You have no idea how delighted I am that you responded to this and posted your reply, have a feeling your MIL wasn't wearing her glasses when she met you. With your postings I have
seen a precious woman who loves her children and grandchildren deeply and openly.

I also know that from what we both have experienced the lack of we have both been the best MIL to our SIL's & DIL's .

My daughter has the most blessed Mil from Heaven and unfortunately the other three didn't have that for them and their children.

Had wonderful emails from several grands and hope they will post it so all may enjoy their wonderful stories.

Best To All,
Simplyshy

Also,sometimes,I think troubles with the mil reflect family dynamics that were taking place before the dil ever came into the picture. For example, Nana24, I suspect that your mil must have always favored her older son, yes? And then that extended to his kids. Some people never stop to think if they've been doing things wrong and maybe should change something.

Simplyshy, you survived 6 years with that awful mil! You must have a lot of inner strength! But I wonder if she didn't have some kind of illness. After all,her own daughter couldn't even stand to deal with her,etc! I understand that her kids didn't want her in a nursing home but maybe she would have been better off there even sooner.

Coughlinmrt, have you asked your mil why she thinks you should "get away from" her son? Can she give you an answer or is she just projecting her own frustrations with him?

As for my mil, she's been an "angel" compared to the first 2 stories here and some other tales I've heard. However, we had our "issues." One of them is somewhat humorous. In the early years of my marriage, there were a number of events on my husband's side of the family, such as weddings, etc. When we were planning to go to one, she would make a point of asking me what I was wearing -- perfectly normal by itself -- but then she would show up in the same color or style!

After a while, I realized she was competing with me. Possibly, she was jealous of her son's affections for another woman (me).

I wasn't worried about this. How could I be? She's his mom and I'm his wife-- 2 very different relationships! But it bothered me that my own mil would want to vie with me for my husband's admiration, etc. After all, if you're competing with someone, you're hoping to "win." Did she really want her son to, somehow, love her "more" than me? or to think more highly of her than me? Why would you do that to your dil?

So, eventually, I decided to lie to her about what I was wearing and see what happened. For the next occasion, I said I was wearing a green dress, but showed up in black-and-white. My mil, arriving in -- no surprise -- a green dress -- immediately called me aside and said, "Why are you wearing that? You said you were wearing green!"

"I changed my mind," I told her with a smile." But if you thought I was going to wear green why did you show up in it?"

Without missing a beat, she replied, "Well, I can't help it if that's the color dress I have!" Yeah... sure...

Anyhow, I did this a few times and then she finally stopped. I guess she realized it just wasn't going to work, anymore. LOL! But frankly, if I had heard the things some of you ladies have been through, I might not have batted an eye at my mil's jealous antics!

This is really getting good and we are seeing how the world unfortunately has the bad , as with me dear Fredi, as long as I had her and tried so many times to do and say things she just wouldn't let me in , But this I remembered and need to write this. My son was born a year after she arrived and she shared a room with him and when he was old enough to climb into our two rock loungers she would be in one and he would be in the other, He would nudge for her to get up and so she did and smiled at him, I was peeking into the living room we had upstairs on the main level and the two of them were alone, she thought. Anyway, every time she went to sit in a chair he would nudge her into the other and finally she said to him there. Now tell me where to sit. she plopped onto the floor at 85 yrs old. Then he ran to her and she held him. That was the only time I have ever seen her be kind or polite or sweet.
Fredi you wondered if she was maybe ill, or whatever. No, his family were rude, mean tempered and goodness had I only seen any of that. But yeah, I do have that one cute memory thanks to my son who could warm anyone's heart.

I told you we would have funny experiences , and there are more if they would feel comfortable in placing them open for all to see. No one is right or wrong . we are sisters in our family of being Grands and our love for our special Grand babies. Just posted most of my 12 grandchildren. take a peek

One day, My 10 year old daughter was home sick. I was at work. Well, Grandma called her and told her that her mom and dad (us) didn't love her and her siblings and didn't care about their education so Grandma and Grandpa were disinheriting my DH and leaving it all in trust for the grandkids because "your daddy would just spend it all on fast cars and loose women." My daughter told us when we came home because she was confused. She knew that we were working more than 2 jobs apiece to keep the kids in Catholic schools, and that we were driving a 12 year VW van and what made a woman loose? DH has never looked at another woman. Over the years, we laughed ourselves silly!

She was equally awful to both her children and therefore, she died alone. My FIL remarried a few years later and left the kid's trust fund to his 2nd wife. After 5 years, my DH and his sister have finally got that straightened out after FIL died and wife #2 had spent most of it. I think my inlaws won the prize for being the worst ever.

I'm a very postive and optimistic person. I often look for the silver lining of any dark cloud, sometimes it takes longer to find that silver lining, thankfully most times I do find it. That said, you might understand the following a bit better....

When my hubby and I met, he had cut-off communications with his Mom & Dad. It wasn't until we were engaged that I told my hubby "your parents won't live forever and maybe it's time to make ammends and put the ball in their court". He thought about it a few days, and then decided I might be right (lol, I'm still almost always right and that's why we've been happily married coming on 28 years). He called and told them that he was getting married again and invited them out. They lived nearly 2,000 miles away from us. We were engaged a little less than a year. My MIL said she'd be here if she had to walk! My FIL came around to the idea and they decided to drive out in their motorhome (MIL had never flown and was fearful). Hubby's, Aunt and Cousins came out for the wedding too!

My MIL told me a day before our wedding day "Aunt and Cousins are going to sleep on the couches in your living room on our wedding night. It's not like you two have never slept together before." Ummmm, but we get married everyday? And those couches are right outside our bedroom! I didn't say it out loud, but I sure had alot of thoughts going wild and a hole in my tongue. As a result...we got a hotel room for ourselves that night! LOL, no luggage, not even a change of clothes (and well, no birth control either). Remember the dark cloud and silver lining (HERE). Our daughter was born 5 weeks early, but I darn well know what night she was conceived! LOL, thank you MIL and family for the Angel created on my wedding night!

My FIL passed away this past year. While I certainly have had some nail and tongue biting days through the years, I remember the fun and happy stuff and much prefer those memories. My MIL's health hasn't been good for a few years and I want to remember the good times.

I can only hope that I'll be a great MIL to my Son's new adorable bride and whomever my Daughter may marry in the future and create lots of happy, fun memories that last for them as well. So far, so good, I sure hope it is anyway!!!

Hugs,
Gilly's Gma

Please know that I am not a negative person in any way also, always wanting to see the good in others.

I give you my word , that when I wanted to put this up for discussion was it intended to bash my x MIL's . I wanted all of us to see that we were once DIL's and had of course MIL's .

My experiences were so unfortunate and would have given anything , and I do mean anything to have them care about my children, if not me..and you have no idea how hard it was to go open with how they disliked me so much that they took it out on them. I haven't had anyone
not like me like that.

My hopes were that we would have wonderful posts that were uplifting and sometimes humorous too.

So , I'm delighted that you did be generous as the others to share their stories of their MIL and their experiences.

Thanks To Each One of You Ladies For Posting and giving us inspiration and seeing some pain.

Best Wishes,

Simplyshy