Frequent
Fry Her TM
- MmMmDanone /Posted: 21-NOV-04
Sadly, 6 months after MIL moved back in together
with FIL, he died. This is when DH started to open up about what
a pain his mother really was, and that he thought that she had killed
FIL with her constant nagging and taking all the money that he had
saved. Apparently, before she moved she had control of all their
money. So, when she moved, her first plan was to get hold of all
the cash there. DH was devastated by the loss of his father, and
found it hard to cope with his mother in the weeks after his death.
He asked MIL and SIL if they would like to try to come and make
a life here. SIL is a doctor, and there is a shortage here. SIL
would have to learn English, and her DH would have to try to earn
money laboring or whatever until he learned English. MIL would
look after their DS (8 months). So, we had all 4 of them in our
4 bed house (with DH, DD, and, by then, DS - 6 months) for a month.
It was purgatory. MIL would feed SIL's DS and our DS with the same
spoon! She went through my drawers, cupboards, etc. That seems
to be a theme on this site. I couldn't find anything. I would
come in the door after work (and after picking up the kids from
the nursery) and she would be in my face (speaking her language
- I have minimal conversational ability in her language). She would
grab the kids from me, whom I hadn't seen all day, and tell me what
to do what, where to eat, where to sit, and on and on. They decided
that they would come here. This was going to be a huge financial
burden for us, as we would have to either buy a flat or rent something
for them. Luckily, we had the money from the house that was sold,
and we had sold the other flat. However, MIL also had money from
the sale of the house, so we asked her to put in half of that towards
the cost of buying a flat - no deal. Use some of it to pay the
mortgage? No deal. She then started to look at flats way out of
budget. We set up some tours with estate agents, while we were
at work, that were in the price range that we could barely afford,
but she wouldn't even get out of the car. So, after their month
here, they went back and decided that they would return 4 months
later, when SIL's English course started. Meantime, we would look
for flats. Everything we sent her details for was not good enough.
So, they came back and stayed for 3 months. I was near to breaking
point, and so was DH, so we rented a place and got them out before
Christmas. I was on a work trip when they moved, and MIL helped
herself to everything that they might need; bed linen, comforters,
pillows, towels, cutlery, crockery, EVERYTHING. Did she take the
old stuff? No, she took my very best stuff. While they were here,
she complained to me about my cleaner and complain to my cleaner
about me. MIL told the cleaner that I didn't deserve to earn what
I did because I don't have a university education and that I shopped
in expensive shops (I don't - mid range, I'd say). She laughed
at me because I buy organic milk for the kids. DH went to their
place after they moved in (1 street away!!!) to try to get them
to pay some rent (SIL's DH was now earning). MIL said, "No,
you are rich. You can afford it." We were hemorrhaging money.
They complained about how poor they were, and DH opened the cupboards
to show them how much cr@p was in the house (boxes and boxes of
chocolates and biscuits etc., etc.). He was as annoyed as I was
about them. After the new year, MIL stopped talking to DH for 2
months because, get this, he had colluded with me against her, because
I asked him to get the spare key to our house from his mother, because
my mother and father were coming to visit (and they would need it
because we were both at work). Sheesh. There's so much more, and
I will continue to post soon.
Frequent
Fry Her TM
- MmMmDanone /Posted: 16-NOV-04
MIL is generally ok with our kids, and I do want them
to spend time over at their place (MIL, SIL, her DH, and their DS
all live together), as it helps them learn DH's language. However,
DD was over there every day for nearly 2 weeks during a school holiday
recently, and she asked every day if she could paint. MIL would
always say yes to her and to me at the door, but they would never
paint. I asked DH if I was using correct language (MIL doesn't
speak English) and he said yes, absolutely. This weekend, DH
and I had a couple of days together and took DS and DD to MIL's for
Friday night, Saturday and Saturday night. We picked them up
on Sunday in the AM. I took over a few activities for the kids
to do so that they wouldn't get bored, and made sure that there was
all the equipment for painting. Did they do any? Nope.
MIL said that she couldn't find any paints in the stuff that we brought
over. But, SIL specifically saw them Friday when I was there,
and told DD that she could paint on Saturday! URGH, how mean
is that to the kids? If they don't want to do painting with
our kids, they should just say so! BTW, in case you think we
might be deadbeat parents, this is only the second time that we have
spent time away from the kids together since DD was born 4 years ago.
DD is 4, DS is 2. Big kudos to DH, though. When we picked
up kids this AM, unbeknownst to me, MIL had TOLD him to come over
that afternoon to help SIL's DH build some flat pack cabinets that
she had bought. DH apparently said that he would come over when
DS was sleeping that afternoon (to make it easier on me). However,
I made a large lunch and DH decided to sleep it off on the sofa!
I only discovered that MIL wanted him over there when he later said
to me that he had phoned her to say that he was sorry, but he was
too tired. She said, "BIL has done it all."
So, who knew? They didn't need DH after all! Just another
example of her control freakery. DH said she was pissed off
that he didn't come over, but he couldn't give a damn.
Frequent
Fry Her TM
- MmMmDanone/Posted: 15-NOV-04
Things started to get worse when we had our first
child, a DD, 2 years after marriage (about two years too late for
MIL, who took every opportunity to rant about how old I was).
There was not too much excitement from MIL, considering it was her
first GC, until DH took DD over to MIL's country just before she
turned one. Then, we started to get requests to have DD go
over there for the whole summer. DH was not too concerned,
but I put my foot down HARD. Imagine, she was my first child,
and I would not see her for three months of her second year.
MIL said that DH went to his GM every summer (right, but she lived
2 miles away, and he went home every night - spot the difference
- her county is 3,000 miles or more from us). The next problem
was that MIL had decided that she wanted to go live with FIL in
another country, so she went looking for houses. Bear in mind
that there were two of them, and she was looking for a 4 bedroom
house. She also wanted DH and me to put in half the cost.
We worked hard and had saved hard, so we had the money, and it would
be a holiday home for us, too (some holiday). I didn't want
to deny DH bringing pleasure to his parents, so I agreed.
They bought the house, and DH, DD and I (6 months pregnant) went
over for two weeks. We had a reasonable time, but MIL was
very clingy with DD, urgh. Also, DH and I had to share a sofabed
that was about 3 ft wide. DH is 6'4'' and built! Most
nights I got about 4 hours of sleep, as there were no curtains in
our room. Meanwhile, SIL was sharing a 6 ft bed upstairs with
her DH.
Frequent
Fry Her TM
- MmMmDanone/Posted: 14-NOV-04
SIL got married a few months before DH and I did..
The whole lead up to the wedding was fraught with MIL's demands,
and so on. I seem to have blocked the details from my mind.
However, the week before the wedding MIL, FIL, SIL and her DH were
living in my flat (which I had to hold off selling for 2 months,
because they didn't want to pay for a hotel), which was about 60
miles from a large city. DH and I were living with my sister,
another 60 miles from that city, in the opposite direction (where
the wedding would be). We hired a car for them, and they decided
that they needed to drive up to there EVERY day, and DH had to go
meet them. The wedding went ok. They went back to their
country, and all was OK for a couple of years (due to distance).
A couple of silly things, though. MIL and SIL didn't have
much money at all, so DH got his mother a secondary credit card
on his account for emergencies, or if she needed something.
One month, a bill came through with a lot of money taken out in
cash in MIL's town. We thought that she must have had the
card stolen, but it turned out that she wanted the money just in
case she wanted to buy SIL a flat (yes, they really are that cheap,
and SIL was still living at home with her mother and her DH).
So, we have to take 2,000 out of our savings to pay off the balance
"just in case". We never saw that money again.
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