No, a lot of MILs don't actually do that. |
Look i think half the problem with ILs is spouses who wont go see them alone and give the other person some alone time. There is ZERO reason your spouse needs to be with you on visits to ILs the vast majority of the time. My parents live abroad but if they lived close I assume I'd see them 1-2 x per week and DH would see them maybe once a month for lunch or something. stop dragging your spouse into your relationship with your parents and give the person some space. and DILs all huffy about how MIL acts like - just get some space and tell your dh to go hang with his family. |
Wow! While I haven’t read through all of the comments I am so shocked that so many of you find it completely normal and expected for a MIL not to care about her DIL.
Where I’m from when you marry someone you become a part of that family as well and you care for one another. I know for a fact my MIL genuinely cares about me as well. Obviously she will always love her own son more than me that’s totally normal and expected but she still cares about me as my own person and as her DIL. When I had surgery she would personally text me to see how I’m recovering and she even stopped over to the house with baked goods. When I was pregnant she would reach out to see how the pregnancy was going. In a non intrusive way. Is it that much of a rarity to care about your DIL? That’s just so sad to me that so many of you have had negative experiences where your mil didn’t care about you. Before you ask I am very close to my own parents as well but that doesn’t mean I can’t be close to my mil as well. I think I would be hurt if I had a very difficult pregnancy and then my mil didn’t ask about me at all. Then waited until I wasn’t around and when my husband seemed tired asked him about it. But to be fair that’s because my mil has always shown love and genuine care for me. My dad’s mom always showed love and care for my mom as well. I think it’s so odd that it should be expected for your mil to treat you essentially as a stranger or acquaintance would be treated. I do agree with the posters saying though it sounds like a DH problem more than just a mil problem. It is generally advised by marital counselors to not go to outsiders especially biased ones such as parents to vent about your marriage. So the fact that this mil waited until the wife specifically wasn’t around to question her son on why he was so tired makes me think she feels comfortable asking her son these undermining questions and there has to be a reason she feels comfortable doing so and that reason is probably because her husband talks to his mom about this stuff. Parents are like the most biased source on the planet. I would be having a conversation with my husband too if he was running to his mom to vent about me or dealing with the new baby because it would cause a rift between his mother and I and put strain on our marriage. |
I’m the one with the 4 month old baby and I think I’m going to do that moving forward. Just find myself scarce when mil comes over and I’m going to ask my husband not to repeat the unflattering things mil says about me. |
Wow, scary. Is this a Troll post? You are raising your young misogynist son to marry a woman who will do everything for him and shut up? |
wtf happened 4 months ago that you still need someone to ask you if you’ve recovered? |
So they didn't bother to come out to help you postpartum? No phone calls? Nothing? Or did you forbid that because you wanted to do it all on your own and it would be this great fun bonding time. But that's not reality, and now you realize you that it's not working you lash at your MIL |
The world stopped being all about her and that pisses her off. She can't say that out loud because people really don't take kindly to moms resenting their kids, so OP has taken to attacking her MIL for not making OP the center of her universe. |
It’s not true. The faster you get rid of this assumption the better off you will be. I’ve been burned twice. First I thought that a host family is just like real family. Second, I thought my FIL genuinely liked me, just because he was decent to me (unlike my somewhat crazy parents). OP do you have a distant or tumultuous relationship with your own parents? If yes, your need to find a loving and stable parent is unfulfilled and is projected onto your MIL. She is the wrong object of your projection though. Yes she sees you as someone who is supposed to take care of her son and produce kids for him (and grandkids for her). If she was smarter she would take your DH for a walk and ask him questions and then explicitly tell him not to talk about it with you. |
My mom wanted to come out but I said no because my husband and I can handle it. She came out for a week when the baby was 2 months old. |
wtf with this obsession that you are an incubator. That’s not normal thinking.
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It’s not specific to men. Read Rules of Estrangement, it’s a great book. |
As I thought. Narcissitc control freak. |
Then yes an incubator which isn’t kind mil behavior. What kind of questions do you suppose mil should ask? And then ask her son to keep secrets from his own wife is also not good mil behavior. Also why does she think her son would be more loyal to her than his own wife and listen to her by keeping secrets from his own wife? Also how is it mil’s place to stick her nose into her son’s marriage when he is grown?? |
That’s seriously odd. The birth was so traumatic that you want your MIL to ask you about it 4 months later but your own mother did not come out. When she did it was only for a week because you can “handle it” … but you’re exhausted. Gurl! |