My inlaws suck.

  • Thread starter Thread starter milefile
  • 29 comments
  • 700 views
milefile

milefile

Messages
10,832
Yep. Can't stand'em. Sad thing is, they used to be pretty cool. But the birth of my son has really brought out some undesireable characteristics. I'm not alone on this. My wife agrees. It's mostly her mom. Unfortunately her dad is a spineless, sorry excuse for a man, a mere tool of his wife's vindictive, petty, and disloyal tendencies.

I resent that I have had to change my opinion about them. Now, my liking them for so long only makes me feel like I was duped.

I used to listen to my mom complain about my dad's parents, and I never understood what her problem was. They seemed okay to me. I see her various points now. And I sympathize, too. Do you ever hear your parents complain about the inlaws? Or, if your married, do you have any problems? Or are they great?
 
:lol: A 2001 Blazer, silver, V6, 2 door, and an old Altima, '96 or something.

His old Blazer was an '86. Drove it until 2001.
 
If it's not too personal, what are they doing?

My inlaws are OK. In fact I probably like them better than my wife does in some ways. She had a pretty stormy relationship with her mom before my MIL died. My parents got along OK with hers.

My FIL has recently remarried a woman about 20 years younger than he is, who he met over the internet. That in itself is not the real problem; he just handled the whole situation terribly.
 
Their friends are the same age as my wife and I. It's wierd. Theywant us to hang out and stuff, play in the pool on Memorial day. They go see Styx and Deep Purple at Salsa festivals and whatnot. And lots of craft shows, too.

Am I painting a picture here?
 
I'm really lucky on the in-law front. They seem to respect the fact that I'm from a completely different background to the wife doesn't make me a bad person. They like that I love her but don't pander to her, and they're keen to help us when we ask because they know that we have a relationship where we'll try ourselves before asking for help, but not tif we know we're out of our league.

It's going really well at the moment. However, we are still childless, and I can quite foresee the relationship changing once we provide grand-children.
 
Hey man! I made a post and it was there and now it's gone. It answered Duke's question about what they are doing, and it was pretty long. That's BS. Now I have to rewrite it. I saw it there. I accidentally double posted and took one out. Grrrr.
 
Originally posted by GilesGuthrie
I'm really lucky on the in-law front. They seem to respect the fact that I'm from a completely different background to the wife doesn't make me a bad person. They like that I love her but don't pander to her, and they're keen to help us when we ask because they know that we have a relationship where we'll try ourselves before asking for help, but not tif we know we're out of our league.
Click to expand...
About the same here (pending an actual marraige in a week). Her mom thinks I'm the thoughtful (if not most intelligent) son she never had, and her dad likes the fact I can operate a power drill, pay scant attention to sports, and know a little bit about cars. Which makes things alright; my family's a little odd, in fact. My biggerst problem is calling them "Mom" and "Dad". It feels awkward....

I suppose a baby changes everything, though...I've seen many family and friends change (some for the worse, some for the better).
 
Originally posted by neon_duke
If it's not too personal, what are they doing?
Click to expand...

Okay, 2nd try.

It's mostly the MIL. It centers around Alex. My wife and I, regrettably, must both work full time. We don't want it that way but for now it has to be. So my mom watches Alex in the morning. At about eleven AM my wife takes her lunch hour and comes home to nurse him, and around that time my mom goes home and the MIL comes to pick him up. The MIL has become comptetitive with my mom. She is always eager to point out instances where is appears that Alex is unhappy with my mom. When talking to my wife she refers to my mom as "your mother in law", which is derogatory. My mom calls her "Carol's mom". Simple with no petty baggage.

Recently she refered to a telephone conversation with her husband at work where the line "I can't do this" was used. I wonder what "this" is. Watching Alex?

She thinks of her grandson as a status symbol to brag about at work. When it comes to being attuned to his needs she fails. Of course she's not obliged to care for him, but if she is going to insist on portraying herself as "grammy" she could act like it.

When being filled in on his mood that day and what to expect occasionally she's warned that he's been crabby and might cry a lot. She responds in fiegned disbelief, as if he never does that for her. Which is BS.

She claims to have "tricks up her sleve" in dealing with him, like wiping his face with a cold wet rag, or I mean, "damp cloth", when he's pitching a fit. Or massaging his hands?! What is wrong with this woman? He's three months old. She can't seem to grasp the fact that babies cry and can get to a point where they can't be helped by anything but sleep.

She doesn't even try to give him a bottle because the one time she did he blew a gasket and she let it rattle her. This ties into their thinly vieled oppostion to my wife's choice to breastfeed. I had to try so many times before he took it. I guess patience and persistence are beyond her.

She asks stupid questrions like "Does my mom clean the house for us." She's not the maid. She watches her grandchild.

She says all sorts of things obviouosly intended to make her look good at the expense of others, including her own family. She uses our son to this end and we're offended by it.

My wife has made no bones about correcting certain comments and she now has some sort of problem with us. It's plain as day if you know her, in subtle ways I won't bother mentioning here.

She always tries to start negative conversations about people, even family members.

I'll probably remember more or want to refine this. She's just acted in a way that puts her under a microscope to us. We see her differently now, in all her disloyal, selfish, petty, passive agressive, sappy niceness.
 
Wow. I guess you're absolutely right to dislike here...

My mom and sister have problems with my sister's mother in-law, too. Right now my sister and her fiancee are looking to buy a house, and the mother in-law forces them to look into houses that she wants them to buy. Even if it's obviously a raggedy old place. And when my sister and her fiancee complain about this, she gets frustrated.

Some people...
 
Originally posted by milefile
Yep. Can't stand'em. Sad thing is, they used to be pretty cool. But the birth of my son has really brought out some undesireable characteristics. I'm not alone on this. My wife agrees. It's mostly her mom. Unfortunately her dad is a spineless, sorry excuse for a man, a mere tool of his wife's vindictive, petty, and disloyal tendencies.

I resent that I have had to change my opinion about them. Now, my liking them for so long only makes me feel like I was duped.

I used to listen to my mom complain about my dad's parents, and I never understood what her problem was. They seemed okay to me. I see her various points now. And I sympathize, too. Do you ever hear your parents complain about the inlaws? Or, if your married, do you have any problems? Or are they great?
Click to expand...

I hear my dad complain about his mom, and my mom sympathises for him. Mostly my dad gets upset because my grandma is soooo indecisive, misplaces important things like taxes, and forgets to mail important things, like taxes.
 
Wow, Milefile that sounds tough.

How is Alex when you pick him up from MIL's care? I think that's the most important part. If he's happy, then you can both go to work safe in the knowledge that she is doing a good job, even if she's not talking a good job.

Stick with it. Having watched other young families, I see that everything is short term (maybe some of the other parents can confirm/deny this). It seems that things change on a week-by-week basis along with the development of the child(ren). You should be able to ride this one out, especially if Alex seems happy in MIL's care.

Oh, and another thing that my observations have told me: every single woman on earth is the best damn mother ever walked the planet. At least in her head.
 
Originally posted by GilesGuthrie
Wow, Milefile that sounds tough.

How is Alex when you pick him up from MIL's care?
Click to expand...
He seems fine. My only problem with the care is that I wish she would try feeding him. The stretch between my wife's lunch hour and my picking him up isn't excessively long and he can do it, but the fact that she won't try because it got ugly the first time is a disappointment. But there was a development with that yesterday. He drank an entire bottle, uninterrupted, for my mom. That's a breakthrough, and a first. And when I picked him up the MIL had a bottle prepared. She'd obviously tried again. I guess we should worry less about the motivation and more about the results.

You should be able to ride this one out, especially if Alex seems happy in MIL's care.
Click to expand...
I wish I was a baby and could be oblivious to the subtle world of political machinations and passive agressiveness. He's happy.

Oh, and another thing that my observations have told me: every single woman on earth is the best damn mother ever walked the planet. At least in her head.
Click to expand...
Too true, too true.

I think my wife and her mother have always had a stormy relationship. She's an only child and is, I admit, a bit spoiled, as is her mom. It sounds like in her teen years there was a ferocious power struggle over the FIL's favor. Then my wife grew up and moved out. Things calmed down but nothing was ever resolved. Now that they're lives are enmeshed again the same struggle is coming out over different things. There are times when the MIL can't even breathe without my wife finding fault with it. But by and large I think my wife is right on the money about her.

All problems aside, we're sincerely grateful she's taking care of Alex for us. I recognize that every day.
 
Here's a good one: The MIL says to me about Alex "I don't know why he ever cries when so many people love him." :rolleyes: Pa-leeze. Three month old babies do not know anybody loves them. They can't comfort themselves with abstract notions. They are the epitome of take-everything-for-granted. When they cry it is because they need something and all you can do is hope you can figure it out. Occasionally you can't and you just have to hold the screaming baby. It's not fun, but that's what happens. It's more than a little surprising to me that somebody who raised a kid, albeit only once, could have become so amazingly cluless about it.
 
Yeah,.. sounds rough.


My (most likely) future MIL is also a nut case. For example. My GF had a decision to make at work and she was discussing it with MIL. For the next 10 days, she had to work in K-Zoo, approx 1.5 hours away. Her ONLY two choices were to either drive back and forth everyday, or stay in a hotel. If she drove, she got paid mileage, if she stay'd there, the hotel was free. MIL went ape**** cause she was afraid Erica (GF) would get in a car accident if she had to drive that much everyday, and she was evenly afraid that she would be kidnapped, raped, and left for dead if she had to stay in a hotel by herself. :rollyeyes:

This lady has been so overly mello-dramatic during Erica's life that Erica herself is a friggin nervous reck half the week over the same types of stupid crap :irked:

The MIL always thinks Erica is sick,... so she's been force-feeding anti-biotics to her for the last 24 years. Now the poor girl has enamel and stomach probs over the whole mess.

The MIL is the poster MIL for 'nervous reck'.
 

Latest Posts

Back