Mother in law had no reaction when we told her we are getting married, and looked at the floor?

[Oliveover28]

Apparently it’s because she “already knew” and was annoyed she wasn’t the very first above everybody to find out.

is this justified? I have a bad relationship with her from how she’s treated me in the past (she’s mean to me) so we didn’t feel comfortable telling her first. She made it about her and bit her nails and looked at the floor and just said ok?

recently she has said it’s because she wasn’t the first to know. How can someone make that about themselves!

It's only since my DSs have become adults that I'm starting to understand how difficult this phase of parenting is. The hardest by far IMO.

I couldn't agree more. When your kids are adults, you love them just as much as you ever did, but you're torn between pride in seeing them become successful adults, and sadness at losing that closeness.

You want to protect them from life and from making mistakes, but your advice isn't wanted and sometimes you have to watch things go wrong when you could have saved it from happening.

And when they have a partner, and then children, you have to learn to share. And when the grandchildren come along you feel that fierce primal love and protection again, but still have to keep your mouth shut (see the thread where the OP is complaining because the grandparents tell her children to be careful at the play park!)

It was so much easier when your children were children and you had some control and could steer things during their bumps in the road.

Maybe this helps answer your question @heroinechic .

Yes, very well articulated, thank you

I felt for you until you said that you told others plural including his Nan before his Mum.

I would be pissed off too. If she wasn’t nice to you before I hate to think what happens now.

Because you have to hold the higher ground. She’s playing games with you. Play her on your terms, be clever she won’t even realise. Be one step ahead…

But you do have to give the same grace to your son’s wife too, right? She deserves to be a mum, to have the control that you miss, to be able to steer her own family and own children, and experience what you did. Surely you don’t dislike the women for being who you once were. That is what I’m experiencing.

Let me ask you this. If you knew someone didn’t like you, had been horrible to you and told your husband not to be there for you, if you had good news, would she be the first person you chose to tell?

She honestly cannot work out why she wasn’t the first to know. She was asking my husband in front of me. Surely she knows it’s because of the way she has been?or are some people just not self aware?

No one's saying otherwise, just explaining that it's harder than it seems until you experience it. I hope that my son's girlfriends are blissfully unaware of my struggles, but there have definitely been struggles, with some more than others.

I'd have been devastated to be last to hear they were getting married. If the worst she did was stay quiet when she was finally told, the woman deserves a medal!

She doesn’t like you, she won’t want him to marry you, you deliberately let her know other people were told first.

You seem surprised by all of this, why?

Well I could ask why she is surprised we didn’t tell her first, if she doesn’t like me? Lol

So childish 🙄

lol it’s amusing to me that you judge a situation when knowing probably 1% of the information. If I told you some of the things she has said, and how she has treated me AND my husband, you would have a complete different view. I am within my right to tell positive information to whom I chose, if my husband wanted to tell his mum that is down to him and whenever he chose too.

Thanks. I agree I can imagine it’s hard. Harder for some than others. At least you have the dignity and respect for your husbands wives to hope that they do not know, rather than try and make your husband feel guilty for moving on.

my MIL makes my husband feel guilty on a regular basis for trying to start his own life. She tells him that he needs to stick to the family he came from. She has also told him that his marriage won’t work if she doesn’t like me or accept me.

Thank you for this advice. Appreciate it. So you think to just act oblivious and ignore?

This is true. I’m trying to take a wide birth and only spoke if spoken too.

This is what I am experiencing. Single for 20 years. Only sleeps with married men now. Uses my husband as complete emotional security, validation etc. can I ask when do you chose to address the behaviors? Has it got worse or better with children? And if your husband accepts that she has used him as a substitute emotional husband? It’s a very sensitive topic for most men.

I think you've lost me here, if you're going to do something as drastic as not telling her before wider family, you (your fiancee, really) needs to be confident enough to actually say why to her face . It's incredibly passive aggressive otherwise.

'we were worried you wouldn't be pleased as you're quite frosty with oliveover28'. It sounds like she asked and you just want her to work it out herself?

I think you need to follow through a bit more and be clear with communication, even if she is an absolute nightmare!

You've already said you don't get on with her and it sounds like you deliberately told other family members before you told her, you must have known there was a good chance they would mention it to her. I'm surprised that her reaction wasn't pretty much what you were expecting. She's going to be your MIL so this kind of tit for tat game playing is a pretty unsavoury way for two grown women to behave. I feel sorry for the bloke stuck in the middle of it!

This.

I do, it’s really not worth a fight. You simply waste too much energy being bitter… trying to work her out….. why she doesn’t like you etc….Its a waste of time!
What you can do is change the way you react. she won’t like it, but be clever, be consistent. Very politely do exactly what you want…. eventually she’ll give up or not! But you’ll never have lowered yourself to het level. That’s important, especially if she pushes your DH to choose

Also, I agree with the above quote

She does. The funny thing is, she’s been saying she’s lost him, she can’t call him anymore, he doesn’t call her anymore, me and my husband was confused why she feels that way. It’s just a ploy to say / make it look like I’m to blame for her made up mistreatment. So I guess that’s forcing him to chose. She’s told me before “I am not losing my son to you” I don’t know why she looks at it as losing, and not gaining a daughter?

So tell her she’s gaining a daughter, not losing a son. Tell her he has a phone, ring him, have a chat. Suggest you cook and she comes over for two hrs, but then she needs to go as you’re going out etc…., if you start to control things, it gets easier

I had a toxic, enmeshed MIL in my first marriage and a wonderful MIL in my second. I hate to say it but if I had my time again, I might not get married to exH. You have relationships with partners. You marry families.

Include her, but on your terms. It might change things. It will be slow. But it’s that or a whole life of hell and her playing the victim.