Extra Crazy MIL

[Puddings2108]

So long story short i live with my in laws, husband and 8 month old baby. My mil is just on a whole other level of asian mil's! A few examples of her behaviour below:

1. she is obsessed with my husband (1st born) she has to know where he is at all timrs. When we are on out way out, she has to know where we are going.she has to know everything to do with him, period. 😵‍💫

2. she has this weird obsession where you have to eat only what she cooks lol like im not allowed to cook for myself or my husband she will make all the exvuses under the sun to stop me and if i do persevere then she will poo poo it and be very vocal about how it does not taste nice. Now it would have been okay if her cooking was nice, but it isn't, it is bland, and consists of weird concoctions and it is only asian food, she cannot cook anything else. But this cooking is literally inflicted on us and she stands over yoir shoulder when you are eating and you have to say it is really delicious and make yummy noises! 🫣

3. she treats all her children (i say children loosely they are all between 31 and 45 years of age) like babies, she literally plates up their food for them, decides what they eat, when they eat, how they eat. If they try to assert themselves, she will shout them into submission, and she is looooud. She even insists on feeding the 31 year old with her own hands 🤢

4. so obviously she has lots to say about how we parent the baby. When we started weaning him i chose to go down the baby led weaning route and to start with veg, fruit and salads (my mil and the whole family have a really bad diet, no veg, no salads, they pretty much only eat asian food and even then limited dishes) well she has to put her tuppence worth in at every meal the baby has, comments such as:

Oh poor baby, its not nice is it, i will feed you yummy delicious things.
How is he meant to eat that, there is no salt in it, it won't taste nice.
How is he meant to eat just vegetables.

Basically she wants me to feed the baby what she cooks ergo linked to point number 2. 😫

I really could go on and on, but someone please tell me this isn't normal, even for an asian mil!

If you made it to the end of the post, thank you!

Move out

You have to move out as quickly as possible. How does your husband tolerate it? Does he not stand up for you at all?

Whether it’s normal or not isn’t the problem. You are choosing to be there with this. Move out. Problem solved .

Trust me if i could move out then i would. We are looking for a house but it is proving to be difficult with a young baby and crazy London house prices. Also, it has been drilled into my husband by my mil that he cannot leave his elderly parents behind, so it has been a battle to convince my husband to even think about buying a house. Also there is the whole cultural aspect to it, so please no more comments of moving out, yes, i won't have to live with her when we do move out but she will still be very much in our lives and very much behaving like this.

He does stick up for me now, he didn't much when we first got married, but he has come to see her sheer madness! The thing is, she has been like this all their lives so they see her behaviour as normal and they just live with it, all the siblings.

Point of this post is just to vent and get all the things she does off my chest and just to get a bit of solidarity that I am not being unreasonable.

Yeah point 1- MIL once couldn’t get hold of 21 year old BIL so left a voicemail saying “if you want your mother to live you must pick up the phone”…. Watching too many fucking Indian soaps I think, they live to imitate the drama!

@Lordofthewing oh god the indian dramas, i swear she literally takes scenes out of it and inflicts them on me, the cruel, disobedient DIL! She is currently making the biggest pan of biryani ever (its not even authentic biryani, just tice and curry mixed together!) And invited all the family to come and eat, and like clockwork they are all here, don't they have anything better to do??

It sounds like Everybody Loves Raymond.
Is there any way of escaping, getting your own place, preferably in Australia? Seriously, if you do move out, put firm boundaries in place or she will be camping on your doorstep.

@Fingalscave that made me snort with laughter! Woman doesn't know what boundaries are to save her life but you are right when we do move out and it will happen (its the mantra i keep repeating to keep myself sane) i need to ensure she doesn't just move herself into my home 😵 well that's thebother thing, she would rather walk over hot coals then call it my home, it will be her son's home.

Even though i will be thw one paying the lions share of the mortgage as i am the higher earner 🤣

I really wish you luck with getting a place of your own OP. It will be so much better for you and your sanity. Sending good wishes.

I know you said you don't want comments telling you to move out but honestly RUN. I would find it impossible to live like this long term. I put my foot down early about moving in with in-laws, but lived down the road from them. My MIL wasn't as overtly obsessive as yours seems to be but it was still awful, and it does not get better. It will drive you either bonkers or into submission. And, may well come between you and your husband. You know yourself best. To me, this would not be sustainable.

OFGS Your dh, her first born, is 45.
Why haven’t you moved out long ago 🙄

Fair enough - you have my solidarity and sympathy, because your MIL really is an absolute horrorbag! If you really are stuck with this living arrangement, I think you need strategies for neutralising the effect her nonsense has on you. When I am forced to endure my (quite similar, but Irish rather than Asian) MIL, I find the following helpful:

bullshit bingo - DH and I, and the kids now they’re older, know pretty much all of the toxic and nasty things she is likely to say, so we tell each other beforehand what they are likely to be and then catch one another’s eye when they happen. We once had a sweepstake on how many disdainful references to my weight/DS2’s clothes/DS1’s choice of degree subject there would be over a 3 hour Sunday lunch. It sounds petty but it really takes the sting out of it.

stock responses - if I know what phrases I am going to use to shut down her favourite criticisms, politely but firmly, I get less flustered and there’s less dread of her going off on one of her rants and getting really hurtful.

BREAKS - if I have to deal with MIL for a more protracted period, I have to build in breaks where I can see someone outside the situation to download some of the stress, have a sane conversation with someone who isn’t batshit, have a quiet drink or a walk on my own, so my nerves don’t get too shredded.

Your DH needs to be on side, and to understand just how wearing her behaviour is on you. He should be, at the least, diverting her attention away from you and fielding her unpleasant comments so you don’t have to do it all the time.

Why do SE Asian families live together, even though they’ve often lived in the UK for 2 or 3 generations? Is it for financial reasons, childcare, or something else?

If you have to live with them can you put money into the house for an extension so you can have your own kitchen/lounge and bedroom? Or even better a small home in the garden?

Thoroughly batshit, I’d go mad if I had to live with my MiL and she is actually extremely reasonable in comparison to yours!

Feeds the 31 yo with her hands - Jesus wept, I’ve read it all now.

Kindly OP you need to move out and have your own space.

Living with in laws is a cultural thing and can be quite convenient, ny own brothers lived with my parents, saved up money and then bought very nice houses and moved out, my parents got help with bills as pensioners and saw the grandkids and when it was time everyone parted their own ways amicably. Me and my husband discussed this before we got married and agreed on the same, but littlw did i know how to quote @FoamShrimps thoroughly batshit my mil was!

I just need to save up enough money for a deposit and find a house for a reasonabke price and im outta here, but that will take a little time and in the mean time what the hell, she reaches new highs every single day. Today she wanted to feed the baby tea for breakfast, molasses as a snack and rice and curry for dinner 🤦🏽‍♀️

The whole clan is round again tomorrow, oh joy of all joys, to guess what, eat her cooking. She actually told me once not to cook this dish i made again as my husband said he didn't like it to her, but not to go back and tell him, i did and he had no idea what she was talking about! How narcissitic (i can't spell that!) Is that?!

@sprigatito you seem like a dab hand in dealing with these mil's, i love all of your suggestions! I will definately be trying them out, me and my husband have similar coping mechanisms. He is supportive of me now, over the last 3 years he has woken up for want of a better phraae to his mums behaviour and how downright mad and unreasonable she is. However, he struggles to confront her as does his siblings as she has beaten them down all their lives but does now slowly muster up the courage to.

@MrsPositivity1 oh i could tell you some other things that will give you goosebumps.

1. She tells him if he wants her to run his bath 🫣
2. if you happen to be using the loo when she needs it she will literally stand outside and ask who is in there and what are you doing 🤯
3. im not allowed to have any paracetamol if i have a headache, period pain etc because apparently it will damage my kidneys 🤦🏽‍♀️
4. none of us are allowed to drink cold water as it will give us a sore throat apparently and a cough 😵‍💫

Its the most bizarre household ever!

If you aren't able to move out can you just not do what she says?

Go out and enjoy time with your baby without her there. Drink cold water. Take painkillers. Eat what you want to eat (order takeaway, bet she'd love that!).

Surely you don't all just do what she wants all the time?

@ThatMintMember oh that's just it, im the only one that doesn't conform, and at times i have inspired a revolution with my husband certainly and even his siblings and that really winds her up! You can literally feel her wrath as she realises she has no control over me and slowly the control over my husband is waning, but instead of giving up she just goes at it harder!

To really annoy her i cook dinner every day regardless of what she has concocted and when my husband says 'oo that's quite nice' lets just say if looks could kill lol.

The thing none of this makes her stop, you would think she would give up but no she is still there trying to railroad us into eating something we don't want, keeping tabs on us. To be fair she keeps tabs on all her children, she forces them to visit every other day, and then is very mean and unkind to them, its so very strange.

Part of me thinks that shes actually a very clever woman and this is how she controls her children, beating them down, so they have no self confidence and then she can control every aspect of their life.

Well I'm glad you don't conform! I'd suggest doing more of that and enjoying your life more. Break the cycle and set the example for your child.

I bet she's just scared to lose them and be on her own, but by doing it this way she's still seeing them but not because they actually want to or because they like her.

Can you try seeking food you like into your bedroom like naughty teenagers!

move far away

You must have the patience of a Saint! Are your parents still around, could you live with them?