mumsnet parents in law

Blimey - I will be fighting you for MIL of the Year!

Amazing, so weird they are probably true. Fact being stranger than fiction.

I hope my DILs don't see me like that! I'm sure I've never done anything remotely as strange.

Mind you there' time yet! x

I suspect there may be quite a few contenders here .

J52 i'm hoping the same - i've been trying to think of something, but...i'm sure if i asked my daughter in law she could find something to contribute!

My father in law was fairly insistent that we have a boy. Can't remember his exact words but he said something along the lines of 'no more women thank you very much'. Whenever we saw him when I was pregnant he would nod knowingly at my belly and comment on his soon to be grandson (we didn't have a clue!).
Was actually a tiny bit disappointed when I DID have a son, if only for that fact that he got his way and was overly smug about it. If I hadn't been so delirious post birth we should have called and told him it was a girl anyway.

Mine were mostly fine but did have an odd response when we told them what we'd called our baby boy. I think my MIL's response was Are you joking?' And when she'd established we were quite serious she said 'oh, no, I don't like that at all. What about...Percival? (or whatever crazy name she'd come up with). My husband had to quietly explain that it was too late, we'd already named him and actually we quite liked our chosen name. I don't think she used it for the first 5 years or so of his life!

when my youngest daughter was born, my mother in law (who was profoundly deaf) shouted 'not another girl' and huffed her way through the ensuing 15 minute visit (in hospital) before getting her coat on and demanding that her son take her home again...she mellowed in later life, luckily

My paternal granny was getting fed up with granddaughters. She had four and no grandsons, so when my mum was pregnant for a third time she knitted loads of small garments all in blue. Of course the baby was a girl, but my parents thought that it might placate her if they gave her granny's name as a second name. Then my aunt also had a third daughter and granny gave up the fight. I wish she had lived to know that 7 of her 14 GGC turned out to be boys.

Just read the link, most of the MILs sound like my Mother,,,, +++++++++++++++++++and more !!

Gordon Bennett!
Mine was relatively benign in comparison to some of those
Mine was plainly a very bitterlady, I never did anything right and copped it big time when my sister married one of her other sons and moved miles away.

Good grief, I've just read through the thread and I feel positively saintly! Some of those MiLs are totally barking

I think I might have to show it to my DiL, though, just to watch her face and judge whether she's identifying with any of the posts - or do I really want to take that chance? .

I don't think I want to know what the mumsnet posters think of their MiLs. I find it really hard being a MiL. I have a lovely DiL who lives quite near but I rarely see her and I don't think I have upset her, she's just a bit of a loner. My SiL lives further away but when I do see him I have to work really hard to chat to him. He's not unfriendly, just not a very good communicator, I think. If I read the mumsnet comments I might discover it is all my fault after all.

It's plainly much harder to be MiL to your sons' partners than to your daughters' partners. I don't know whether this is because women feel differently about sons ("No girl is good enough for my son") or whether it's jealousy, with partner and mother competing for the precious bloke's love.
Thank God I had only daughters and have got on well with all their partners.

My MIL was a law unto herself.
She never forgave me for taking her precious only son for a husband. The truth was it was not just me, she would have treat any other DIL the same. From the time he left school and started work she gave him emotional blackmail about how she and his dad had struggled to bring himself and his sister up on very little money so when they started work it was time to pay them back big time.By that she meant staying in her house and handing over most of their wages. Her SIL got the same treatment as me. DH's father had died a few years before we met so he got it worse then, she was a poor widow who needed her son to support her, how dare another woman come into his life and remove him from her clutches.
When my two sons where young I hoped that I would not follow her pattern. DS1 is still unmarried and lives away from home. DS2 has been through two failed marriages.I don't know if either of his ex-wives are on Mumsnet, if so they might have contributed to that thread.I can honestly say that I never had any financial hold over DS2 but I could very well have other faults I was not aware of.
I might just have a nosey on Mumsnet to see if I can recognise myself being talked about on that thread!
I am still on good terms with ex-DIL2. I admit that ex-DIL1 did not see eye to eye with me all the time but we both knew what our difficulties were and would fight them out.

Sorry for making a MIL rant.

As the mother of a son, I have never understood all this rubbish people talk about mothers thinking no girl is good enough for their son.

Yes, I know a few do, but personally, I was amazed that a girl as lovely DDiL should want to marry DS. I am eternally grateful she did. The home they have created for themselves and their children, our DGC, is happy and supportive and, on balance, I think she is a better mother than I was.

It may help all the Mumsnet posters to swap tales of outrageous behaviour by MiLs, but this is more than matched by the stories on Gransnet of appalling behaviour by DiL and SiL.

I agree Flickety. The idea that 'no girl is good enough for my son' is such a cliche, the same as 'a son is a son till he takes a wife, a daughter's a daughter all of her life'. Both seem to chime with the worst aspects of being a mother - a need to 'own' or keep your children to yourself forever.

I admit that I can be guilty of being a bit needy at times but I don't like it about myself, and I try very hard to keep it to myself - after all, it's my problem not their's. I really do love the partners my three children (one DD, two DS's) have chosen and because I know my children inside out, I occasionally wonder how anyone is brave enough to take them on

Even ex SiL his brother and their father admit DD ex MiL is weird.

Before DD married she wasn't allowed in their house.
Wedding invites were sent from DH and I as we were paying. When asked for her list of guests names and address's she refused and insisted we give her a pile of invites for her to write and hand out. They were printed with DH and my names and our address for RSVP but she told them to reply to her !!