What a nasty spiteful cow...! Yes, me, that's who.

"However although I don't dislike her I just don't feel anything for her and if I'm honest it wouldn't bother me if I didn't see her"

I think most women feel like that about their MILs don't they? There is no reason why you should naturally like her or her you. Most rub along rather than a meeting of minds, and there are so many inbuilt conflicts of interest and flashpoints!

In traditional societies it is overcome by the MIL being firmly top dog and DILs 'knowing their place'. An unhappy youth but a happy old age is the result, and even in India young educated women are trying to escape this horror by refusing to live with in laws. Many Italian women, where something of this tyranny of age lives on, complain bitterly about their MILS. Traditional families are much idealised in Britain simply because we dont have to suffer it.

I do actually get quite fed up with her and being sociable with her seems such an effort but I can' treally say why. There isn't any competition that I am aware of.Friends of mine and hers tell me what a lovely lady she is. Maybe others feel the same way but do not admit it? She is quite different to me. Much more formal and 'old fashioned' and we do not share any
interests. Ho hum, I'll just have to accept how I feel .

Incredibly illuminating thoughts and responses which have certainly got me buzzing, in a nice way! And laughing too, because sharing our own humanity, warts, pustules and all, is actually great therapy. We are all of us flawed, really, because we are human, but I have grown up thinking that I had the worst flaws of all and got used to feeding those feelings.

Counselling/therapy: been there, done that - several times over, trying hard to learn how to be a better person, understand myself and others, accept myself. I even tried a horrible therapy programme which insisted I commit to 2 full days a week being treated in a manner which left me feeling the opposite of empowered, and utterly humiliated and patronised. After giving it my best shot for 9 months I could stand it no longer. I knew it wasn't right for me but felt I owed it to my psychiatrist to give it a try. I never regretted leaving. That was the last therapy I tried: prior to that I'd had a year of psychodynamic gobbledegook (actually staring at my therapist and vice versa, then talking endlessly to break the silences...no advice, no insight, no counselling, just round in ever-decreasing circles and I felt stuck fast. Before that was CBT, delivered by a young therapist who was a page ahead of me in the text book... need I go on?
I bought and read every self-help book going, tried various self-help techniques, supported by my lovely patient family, embarked on Mindfulness meditation courses which were great in some ways, but made no difference to how I felt or thought. I believed I was beyond redemption.

Finally it was a change in medication which seems to have helped - or maybe that was a coincidence. I am on different meds for anxiety and others for depression, but they do seemed to have made a huge difference: I no longer feel sick with anxiety every day, or as if I am at the bottom of a dark well with no ladder. I can function, I can appreciate small things, I can enjoy living. BUT....I still feel inadequate, I still get very stressed and irritable at times and I'm not always easy to live with. My poor OH has a lot to put up with...but I am aware of this and am trying hard to show him how much I love and appreciate him. I think my 'issues' are almost certainly so deeply entrenched that they won't ever be 'cured' as such: I will continue to be challenged by them and panic that I am sinking down into self-hatred and deep depression again. I am under no illusion that I could spiral down again, which is why I am so panicked and terrified when painful feelings surface and threaten to overcome me. But at the moment, those times aside, I am trying to make the most of the respite, appreciate when things are good and be as kind as I can be to others which isn't easy for an envious, inadequate person. The guilt remains, because like some of the other posters, I don't want my own jealous feelings to harm others - it's my biggest fear.
I am fascinated by your feelings about your MIL, ginny - I wonder whether you feel guilty about feeling nothing for her and that makes you feel down when she's due to arrive? If you enjoy close relationships with other family members, it can be upsetting and disconcerting if there is someone we can't feel that way about and don't know why; maybe you are blaming yourself for that, whereas in fact there is nothing and no one to blame: somehow, the relationship doesn't jell for you. But I can understand why that brings you down.
Moocow there might be a grain of truth in your words...I was so used to NEVER being good at anything, despite trying so damned hard at school, and socially, I always felt like an outsider and had a strong sense of rejection (well founded - I was bullied at school and really didn't handle it well at all, to my shame). I only felt able to start fighting back and learning to be assertive in the 6th form but it seemed to be too little, too late. The silly child inside wanted a turn to be 'best' and to feel respected, praised, valued and looked up to, and my childhood, adolescence and much of my adulthood have been dogged by these feelings, amongst others. It's cost me a long-term friendship which ended bitterly and painfully 8 years ago; prevented me from applying to university and instead went where my mother advised me to apply: teacher-training college petalmore - talk about a parallel universe! Actually I wanted to do art, not teaching, but it was made clear to me that - well - you have to be VERY GOOD to succeed. I took the hint.

Oh wow, what an overlong and boring post.Feel free to skip huge chunks of it. I would.

I wondered Rowantree if your jealousy was planted by one of your parents. When I read about the intelligence tests, it seems to me that is where your feelings started.. That was a mean thing for your mother to do and no wonder you feel jealous of your siblings and their children.

When I posted in How did you raise your kids, I wrote what I did to stop jealousy between my children because I didn't want my children to be like my siblings and me. I got on very well with my DM but she was brought up in an awful family and badly treated and I think she was clueless in how not to have her children at loggerheads with each other. She was never happy for us to do things together, she appeared to be jealous that we could do something together when she wasn't with us. Whereas I feel really happy when my children are off doing things together, even if it doesn't have to include me.

I know at least one of my sisters was jealous of me, I have always had digs from her and she is the only sister I still speak to. I was never full of confidence and missed out on many opportunities because I was always unsure.

I don't normally feel jealous but in the last few years as I have gotten older I do feel that I would have liked an easier life with a decent partner, my choices have been dismal and it's often not as easy for a single women who has not had the benefit of another wage earner. I often hear women say, we worked hard that's why we have done well. My thoughts and feelings to that is you might have worked hard and I did too, but you have had a second wage all those years and not had to split your assets. It certainly makes a huge difference financially. That's when I do feel envious, not that I would want their husbands and often feel relieved I can do as I please, very mixed emotions.

Something that I found useful.
When I knew I was feeling and thinking stuff that I knew was wrong,
I stuck pieces of paper in most rooms of the house, plus under my pillow[I found just having the pieces of paper in a couple of rooms was not enough].

They had things like I am ..., or I am not...
So when I had the stupid negative feelings, I would go to the piece of paper in the room, to put my thoughts back straight again.

I had to leave the pieces of paper there for months, and remember to remove them if someone was visiting!

When you did the self-help books, did you do the exercises in them?

Well Rowantree, O think you may have hit the nail on the head. I certainly do have very close relationships with other family members. My 3 Dds, Dgs, DH , Sons in law and several very dear friends. Sadly , both my parents have died but that was another good relationship. I even enjoy spending time with my brother and sister in law ! Maybe it is because I have been so lucky that I cannot deal with not feeling the same way about MIL as she too is a family member. I also wonder if a sort of jealousy comes into it. Dad died 5 years ago but my Mum died 24 years ago and never got to see my three DDs grow up and she would have loved them and their children so much. I'm not saying MIL doesn't but she is very different. When she says things like "getting old is no fun" or "I won't see my Great Grandchildren as adults". I feel like shouting at her to realise how lucky she is.

Goodness, I think I' m learning a few things here about myself here !

If anyone said "I won't see my Great Grandchildren as adults" to me, my response would be ,'of course you won't, nobody does. Did your great grandmother live to see you grown up?'

I am unlikely to live to see any great grand children, our family have a history of marrying on the older side and having children late as well. IF DGD is as old as he mother when she has her first child I wouldl have to live to 102 to become a GGM

She has been lucky enough to have been a great grandmother since she was 70.

frue I feel so sorry for you. I know exactly how you feel. Is it a natural thing for fathers to get all the credit for what you have done I wonder. Mine was away most of the time my children were growing up (he was married to his job) so I did most of the 'bringing up'. Now he often says something on the lines of 'we never had that problem when ours were growing up did we?' How he would know I fail to understand.
One Christmas I shopped for, paid for, and wrapped Christmas presents for all the children on his side of the family. We met the families at a Christmas service. I spotted him later talking to his nephew and went over to say we should give out the Christmas presents! Only to find he had slipped out with his nephew and transferred them himself. I was really cross I can tell you. Since that day I have handed the job over to him, after all if he wants the credit he can do the buying, wrapping etc himself.

Going back to the topic. My GS has just had the results of his Mock A-Levels. All 'A's! So proud of him but he has been working so hard so he deserves the result.

I think it is selfish to be so upset because someone has done well, just because you have no confidence in yourself. There has to be a reason why you feel like that.

What happened as you were growing up? Did your teacher impress on you that you were not going to amount to anything, did any adult tell you you were worthless etc etc? Well let me tell you something. Every single one of us has some talent, you included. I am sure there is something you can excel in and I do not doubt it for a minute. Forget about the past that is history. Get mad and show them you are worth as much as anyone else. Do something you really love, be it art, gardening, pottery whatever and show the world what you are made of! You can do it, you know you can. Stop giving in to negative thoughts. Put an elastic band round your wrist and twang it every time you have one. Teach yourself to be positive about yourself. Why? BECAUSE YOU ARE WORTH IT!

Your nephew would be delighted if you just emailed him or his parents who could pass it on, and say you are very proud of him. Make it your first step on the way to recovery! :-)