@MomofJandL, Thanksgiving is our “test-case” too, but while it can serve as a wonderful vetting tool :), now that S1 is married, they’re going to have to alternate years and I am very sad. My DIL’s family goes to friends of her brothers for Thanksgiving, while my family has a multi-day multi-generation event. My S would rather be with us, but he knows that marriage is about compromise, and while they will be sorely missed, I do understand. My other two will be with us and their SOs will be with their own families. There are so many things to be considered when our children’s partners, too, come from close, engaged families!
I am probably the poster who does that most frequently, and as I’ve said before, I’m joking and making fun of myself. I know that I am ridiculous where my son is concerned. Not because he is a boy, but because he is my baby and I have no desire to let go. For the record, he had a serious girlfriend for over a year, and it was fine. She was and is a lovely girl who, frankly, was much too on the ball at 17-18 years of age for my son.
My mother was a terrible mother-in-law to her daughters in law, and I would never do that. Although to be fair, one sister-in-law was every mother’s worst nightmare with respect to being a daughter-in-law. I expect to be as respectful and welcoming to any future daughter-in-law as I do with my dearly loved future son-in-laws.
Speaking only for myself, my daughters are adults and living alone and we have a fantastic relationship. I have seen many instances of sons being much closer to their wives’ families than daughters being closer to their husbands’ families and I worry about that. Sometimes stereotypes exist for a reason.
Maybe, but certainly not the only one. I remember distinctly reading a post by a woman with 2 sons who said this and did not qualify afterwards that she was joking. And I’ve read similar posts here by others throughout the years. It may not actually be something more common to mothers of sons, but those are the posts I most remember.
“All will be visiting during the holidays and I’m anxious about that. We’ll be sharing our family traditions with “strangers” (someone other than our immediate family of 9) for the first time. Instead of being our relaxed/normal/cranky/bickering selves in our messy house, we have to be concerned about what kind of impression we’re making. I want to be a good hostess, but I find this very stressful.”
"Thanksgiving is our “test-case” too, but while it can serve as a wonderful vetting tool "
As @atomom’s concern demonstrates, vetting tools can work in both directions. 
The mother of my college boyfriend made a huge impression on me when we dated because she was able to LOVE, love and support him and also see that he was immature and make you crazy sometimes. I am able to see my own S honestly. He has my undying love and support but I am able to honestly assess his actions. I see his flaws and areas that need improvement. Same goes for my D.
Yup, she did put it writing. I still have the letter here somewhere in a box I haven’t purged yet. (Still working on a Bag a a Week!) And yes, she was mentally ill. Had been hospitalized many times in her life, and was the reason DH became the de facto parent of his infant brother and manager of the household at age 13. DH’s father was incapable of stepping up and handling anything. Child Protective Services was a regular visitor. When we were dating, I used to marvel at home DH even survived that kind of chaos and came out intact. I see exactly how DH became obsessed with controlling every situation to avoid even the slightest hint of chaos or disruption (and no, DH has never been physically inappropriate).
By the time our kids were born, she was bedridden and so deep within herself that she wasn’t vicious to others any longer. She wasn’t loving, either, but felt we could control access and things would be ok. We would take them there for an afternoon, but never overnight. It worked out. We shared almost nothing about the kids’ lives lest she find some way to contact schools, etc. She passed away when the guys were 10 &12.
As far as current GFs/DILs go, I have learned to stand back and be supportive. If they ask for advice, we’re happy to talk, but we aren’t directive with “You should do this/that…” We also take them out to dinner a lot! When S1 and DIL asked me to basically plan their wedding celebration (they had married a year earlier at the courthouse), I was so excited they asked me to be a part of it. (DIL’s mom was in the UK.) They basically told me to do what I wanted. In retrospect, I wonder if delegating that was a big red flag.
Thanksgiving is also the litmus test here. Wego to my BIL’s in NJ for TG, so if they can handle that, then they are ready for the true madhouse that is my dad’s house (with 20 people of much different outlooks on life) in December.
I adore my FSIL. I plan to be as involved in my D and her H’s life as they want me to be. My in laws are great, and my parents were great in laws to my H, but they were less involved in our lives than I want to be in my kids’ lives. I do not want to be over-involved, though! It will be a delicate balance, but I think I can do it. I am pretty good about taking my cues from the kids, and we communicate well. D and FSIL just bought a house, and FSIL has announced that he wants all holidays at their house - with both families invited, along with friends. I am looking forward to some happy memories! They had hoped to begin with Thanksgiving this year, but they won’t be in the house yet …
I first met my DIL when S brought her to my mom’s family reunion, (my long-deceased grandfather’s side–he was the oldest of 14 sibs, a couple of whom are still alive at 100+!) AND a wedding reception all in the same weekend. My sibs and first cousins (21of us, plus our dozens of kids) are very close. She survived their “evaluation.” And our clan didn’t scare her away. Actually, the clan is very accepting/non-judgemental. Or, as my H always says, they have low standards.
Before we met D’s BF, D scared him with some outrageous (exaggerated) family stories. So he was expecting us to be much more “eccentric” than we are. Her strategy worked. It was like he was expecting the Munsters and the Hecks showed up. We weren’t THAT bad! If they do marry, I think the role of MIL will be more significant with him because his own mom died unexpectedly 8 years ago.
Our holiday gatherings will be during Christmas and New Year – 2 months to get my house cleaned up and organized…
My own MIL died 20 years ago. We didn’t live near her and never had any conflicts. None with my parents, either. All (3 deceased now) were totally hands-off. I really appreciate that when I hear about in-law drama. So fortunate to have had none of it!
What do you mean? Have there been problems??
This topic is much on our minds recently.
In the game of Life’s Musical Chairs, the music seemed to stop for both our children about five years ago. Our son got married this past Labor Day weekend (like Marian’s). Our daughter and her boyfriend are actively involved (but not exactly consumed) in planning a wedding, although they are not officially engaged yet.
In the run-up to the wedding, we realized how little we actually knew our DIL. We knew her public persona fairly well – she and my wife have been Facebook/Linked-In friends longer than she and my son have been an official couple (S and DIL were classmates and friends for a long time before that). But she had barely spent any time with us without her parents.
Their courtship was strongly influenced by her parents’ discomfort that she was sexually active and thinking about marrying out of her ethnic group/religion/caste. (She is a first-generation American; her parents came here as adults.) Our son really devoted himself to convincing them that he could be an acceptable son-in-law, with his girlfriend’s very effective coaching, over the course of several years. The couple lives about an hour from her parents (and about 700 miles from us), so they spend quite a bit of time with her parents and her extended family, many of them living in the same area. One of the parents’ ground rules, however, had been that they didn’t want S and DIL to travel as a couple before they were married, so of course that meant she never came with him to visit us (except once, shortly after they got officially engaged). We would sometimes visit him, but until the last year she was in medical school in a not-very-distant city, and if we were coming she would generally not be around, unless it was some official wedding-related meeting with her parents.
That rule is off now that they are married, of course, but her family is large, complex, and demanding, and the couple’s established pattern is to be fully part of that family, which doesn’t leave a lot of room for us. Only my son is coming for my wife’s 60th birthday, while DIL is going to a cousin’s wedding. I am sure that is causing tension. My wife put a lot of pressure on them to come to Thanksgiving with us and all of my wife’s sisters and their families, with whom our son has always been close. They are doing that, I know it ruffled feathers, since her family has a big Thanksgiving, too. My son actively wants to be more involved with our extended family, as something of a counterweight to her family. His wife is supportive in theory, but practice is proving problematic.
I was actually pretty horrified when my wife started to guilt-trip them over Thanksgiving and her birthday. She always had a very difficult relationship with my mother, in part because my mother was thoughtlessly demanding like that. (Neither of my sisters ever married, or even had a SO, so my parents never got a lot of practice coping with competing families other than my wife’s.) My mother also presumed too much with my wife early on. She treated my wife like a third daughter, and that wasn’t exactly the relationship my wife wanted. (My mother and her MIL had a terrible relationship, although my mother prided herself on never failing to be polite or keeping my father from his family. My grandmother was pretty much exactly like the mother in Portnoy’s Complaint.)
The last thing we want is to have a bad relationship with our DIL, especially since she is definitely an iron-fist-in-velvet-glove kind of woman. Plus my son knows – from my example and from my explicit instruction – that when your wife and mother are in conflict, you side with your wife. But I fear we have screwed up the first round. We expect this to be a lifetime relationship, so one hopes there will be time to make things better, but I’m not exactly sure how to go about it.
There are hints of similar problems with FSIL, but much less serious. He’s great for our daughter; it’s very comfortable to be around them because they fit together so well. We strongly suspect that he doesn’t like us much – I think we remind him of the aspects of our daughter’s personality he likes least – but he’s very socially adept so he’s never remotely inappropriate with us. They live a couple of hours from us, and have never had travel restrictions, so we see them a lot more than we have seen our son and DIL. He has a huge extended family, too, but he and my daughter have been juggling the two families pretty successfully for years. His mother loves my daughter – who wouldn’t?, she’s smart, mature, organized, gracious, and obviously adores her son. My daughter is more thoughtful and organized than my son in managing interfamily diplomacy actively, so things go more smoothly. I would like to have a deeper relationship with FSIL than just exchanging pleasantries and talking about books and movies we both like. Hopefully, that will come with time.
^my father and husband had absolutely nothing in common except me. Father worked really hard to come up with a shared interest: chess. No one else in the family played. After a while, they were both sitting at the board setting things up within minutes of us walking in the door of my parents’ home. It really helped.
fwiw
JHS - my (extended) family is kind of like your DIL’s family. We do a lot of things together and we do demand a lot of our kids’ time. I would say most of the time kids like it because they also enjoy each other’s company. But I have to say that my FSIL has started to ask to have more time with his family and D1 is letting me know about it. As an example, we have always spent xmas eve together with my extended family and xmas day by ourselves. I was a bit upset when D1 said she was going to her future in-law’s house on xmas day because it was breaking our tradition. D1 pointed it out to me that I had to be reasonable. She said I could have xmas eve or xmas day, but I couldn’t have both. I didn’t like it, but I knew she was right.
FSIL was upset one time because they were spending a lot of time with my side of family, but not as much with his. It was only because they lived few miles from me and they lived few hundred miles from his parents. So D1 started planning few weeks to go up state to see his parents
IMO - JHS’ DIL should go to her MIL’s 60th birthday party. In the Asian tradition, once you are married, your husband’s parents trump anyone, including your parents. Just saying.
nm - edited
I’m trying not to talk about my adult kids and their partners all the time, both in real life and on the internet. It is difficult. They are my absolute favorite subject.
I am loving all the posts in this thread!
VH, they had been married a year already when they had the wedding celebration. Split up a year & 1/2 later. DIL is very introverted and hates parties (even more so than S1), so I attributed her reticence to that. Now I wonder if it was something more. They both appropriately said nothing bad about the other and have never disclosed details to any of the parents. They are still friendly and I talk to her mom on FB regularly, so I am just accepting it and am thankful they are both OK.
Whoa – I see.
Reading these stories are sobering, as I head to see S#1, DIL, S#2 and future DIL. I don’t ever want to be the awful MIL. But it is hard being the inlaws/grandparents who live far away. DILs family all live nearby. They are lovely and include us, but still…its hard.
@jym626 just the fact that you want to be a good MIL bodes well for you :).
*Not saying it’ll happen… but it’s better than many MILs & FILs do, unfortunately.
Thanks @romanigypsyeyes … I think
I am one of those mothers/MILs that if someone mentions in passing that they need something, it tends to mysteriously show up on their doorstep. Nothing big, but, for instance, we were visiting DS#1 and DIL and they had coffee beans but no easy grinder (they were using a blender or something), so… a krups coffee bean grinder showed up on their doorstep. DS#2 mentioned in passing that he makes his fiancee coffee some mornings with the keurig pot that is out in the apartment public area on occasion (its near the workout room where he goes in the AM), but they didn’t have any coffee mugs. So, presto, 4 coffee mugs appeared at their place. And when I last visited I brought a handful of different Kcup blends for her. DS#2 and I happen to share an Amazon account, and I saw that he’d ordered the wrong keurig pods (he ordered vue, and the pot by the gym takes kcups) so… a pack of reusable kcup pod things (nylon filter things that are reusable) were delivered today, so they can put the coffee from the vue pods into the kcup reusable filters. None of these are big ticket items. I just try to listen and occasionally send something that is thoughtful.
I am not buying them a keurig coffee pot. They can put it on their wedding registry.
@MomofWildChild you said: I don’t want grandchildren>>>>>>>>>>
Just curious. Why?
My MIL sent me letters not too long after we were married saying she hoped that DH would beat me until we couldn’t have children. >>>>>
That is …I can’t even think of a word. I’m so sorry. I can’t even imagine how that felt.