“Ok thanks PG. Going off to read ALL your posts”
For Pizzagirl, you better take the next week off. 
I respect PG so much! I hope she knows I jest. 
@abasket I was thinking you sure had a lot of time on your hands if you were going to go though all 33,672 of PG’s posts;-)
On your cell, once you get to the person’s home page, you click the menu button (3 stacked bars.) On mine, it’s top left. Then you see threads and replies.
“my side is more fun.” Emily, we have more fun, too. That was also a goal.
@doschicos, the worst MIL I’ve known IRL was my sister’s. She had both M and F children.
I don’t see a pattern, actually. This thread is mostly women, so their MILs are mostly the mothers of at least one boy. In most cases, they have not indicated whether the MIL had other children of other genders.
doschicos, my MIL had two sons and two daughters. The oldest girl never married. The oldest ds didn’t have a wedding because my FIL didn’t approve of her. The next girl married a man actually of their ethnicity, which my FIL and MIL said they always wanted. Ha! My FIL then had problems with him, too. And then my dh. I think my dh being the baby of the family and just good-natured in general made him an easy target for over-parenting and meddling. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that both boys moved away while the girls stayed close.
My MIL was mentally ill (seriously – had been committed a few times) and thankfully she died before we had kids. She hated me, but in the broader scheme of things it didn’t matter. My FIL had no interest in being a grandfather, and so he had minimal interaction with us or his grandchildren.
It’s tough when there is true emotional abuse happening – some people have the strength to walk away but many people don’t, for many reasons. My mother was emotionally abusive to me, and the second she started that behavior with my daughter, we did end the relationship. She was on the path to being a very domineering grandmother, very critical of what we did, and once it became clear that she was involving the kid in her machinations, we knew we had to close the door.
So my kid really got the jackpot (not) when it came to grandparents. This is not the typical family situation, and it is hard to explain to most people who assume everyone has a big happy family. Which is one reason why some people can’t walk away, because social norms are that families all love each other.
As for the OP – it never would have dawned on me to get permission to put a photo of my (future, if ever) grandchild in my holiday card. I always have cards with lots of pictures. I don’t even understand the concept of wanting to be the first to announce or introduce the baby at Christmas – the baby is 10 weeks old, haven’t they sent out birth announcements already? Isn’t that the way one introduces the baby? Anyway, it seems pretty evident that this situation isn’t that simple, though.
My MIL and I have a ‘less-than-ideal’ relationship. She loves to tell us what we SHOULD do. She is full of ideas for us - if only we’d follow her good advice. lol
We have learned to just smile and nod at all of her ‘shoulds’. As my kids have become adults, they are now realizing how much their grandmother likes to ‘should’ on them too and they are also finding that smiling and nodding works pretty well. Of course, they ultimately just do what they want to do and ignore what grandma has to say. The sad part is that it makes them want to see her less and she does not understand this at all.
My MIL has one daughter and the relationship with her daughter is much, much different than the ones with her sons. She talks to the daughter quite often (even daily at times) while conversations with the sons (who live in the same state - the daughter lives a few states away) are much, much rarer.
I hope that the OP can step back from her son and DIL and just let them have plenty of room to make their own decisions.
BTW, we always ask our kids (the ones who stil live at home and the ones who’ve married/moved out, what, if anything we can include about them in our holiday letter. We decided that it was a simple curtesy and so we ask. And then follow what they say.
“I always have cards with lots of pictures. I don’t even understand the concept of wanting to be the first to announce or introduce the baby at Christmas – the baby is 10 weeks old, haven’t they sent out birth announcements already? Isn’t that the way one introduces the baby? Anyway, it seems pretty evident that this situation isn’t that simple, though.”
that’s why I gave the scenario I did. In isolation - it would be pretty easy to say, eh, whatever, grandma can send whatever pix she wants to whoever she wants. In the context of trying to define / assert one’s space as a mother, the “minor infraction” of a Christmas card can really feel like the straw that broke the camel’s back.
I don’t think that OP’s son bought that house. She posts later about that she owns a condo and that the son and GF were moving into it instead(something about the inspection didn’t go well on the house?). Anyway she posted something about that the son and GF were going to stay in the condo until he bought a house.
My MIL has 3 sons…Doesn’t like any of the DIL’s…
My MIL has 3 sons, too. I think she is passive aggressive towards her DIL’s and is why she talks about us to the others behind our backs. I think if she even had one daughter the family dynamics would be different.
Are these MILs who so dislike their DILs the same way to their sons in laws (those who have them)? Or is this some kind of jealousy reserved solely for the women who have dared supplant them as the most important woman in their son’s life?
My ex-MIL mellowed with age. D1 and I were talking about this recently. We think as she got older and started needing more help with things, she figured out that being nice and appreciative made her life a lot better because people would be willing to help her. Now… she trained my ex-SIL up to be a right terrible person before making her own change in old age… the two of them were quite a nasty team if you go back 20 years. And the SIL hasn’t changed a bit… but that is another story. 
My mother loves all of the DIL’s - so do I. If they hadn’t married my brothers and I by happenstance met them otherwise, I think we would have been friends. Never heard my mother utter a negative word about any of them.
Any conflict on my side of the family is amongst all the siblings. We work it out though - we have too much fun together!
My MIL really wasn’t a bad person; she just didn’t know when to back off. Nrdbs4, I thought about whether the SIL was treated differently. I would say no, but it all manifested in different ways. One thing that was very big to my MIL was religion. The SIL was a different religion than dh’s family, and that did drive my MIL nuts. She kept trying to get her dd to persuade her new dh to join their church. It caused a lot of strife for a while. Eventually, she quit hounding when the SIL told her off. I think the reason that some of the meddling happened with me is because neither dh nor I set boundaries with her. I felt like it was his place to do it and totally felt disempowered. I wish I had been stronger as a 24yo.
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They want him to come down by himself and leave me with the dog and have thanksgiving apart. We’ve had thanksgiving apart every year but I put my foot down and said no. We’re having holidays together now that we’re married. Every year I have split holidays up whether that means we’re apart or drive ridiculous distances to see everyone
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I agree. You shouldn’t be apart. The only time we had a similar disagreement with my MIL was when she wanted my H to “skip” my family’s reunion and meet her in a nearby city. H quickly told her that he would be attending the family reunion with me because he is part of my extended family.
I never understood in-laws that think that all or most holidays should be spent with them. Where’s their sense of fairness?
Your H really needs to be the one delivering your household’s decisions to his parents. It may seem unnecessary, but us “old folks” have long learned that the child of the parents who are being “difficult” need to be the ones to deliver these messages.
And, since you’re newlyweds, your H needs to firm and immediately shut down any “back talk” that MIL may try.
I’m glad to see that “being married,” does make an impact on the way one can think about things.
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My MIL was severely toxic. She was abusive to DH and wrote me letters saying she hoped DH would beat me so I couldn’t have kids.
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Wow… I didn’t think anyone could be worse than BevHIlls’ MIL, but your MIL is a strong contender.
Evil.
H did deliver the news. I only heard about it after. I put my foot down about a month ago because I had an idea it was coming.
I wasn’t even there when it happened.
We’ve been together for several years. This is nothing new. Honestly nothing really changed when we got married, for how we felt or how either set of parents treat us. We’ve lived like a married couple for 4ish years.
@romani - my D2 announced to us last year that from then on, she and BF would be spending holidays together and would alternate between families. They are now engaged, but we all respected their wishes last year, missing D2 for Thanksgiving and making room at Grandma’s house for her BF.
This year, we will miss her again at Thanksgiving but she, fiance, and his parents will all be with us for Christmas! Whoo hoo, I haven’t even met them before. (it works out well because his brother will be overseas). In the future, I don’t know how it will work out, there will always be choices and compromises to make but that is life in big families that are spread about.
P.S. She brings the dog too and that’s one of my favorite things. He’s my first and cutest grandson!
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I’m still wondering who paid for the maternity coverage. The girl couldn’t be on her mom’s policy, because it didn’t cover maternity.
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Was that said somewhere? Don’t plans usually cover maternity?