all I can to support the whole family. Mind with dil No 3 I do think I can't do right for doing wrong and it is stressful sometimes.

I am trying to point out to these raging dils on these posts, that the intensity of feelings about your child does not alter over time and that they too will feel the same love and protectiveness towards their baby sons when they themselves are fathers!

Also talking about the eternal triange - 2 women and 1 man. I think some dils are reluctant to accept that they find the fact that their DH has a close connection with another woman even is she is his mother and thereinlies one of the problems.

Anyway must stop as could go on............if you want any tips about being a good mil I can help!

I also agree wholeheartedly with Wannabe. Fantastic post.

my mil infuriates me in thousands of little ways
so instead of telling dh or the dcs i post on mumsnet instead
i am very sorry for your loss but i do feel that our moans about our mils are allowed on a site like this, just like we moan about our kids not sleeping etc, its easy for the ttcers to chastise us for it too

my mil died a year and a bit ago.she was 50 years older than me but my best friend.she had 6 dc but never forced her parenting views on me.
i miss her every day.

I lost my lovely MIL a month ago and am still in shock that we will never see her again.

I also have a toxic Mother so can see both sides of it, I have all but cut my Mother out my live as I have had enough and cannot cope with her sucking the life and the goodness out of me.

People who post about their mils are the ones with issues, doesn't make all mils evil, just as all husbands aren't arseholes but you could never guess that if you went solely by the threads complaining about them!

well yes, but the point is that a lot of the mils posted about on here aren't actually evil, they just have the cheek to want to be involved in their grandchildren's lives. i didn't like my ex mil, but that was my problem, nothing really to do with her. yes, she irritated the hell out of me, but she wasn't doing it just to piss me off. she just wasn't the type of person i get on with.

sorry about lack of caps, bf'ing ds

My ex MIL and I had a great relationship. That's not to say that she didn't drive me around the bend at times (and I probably did the same thing to her too!). I just used to think to myself "this woman hasn't brought me up, she has totally different ideas to me that doesn't make them wrong".

My current MIL is the spawn of satan. I tried and tried and tried with her and everytime had it thrown straight back in my face. She not only was nasty to me but also to my DC's. She's manipulative, spiteful and a bully. She ruined mine and DH's engagement and tried to ruin our wedding too. DH will not have anything to do with her until she apologises for this among many other things. It has been over 2 years now and no apology (lets face it he won't ever get one). DH is MIL's only child. What sort of a person is so vile that their selfish pride would come between her and their relationship with their only child?

She continues to turn DH's family against him and me, citing me as the instigator of all evils. It's a shame really as she will miss out on so much. She's missing out on a wonderful son, she could have had a good relationship with a DIL and had two grandchildren, not to mention more grandchildren in the future but she threw it all away.

I would not ever complain about my MIL unless I had good reason to.

FWIW, when I'm a MIL I will certainly expect my DSs to put their wives and children first every time.

Nothing to do with martyrdom - they have to make their own lives and their own happiness. That and their own little families must be their priority.

As a grown woman, I won't be seeking my DCs out to keep me company or entertained in my old age. My happiness is my responsibility. And I certainly won't be foisting my parenting views and experiences on them unless asked.

I find that's what is described a lot on MN - that MILs and GPs have extremely high expectations from their children and pile on the pressure.

I think it foolish to say that all MILs or DILs are evil. And I don't think anyone on MN has ever said that. MN posts are on a case by case scenario.

I have borrowed ?extended?s? account just to fill in a few gaps.

The day that we buried my "should have been a FIL? was the first day that I felt like a grown-up rather than a student just playing at being a man.

By 5:30 all the guests had gone and middle sister had gone back to Bristol. The four of us walked back into the house, looked at each other and asked, ?Well, what do we do now?? Emotionally we were in a mess. We had staggered from crisis to crisis for over two years: we were now running on empty and the only time we felt happy and secure was when we were together. Remember three of the four of us were orphansI

Financially we were OK, the two girls owned 2/3 of the farm between them which would generate income, give us somewhere to live and capital resources to sell if we had to. I had the money from my deceased parents. Even in those days two houses in London had generated quite a lot of cash.

But I was scared, really scared, probably more scared than I had ever been before or since but I just knew there were things I had to say. I can remember telling how I couldn?t imagine my life without the three of them playing a major role. I told them how I felt part of a four, not just part of a two and how much I hoped that they felt the same way. I think this was the only time in my life I have reduced my entire audience to tears. We talked about money, about love and compassion and what we wanted to do with the rest of our lives.

All the rest of that dreadful day is rather a blur. I remember having a bonfire in the farmyard of things from the house the girls wanted to forget and playing Pink Floyd to the sheep. Then we just got on with it and we are still together over 30 years later.

sorry to hear of your losses.

I also lost both my parents whilst I was at University.

I think this makes me value even more the wonderful support I get from the ILs.

And I agree with pagwatch and wannabe that many DILs seem to have impossible expectations of this relationship. I love that DH enjoys spending time with his family, and want to support this. I wish I'd had the opportunity to enjoy a more grown-up relationship with my own parents.

I'm sorry for your loss, but some MILs go past the "she came round/she gave sweets/she criticses me". My MIL is a hateful woman who has made so many people's life a misery. She has broken into my flat to find out if I was sleeping with her son,told people we were divorced and our children had died, she has tried to snatch my children, she accused my FIL of terrible things, getting the police involved (all lies btw). I take nothing to do with her and my DH limits her time with the DDs, she is always supervised with them.

It saddens me-luckily in RL I know a lot of people who have very good relationships with ILs-I think that the problem on mumsnet is that those who get on well don't mention it whereas the ones with problem ones tend to write about them.
There is no doubt that there are difficult MIL around but I think there are equally difficult DIL in many cases.
I remember one poster on here who was pregnant and her MIL was trying to help to be told 'don't fuss around me, I have my own mother'! There are those who won't acknowledge that their MIL might be excited to have a grandchild and think that they should wait 3 weeks before they see it. There was a MIL who said 'I haven't come to see you, I've come to see my baby'-this to my mind was a joke and the DIL was very insecure, but so many people took offence at that off the cuff remark. I think there are far to many women who think that their DH comes alone, without parents, grandparents, cousins, siblings, aunts, uncles, old family friends etc etc. They trot out the line that marriage is nothing to do with family! Marriage gives you an even wider extended family.
It is a shame that people can't swap, for every heavily involved (but resented) PIL story there is someone moaning that PIL won't get involved.
I agree with OP, cherish them while you have them. I am very sad that my father never lived to know his grandchildren.
On comment not long ago was 'I love my MIL, she has been dead 30 yrs'-I realise it was a joke, but the sentiment behind it is horrible.

coclepew - your MIL sounds like she has serious mental health problems and I can well understand why you feel as you do and your children are not left with her unsuperivsed. BUT I have noticed your posts about MILS on another thread and I think the trouble is because your MIL is so awful you just assumethat must be the case with the one on the other thread. This isn't really fair - it would be like saying all DILS are awful.

I know it's good to get reassurance and help from others in a similar postion but I think one of the problems is that all MILS are being tarred with the same brush by DILS with difficult MILS and thus the anti MIL thing is being stoked up unfairly. You really have to remember that you are only hearing one side of the story on these threads and it could be exaggerated or distorted.

Does this make any sense?

Well said Piscesmoon. I'm sure you are right about the fact that we only hear about the bad MILS on MN. I am a MIL and luckily I have a very good r/ship with 2 DILS but a trickone with DIL NO 3. My other DILS say that I will never be able to do the right thing for her and she is insecure and has trouble with me simply because I am her H's mom. I'm afriad that I think they are right and so there isn't really anything I can do about it which makes me sad. To make matters worse she is very much the dominant partner and so this affects my r/ship with my son and I try hard to keep the cart on the wheels at alltimes. One of the worse things is she is unpredictable and everything can be OK and then a hurtful comment will come right out of the blue.

a lot of the DILS on MN talk of the fact that their MIL can't bear the thought that her son has his own family now and she isn't no 1 any more. I think that to some extent is true and I have to admit that I sometimes feel something similar but it soon passes. However what these DILS don't seem to acknowledge is that they too cannot accept/are not happy about the fact that their P or H has a close connection with another woman i.e. his mother. Therein lies the problem I think andthis is exacerbated when children come along.

I think so much depends on the awareness and sensitivity of MILS and DILS. I had a rather interfering MIL many years ago when my children were small but I didn't take her too seriously and just rode out the comments about what i should be doing with my babies. I think it helps also if MILs and DILs are mature and secure in themselves and don't see themselves competing for the attention of the same man!

Both NanaNina and Piscesmoon reinforce the point I was trying to make when I started the thread.

We didn?t have the chance to find out what it was like to have a MIL or a FIL but from seeing how it all works in our circle of friends the good far outweighs the bad. What I can say is burying all four parents in our three years at University makes the too little, too much complaints I seem to see so often rather upsetting. This after 30 years.

BTW I am not suggesting that people should not post comments of that type nor that their individual concerns are any less valid than mine.

Two years ago, my mother in law died suddenly from a pulmonary embolism when I was seven months pregnant with her first grandchild. After the initial shock had receded, people said that at least she died in the knowledge that everything was going well for her family - her older son was about to get married, her younger son was about to be a father and she was utterly thrilled about becoming a granny - but I can't see it that way. She has missed so much already and she would never have wanted to. I wish she could have met her granddaughter even once.

I was lucky that we did have a close relationship without any real difficulties. Looking back I can think of two occasions I upset her - once when I politely refused the offer of a royal blue leather 3 piece suite they didn't need any more, and another time, rather more seriously, when I said I wouldn't be taking her son's name when we got married. We sorted it out though because we liked each other too much not to.

Like I say, I was really lucky and I am sure my feelings now would be a lot more complicated if we hadn't got on. And I know that there are some genuinely awful MILs just as there are some awful DILs, but mostly it seems like people just don't make the effort to understand someone else's point of view, or to consider how they themselves might be coming across. People don't question themselves enough.

I do try not to sweat the small stuff with my other family members - with admittedly varying degrees of success! - because life really is too short. I've got such a clear memory of the jolting horror of that phonecall two years ago when I first heard she'd died - I don't mean to be morbid but it makes me realise you never know when you might lose someone.

' I think it helps also if MILs and DILs are mature and secure in themselves and don't see themselves competing for the attention of the same man!

I think this says it all. It isn't a competition, it is a different sort of love, with plenty of room for both. Some people think there is only so much love to go around and one person getting some takes anothers share.
If you marry someone and have their DCs you have to make an effort to get on with their family-even if they are not the sort of people that you would have chosen as friends. Over the years I have developed a very close relationship with my ILs, but it has taken effort on both sides. I think it helps to see them on your own, without the DP around, and you can forge an independent friendship.
Poor attitudes sadden me, my SIL has mentioned that her MIL (my mother)is coming to visit and people have said 'poor you'!! This is extremely rude in my view, they would never say it if she said a friend was coming to visit. This is without her ever having brought up her MIL in conversation, and misses the point entirely that she invited her because she likes her company.
My DH sometimes sees my ILs from my first marriage on his own and people on here have found that seriously weird! (They are perfectly nice people and they get on well).
The message from some people seems to be that mothers of DDs are perfectly nice people but not mothers of DSs-or maybe that is just because men are not posting about their MILs!

"I think it helps also if MILs and DILs are mature and secure in themselves and don't see themselves competing for the attention of the same man".

Unfortunately it does not always happen. They still want to be the number one in their son's life.

The above whilst correct does not always happen. That fact needs to be acknowledged. The same sorts of issues sees to crop up time and time again; one of them being that the DIL who notices a change in attitude from her MIL soon after their first child has been born. It seems that for some MIL's in particular a change of "role" becomes extremely difficult for them to accept. They still want the control and this is all about power and control ulimately. Some women will go all out to get that regardless of whom they hurt in the process, including their son, here.

I also think the man should play far more of a role here in trying to defuse these situations as and when they arise; it is important that the couple adopt a united front. Many such men with domineering/controlling/"difficult" MIL's are "ruled" by their difficult Mothers and see her behaviour as "normal" to them as they have been conditioned to accept it over the years. Hence they say very little or nothing at all to her when problems occur, they are also afraid of her deep down.

As I say on all MIL threads, what goes around comes around!