Mothers and Mothers in Law

My parents drove 300 miles to meet my in-laws to be as they thought it would be wrong to meet for the first time on our wedding day. They met on those two occasions and that was that. No animosity just distance and nothing else in common.
Son’s in laws live on a different continent so only met them at the wedding. We exchange cards and best wishes though. DD in-laws are local and we share childcare in normal times. Lovely folk who produced a lovely son!

Our younger son’s in laws are lovely people and we have known them now for nearly 28 years. We are always invited to their occasions such as special birthdays and anniversaries. I am always invited to any cinema or theatre trips with DIL’s mother and sister. Our older son’s in laws were divorced when he and our DIL got married, his father in law died 18 months ago and his wife hasn’t had much to do with her mother so we never really established much of a relationship with them. My mother and mother-in-law were both widowed soon after we got married and always got on well at family occasions. My parents’ families lived over 100 miles away in different directions and I only had one grandmother on my mother’s side and one grandfather on my father’s side. Apart from my parents’ wedding they never had any contact with each other. DH’s father was full of praise for his mother-in-law but DH’s mother didn’t get on with her in laws at all. So I could say that on the whole we have been fortunate with our ‘in law’ experiences.

My Mum did not like any woman who (in her words) became significant in either my life or my sister's. So, my sisters MiL, my MiL, and eventually her 3 granddaughter's mothers-in-law, she criticised constantly behind their backs, but was civil and friendly to their faces.

We came to the conclusion she was insecure, fearing that any one of the "extras" would mean we loved her less. We didn't, of course, but couldn't convince her of that.

My MIL and DM had completely different values and my DM was completely derogatory about my MIL. My MIL was a "nothing too much for my son" sort of person who would have sacrificed a lot just to see her son happy. Maybe the fact that her second son was stillborn and her husband wouldn't let her have another child was the reason but she really was the loveliest person. When we were broke, she would give my DH money to buy the children presents but never wanted the glory; she wanted us to receive that.
Now, my mother is completely the opposite. She uses her money to control where she can, can be completely narcissistic and still thinks that she had children to be her servants for the rest of her days. She found my MIL's "niceness" sickly and never missed the chance to comment upon it, sometimes in her company. My MIL never commented about my mother to me but was less reserved with her son, although never vicious. Fortunately, it was MIL's nature that allowed the two to be in the same room at the same time!

It's just people and their funny little ways, isn't it? My parents and ILs only met a couple of times. My Dad and MIL were both strong characters, rather difficult to get on with and they didn't take to each other either.

Never socialise with the in-laws, nothing in common with us. Not our cup of tea at all, as long as our AC are happy that’s all that matters, we didn’t marry into the in-laws, so no worries

There was little to chose between my mum or mil .They could both be 'a bi-ch' when it suited.

This one set me thinking. My ex husband was 15 years older than me. His family were not at all close. They also lived a few hundred miles away. Neither of his parents came to our wedding and my parents never met his.
My daughter and son in law live in Surrey. Ironically his parents and sister live very close to me. They are all perfectly lovely and we get on really well. We may meet up on special occasions, exchange Christmas cards and the odd comment on FB. Other than that dont communicate or see each other. Sometimes it has felt strange as they live so close ,but it's just not that sort of relationship.

My two grannies never got beyond calling each other Mrs H... and Mrs W... and only ever met up for occasional Christmases at my parents home. One thought her child had “married down” and the other though her child had married into a family of snobs ?? People are funny!

It’s quite strange when this happens and I suppose it could be deemed as a ‘complex issue’. Sometimes in life we don’t get the chive in some situations and have to make the effort?

I was a young and as it turned out, foolish bride, just 18 and a baby by 19. Divorced by 30, after many years of misery and violence.

My parents never ever met my in-laws not even at my speedy secretive wedding. I’m 65 now and have never remarried.

Chance not chive??!

My Mil and my parents never socialised.
They met at the wedding and that was that.
And tbh,i never gave it much thought, also they were like chalk and cheese so it was probably for the best.

My Parents and In-laws only socialised once before we got engaged and never did again. However it was a few years before I realised they exchanged friendly Christmas cards, they always asked after each other and they’d spend quite some time chatting if they met while out shopping. They genuinely liked each other with limited contact but neither set of parents were the type to want more than that. It worked for everyone.

I get on really well with the other in-laws, both parents and DiLs elder sister. We don't meet up much because of pandemic and distance but talk on FB and I really like them all.

I always thought my Mum got on well with my mother-in-law. On the occasions they met up, usually their grandchildren's birthdays, they seemed quite friendly.
I also thought Mum liked my husband too, but just before she died she went into a hospice and my husband spent a lot of time sorting out her finances. When I was explaining what he'd done she said "I'm beginning to see what you see in him now. We could never understand why you married him but you obviously saw something in him we didn't"!
We had been married 25 years by then! Now I wonder whether Mum was just good at covering up her real feelings about his parents too?

I am not sure it's all that common for the two families to blend like that? All the people I know, they see the in-laws at separate times. It would only really be christenings and at the weddings of adult grandchildren, and then the event itself would be a bit formal and formulaic and would leave little room for free-association and arguments. At my daughter's wedding loads of people on both sides were in the middle of feuds, so I didn't do place-cards or anything, just let them choose their own tables in a mutually avoidant manner.

Thank you all for your interesting comments it seems that it was not as unusual as I thought which makes me feel better. Yes grandetanteJE65 it did feel rude and discourteous towards Mr J that My Mum refused to visit if his Mother was there. Yes LauraNorder perhaps my Mother was jealous that I did like my Mother in Law. In fact my Mother did not like her own Mother in Law and fell out with her for many years. Maybe that was how she thought relationships with a Husband's Mother should be. Funny old world!

DS2’s m-i-l doesn’t seem to like me, she is very possessive of my dil and granddaughters. It’s as though she thinks I’ll take them away from her.

It’s a shame as I was prepared to get on with her as my dil is lovely. Still we don’t see her that often, and I would never avoid her.

The important thing is DS gets on with her, and his in-laws have welcomed him into their family. A bit too much of that too sometimes but heigh-ho, we still see him and his family regularly.

I’ve been married twice and my Mum disliked both of my MIL’s. My sister has also been married twice, only one MIL tho and Mum disliked her. My 2 brothers both had MIL’s and they weren’t liked either ..... ?

I've never had any problems with the "mother/mothers-in-laws" in my life, it was always the men but women get such a bad press imo., where are the father in law jokes, I'd like to know!

I think I had a wonderful mother. I thought my first mother in law was a very nice kind woman, we got on although she only spoke French and mine isn't great, we still managed to communicate. My second mother in law, was also really nice I think she had a lot of time for me because she said I was the only one in the family who bothered really listening to her.

On the other hand I had difficult relationship with my father. I didn't really like either of my 2 father in laws, both were really opinionated in their own way. Ex father in law rubbished the English pretty much most of the time, who in his words were "double faced" no generalisations there worst of all he droned on and on about English food, apropos of living in London for a while in the 1950s and hadn't been back since. Post war was a drab time anyway for everything. He always took delight in reliably informing both me and his son "The English boil everything even the meat" cuisine like everything else had moved on a lot by the late 1970s but he was forever mentally stuck in a Brown Windsor Soup time warp. My ex even told him to "shut up" occasionally, with a "you don't know what you are talking about" Then blow me down when I married again, I got the reverse from English father in law disparaging the French, who he hated with a passion, in spite of never taking his stupid self there, or anywhere else for that matter apart from Ireland and Scotland. He also came out with all manner of rubbish such as when he and my husband were playing golf down on the south coast allegedly he'd look across the channel and say "civilization ends here" to which my husband retorted, "no it's starts over there and you're talking rubbish as usual" when our children were young we took them to France all the time, which seemed to annoy him. I also have family there. I'm glad he and my father never met, my father was quite ill by then. They would have had absolutely nothing in common. We went off and got married quietly and told both sets of parents afterwards, just as well because my very catholic father couldn't get his head round his daughter getting a divorce my mother was a bit sad about that, but was far more accepting and a later stage told me although she liked both my husbands, admitted to really, really liking my 2nd, more than my first which pleased me as I regarded her as a good judge of character.

My mil and Mum became best friends and met twice a week for coffee and a chat. Right up to my Mums passing, it was lovely

My mother always felt that my MiL preferred my Dad to her. MiL could be a bit of a snob. We haven't seen DD's in laws since DGD's first birthday, admittedly we don't have much in common but there was never really a connection there.

Got on fine with my mother in law she lived in Egypt and didn’t speak English

My sisonn in law now sadly deceased at 37 with heart related issues. Told me that the letters in the word mother in law can also spell WOMAN HITLER.

I don't get on with mil and her family. I glad she moved away.very controlling they are.as said sil died and they took over with sorting my d life out and burying sil ashes in their new garden..I said it's up to my d what she wants done with them.oh but he's my son. They sold his car too even though d was taking driving lessons.as of now idint know her new address or a phone number.they cut me off completely