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Frequent Fry HerTM
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TeenMomsDIL
Age: Getting old fast!    MIL Age: Too young!

Will someone swat that annoying MIL?

First and only DIL TeenMom will ever have!

frequent fry her - TeenMomsDIL, 1 of 4 needed Frequent Fry Her TM. - TeenMomsDIL, 1 of 4 needed/Posted: 12-JUN-06
Mine is the story of a teen mom gone bad - my MIL.  This is what she told me:  MIL's dad was a laborer who moved his family from place to place.  He was away from home for extended periods for work.  When he was home, he drank.  His wife was busy raising their many children.  MIL, the eldest child in her family, grew into a child bully, despite her small stature.  She would take on anyone and everyone, big or little.  Fights at school happened frequently.  She says that she enjoyed picking fights.  MIL soon became truant.  By her teen years, MIL was rarely at home or at school, spending her days "going into people's houses when they weren't home".  Her parents never knew where she was, nor did they try to stop her.  "No one told me what to do," she recalls.  MIL dropped out of school on her 16th birthday.  She hadn't been attending regularly for years.  She hated the teachers because they told her she would never succeed.  MIL had her first child (my DH) at age 19 (the story she told me).  She told my DH that she was 18 when he was born.  Later, when my family wanted information for the family tree, she said that she was 17 years old.  My DH found out, at age 35, that she had lied to him about her age all of his life.  She became pregnant shortly after leaving school, according to her timeline.  Who knows if 17 is even the truth.  Somewhere along the line she says that she married my DH's father.  As a young wife and mother, her parents were killed while driving drunk.  She took her many younger siblings into her FIL's home (DH's GF), where she was living with my FIL.  One of MIL's siblings died in a separate drunk driving accident.  Another died in infancy, with multiple unknown health problems.  The remaining siblings are all alcoholics, married to alcoholics, or recovering alcoholics.  Much cigarette addiction is included.  Broken marriages abound, including MIL's own.  Another fact that came from DH recently, not MIL, was that her grandmother committed suicide because of mental health problems.  I knew nothing about MIL when DH and I married.  We lived far away from her, so I only had two brief meetings with her before the wedding.  That is how it all began.

        Signed - She Was A Teen Mom Gone Bad
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frequent fry her - TeenMomsDIL, 2 of 4 needed Frequent Fry Her TM. - TeenMomsDIL, 2 of 4 needed/Posted: 12-JUN-06
Flash forward a few years.  MIL has married her way out of the alcoholic home of her birth, and married into the alcoholic home of my FIL.  FIL is the youngest of a large family of alcoholics.  FIL, his father, MIL, my DH, and MIL's many dysfunctional younger siblings are living in FIL's father's house.  FIL's father, described by DH as a "mean drunk", is unhappy with the living arrangements.  Did MIL ask FIL's father for permission to bring the brats aboard?  I think not!  MIL says that FIL was "mean" to her.  I wonder why!  DH's memories of his childhood include being locked in the basement by his aunts and uncles.  He also bears a scar from being slowly and painfully scratched by one of his aunts, just for fun.  Some of the aunts are younger than DH.  MIL and FIL's marriage broke up.  MIL says that it was because of FIL's drinking.  DH says both MIL and FIL were drinking heavily, but MIL moved out because she stopped drinking and joined a sect that doesn't allow drinking.  DH later denied telling me this information.  MIL took her son, my DH, with her.  DH was about seven years old.  MIL lived in a variety of substandard housing units, and worked at odd jobs.  The story gets foggy here.  MIL got thrown out of her church.  MIL and FIL reunited, another child was born.  They broke up, they reunited, another child was born, and they broke up again, this time for good.  MIL soon married another man because a friend told them that they should get married, and arranged a surprise ceremony with a JP for them.  Guess what?  DH #2 was a high school dropout, an alcoholic, and a drug-user who was seven years her junior.  FIL developed serious health problems and became bedridden for more than a decade.  DH was living away from home by now.  DH has paid for his own education.  He married me, I became pregnant, and then the trouble began.  I got a phone call from MIL's second DH, telling me that I shouldn't waste any money on maternity clothes, that I should be wearing sweatpants to my white-collar job, where I work with wealthy clients.  Bear in mind that DH is working on another degree, and I am the sole wage-earner in the marriage.  This brings us to the beginning of the trouble.

        Signed - Scars
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frequent fry her - TeenMomsDIL, 3 of 4 needed Frequent Fry Her TM. - TeenMomsDIL, 3 of 4 needed/Posted: 12-JUN-06
Now we move from the frying pan into the fire.  DH graduated and started a new career.  There was one hitch:  The new job is in a city that is, unfortunately, close to MIL.  By this time I was eight months pregnant, living in a city where I knew no one, and couldn't even find a doctor for the baby's arrival.  MIL and SIL started stirring the pot before I arrived.  They made plans to come and camp out on the floor of our tiny apartment.  They made plans to unpack our things, etc.  I put my foot down and told DH to rein them in.  I arrived.  Within a week, MIL's second DH told me that I had to go back to work as soon as the baby was born.  He told me that MIL would look after my baby.  He told DH and me that we need the money so that we could start supporting DH's sister (TeenMom2) and her child, who were on welfare.  I felt like I have walked through the gates of he!!.  This was not what DH and I had planned.  I realized that this welfare fraud scam had been cooked up by MIL.  Part of the plan was that she would move into our apartment to take care of our baby.  She and her DH were on welfare, too, by this time.  I told DH that MIL and Co. had no right to control our lives.  I was becoming worried.  The baby arrived.  MIL, her boytoy, SIL and the spawn arrived for a visit one week after we got home from the hospital (complications meant that baby and I spent almost a week in hospital).  They stayed, and they stayed, and seven hours went by.  I suggested that they leave.  I was tired.  They criticized me for "laying around".  I asked them to leave.  They refused, and told me that they wouldn't leave until DH came home from work.  I did not offer to cook supper for them.  I called DH and asked him to tell them to leave.  He wouldn't.  DH arrived home unusually late from work.  They were still there.  They wanted money to go buy supper for themselves.  He gave it to them and they left.  They did not bring any food for us (but the good thing is that they did not return).  They returned for another visit a few weeks later.  This time I left the baby with them for less than two hours while I ran errands.  On my return I found SFIL sleeping on the couch, while MIL paced the floor with the colicky baby.  MIL went into a tirade.  "I don't know what's the matter with you.  We didn't have any trouble taking care of the baby.  I don't know why you lay around.  I didn't lay around after I had my babies.  I was working and cleaning the house.  The baby's crying and it's your fault.  You're making him cry."  I'm sure every mother of a colicky baby "makes" them cry, because crying is so much fun!  A few days later baby and I fell asleep on the couch at 5 p.m.  As usual, during this time, the colic started at 6:30 a.m.  DH arrived home from work at 5:15 and flew into a rage.  "Why isn't supper on the table?  All you do is lay around."  Where did this come from?  Connect the dots to all the hardworking, amazing feats of MIL, the 17-year-old super-mom!  I talked to my DH about MIL causing trouble in our marriage.  DH denied that this was why he was all fired up.  And so it continues.

        Signed - Connect The Dots
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frequent fry her - TeenMomsDIL, 4 of 4 needed Frequent Fry Her TM. - TeenMomsDIL, 4 of 4 needed/Posted: 12-JUN-06
The baby was six weeks old.  We took him to visit bedridden FIL in the hospital, in the city where MIL also lived.  This was baby's and my first meeting with FIL.  I had never even spoken to FIL on the phone.  He wasn't interested.  FIL's first and only words to me during the visit were, "Get me some water."  Okeedokee.  DH insisted on stopping to visit MIL on the way home.  She found out that we'd already visited FIL.  She became agitated.  She started running off at the mouth and blurted out, "You'll be dead by the time you're 50.  All the men in my family die by the time they're 50.  There's nothing you can do." My DH, the proud new father, looked totally deflated.  I wanted to scream, "All the men in your family die when they drink and drive their cars into telephone poles!"  My DH said nothing.  FIL died.  MIL and boytoy insisted that I stay at their house while DH made the funeral arrangements.  DH was out the door and in the car, leaving me stranded at MIL's house.  Boytoy told me, "I don't want you coming here, eating off our plates."  What?  MIL was smirking in the background, as usual.  As I nursed the baby, boy toy told me that I had to get out of the chair that I was sitting in because it was his chair, and I couldn't sit there.  I told him, "Too bad."  They insisted that I stay at the house, so I was going to sit in the chair.  DH returned and did not believe me when I told him what had happened.  DH refused to tell me when the funeral was, because "It's between me and my family."  Apparently, that family did not include me and our son.  The day before the funeral boytoy told me that I couldn't bring the baby to the funeral.  Boy toy and MIL had arranged a 13-year-old baby-sitter, whom I had never met, to take care of my nursing newborn.  The baby-sitter planned to take my baby and her little brother to a park across the highway.  I refused to go along with the plan.  DH and I returned to our hotel room.  The phone rang.  Boytoy had arranged another baby-sitter, whom I also didn't know.  This one was 20 years old.  I informed boytoy that my child would attend his GF's funeral, as that is my family tradition.  I hung up the phone.  DH now got angry and told me that it is my fault that his father died.  I told him that his father's chronic illnesses killed him, and that I had nothing to do with it.  We arrived at the funeral home the next day.  The funeral director took me to a room with no windows and told me that I was to stay there during the funeral.  I told him that my baby and I would be at DH's side.  The funeral director returned and told me that I could wait in the "crying room", which had a window into the chapel.  I told him, again, that I would be with DH.  SIL's spawn, of course, was allowed to attend, along with MIL and boytoy.  MIL insisted that everyone come back to her place after the funeral.  We waited and waited.  MIL was not there.  She had arranged her annual doctor's checkup for right after the funeral.   The story continues.

        Signed - My Fault That His Father Died
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frequent fry her - TeenMomsDIL Frequent Fry Her TM. - TeenMomsDIL/Posted: 12-JUN-06
Things did not improve after the funeral.  Boytoy said that my DH was now the "man of the family".  This meant that DH was supposed to be responsible for his adult siblings, MIL and boytoy.  And, of course, he was to be a surrogate father for the out-of-wedlock spawn of SIL.  These responsibilities would have to come before DH's own newborn and wife.  DH interviewed for a new job, but it meant a move.  He decided that he couldn't leave because he had to take care of "my family".  I told him that I wasn't about to spend the rest of my life baby-sitting grownups.  MIL, of course, sabotaged him before the interview by telling him, "You'll never succeed.  No one in your family succeeds."  A postgraduate degree, a wife and child, a good job, a house, and she considered him a failure.  He was crushed, again.  We stayed.  So, DH would make a round trip of 3 hours by car to cut their grass, while they all stood around watching.  SIL called after midnight on a work day because she heard someone in her yard, a 1.5 hour drive away.  MIL offered endless unsolicited advice, told me that I was doing everything wrong (not her way), and had a "word in private" with my DH at every visit.  She and boytoy begged to baby-sit, then did not show up.  This was on moving day, so we were high and dry with no one to look after our baby.  They later said that they decided to sleep in.  They didn't bother to call us.  They repeated the episode on another occasion.  MIL showed up for an unannounced visit (wanted money), then complained because I did not have white sugar cubes for her coffee, and she couldn't use granulated white sugar or brown sugar cubes.  She wanted me to run out right away and buy white sugar cubes.  Then she left to get them herself, and presented me with the bill.  I came down with a nasty flu.  DH asked MIL to come baby-sit.  She did, but made DH pay her.  Then she turned around and told him that I wasn't sick, that I was just lazy.  This was in spite of the fact that I was passing out, and my DH knew it.  He believed her.  I found a cigarette lighter in the couch after one baby-sitting episode.  Boytoy said that the baby must have dropped it when he was playing with it.  I got very upset, and MIL yelled at me because, "If you didn't want him to give the baby a cigarette lighter, you should have told him!"  I told her that I expected them to have some common sense.  MIL and her DH failed to return to their home after one visit to our house.  SIL phoned in a panic and had us phone the police, etc., to look for them.  They showed up at SIL's without explanation the next day.  The pettiness, controlling behavior, attention getting and manipulating by MIL escalated.  She was abusive to me on the phone, or when DH wasn't around.  She was the sugary sweet mother of all mothers in front of DH.  DH was so eager to please his darling mama that he would let her hurt him, verbally abuse him in front of others, and harm our marriage.  Is he that desperate for her love, or just afraid of one of her angry tirades?  Will the conditional love be canceled if he doesn't obey?  DH blamed MIL's actions on me.  MIL would tell him that I made everything up, or that I "imagined" it, that I misunderstood, or that she couldn't remember anything.  We moved.  She continues her long-distance hagging, and continued to disrupt our marriage and create distrust between us.  On one visit she told my DS, in front of me, "Don't listen to her.  Listen to grandma.  Grandma gives you candy."  That was the final straw.  I do not answer her phone calls, and I will not allow her to come to our house.  All contact between her and me is over.  DH continues to blame me for this, and cannot see any faults in mommy dearest.  She tells him from time to time that she is coming to stay with us, and that he is to send her money for the trip.  Wrong!

        Signed - It Is So Over
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