My FIL hardly ever saw his family after he married my MIL. All holidays and visits were with her side. My MIL was under the impression that the wife’s side of the family was the default for visits and holiday’s. It caused some early issues but they were worked out.
Wow, I just can’t even imagine being like that! I’m not one who would relish having to raise grandchildren, but I certainly would love to be part of their lives!
Thats us, our kids are the only grandkids on both sides, and will be the only grandkids, my parents including my stepdad, are very involved, his parents have no interest. It baffles me. But as I said, it sometimes makes things easier, because Im sure my MIL would be the type to “keep count” of visits, etc. It makes makes me sad, not for me, but it still bothers my husband after all these years.
Nrdsb4, I did encourage a relationship between my kids and my mother, because I do believe some sense of family matters, for several reasons, including the sense of continuity and identity. (Both DH’s and my immediate families are small.) But DH and I didn’t go into it blindly. The priority was protecting our kids, not seeing this backfire, and we were vigilant. We shielded the kids from the worst parts (which, really, were mostly private.) In fact, DH shielded me, too. The first day my mother pulled her shtick on D2, I intervened, explained to D2 that she was not beholden to this crap. (I’ll skip details.)
As it turned out, my kids’ relationship with his aunt, my grandmother and my bff were far more stable and stabilizing than with my mother. We gave them “family” by redefining. But also, this wasn’t the extreme judgmentalism or open critiquing that Romani and others speak of.
Well, perfect in any family is an illusion. Yes, open abuse and nastiness is another level altogether.
I’ve known my in-laws since I was 15. My FIL died two years ago. I got along with him and my MIL, until this year. It wasn’t always easy being around them because they often bickered. My MiL spoke to her husband with disdain and he would understandably become irate. It was an uncomfortable situation for my kids and me. My H is an only child and while he didn’t like their behavior, it was something he grew up with. Then this year, back in Feb, we discovered that my MIL has been having a 40+ year affair with a married man. So, she deceived her husband for the bulk of her marriage and has been lying to her son and me all these years. Since discovering this, it’s like finding the missing puzzle piece: now we understand the origin of her disdain for her husband. And all the aspects of her personality that pointed to a pathological narcissism seem confirmed.
Let’s just say, this has been an interesting year. A highlight: in a conversation I had with her about her affair and how the lying has hurt us terribly, she told me that she no longer likes or loves me. Ok.
“Why do so many people dislike their inlaws, or think their inlaws dislike them?”
A lot of this has to do IMO with parents not being able to let go and with kids who don’t seperate properly from the parents. As a result, what you end up with are parents who try to keep their relationship with their kid the way it was before they got married (or rather, when they were children), and they see a spouse, not as someone their kid loves, but as someone taking the kid away or interfering or whatnot. Likely, they didn’t have any kind of boundaries with their family, and are recreating it with their own. I think the dislike of inlaws is in being treated as an outsider or like they are an adornment for their spouse, not part of the family, and I think inlaws dislike of the spouse is either they somehow feel the kid ‘could have done better’, or because gasp the spouse wants their husband/wife to be focused on them and their family, and not being led by parents.
@RenaissanceMom well damn :^o a forty year affair?!? Wow
I get along much better with my mother now that she moved across the country. She’s happy there and, per usual, has forgotten the conflicts, wonders why we didn’t spend more time together when she lived 2 miles away.
A lot of why we kept some minimal/minimized relationship with her was to show how we try to “do right.” Yes, that does include knowing when to back off. Or run.
@partyof5, you have no idea how shocked we were. Apparently, there was also an earlier affair that didn’t last. And if you met her at any point over the last 40 years, you would never think that she’d be capable of living a double life. Or that she was the type to do such a thing.
It’s created a lot of tension here. And for me, it’s hard because she’s in lots of need of help right now…she truly belongs in assisted living, but refuses to consider it because I think she’s concerned that it will make it more difficult for her to see her married boyfriend. At this point, I simply don’t like her as person.
@RenaissanceMom how has this affected your hubby?
It’s been difficult because she’s still his mom, he’s always loved her, and she really needs his help now. We live 3 hrs away, and he’s hired an elder care nurse to help with meds, take her to the doctor. She fell last week while at a food market, fractured her right knee and now has 24/7 care while she mends.
But he feels badly for his dad (neither of us believes he ever knew bc he was still giving her thoughtful, beautiful pieces of jewelry for all their anniversaries. What husband would do that if he thought his wife was an adulterer for all those years?). And he’s having a hard time discussing it with me. He really doesn’t want to deal it on any emotional level bc he fears it will impact his ability to care for her as she needs most.
That is one heck of a story.
wow, just wow
I’ve been wondering if what she did is highly unusual. I don’t know of anyone else who has carried on such a long- term affair without either getting caught much earlier or more commonly, leaving…divorcing. Has anyone here ever heard of this happening with someone you know?
Just be grateful it isn’t your MIL, lol.
I often wonder what our in laws are going to be like. I mean, parents of the sons my D’s marry. You don’t pick these people and while I have had no problems with the boys my D’s have dated, I sometimes wondered about some of the parents. They become part of your family and I have met a couple that I know would have been a handful.
With my own MIL, I will never understand her and vice versa. I am cordial and keep my distance. We are so different that she will never understand why I am the way I am but she never really got to know me. For years, she thought I was a secretary because I worked in that role when I was in college. That was 30 years ago. I think she likes her other DIL better. Other DIL hits all the right buttons for her. She has the upscale house, throws over the top parties and wears designer shoes. Things that are not as important to me. Last Thanksgiving, we didn’t go anywhere for dinner because we were visiting her in the hospital after she had an accident. She actually told me my house was ugly. Imagine that. Just one of many “compliments” I have received over the years. I guess it was more important for her to say that than to ask why other son and DIl had not stopped in.
@RenaissanceMom I don’t know of any personally but there is a researcher I know who is in the midst of publishing a book about women who had same-sex affairs while married to men. Many went on for decades.
Shortly after one of my aunts died, her widower (my dad’s brother) remarried. It turned out that he had been having an affair with the woman during his marriage to my aunt. The woman was approximately 40 years younger than him (younger than his two daughters). It made for much discomfort in the family.
My MIL didn’t cheat on her H, she adored him, but she did have two sisters she stopped speaking to. One of them my H didn’t even know existed until after MIL died. The other she stopped speaking to when he was thirteen. H and FIL tried to get her to mend fences, she refused. H had all these cousins he was denied that lived close by when he was growing up.
Things she did that drove me crazy: H would give me a little gift. He didn’t do this often, so I would thank him profusely. Sometimes it wasn’t a perfect gift, but it was always thoughtful. Then he would give the same thing to MIL. She would ask me what I thought, work to extract a negative, then tell H that the gift was stupid because of whatever I said and say it was my opinion.
She was free in telling me I looked fat or that she didn’t like my lipstick or hair. I never asked for these opinions. Completely volunteered. I didn’t care what she thought and my mean reaction was NOT to tell her what I thought, like suggest she touch up her roots.
She used to insert herself into stories where she hadn’t played a role. Like decisions H and I made. And then tell her friends with us present.
The worst part was how she treated the kids. She tried to play them against one another, with one being the good one and the other the bad one. She would manipulate them to get them to say things she wanted to hear, like nag a kid into saying he would miss her. …after she was dead.
MIL was someone who, if she hadn’t been a relative, I would have cut out of my life in a second. But I was tethered to her through H, and he wouldn’t tell her to knock it off. He would ignore her or dump her on me.
FIL was great otoh.
Whew, this venting felt good!
I have never been the best daughter in law. I smoke, I drink to much for her taste, I let my daughter get piercings. I have a master’s degree and make much more than her son. My MIL often worries about BIL out loud to me. BIL with more money than he can ever spend, two exwives and (she doesn’t know this ) 2 girlfriends, who calls her once in a great while and visits even less even tho she has stage 4 cancer. She doesn’t get my daughter either. I tell my daughter (and myself) that we are like Jazz to her. You don’t have to understand it to love it.