That awkward moment when you realize you don't qualify as family

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Damn girl just google your own pir recipe. Share your trial bakes with your MIL. Maybe you two will find your own family recipe together and get married

It's deeper now than a recipe it's that my mil views this recipe as more important than our relationship and my feelings.

I am going to adjust my relationship with her accordingly moving forward now. Because remember I'm not family so it shouldn't matter, right?

[Anonymous]

Don’t meet up for Thanksgiving or Christmas. Tell her you want to spend the holidays with family.

[Anonymous]

How old is she? Could dementia be playing a role here?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:U stoopid.

Have your h ask for the recipe

I mean obviously but now I don't even care about the freaking recipe it's my hurt feelings about our relationship

[Anonymous]

NP here,

This feels familiar to me, too. I feel like this was a post from a couple of years ago!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Don’t meet up for Thanksgiving or Christmas. Tell her you want to spend the holidays with family.

Ohh this is genius. Yup about to pick up my phone to tell my mom I'm off the hook for anymore holidays with the inlaws since my MIL declared I'm not family so she will get to see me for every single major holiday moving forward.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How old is she? Could dementia be playing a role here?

She is 62 and nope she is actually in great health. Works full time, she travels a lot, has an active social life with plenty of friends

[Anonymous]

I’m sorry, OP, that is hurtful. My great-great-grandmother used to take photos of the entire family except her daughter-in-law. More than 80 years later, my grandfather could remember how much it hurt his mother to be excluded like that. You could say, oh it’s just a photo (or just a pie), but these things stay with you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is a very dramatic post. Why do you care what she thinks about you? And stop acting like a martyr with your DH. He should absolutely have your back by expressing his anger towards his mother and not engaging until she apologizes.

Wait a minute - this is a woman who enjoyed what she thought was a close, supportive, mutual relationship with her MIL. Her MIL’s refusal to share a “family” recipe with her DIL is garbage behavior. It’s hurtful. If the OP didn’t care, she’d be criticized for being cold.

OP, I also had a warmer relationship with my MIL that cooled when I observed her repeatedly ignoring our kids. They’re not anywhere on her priority list, which is her right, but I’m not bending over backwards for her. This stuff sucks.

[Anonymous]

You’re not being dramatic, OP. This is an incredibly hurtful thing - something similar happened to me with a person I thought was my friend for a very long time, and then they basically told me I couldn’t join in on some activity because I was merely “a friend of a friend”. It hurt my feelings deeply and was also just humiliating. And that’s nowhere near on the level of a MIL relationship, so I can only imagine how you must be feeling.

I think the best advice is to be polite and cordial at family gatherings but from now on (including if/when any babies arrive) ALL comments goes through DH. You don’t text, call, or write to her. If she wants to finalize plans or get some baby photos, she has a son and that’s who she should ask.

Sorry this happened. It sucks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m sorry, OP, that is hurtful. My great-great-grandmother used to take photos of the entire family except her daughter-in-law. More than 80 years later, my grandfather could remember how much it hurt his mother to be excluded like that. You could say, oh it’s just a photo (or just a pie), but these things stay with you.

Oh jeez the photo thing is absolutely awful! How can people just be so cavalier and dismissive towards another human's feelings?

Thank you I'm glad someone on here gets it. I feel like some of those other PPs aren't truly understanding the principle of it. You're 100% correct when you say these things stay with you. This isn't just a friend I can write off and say oh well. This is my husband's mother. Someone who as long as I'm married to my husband will inevitably be in our lives. Someone who is going to be at every family function we attend. Which I won't be attending any family functions for a long while since my MIL said it herself that I'm not family.

If someone asked me if I consider myself close with my MIL I hands down would have said yes and I consider us good friends even. Well not that's not the case.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a very dramatic post. Why do you care what she thinks about you? And stop acting like a martyr with your DH. He should absolutely have your back by expressing his anger towards his mother and not engaging until she apologizes.

I don't mean to sound dramatic but I feel hurt by someone I valued as a close family member. Just like any other relationship where you think your relationship is closer than it really is and you find out that person doesn't view you in the same light.

I disagree that my husband shouldn't engage with his mother until she apologizes. This is my battle with her not his. It's still his mother. He supports me not engaging with her and that's all that matters is that he isn't pushing me to engage with her. But it would be incredibly controlling of me to tell my husband not to engage with his own mother unless we had kids and she did or threatened to do something to one of our kids that put them in harms way or something to that extreme.

If he is a decent husband then he will WANT to confront her and express his anger. And YOU should not play the martyr and ask him to refrain. Early in our marriage my MIL was very rude to me, my DH told her it was not acceptable and she has not been rude to me since. She may still think rude things, I neither know nor care, but she does not say them to our faces. Much better to have it out rather than silently seething.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Damn girl just google your own pir recipe. Share your trial bakes with your MIL. Maybe you two will find your own family recipe together and get married

It's deeper now than a recipe it's that my mil views this recipe as more important than our relationship and my feelings.

I am going to adjust my relationship with her accordingly moving forward now. Because remember I'm not family so it shouldn't matter, right?

I hope you’re only venting. This is ridiculous. So she’s a little crazy. Don’t let this create a huge rift that will affect your DH and children (it will). Be the bigger person.

[Anonymous]

Do you have kids? A lot of MILs don’t consider you family until you’ve had a grandkid.

Super rude.

[Anonymous]

I would feel hurt too. There are so many facebook groups where people are looking for a family recipe because the person died and never shared it with anyone because it was a secret family recipe and now no one will ever make it again. That is the dumbest thing ever. Recipes should be shre so everyone can enjoy. Food is love. Nothing more loving that sharing a meal or a dessert.

She is mean and I wouldn’t want to spend time with her either. She really doesn’t consider you family. It’s really sad. What a horrible person. Do you have kids? So she doesn’t even want to share with her husband or grandkids? What’s the recipe for? Every recipe is on the Internet. You just have to look. Post what you think is in it and maybe someone here has it. Nothing is really secret anymore. It’s out there. Good luck.