i hate my mil

[jellyfingers]

just need to get this off my chest. i really really hate my mil she is a horrible interfearing old cow that makes nasty snide little comments that are aimed at me,so my dear stupid husband is compleatly unaware of what she has said.i recently had a baby she came to visit after about two weeks, then asked to take FAMILY PHOTO of my baby my other dd, ds and dh i was not asked to get in the photo. in my opinion that is quite rude. and if i say anything to dh im the one being unreasonable.
how do you cope when you know no matter what she does your dh will always take his mothers side and defend her?

Hi know its not what you all want to hear and although I can can sympathise with some of your situations it all sounds a little bit petty to me and I generally think that its the children who suffer in the end.

I grew up being very close to my maternal grandparents but knowing that although I loved my paternal grandparents and they loved me my Mum and Gran didn't get along(The usual story mum not good enough for her only son, also different religions so therefore in my Gran's eye not a good match) and this was very confusing and upsetting. In the teenage years this had an effect on our relationship as I obviously was influenced by my mum and didn's see as much of my Gran and we drifted apart.

When I had my own 3 ds's both my dh and I were determined that our sons would be close to both sets of grandparents (My dh had a similar set up to mine and was very close to his mum's parents but not so much with his Dad's) Thankfully both sets of grandparents dote on our 3 boys (Their only grandchildren) However it has not always been easy. My relationship with my m.i.l has not been plain sailing (She's never forgiven me for not having his sister as a bridesmaid), she can be very gossipy and manipulative and at times both my m.i.l and f.i.l can drive me crazy! They live only 15 miles away and see our children every weekend even when my husband is working (he is a shift worker) Sometimes though when my husband is working a 12 hr dayshift weekend I welcome them with open arms as we have 3 boys aged 6, 3 1/2 and 17 months.

What I try to remember is that the boys love them to bits and they have a great relationship which is lovey to see and even although they can be completely annoying at times they are my husbands parents(and I'm sure that my parents drive my husband equally crazy)

To all of us with sons - one day we will be the mothers and fathers in law and I just hope that I can have a good relationship with my future daughters in law. Sometimes what goes around comes around!

i wouldnt mind the horrid mil's behavior if i had done something to deserve it but i didnt.i sent her b/day cards bought her presents for xmas and birthdays and ignored her nasty comments for about 10 or 11 years without making any fuss about it, then all of a sudden long lost grandaugter turns up on her doorstep(dh's little mistake before we met ) he had only ever seen her as a small baby once,as the mother didnt want him involved so he moved away, we then get on with our lives get a house, married, kids the normal stuff.
then this 12 year old kid turns up and mil wants us all to play happy familys and gets the hump with me as i dont want my kids to meet her at the same time my dh meets her for the first time. then its just gone downhill from there.

this is how devious she is she phoned my dh up one sunday evening and without any warning of what she was going to do then said i've got someone to talk to you and passed the phone to this 12 year child and said this is your dad talk to him .
is it me or does that just seem wrong to do that to both of them .

oh jelly i do think your heart's in the right place and you seem to have been pushed beyond endurance

i think so too .

I am a mother in law
I love my daughters in law and my sons in law
I bet they are all on here slagging me off!!
What have we done?We gave birth to your partners,we were young mums like all of you we are so glad to be grandmas now and we just want a little cuddle of your baby-please.

Yeah agree with you Pranma. Both my mum and my mil would have looked at me like I had two heads if I had refused them a cuddle of a new born grandchild. They had been looking forward to the birth as much as we were and of course looking forward to deciding who the baby looked like. Now that did drive me crazy.

what -- even before the mother had a nice cuddle?

one day i will be a mother in law

i will not demand to visit on the day the baby is born and demand of a vulnerable woman who has just given birth that she lets me do what I want with her child

you just go with what the mother wants

it's easy

I know what you all mean. But frosty he wasn't crying I had just settled him and he was asleep she picked him up then he started wailing for the whole time she was holding him. I mean looking back now I think I was over the top with my head all over the place. And I would love to get on with her like we used to but it's like too much has gone on. For instance this is what happens when we are on the bus she gets on and doesn't say hello to him totally ignores him. Now if that was me I wouldn't care if I got on with the dil I would still say hello to my grandson I don't have to talk to her.

must admit it is easy to missunderstand on these things i find its like texting in my opinion. think what i gota do is say right its happened and in the past cant change history. but if she wants to talk to me fine i will be civil, but i wont go out of my way to talk to her. my son does see her when hubby takes him round but thats only for like 10 mins and almost just once a month, she only lives like 1 min walk away. suppose i feel she could atleast phone or something but she just doesnt seem to bother so i think im gona take her approach.

My MIL is a complete nightmare (far too long a story / list to go into) - but I have come to the conclusion that she is never going to change (she has always been a difficult woman as a daughter, sister, mother, wife so it's not just me!) and therefore I have to put up with a certain amount of it because I would like my children to have a relationship with all their grandparents. As a result I tolerate all the behaviour which I think is pretty unreasonable but won't actually do any damage (except to my sanity ) but every now and then there is a confrontation when she does something that could impact on the kids' safety or is just really rude to me.

pranma I don't think most people do slag off their MILs, certainly most of my friends have no more than the odd minor issue which they also have with their own parents. I just think that sometimes a person who has difficulties in many of their relationships becomes a MIL and for several reasons that is one of the hardest relationships (for both parties). Among my extended family there is one MIL who has had problems with her SIL and DILs - but she is also the person who has had the most problems getting on with other relatives, neighbours etc.

jellyfingers I don't have any great advice, but the one thing that has helped us is trying to talk to her about it as a couple. She didn't really listen and is pretty much incapable of an adult discussion (either she shouts at us, or goes all quiet and looks at her shoes like I did when I was 14 and being told off for something) but it has helped me feel that I've got something off my chest. I think the fact that she saw we agreed on the matter and were willing to stand up to her has cut down the open criticism to an extent. I still find her visits incredibly stressful, but have learnt to stay in the background and try to ignore the minor stuff.

Sorry that's so long. I could write a book just on my MIL but at least with threads like this I realise things could be worse. Will see if I still feel like this in a few weeks when DC3 arrives and she comes to "help"

What have we done?We gave birth to your partners,we were young mums like all of you we are so glad to be grandmas now and we just want a little cuddle of your baby-please.

It all depends how you couch it, Pranma. Of course asking for a 'little cuddle' of the baby is totally reasonable and lovely and natural, but as is the case with all these sorts of issues, it is all about context. It is unfair, overbearing and frankly odd to swoop in and pick up a newborn, only hours into this world, when he has just been settled. There is so much time 'for cuddles', but those first few days and hours respecting the new mother, and the new little being is surely paramount.It is their turn ,their time, and is indeed a delicate one. I say this as someone who has had to work hard to build a (now) very good relationship with a mil.

i dont hate my mil, but i dislike her past actions. her flagrant favouritism for her youngest son and his children to the extent that my children aged 6 or 7 would be expected to understand that nanna and grandad couldnt afford a xmas present - which is fine they did. However i was expected to understand that my children were older and therefore she could spend her money on the younger sons (younger) children. we all lived on the same street so my kids saw the toys their cousins had been given by nanna and grandad. it's just bizarre.

(youngest)BIL and SIL moved down near us after a major life changing event for them. SIL mentioned how much MIL & FIL visit now they have moved down here. inlaws are due to visit today infact and i replied to sil that they had never had much to do with my children and that i will have to force them into the car to go over and say hello, out of duty. That depends on what mood i'm in.

and if my kids don't go visit, then i get comments and i think what a short memory they must have. you can't have a relationship with someone if you have never ever put much into it.

they don't deserve my children to be doting grandchildren - at 16 &19 yo they know whats what and can't be arsed.

however a great piece of advice from my nan when i was first married, was to remember that my husband and kids came first. they were my first family now.

i think thats sometimes something that you have to spell out. SO tell your dh, that you expect his support. There is no contest here. he isn't being torn solomon stylee. you are his wife. you come first.

i'd lve it if my MIL only demanded photos of other people - she tends to annoy the crap out of everyone with her love of 'candid' photography (ie shots that are taken without warning from any time from the dog walk in the morning to after several glasses of win ein the evening)

but i see your point. it is annoying. visitors when you have a tiny baby unless they are people you have chosen, are a bloody imposition.

though hatred isn't nice, i really don't think you can help it when confronted with someone who acts as though they are your 'family' but use that as a reason to treat you badly.

actually I may have misread op
I only visited when asked and only dd on first day[by invitation]
I would never pick up a sleeping baby-that way madness lies!
my d-i-l is Turkish and the doctor gave me dgd to hold before my ds did[he wasnt pleased].I stayed for a month and was expected to be very involved.My other d-i-ls are steps.One wanted me at the hospital and I went.One was some distance away and we were invited a week later.
I am so lucky I know its just that sometimes there seems to be a sort of contest on here for who has the nastiest mum/m-i-l.Still if I dont want to read that then I should stick to grannynet I know....but I do enjoy it on here and look every day.

I do love these threads as it makes our family seem much more normal. My dh is an only child who I took away from his mother at the ripe old age of 29,I always maintain I rescued him. It took a while to knock the hypocondria out of him as every headache was a tumour and tummy ache, cancer. But I got there, I have nothing to do with mil as she is a complete control freak and drama queen and i've never done as i've been told.

When I was in hospital pregnant and on a drip she decided it was a good time to have a breakdown, she has always been ill if anyone else is, every time something happened to me she always had to have the focus, my poor dh has really had to put up with a load of crap.She has said so many stupid things over the years that she just makes herself look stupid.

Please stand up for yourselves, I refuse to entertain the crap and its much easier for dh to take the kids to her for a brief visit than for her to come near me.

But I have learnt so much about how not to be a mil from hell and I look forward to my sons getting married and being open and honest from the start.

Mine has never liked me. I have been friendly, ignored her temper tamtrums and general unkindness for years.
My dp defended me for the first time on our last visit to her, told her she was bang out of order and to stop it. She turned round and said, 'thats right-defend your wife, what about your mother!'

A light switch went on in my head and I suddenly realised she is jealous of me . How terrible that you hate a person because they are a capable wife to their son. Think she'd have much preferred me to have been a lazy, boozy, unintelligent slapper. At least she could have given her son good reason to leave me.

small voice here......actually I do think a man/woman's first loyalty should always be to partner not parent.Even if they secretly agree with parent they have to put their own partner first publicly-always.I think it says something like that in the Bible too-hang on...."therefore it is written that a man should leave father and mother and cleave to his wife.."

I guess this post is redundant. I am know 58 and still have to acquiese to my MIL- anyone here might get this. Have spent decades being the third party. What happens is MIL thinks you are a piece of shit for years, puts herself on you, never reciprocates , maligns so many people, makes my husband guilty, we are ready for divorce. After 30 years she loves it.

Hey ho xxx

The problem is if your dh will not stand up to them and back you up , we had several years of snide comments , annoying digs and downright rudeness before I said enough was enough and he either told them what the problem was or we were finished . He did it , they didn't speak to him for about a month and have never spoken to or seen me since and that was about 20 yrs ago . It's been bliss and def saved our marriage ,our dc are 24& 17 and are both also now nc having made their own decision.

ZOMBIE ALERT!