Thank god for a web site that allows one to vent!  I have a Christmas story that I would like to tell about my mil.  I have been married for about ten years now.  My mil is built like Olive Oyl, has a problem keeping the weight on.  I have a problem keeping the weight off.  I really believe that God makes everyone different for a purpose.  I am more of a Mae West than a Kate Moss.  I could lose a few pounds, but I'm not miserable.  Not until after I go to visit my mil.  When I go visit her, I am subjected to her comments about her "bony butt", "long legs", and her "height".  I am 5 ft, 5 in. and wear a size 14-16, as do a lot of women.  My mil is a "statuesque" (ha!) 5 ft., 7 in. and weighs about 115.  I do not envy her.  But I am sick of her remarks and sidelong glances when I take an extra helping of something or order a large meal at a restaurant.  This past Christmas she bought me some really nice maternity clothes as this is my first baby.  She was telling me that she had even asked the salesgirls what sizes to buy - that they had told her to buy the size that you usually buy, that there was no need to buy larger clothes.  So she bought size 14-16 which fit well, that I really liked.  However, another package contained a pair of size 22 sweatpants.  My husband commented that they seemed rather large.  To which my mil replied, "They're for after the baby is born."  I told my husband that I was sure we could take them back and exchange them (I was mad as hell).  My mil got a ticked off look on her face.  Later, I talked to my husband about it, and he forbid me from asking her to take the pants back.  I ended up donating them to a local nursing home.  I couldn't stand them in my house as a reminder of her nastiness.  I was extremely upset, especially since I am pregnant and will be bigger than my usual self.  It is like being kicked when you're down.  I am not the only one that she has done this type of thing to.

My husband had married me when he was fresh out of high school, and in fact, I was still a minor myself.  We had a baby shortly afterwards, and he was shipped off in the military.  Well, we had taken leave to come back home to visit or families.  We had gone straight to my in-laws home after driving 19 hrs non stop (stopping of course for fuel only).  Well, just shortly after arriving at my in-laws, my mother-in-law, my baby, and I were left alone in the den.  That's when she went on to make this comment, "My son really had a hard time when he found out that you were pregnant.  I heard him crying for nights over it."  And, she also went on to say, "You two had no business getting married so young."  At that point, she was looking at her own grandchild, and had the nerve to tell me that I should have had an abortion!  Now, how about those apples folks?  Isn't that a real kick in the stomach!!!

Let's have a show of hands of all wives out there whose husbands are living out the Oedipus complex!  What's even more of a mystery is why mothers whom are afraid of losing their sons allow them to marry in the first place.  After 3 years of marriage, and now a proud mother of twin boys, the least I can foresee in the future is my kids maturing ... I can't say the same about my husband.  One thing most wives learn after marriage is that mil is always right no matter what.  And, would somebody out there please explain the insecurity that mils' harbor towards your own parents?  They're afraid your parents are going to take over their son, his house, his children, his sanity ... ring a bell?  Please respond.  Prepare For Combat.
 

Thank God for this site. I need to vent, and hopefully find someone to correspond with who has experienced this horribleness so I don't feel so alone.  Quick background, I had a daughter who died from SIDS before my husband and I got together.  We had a son and got married right after he turned one year old.  Up until I got pregnant my MIL just loved me.  She was nice to me, bought me gifts, took me shopping, etc.  But the MINUTE she found out that I was pregnant, she turned on me.  She was falling down drunk (literally) at our wedding.  My family handed our son to her while they were taking pictures of us.  Our son started crying and she shook him and yelled, "Shut Up!" at him.   I yelled for someone to get him away from her, and then we all went about our business like nothing had happened, although I really wanted to choke her.  She then proceeded to vomit in her mouth and swallow it at our "after wedding dinner".  Everyone was so uncomfortable that we all just hurried up and ate and got out of there.  We have no good memories of our wedding because of her.  She brought no gift, no card, and paid for nothing despite being very well off.  Incidentally, she spent over tens of thousands of dollars on my BIL's wedding, and paid for him and his wife to go on a tropical honeymoon for a week (according to my husband).

She has made numerous horrible remarks to me.  For instance, when I had morning sickness during my pregnancy, she told me how sick I looked and asked me if I had been tested for AIDS while at dinner with me and my parents.  She has told me numerous times that she does not like children.  Yet, when my BIL's wife got pregnant a year after I did, she called us to tell us how excited that she was about them having a baby, and that she was going to knit the new grandchild 2 blankets.  She didn't knit my son even one.  For his 3rd birthday she sent him a savings bond that will be worth $50 when he turns 33 years old, despite being well off (her husband is well paid and will retire next year).

After the wedding incident, which followed over a year and a half of her making rude, nasty comments to me, I decided that I'd had enough.  I wrote her a letter and told her that if she couldn't apologize for the way she'd acted and for shaking my son, then I didn't think we could be around her anymore.  She just argued back and forth and basically told me that I deserved all of it, and it was because I had already had an "illegitimate" daughter.  I let her know that I am not, and will not be, ashamed of my daughter or my past.  It's made me who I am, and my husband (her son) loves me for who I am.  After a string of nasty, b*&chy letters, in which she referred to her own children as helpless creatures who drove her to drink, there was dead silence.  I decided to let it all go, give her another chance, welcome her into our home, and try to get along.  So, this past summer my FIL dragged her out here (she lives several states away) for a week.  She wouldn't speak to us.  She only stayed in our house for 30 minutes before she left.  I had spent all day making a wonderful vegetarian lasagna (she loves that kind of food) for them because I knew they'd be coming at supper time.  She took two bites of it, got up, walked over to the garbage can, and scraped it all off as loud as she could into the garbage, while saying in a very snide tone, "Thanks for making dinner, we REALLY appreciate it."  Then she sat down, looked at my FIL and said, "Are you ready to go?"  She never acknowledged that my son was in the room, he's three now, didn't take one picture, didn't ask one question about our lives.  That's all we saw of her until the day they left.  She came banging on our door at 7:00 am and said, "Just came to say goodbye".  This was a Monday.  She had called weeks earlier and asked my husband to take that day off so they could do something, and then she just plain blew us off.  She handed him 5 or 6 pair of underwear.  After she left, I walked in and saw the underwear on the coffee table and asked what it was for.  My husband said she had come to give him some used underwear that didn't fit his dad anymore!  Whatever!  Like I don't buy my husband any underwear of his own???

All of this is just the tip of the iceberg.  When my husband got a better job, and we called them to tell them we were moving, she got mad!  She was mean!  His dad called us a week later to tell us he was worried because she was on such a bad drinking binge he didn't know what to do.  She cannot stand to see us have any success in our lives.  I just received a letter from her, first time since they were here last summer.  In it were pictures of my FIL with the other grandson.  She had to tell us that they bought a brand new car (the particular car of my husband's dreams) and how much she likes my husband's cousin's fiancée (who is pregnant and not married yet).  She said that he understands their brand of craziness, is tolerant, and down to earth.  As opposed to us I suppose.  At this point, I want nothing to do with her.  I don't want her to write or call, and I don't want to write or call her.  But next month is my husband's birthday, and like every year, she will send him something that requires a thank you, he will call her, she will be mean and go on and on about how great his brother is, she won't ask about my son or about me, and my husband will be upset and depressed when he gets off the phone.  What do I do?  He says he's never going to call her again, but I know he will.  He always does.  I'm sick of her interfering with our lives.  Please write to me if you have a MIL as bad as this.  I need support.  Thanks for listening.


***NOTE:  Please feel free to respond to this (using our mother-in-law stories submission page) if you have any advice to share.  Reference this story as "MIL's a Shaker " in your response. 

The following lyrics were discovered on a wonderful site, "Den's Oldies Lyrics",  that posts lyrics to old songs.  The site is found at the following URL:  http://www.execpc.com/~suden/
We have received permission from that site to post this.  If anyone is aware of any reason this should not be posted, please send us an e-mail at feedback@motherinlawstories.com
(By the way - if anyone knows where to get a recording of the song, please let us know also.)


MOTHER-IN-LAW
Ernie K. Doe

Mother-in-law, mother-in-law
Mother-in-law, mother-in-law

The worst person I know
Mother-in-law, mother-in-law
She worries me so
`Mother-in-law, mother-in-law
If she leave us alone
We would have a happy home
Sent from down below
Mother-in-law, mother-in-law
Mother-in-law, mother-in-law

Sin should be her name
Mother-in-law, mother-in-law
To me they are about the same
Mother-in-law, mother-in-law
Every time I open my mouth
Then she tries to put me out
How could she stoop so low
Mother-in-law, mother-in-law
Mother-in-law, mother-in-law

I come home with my pay
Mother-in-law, mother-in-law
She ask me what I made
Mother-in-law, mother-in-law
She thinks her advice is a constitution
If she would leave that should be the solution
And don't come back no more
My mother-in-law, mother-in-law.....