Early words from your future mil

My in-laws put enormous pressure on my DH not to marry me, because I am white and he is Indian. I had one excruciating visit to their house before we were married. Future FiL went into another room as soon as I arrived and didn't re-emerge. Future DH and I made stilted small talk with his sisters (who were okay with our relationship) and I smiled and nodded at his mum, who spoke very little English. I knew she had tried to split us up, so I felt very nervous. Then she said what sounded like "Guest trouble" and disappeared for the rest of the afternoon. I said nothing but presumed that meant that she didn't like me. When I really got to know her, I realised that she had said "Gas trouble." She did suffer with her stomach, poor woman.

We married against their wishes but MiL accepted it, whereas it took years for FiL to thaw. When we had children, it helped. We used to visit the in-laws' house and MiL liked to feed everyone. I think that she did get fond of me. It was hard for us to communicate but she would always talk to me about her ailments and I always said sympathetic things.

FiL refused all invitations to our house and only came round once, when my mum died. MiL came too, and when both of our DDs were born. A total of three visits. Maybe just as well, as DH's sister told me that her mum had said, "I never thought that my son would live in a house with dirty skirting boards." Grrr....

Both lived into their 80s, FiL dying in 2019 and MiL four months later, in early 2020. I am genuinely sorry that MiL is gone. I did grow fond of her. I can't truly say that I grieved deeply for my FiL. We did have a sort of relationship that developed over the years, and I was sorry to see him become so frail, but we never had a meaningful conversation in more than 40 years. DH was never close to him either. He was a very difficult man.

Mine LOVED me... SOOO happy her golden boy was engaged. Soon as married - Don't you... I always... I couldn't do one right thing in her eyes. Fortunately we lived 200 miles away. She succeeded in wrecking my husband's brother's THREE marriages. Not nice.

I never pleased my MIL Her unwelcoming words when we first met were an example of what was to come for the rest of her life. She tried to impose her will and ideas on me and other DIL without success which made for a very strained relationship.

I am afraid she thought I was too young and spoilt. We had nothing in common and I could never understand how she was my DH mum, she constantly had a go at him. Years later, after she died we discovered she was in fact his stepmother and an awful lot fell into place, although hard on DH. Family secrets eh

The first time I had any contact with my MiL was over the phone as she was in Australia.
My ex and I had been dating for a few weeks when due to his visa regulations, he had to return to Australia for at least 3 months . Before he left, we went away for a few days - he and his sister that was also over here, took it in turn to phone home, so we had stopped at a phone box to call MiL I was terrified when he handed the phone to me, saying that his mum wanted to speak to me - her first words were "Are you looking after my son properly?"
I must have answered correctly as we always got on well after that!

Should have said here first words to me were - 'So that's what you sound like', she followed it up with a comment to my husband. 'I hope she can cook'.

jocork

My MiL's comments were not to me but to her son - "Why don't you find someone younger and slimmer?" I don't know if she knows that he told me! I was eventually accepted when I gave them grandchildren - probably the reason she was worried about me being older and overweight. Eventually her darling son traded me in for a younger model who was more overweight than me. He has since financed stomach stapling for her! MiL doesn't like the new woman much!

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My MIL was lovely. The only problem was when I asked her on our wedding day what she would like me to call her.
‘It’s too soon to think about that,” she said.
I never really called her anything until we had children.
My FIL, when I first met him said, “Call me Doc, everyone else does.”

I don’t remember - you block out traumatic memories, don’t you?!

My MIL was a xenophobic, bitter, jealous woman. Unfortunately my late husband's brother believed her lies, and caused a rift between them that caused my husband great distress.

A lot of the previous sound very familiar.
My MIL was married 3 times. To be fair the first one died before my husband was born [wartime]
Nothing and no one was ever good enough for her. She took herself off abroad in 1957 so I thought I was in luck when we married in the late 60s, but she came back in the mid 70s and decided that my husband was going to provide a home for her. As I was the main breadwinner this was never going to happen. I'm convinced she hated me with a passion. She also hated my son but strangely made a fuss of his sister who didn't want anything that didn't include 'brother'.
She was a very miserable old lady well into her 90's. What a waste of a life.

I always remember the day we told my future in-laws we were getting engaged. My mil just said ‘well at least she comes from good breeding stock’ (presumably because I had several siblings) and then continued with a conversation about new lawnmowers. We did form some sort of bond during the many years before her death, including years of care duties, but if she hadn’t been my husbands mother we would never had anything in common.

About a month before our wedding, my mil phoned my husband and said was he sure he wanted to marry me and it wasn’t too late to change his mind!
I was in the room at the time but gauged what the call was about.
We were married 45 years before he died three years ago. I never really got on with her and that conversation didn’t help.

My MiL's comments were not to me but to her son - "Why don't you find someone younger and slimmer?" I don't know if she knows that he told me! I was eventually accepted when I gave them grandchildren - probably the reason she was worried about me being older and overweight. Eventually her darling son traded me in for a younger model who was more overweight than me. He has since financed stomach stapling for her! MiL doesn't like the new woman much!

My future MIL took my 3 year old son , (from a brief failed marriage,) by the hand and asked him, Do you like Lego ? Yes? Good, and I hope you like sausages and chips and beans for tea ? Needless to say they were inseparable from that day until she died aged 95. RIP Nancy .we all loved you so much

Lucky ladies if you had a lovely MIL. I had the tricky one from day. My MIL told my DH, when he took me home after our first few serious dates at aged 18, that I was ‘the wrong class’ for him and it would never work. My family was too educated, had too much money, so she tried to break us up. She only barely tolerated me over the 30 yrs of our marriage and when DH died in 2006 she wrote our children out of her will. She never gave me nice gifts, tried to ignore me if possible and when I was widowed she was very unsympathetic as she had been widowed twice so knew it all. At my first birthday (54th) as a widow and she said I was now ‘nearly 60!’. She was the most ridiculous person I have known and I could recount her stupid sayings/deeds all day. She died in sad circumstances a few years ago - I realised then that she was a sad unfulfilled person all her life whose sons were controlled by her except my DH.

Mine said “You don’t eat much do you? Why are you so fat?”

My MILs first words were I'll need some money if you two are staying here overnight. It didn't get much better sadly. On the bright side I've had lovely daughters and a great son in law.

My future mother-in-law welcomed me into their home, but did warn me that my husband could be moody.

My ex MIL was nice as pie to me to my face when we first met, but my ex OH told me that afterwards, she told him that because I had been married before (a marriage that lasted only a few months due to his physical abuse!) I was just "Using him".
When we had children, despite earning slightly more, we agreed ex OH would work and I would stay at home and look after the children. This meant he had to work on Saturdays. Whilst "at home" I became involved with a charitable fund raising group and we raised a substantial amount of money (over 3 years). The IL's asked us to accompany them on holiday one year, which we did but on 2nd evening she started needling me - "how much have you raised for this charity?" then a couple of minutes later "and is (my son) still working Saturdays?". After about 45 minutes of this I'd had enough and told her that it was none of her business how we chose to run our lives and that if she had something to say she should just come out and say it!. I then stormed out and slammed the door. ( I was really upset that my ex OH didn't come after me even after about an hour but decided she was probably insisting he didn't). (The fund raising was all done by stay at home mums organising fetes and jumble sales etc whilst the children played together, and their husbands (including mine) were supportive and even did a sponsored pub crawl for the fund!!) I managed to put all this behind me and MIL and I jogged along ok (luckily they didn't live near us!)

If my MIL was living in India she would definitely have been sacred and lived in the same house. It was a continuous battle, at least I had a career to get me away, not a lot I could do about it I’d made my bed and had to lie in it.

First time I met my future Mother in law she was wearing a hairnet, she had just come back from the town, never quite got over that.

I married the beloved only son. After six weeks of marriage she came to stay with us. When she reorganised my cupboards without asking, I knew that I was in for a rocky ride!
We were like oil and water, chalk and cheese.
Luckily my husband was more like my father in law and we have been married over forty years with two lovely sons and three grandchildren.

I was the first girl any of her sons brought home and I was from a very different background to her so she struggled a bit in how to treat me at first but she did her best. We’ve had quite a few disagreements over the years but she loves me to bits and I feel the same about her. She has truly been a second mum to me and I’m so grateful that she’s been a large part of my adult life.

Oh I always wanted a daughter. She only had her one darling, spoilt son who I divorced from years later.