My MIL pestered my husband and me
that she had to know about the labor for the last four months of
my first pregnancy. He had to fight and fight with her.
We even told the hospital staff, "no visitors for the labor,
especially MIL and family". Guess what? My own
mother barged in just after the stitches. She had been calling
the hospital every day to see if I had been admitted. This
behavior was the result of me telling her that I would ring her
after the birth. I still needed to be cleaned up, etc.
I absolutely hate how women are not respected when in labor.
They are like cornered animals. There is nowhere to go, except
the labor ward, and everyone knows it. My second pregnancy
was a riot. I lied about my due date for the entire time.
I had "NO VISITORS OR PHONE MESSAGES" written on every
single file. I told every single nurse, doctor, etc., the
same thing. To this day, all the relatives think that the
baby was premature!!!! It was one week overdue. HA!
I had to hide all of the doctor's notes at the hospital so that
no curious file readers could work it out. How my parents
looked for them!!! My second birth took place without any
threats to my privacy from anyone - in peace. For my third
birth there is going to be a "last minute" switch to a
different hospital! If you want privacy for your pregnancy,
you MUST lie, lie, lie. Don't expect anyone to respect your
wishes. You don't count anymore - just the new baby.
Signed - Got Their Number
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The first time that I had
a warning sign from my future MIL was when I took a trip with her
family to a wedding. Right away, I saw that she was a major
control freak. She booked where we were all staying (she uses
a lot of control through financial bribery), threw a hissy fit because
she wanted us all to drive together (I refused that one), and had
the key to our room. She laid out all of my fiancé's
clothes on our hotel bed, telling him what he was to wear on the trip
and what time we had to get up. I have Crohn's disease and Epstein
Barr, so I need my sleep. My fiancé stressed this, yet
she still called to wake us up hours before we needed to, in a panic
that we would oversleep. I was so tired that I felt sick all
through the wedding, and could not even stand to look at her.
She is a bully who intimidates and abuses, then expects to be treated
like gold. So, when I wasn't being friendly toward her, I got
all this cr@p from everyone, except my fiancé, who, thankfully,
always defends me. He has a lot of rage towards her. I
soon learned this: My future SIL told me that when she first
met her husband, he was a mama's boy who expected her to cook, clean,
etc. He didn't help with anything (the MIL was raised on a farm
and was very old fashioned). The MIL had a copy of their house
key and would come in when the DIL was at work, clean the apartment
and leave plates of food for her son in the fridge. My fiancé
told me that his father once walked in on his brother while he was
being intimate with a woman - in his own apartment!! My future
SIL got he!! when she refused to call her MIL "mother".
If the MIL is really upset with you, she will call her sisters and
end up having the whole family calling you and ganging up on you.
It's awful. MIL told me, shortly after we got engaged, that
she doesn't think that I love her son as much as I do love him, and
she was devastated that my ring was "bigger than hers" (it's
not). And, just yesterday she told me that she thinks that I
"yell" at my fiancé all the time (this is what she
does!). She threatened that I'd better not because he's her
son. When I asked her why she thought this and where it was
coming from, she was silent. I told her how much I love her
son, that's why I'm marrying him, and I'd do anything for him.
And, she said sarcastically, "I hope so," and then started
screaming like a lunatic, "BECAUSE HE DOES EVERYTHING FOR YOU!
HE DIES FOR YOU!" I was totally and completely shocked.
This woman is ill mannered and has done nothing but insult me since
I first met her, though I've been nothing but nice. This includes
the plates that we chose on the registry ("they're junk")
to my taste in decorating on our new apartment. She lies, manipulates
and uses this and money as a way to control, and it worked until I
came into the picture. She actually bought both her sons apartments,
but the catch was that they had to live 15 minutes from her and she
had the key. She would stock their fridge with food and do their
laundry, regardless of whether they had wives or not! The mother's
sister lived in the building and kept her nose in the kids' business.
It's terrible. I told my fiancé that it wasn't a healthy
situation, not to mention the neighborhood was crime ridden.
So we decided to sell his apartment and live in my town, a clean,
relaxing beach town where I was close to my doctors and had peace
of mind. My fiancé loves it here, but when he decided
to move, his parents disowned him (another dramatic fit). His
mother then started blaming me for everything, telling me that her
relationship with her son was perfect until I got into the picture.
Right. Sadly, my fiancé sees his mother as, "my
mom, someone who gave birth to me, nothing more". It's
all so very sad. This woman is very sick and in dire need of
medication. The whole family is very dysfunctional, and what
makes it harder is that it's hard to even communicate with them, because,
although they've lived in the USA for 30 years or so, they only talk
to others from their country, and they don't understand English that
well. Plus, their culture is incredibly different. My
fiancé was born and raised here. But that's no excuse
for this woman's behavior. She flat out calls people "fat"
and told me things that I liked for the house were "ugly".
She says things aloud that people may only think privately.
She was fired from her job a year ago and has the energy of a nuclear
power plant - her only role in life is to be a mother and to be needed.
And, now that both of her sons have settled down, she's in a total
panic and jealous of her own DILs! She even tries to compete
with my cooking because she got all upset when my fiancé bragged
about me. She said, "Oh, so she's a better cook than me?"
Every time she comes to our apartment she brings plates of cooked
food, even after my fiancé yelled at her not to. The
last time that we were at their house, at 11 in the morning she got
into a frenzy, saying that she was going to cook a turkey for us because
we must be starving, even after we told her that we just ate breakfast.
She yells at us if we buy anything. She forces old frozen food
on us out of her fridge, telling us that she knows that we can't afford
food (???). She throws old, tattered and stained towels and
blankets on us, warning us not to spend money on anything new.
I can go on and on. I have put my foot down. Stress aggravates
my health problems, and while this woman is quickly working her way
to a serious illness, which I'm sure she'll use to further control
and manipulate her sons through guilt (whenever we're all together,
she sighs, "This is when I'm truly happy, when I'm with my boys").
But she has lost my sympathy. Thank G-d my fiancé is
supportive and realizes that his mother is this way (she always denies
being mean to me, but she made the mistake of leaving two psycho messages
on our voicemail, so he got to hear it firsthand). We've already
been to couples counseling once because of her, and I have a feeling
that we'll be going back. I really pray that my fiancé
gets individual help because while he treats me wonderfully, whenever
he's around his parents, he turns into this furious, crazy man.
And he has taken it out on me. He sees this now, and since his
mother says that she will never step foot in our apartment again,
I hope this is true. My friend says that I should see them for
the holidays because, most likely, my fiancé will want to see
his family (he has actually seemed relieved by all this drama, as
if it's the only way for him to break away from her smothering clutch).
But, honestly, I don't have a choice about letting toxic people into
my life. I almost died a few years ago from Crohn's, and right
now I'm working hard to recover from all the illness so I can accomplish
the things that I want to in life. And, most importantly, I
want to be a healthy wife and mother. Just an hour spent with
this woman sends my symptoms flaring up; my blood pressure and heart
rate goes up, and I've been getting panic attacks. She is not
worth it. And, I don't feel that if my fiancé really
loves me, which he does, he would want to subject me to being abused
and getting sick. God knows I would never stand for it if the
roles were reversed (my mother tells him how special he is and how
much she loves him). It's so complicated, because I can tell
that he has so much guilt from his mother's manipulation that he catches
himself if he feels too at ease around my mother, as if he's betraying
his own mother. There are a lot of sick, sick women out there
breeding. I am learning from all this so that I DO NOT REPEAT
THIS CYCLE WITH MY OWN CHILDREN. Women cannot expect their sons
to play the same role as their husbands. A mother's love and
a wife's love are totally different! I pray that if I have a
son, my future DIL will look up to me as a kind and decent woman,
who accepts her son's unavoidable growth into manhood. And,
I pray that he finds a wonderful, caring woman to love him for the
rest of his life. The worst thing that my FMIL did was to take
away her son's self-esteem by breaking him down all the time and prohibiting
his maturity by never teaching him how to be independent or solve
his own problems. This is not just selfishness, it's abuse!
The greatest gift you can give a child is confidence and self-reliance!
Signed - De-toxing FDIL
Per
the poster's request, no responses collected.
Worst gift: The Worst
gift for my daughter's second birthday from MIL was a phone call,
right at the time that we do her bedtime routine (and ignore the phone).
Signed - At Least I Had
An Excuse Not To Answer It
Why is there constant competition
between MILs and their DILs? My MIL feels the need to constantly
outdo me. I make a wonderful Christmas goodie that everybody
loves. Whenever the holidays roll around, I get dozens of requests
to make them (it is an old family recipe and I'm not about to share
it with MIL). So, the family get-together rolled around and
everybody was raving about my goodies. MIL suddenly pulled out
the same goodies as mine that she'd made and said, "If you think
that DIL's are good, just wait until you try mine". Of
course, it wasn't my recipe, but she managed to find a similar one
on the internet. If she knew that I was making this particular
thing, why in the world would she make the same thing?!? DH
and I decided that it was time to get a new car. MIL convinced
FIL that she needed a new car as well. The spineless sap gave
in. Of course, she wouldn't buy anything until after we had
already bought ours. She went out and bought the SAME car as
ours, only with more bells-and-whistles. Then, when we would
show people our new car, she would say, "I have the same car,
and mine has (such and such). DIL's doesn't." My
mum and I have a joint hobby of collecting a particular type of rather
expensive antique china. MIL had never heard of this type of
china, and never showed any interest in this sort of thing before.
Considering that it is expensive, I am rarely able to buy it.
I had mentioned that I saw some at an antique store and had saved
enough money to go back and purchase it. I went to the store
and it was gone. Okay, fine, that happens. Two weeks later,
I saw it at MIL's. She happened to see it at that antique market
(an hour from where she lives) and figured that I decided not to buy
it, so she did. She also informed me that she was going to start
collecting this as well, and had the extra cash to do so. Do
MILs realize that not only are they trying to outdo their DILs, but
are out doing their DSs at the same time? Do any of you have
this MIL problem?
Signed - Anything You Can
Do, I Can Do Better
RESPONSE: Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better
Yup. Only my MIL usually harps on how someone else's is better.
Her favorite is her "poor mother", who died when she was
a child. We lived briefly with them while we were still in school,
and I came home one day with a huge cast-iron frying pan. I showed
her and she said, "Oh, my poor mother had one like that, but
it was better." The frying pan almost became a weapon.
RESPONSE: Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better
You should do something really clever, like telling MIL that all the
cool people do this certain activity or wear their hair this certain
way, but you just can't afford it. Then, she will go out and buy
it/do it. Tell her that all the cool women get mullet haircuts now.
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Then, she will go get a mullet. Or, just tell
her that you are going to go dye your hair bright blue in two days,
since it is so stylish, and then maybe she will run go have it done
before you! Good luck. I hope it works.
RESPONSE: Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better
Yes, yes, yes. I do have this very same problem. It took some convincing,
but now DH sees it as well. My MIL competes over the most bizarre
things. G-d forbid that I get a compliment on anything. When I first
noticed it, it began with some macaroni salad that I had made for
Thanksgiving. Everyone made a big deal about it, and the next day
she called and asked me for the recipe. At the next gathering, there
my recipe sat, looking back at me. She made sure that I had a helping
to "see how she did". The next thing was our first child.
She was so paranoid that our child would love me more. Imagine that.
If my child cried for me, she would continually try to make her settle
down, and not give her to me until the baby was red and frantic.
Unless she had milk in her old dried up baggage, my baby needed me
to eat. That's what most newborns cry for, milk. Sometimes, we would
stay so late that we would be too tired to drive home (45 minutes
away), so we would spend the night. In the morning, I would wake
to a baby being shoved at me because "she wants her mother".
My breast would be hanging out from where DD had been pried from me,
and awakened. When DH would inquire as to whether the baby had been
awake while we were sleeping, MIL would just say that she came into
the room where we were sleeping and took the baby from me so that
her face could be the first face she saw when DD woke up. My DD was
afraid of her for the first year of life because she was trying to
force some love that wasn't hers to experience. When DD would ask
for me, she would say, "Go on over to your mother. I can't stand
when she acts that way." My DH was raving about a casserole
that I had made a week prior to delivering child #2. When I returned
home, I found the same dish in my refrigerator. It was prepared by
none other than MIL. DH said that he has no recollection of her enjoyment
of cooking, or of MIL making this dish before. Moving on, I wanted
to go to hair school. I had mentioned this to MIL. I have three
DDs, so I said that this would be beneficial for me. Right now, I
am very limited on my hair skills, and so was MIL UNTIL she went to
hair school, recently. She also mentioned the fact that she couldn't
wait to do my DDS hair. My hair is very long. I am complimented
on it all the time by the family. Her sister owns a hair shop, in
which MIL now works. I have been allowing MIL's sister to do my hair
for several years now. Now that she has been working there, she has
officially made herself our hairdresser. She has also been trying
to cut my hair to a "good length", hers, ever since. Every
time she does my hair she complains that I have too much. Then, why
did she volunteer herself? I have also mentioned that the hair shop
needs a little something. In a private conversation, she advised
me to go talk to her sister, personally, about adding decor. When
I did this, her sister told me to go speak with her new interior decorator,
MIL! Oh, yes, she has been decorating all over the place now. That
is for the family. And, for a final scenario (though I have dozens),
if I speak to anyone in MIL's family without her around, she makes
an extra effort for the next few months to be that person's shadow.
It's as if she is afraid that we may get to know each other and become
more chummy than she already is with them. The next time you buy
a car, rent one for a week and tell her that it's your new car. She'll
go out and buy that model, then you can shop for your real car. She
sounds like a freak. Don't give her any information, ever!
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