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Thread: My mother in law

  1. #1
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    My mother in law

    Again. Always. Sometimes I wish she would just stop talking to my dh.

    so, last year dd rescheduled her wedding to the man she was already living with (rescheduled with our blessing) and due to a long back story it resulted in my inlaws being unable to attend (actually, possible, but expensive and very inconvenient, and other things were more important to them and nobody was upset about that but them - in fact, many of us, including the bride, me, dh, and two of dh uncles, were relieved.) for well over a year mil has been making it pretty clear that none of us will ever be forgiven and she is completely heart broken over missing the wedding.

    so she calls my husband to ask what our plans are with ds for the day after his wedding (to the girl he is living with) and dh says "we don't expect to see them." And mil says "well, that's how it used to be, but the way kids do things these days weddings don't mean anything."

    and I wanted ask dh "so did you say 'true. You should probably skip this one too'?"

  2. #2
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    I envy the lucky women who have wonderful relationships with their husbands mothers. I am right there with you. Now that all my children are married I have consciously and purposely worked to not treat my kids spouses like I am treated. Learn from her what not to do and carry on. (((Hugs)))

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    Eh. She no longer bothers me directly other than in an intellectual sense - but she hurts dh over and over. Always has. And for that I can't forgive her.

    my son in law and I get on fabulously. And I think ds wife-to-be likes me too. If she doesn't, it isn't going to be because I'm a bad mom. A friend once told me that I would one day be the mother in law from hell because no one would be good enough for my son. We don't stays agree about stuff, and we are very different in many ways. But she makes him happy. Which is all I ask. Added bonuses, she's funny and my younger dd adores her.

    now the guy I dated for years in high school... I ran into him and his wife when she was pregnant with their first. The wife - who I got along well with - was going on and on about all the things she was doing with her mil to get ready for the baby. And I wanted to smack her. I wanted to yell, "look, you can have him! You guys are perfect together! But it isn't fair that you get his mom too! I want her back!"

  4. #4
    Senior Member iris lilies's Avatar
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    I had wondered how much blow back resulted from the change in your daughter's wedding date. Your MIL stories are entertainng and I am glad to not have to live them, just hear about them!

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    Well, iris lilies, just for you - in an effort to make grandma feel included last year, dd told her that they would be decorating the guest book table with some family items that were important to her husband (primarily to give a presence to his father, who is deceased.) She asked if grandma (who is very into genealogy) would be willing to make her a "family tree" to put on the table (envisioning the 11"x14" framed actual tree with 4 generations represented in it's branches that grandma owns but dd didn't realize grandma didn't make - grandma doesn't draw.) grandma said "sure! But it won't work if I put you in the center. Maybe I could put me and grandpa in the center."

    so dd is visualizing a trunk with her grandparents and roots with her great grandparents, and branches that include all of her cousins. What she got, was a huge, (2'x3') framed, fan shaped genealogical chart centered on her grandparents (not her father) that goes back centuries to print so tiny you can barely read it. My gracious child thanked her grandmother, was effusive about the amount of work that must have gone into the project, and displayed it at the wedding (where I got to explain it over and over)

    grandma has now created one, unasked, for ds. Which will NOT be displayed at his wedding. I told dd "you realize, that thanks to you, every single grandchild is going to get one of these things when they marry." Dd immediately flashed back to the fact that every misdeed by every grandchild at every family gathering has been pinned on her because she is the oldest and should have known better/stopped it, and grinned widely and said "they are soooo welcome."

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    Maybe one of your dd's children will be interested in genealogy. I know it skips generations--my dad had no interest at all, and my grandmother did, and I do. I have been thrilled to have her work, leads for my own research, as has been my cousin, her other granddaughter. She used to tell us stories about her New England ancestors, her pioneer ancestors--even now, in our 60's and 70's, we feel close to our grandmother when doing our genealogical research, and I still miss her--and she has been dead 50 years!

    So you never know, some grandchild may be thrilled with that fan chart some day.

  7. #7
    Senior Member iris lilies's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Chicken lady View Post
    Well, iris lilies, just for you - in an effort to make grandma feel included last year, dd told her that they would be decorating the guest book table with some family items that were important to her husband (primarily to give a presence to his father, who is deceased.) She asked if grandma (who is very into genealogy) would be willing to make her a "family tree" to put on the table (envisioning the 11"x14" framed actual tree with 4 generations represented in it's branches that grandma owns but dd didn't realize grandma didn't make - grandma doesn't draw.) grandma said "sure! But it won't work if I put you in the center. Maybe I could put me and grandpa in the center."

    so dd is visualizing a trunk with her grandparents and roots with her great grandparents, and branches that include all of her cousins. What she got, was a huge, (2'x3') framed, fan shaped genealogical chart centered on her grandparents (not her father) that goes back centuries to print so tiny you can barely read it. My gracious child thanked her grandmother, was effusive about the amount of work that must have gone into the project, and displayed it at the wedding (where I got to explain it over and over)

    grandma has now created one, unasked, for ds. Which will NOT be displayed at his wedding. I told dd "you realize, that thanks to you, every single grandchild is going to get one of these things when they marry." Dd immediately flashed back to the fact that every misdeed by every grandchild at every family gathering has been pinned on her because she is the oldest and should have known better/stopped it, and grinned widely and said "they are soooo welcome."
    haha, thanks!

  8. #8
    Senior Member catherine's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by libby View Post
    I envy the lucky women who have wonderful relationships with their husbands mothers. I am right there with you. Now that all my children are married I have consciously and purposely worked to not treat my kids spouses like I am treated. Learn from her what not to do and carry on. (((Hugs)))
    Yes, I was lucky. My husband still jokes that if we had gotten a divorce, she would have been on my side. Although it took quite a while for me to feel even remotely comfortable with her. She was a strong, domineering and sometimes intimidating woman. But as luck would have it, for every quality I admired about her, I had a quality that she admired. She was a wonderful housekeeper, adored her kids, was extremely generous, suffered no fools and created magic with her sales clerk budget. I think if the two of us were smooshed together, we'd be a perfect human being because our strengths and weaknesses fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. And we respected those differences immensely.

    Chicken lady, it is really maddening to have to deal with family members who think and act selfishly and inconsiderately. So sorry..hopefully she lives far away? I can't remember.
    "Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it--every, every minute?" Emily Webb, Our Town
    www.silententry.wordpress.com

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    Senior Member razz's Avatar
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    Just a thought. She did put a lot of effort and thought into the family tree part that she did. Your DD's response to being blamed was priceless. As the oldest daughter, I felt that my parents practiced on me and then modified their approach with the younger sisters a lot based on my responses which were strong and, I am sure, very trying.
    As Cicero said, “Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.”

  10. #10
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    Dd was very gracious. The effort was mostly the writing, because she has all the information in books and books that she frequently insists that people look through. I'm sure there was significant cost to frame it too.

    i would be be more interested in the genealogy if she were creating a family history with some type of interesting narrative, but she is focused on names, cities, and anything that makes the person famous. Also she has joined several websites where you can connect with other people and use their information, and she assures us that records used to be very unreliable, so if you are looking for Margaret smith who was born in a particular city and you find a Mary smith who seems to be about the same age, that's probably her. I watched her sit at my computer and create a relative for me based on the fact that his mother had the same first name as the female relative we were stuck on (having no maiden name) and he could be the right age to be her father and he lived in the right state. Using her new on-line links, she has traced dh family back to both Jesus's cousin and cleopatra.

    the last time she and ds's future wife were both in my home, mil began telling her all the important, famous people ds was related to, and my future dil piped up cheerfully "I'm related to the last guy to be legally hanged in Kentucky." (Another reason to love her!)

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