MIL thread, but is relevant to Step-Parents

[Gonzo33]

Long story short. My husband and I both have a son each from a previous relationship. Mine loves with us overseas (due to hubby's job) and dh's lives with his Mum. Nearly 21 mths ago I had a dd to my husband.

Christmas 2009 my pil visit with my dss. There is an incident where my ds tells my mil that she should ask before she helps herself to anything in the cupboards whilst we are out because he didn't know I had told her to help herself. Due to this mil thinks he is incredibly rude and gives him a royal dress down that includes making him feel like he is not part of my dh's family. This infuriated me and I lost the plot completely. Mil apologised to me for upsetting me, and we made up. However, she still has not accepted my ds into the family and although she will send him a card at Christmas and such like she will not baby sit him (even with her gd). She also will not have him at her house. Wwyd? This needs to be resolved before we go back to UK because if she won't have my ds in her house then I won't go. Obviously I would never stop my dh from taking our dd to her house, but he won't go unless we go as a family. Can anyone give me any idea's? By the way she is not a talker. She never ever calls anyone, they all have to call her and if you don't call her often enough to goes into a strop.

*loves should be lives

**to should be she

Sorry I babbled through that!

How old is your DS?

10

Am I right in thinking that your MIL lives in the UK and you live overseas. Anyway - I can understand your mil being annoyed at your son's comments and might have thought he was a bit cheeky. However you and mil made things up and that should have been the end of it. To refuse to have your son in her house is utterly ridiculous and unacceptable in my view. This must have been going on for 2 years as you say the incident happened at christmas 2009. I completely agree that you should not be going unless you are assured that this matter is resolved. Your mil is bearing a grudge against a 10 yr old FGS and she will miss out as she won't see her gr/dghtr either.

You MIL sounds like a very "needy" person who is emotionally immature and insecure, which is probably the reason behind her views about your son.

Glad your DH is behind you on this one.

At the end of the day, he is not her grandchild. I know most people wouldn't let that make a difference, but that is her right. I have to say that I find that, especially from a 10 year old, very very rude. If he is able to say that, maybe he is rude about other things, especially when you're not there. Don't flame me for this, apart from saying I would find that comment rude, I'm playing devils advocate.

He was very rude, at ten that comment is completely inappropriate whether or not he knew that you'd said to help herself. However, her reaction is also entirely inappropriate. Leave it to your dh to explain the non-visiting situation, and if she doesn't change her mind then follow through with the no-one visiting plan.

When you say she will not have him at her house, do you mean she won't babysit for him there or she won't allow him in the house at all?

So he would have been 8 at the time of the cupboard incident? Only you know the context of this - for example, I was told off by a similar aged girl at a party a couple of months ago for having a cup cake seemingly ahead of the 'proper' schedule, but she wasn't being rude - she was one of those children who follow rules = and maybe the OP's boy is similar...it may not have been meant to be rude.
However, I am half in the camp of agreeing with lisaro - your MIL does not have to accept your son, but it seems incredibly unreasonable to not be able to forgive an 8 yr old a faux pas and move on.
I'd give it another go to try and smooth things over. Putting the incident to one side and not re-hashing it.

Beamur I have always drummed it into my son that he has to ask for things in other peoples houses and not help himself, so I think he thought it was rude of pil not to ask for a biscuit. He did get told after that incident that he was not in the right to speak to an adult like that and was made to apologise.

Before this incident pil both accepted my ds and he was accepted into their home and treated as any other child would be. Since the incident she will not have him in her house unless under duress, and then the atmosphere is so awful none of us can tolerate it. She also will not visit us even though we have offered to pay for her to come and see us.

Lisaro my ds was 8 at the time, and I made him apologise for his comments to her straight away.

Gonzo - thanks for that, that makes sense (as I suspected) your son was just following 'house rules'.

Given that everyone has apologised - for what was afterall, only a misunderstanding, your MIL is being really unfair to still hold this against your son.
I hate to say it, but it smacks to me that she has a deeper issue here of not accepting your son and is using this trivial incident to justify her behaviour.

I agree with Beamur - something bigger is going on here.
I don't even think your son was that rude to her, actually. Anyway, she's the adult, and she's behaving very badly. I hope your DH will do something to sort this out - it should come from him, really.

I'm kinda aghast that your MIL would not accept a child as family. She doesn't have to love or even like him, but I think she does have to accept him. We don't get to choose our in-laws, and that goes both ways. Her son chose you and yours, and that just has to be good enough for her.

I would not be inclined to let her see one of my children if she was going to treat the other one so dismissively. Not to be petty and punish her (although obviously that would be tempting), but because it seems harmful to the sibling's relationships with one another.

Thanks. I was worrying about that. As it happens my husband won't take our daughter to see his parents unless my ds comes with us.

I think I will talk to dh about broaching this with mil because I think something does need to be said.

Poor guy gets all the good jobs!