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Mothers-in-law.love em or hate em?
Just for fun....and to give me hope that some people grow to love their MILs! Do you love or hate yours? And why?
Personally mine drives me NUTS!! She is a counsellor/social worker (not to offend anyone but it seems to me that these jobs are filled with nosey people who know best....) whenever she has my kids (including the 9 week old twins) she totally ignores my instructions and routines,for example my 3 yo is very sensitive to colours and sugar so we try to avoid giving him much but she takes him and stuffs him with sweets! Leaving us with a verrrrry hyper little boy....she also cuddles the babies off to sleep which unsettles them terribly as we won't sit holding them for hours.
She also is quite blatant with the fact that her first grandson is her favourite. He lived with them for 4 years until his mum and dad got their own place and she spoilt him sooo much,he's 9 this year and the most ungrateful,mean and rude child I've EVER met. But she texts him every day inviting him for tea,yet never asks to see our kids or even this boys little sister! My hubby is one of 3 boys (anyone else find that mother-in-laws with only boys are worse?!) and the eldest is the fave,he's 31,very spoilt and arrogant yet she's lent him ??6000 so far (which he doesn't repay) but when we asked for ??50 we were short on rent she made a HUGE fuss about her being skint and how we must repay asap grrrrr.
Anyway,I'm sure we've all got funny/annoying MIL tales to tell,and it would be nice to hear some good stories for once!!
K xx
Personally mine drives me NUTS!! She is a counsellor/social worker (not to offend anyone but it seems to me that these jobs are filled with nosey people who know best....) whenever she has my kids (including the 9 week old twins) she totally ignores my instructions and routines,for example my 3 yo is very sensitive to colours and sugar so we try to avoid giving him much but she takes him and stuffs him with sweets! Leaving us with a verrrrry hyper little boy....she also cuddles the babies off to sleep which unsettles them terribly as we won't sit holding them for hours.
She also is quite blatant with the fact that her first grandson is her favourite. He lived with them for 4 years until his mum and dad got their own place and she spoilt him sooo much,he's 9 this year and the most ungrateful,mean and rude child I've EVER met. But she texts him every day inviting him for tea,yet never asks to see our kids or even this boys little sister! My hubby is one of 3 boys (anyone else find that mother-in-laws with only boys are worse?!) and the eldest is the fave,he's 31,very spoilt and arrogant yet she's lent him ??6000 so far (which he doesn't repay) but when we asked for ??50 we were short on rent she made a HUGE fuss about her being skint and how we must repay asap grrrrr.
Anyway,I'm sure we've all got funny/annoying MIL tales to tell,and it would be nice to hear some good stories for once!!
K xx
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Replies
Occassionally she does something that isn't great (like playing games just as he's on the verge of going to sleep) but that's really rare and she's doing out of love rather than to wind us up or similar so it's not worth worrying about. She drives over especially to visit us and is great fun to be around. Recently got back from holiday with the in laws and my parents and we all had a lovely time.
I know that we are both really lucky with our in laws as my mum is great and DH loves her to bits too. It does make life a lot easier that we all get on so well.
She helps with the children as much as she can but never oversteps the mark, she always does things the way I want them done and even if she thinks I'm wrong she respects my decisions.
Dont get me wrong, we have our moments, when we were away in devon last year when Theo was 6 months old he was really poorly, I mean really poorly. He was hot, screaming and not eating and I kept saying we needed to take him to A and E but MIL kept saying he was just teething. Eventualy she relented and when we got to A and E he was immediatly diagnosed with an ear infection in both ears and a chest infection!! She's never doubted me since lol.
xxx
sarah
One example of whats she is like, my bil announced that his gf was pregnant so she immediatly drove 3hrs to pick him up and take him "home" to try and persuade him to dump the gf and gave him money to go out drinking with his old girl friends. Openly tells the family how she will NEVER accept this girl into her family and leaves her without a name then the min the baby is born she is her best mate! I can't stand peope like that, 2 faced doesnt even begin to cover it! Oh and she makes NO effort to see Holly, only time they see her is if we take her to them, but ets not get me started on that lol
Her whole time is taken up with golf, holidays and a small amount of work and we are fitted in very occasionally by appointment. Honestly the diary has to be checked and meetings are planned months in advance. She only lives round the corner but we will only see her every couple of months and my mums over an hour away but we see her weekly.
She was great with her two eldest grandchildren (SIL's). She had them one day evey week and would pop round to see them every day. They moved to Spain over a year ago but she hasn't chosen to spend any additional time with mine.
Generally we get on quite well and I have actually known her all my life a she was a friend of my mums. However she can occaisionally be a bit funny. When I first went to her house as her son's girlfriend my OH's niece kept calling me by his exes name. I explained that my name was 'rebecca' and not 'sarah' and OH's niece (who was 6 at the time) just turned around and went 'sarah, sarah, sarah' to which my now MIL said 'well you should expect that really'.
The other thing is photos - she say's she wants a family photo, off everyone trots (including my girls since they have been around) and then tells me it's ok for me to stay where I am. I am not in any of her family photos. Yet once when I chose not to go to one of her, prearranged months in advance, get togethers, she rung me up and had a massive go telling me that I need to make more of an effort if I want to be part of the family. Generally though we get on quite well but she occaisionally has a little dig at me. She doesn't spend much time with my children but then again she has never made any comments in anyway for anything I do with regards to them - I don't wholly know if that's a good thing as it kind of smacks of a distinct lack of interest in her grandchildren. Regardless it is her loss as she is missing out on spending time with two beautiful little girls.
Although she is 200 miles away she comes down every couple of months to see our lo and even stayed at a hotel with us recently so we could go to a friend's wedding there which had a no kids rule. She is clearly chuffed to bits with her grandson and spends loads of time with him! She is always very careful to ask if I'm ok with anything she is doing with or for lo too... I think I'm very lucky
She sees them once a week begrudgingly even though she only lives 2 miles away. Her and FIL have worked out how much it costs in petrol to drive the 2 miles around the one way system and won't visit us unless they are in town going to the skips to dump rubbish or if they're going to Tesco!!!
When she does come all she does is moan and if she starts another sentence with 'I'm not being funny but...' I think I'll go spare! She told me yesterday that in her opinion my 10 month old has always been a funny yellow colour and is obviously jaundiced and should be in hospital and that we should have left her out in the garden this summer to make her a normal colour!! There's certainly nothing wrong with my lo and I told her that most politely.
She only buys the girls second-hand toys from the market, not that there's anything wrong in that but if they've been obviously chewed or scribbled on I don't like it. She gives her grandsons ??20 a week pocket money and regularly spends ??150 on clothes and shoes for them while they moan that they can't afford the petrol to see us! I'm just glad that my parents live locally and that they absoltely adore my girls as this more than makes up for my mad MIL!
Rant over...!!!
But now things have calmed down a lot. The problem was partly with me and I realized that so now we can have a pleasant chat together with no nastiness. I let the girls spend time alone at MILs now that they are bigger, but when they were little I would have cried at the thought of leaving them there! Also hubby told her about my depression which I think made her back off a bit, and when she's not pestering us to go round, I feel more willing to go.
So things can get better in time...
Oh and whoever said that MILs who only have boys are worse is totally right! And that OH never hears the digs or nasty comments!
xxx