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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My MIL makes this pie every year on Thanksgiving and I asked if I could have the recipe because it's delicious. She told me that it's nothing personal but that it's a family recipe. I have been married to my husband for 5 years and we dated for 3 years before that. I'm not family? I know she has shared it with her niece before.

I have a personal relationship with my mil. We text quite often, we have gone shopping and I came over for meals individually. at least I felt like I did and I thought a DIL qualifies as family but because we don't have shared blood means I'm not family? I would get it if she shared it with no one else at all but that isn't the case. It's her saying all these other people are family because we have shared DNA but because you don't you aren't as important to me and don't count. I feel like I'm seen as "less than" by my MIL or like a 2nd tier family member.

It's not like we don't get along or like we don't have any sort of personal relationship. We have shopped together, I'm always there for intimate family gatherings, I could be the mother of her grandchild one day. Last time I checked being invited to something labeled a family gathering would qualify one as family.

I guess in my MIL's eyes keeping a recipe a secret is more important and sacred than the feelings and relationship of an actual human being. You would think I asked for the cure to cancer or the answer to world peace or something.

I'm so unbelievably hurt and shocked. This doesn't match the friendship and relationship I thought we had. The only thing I managed to be able to get out after I started to tear up was, "I thought me being your DIL and married to your son qualified me as family." And I quickly made an excuse to get off the phone.

This was last week and I haven't texted/called my mil since.

We usually see her in person 2x a month give or take. I just feel like I see our relationship in a whole new light and her as a person differently now.

It's not about a damn recipe at this point it's so much more it's about how she views me. Apparently the recipe is more important than our relationship.

My DH is furious with his mom however I told him to carry on whatever relationship he wants to have with his mom but I'm staying away for a little while until I can address my feelings with your mom in a calm and rational matter. I told him this is my issue with your mom it's not about him or his battle to fight. I don't want it to effect their relationship he said it won't.

Moving forward how should I address my hurt and gutted feelings to my MIL.

I’m so sorry this happened and that she didn’t call you back to clear up any potential misunderstanding.

Are you sure your spouse hasn’t talked with her on this? You are not wrong to feel slighted and shocked at her response. It doesn’t make sense to it share a recipe and call an in law not family.

[Anonymous]

MILs take note- treat your DILs like family or you won't be spending time with your grandchildren in the future.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:MILs take note- treat your DILs like family or you won't be spending time with your grandchildren in the future.

+1

Soem MILs think singling out the DILs will help (the MILs) achieve joy. It doesn't.

[Anonymous]

Meh. Childishly rigid MILs have sons who marry someone like their mom and the family continues to enjoy the drama over any little inane thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP with an update here: I decided to take the advice that a lot of PPs gave and I reached out and texted my MIL and said, "hey there has been something weighing on my mind for the past few days now that you said regarding the family recipe I asked for and I wanted to address it with you since I figured being up front and honest with you is the best approach, would you prefer we discuss it over the phone, text, or in person?" My mil got back to me within less than 5 minutes and said in person will work because she has an idea what this is about. Which I feel even shittier about because if she has an idea why I want to talk to her why did she not follow up with me or address my response on the phone? We are going to meet next Saturday for lunch.

Why do you assume that's negative? It sounds like she is eager to talk and repair the relationship. Now whether what she says satisfies you is up to you. And honestly it sounds like no matter what she says, you will twist it to justify your decision to keep her at arms-length forever. I get that you are deeply hurt but you are very unforgiving, OP. What are you going to do some day when you make a mistake and someone holds it against you forever? You seem extremely rigid, unable to see anything except in the light you paint it.

No one's perfect. This is life. It's messy. You've referred to kids - I don't know anyone who has kids who at some point during the baby or toddler phase didn't get stressed or sleep-deprived and exchange words with their spouse they regretted later. You have to be able to reassess it, accept that the other person didn't mean it the way you took it, and move on. Heck, my own grandmother initially refused to attend her youngest son's wedding and, I am sure, said hurtful things to him and his fiancee. She came around, attended the wedding, admitted she was wrong. Had a close relationship with son and wife for the next 50 years. Said more than once how grateful she was that son's wife saw past the initial pettiness and gave her another chance.

Now if MIL says next week "yeah, sorry OP, I love you but you will never be family to me and you are nothing more than an incubuator of my future grandchildren" then ok, she sucks. Even then, hurt is real but still not worth blowing up relationships over. These people who just "let their spouse" do all communication regarding grandkids and are always at a polite remove tend not to have very close, warm families. And that's fine if you are ok with it, but if you are envisioning one of those families where 40 people get together for every holiday and truly enjoy each other's company, this is not the way to do it.

It goes both ways. If the MIL intends to regard OP simply as a vessel then any attempts at forcing a closer relationship will only result in superficiality.

Exactly this. Once it became perfectly clear that my ILs have no interest in me as a person and only expected me to give them grandchildren to carry on THEIR family traditions, I dropped all efforts entirely. They made their position toward me clear, and I will not be chasing after people who do not want to know me and do not want to connect with me. Guess who my children are closer to?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Meh. Childishly rigid MILs have sons who marry someone like their mom and the family continues to enjoy the drama over any little inane thing.

Disagree. Sons of childishly rigid moms usually marry their opposites - to get away from the childish rigidness.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP with an update here: I decided to take the advice that a lot of PPs gave and I reached out and texted my MIL and said, "hey there has been something weighing on my mind for the past few days now that you said regarding the family recipe I asked for and I wanted to address it with you since I figured being up front and honest with you is the best approach, would you prefer we discuss it over the phone, text, or in person?" My mil got back to me within less than 5 minutes and said in person will work because she has an idea what this is about. Which I feel even shittier about because if she has an idea why I want to talk to her why did she not follow up with me or address my response on the phone? We are going to meet next Saturday for lunch.

Why do you assume that's negative? It sounds like she is eager to talk and repair the relationship. Now whether what she says satisfies you is up to you. And honestly it sounds like no matter what she says, you will twist it to justify your decision to keep her at arms-length forever. I get that you are deeply hurt but you are very unforgiving, OP. What are you going to do some day when you make a mistake and someone holds it against you forever? You seem extremely rigid, unable to see anything except in the light you paint it.

No one's perfect. This is life. It's messy. You've referred to kids - I don't know anyone who has kids who at some point during the baby or toddler phase didn't get stressed or sleep-deprived and exchange words with their spouse they regretted later. You have to be able to reassess it, accept that the other person didn't mean it the way you took it, and move on. Heck, my own grandmother initially refused to attend her youngest son's wedding and, I am sure, said hurtful things to him and his fiancee. She came around, attended the wedding, admitted she was wrong. Had a close relationship with son and wife for the next 50 years. Said more than once how grateful she was that son's wife saw past the initial pettiness and gave her another chance.

Now if MIL says next week "yeah, sorry OP, I love you but you will never be family to me and you are nothing more than an incubuator of my future grandchildren" then ok, she sucks. Even then, hurt is real but still not worth blowing up relationships over. These people who just "let their spouse" do all communication regarding grandkids and are always at a polite remove tend not to have very close, warm families. And that's fine if you are ok with it, but if you are envisioning one of those families where 40 people get together for every holiday and truly enjoy each other's company, this is not the way to do it.

It goes both ways. If the MIL intends to regard OP simply as a vessel then any attempts at forcing a closer relationship will only result in superficiality.

Exactly this. Once it became perfectly clear that my ILs have no interest in me as a person and only expected me to give them grandchildren to carry on THEIR family traditions, I dropped all efforts entirely. They made their position toward me clear, and I will not be chasing after people who do not want to know me and do not want to connect with me. Guess who my children are closer to?

+1

Bravo. So true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP with an update here: I decided to take the advice that a lot of PPs gave and I reached out and texted my MIL and said, "hey there has been something weighing on my mind for the past few days now that you said regarding the family recipe I asked for and I wanted to address it with you since I figured being up front and honest with you is the best approach, would you prefer we discuss it over the phone, text, or in person?" My mil got back to me within less than 5 minutes and said in person will work because she has an idea what this is about. Which I feel even shittier about because if she has an idea why I want to talk to her why did she not follow up with me or address my response on the phone? We are going to meet next Saturday for lunch.

Sorry you are feeling badly about this development, I hope you can find it within yourself to show your MIL some grace even if you believe she has shown you none.

Thank you so much! How much grace I give depends on her response to my hurt feelings. That will say it all about her as a person and how she really feels towards me.

I only read the first and last page but want to say: think about the long game.

What if one day you have a kid or two? They get to the age where they are thinking more about family relationships and ask you "how come we don't spend a lot of time with Grandma?"

What will you say? "Well, before you were born we used to be close, but then one day she didn't give me a pie recipe." ?

I know your feelings now are valid, but can you see in hindsight how ridiculous it would be to let a rift form now? Proceed with caution, but if you otherwise had a good relationship, you might have to learn to shrug off this slight as something she it's irrational about but you can't change.

-NP who regrets not trying harder to have a better relationship with my own MIL

I would never cut her off from my children I would just have my husband be responsible for maintaining tne relationship with her grandchildren. I have decided to take into account the other advice some PPs gave which is to continue to attend larger family functions and of course be cordial and polite but depending on my MIL's response when we meet for lunch to discuss my feelings on Thursday I will not be engaging individually with her thru text/phone call or one on one get togethers.

Next Saturday not next Thursday..sorry as I was typing this out I was thinking about something I have to do next Thursday

Good luck Op. I think you know the main scenarios now. Take the high road and be ready to detach and be civil, forever.

Ps glad your spouse understands and IS on your side. (Mine puts his mom first no matter what)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Be ready for her to deny her original comments entirely and paint you as a a silly loon.

In which case OP can laugh and say, so glad we are in agreement, are all family and will share recipes! what books are you currently reading?!?

This. I predict that mother-in-law will gaslight OP. "You must've misunderstood me" "I didn't say that" or she'll focus on the recipe and not the larger implication of what her not sharing it was telling you. And when she's backed into a corner and her rude, unloving behavior is pointed out rather than apologize, I think you could probably count on her to bad mouth you to the rest of the family, talking about how thin skinned and entitled you are. The fact that MIL knew something up and has never reached out, is all that I would need to know. She's one of those women from a previous generation who just wants to pretend everything's OK and ignore unpleasantness.

[Anonymous]

I even tried looking at it through the POV of what another PP said if her simply wanting to be the only one who cooks it for the family or for her son and I feel that would hold a lot more water if she wasn't giving it to anyone else but the fact that she is giving it to other female family members show it wouldn't be so horrible to her if they cool it but God forbid I cook it for the family that would be awful. I would never cook it for a while family function because that's her thing but maybe just at home or if I attend a potluck (not for his side of the family) or just to have myself.

But I will listen to what she has to say when we go out for lunch next Saturday.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Be ready for her to deny her original comments entirely and paint you as a a silly loon.

In which case OP can laugh and say, so glad we are in agreement, are all family and will share recipes! what books are you currently reading?!?

This. I predict that mother-in-law will gaslight OP. "You must've misunderstood me" "I didn't say that" or she'll focus on the recipe and not the larger implication of what her not sharing it was telling you. And when she's backed into a corner and her rude, unloving behavior is pointed out rather than apologize, I think you could probably count on her to bad mouth you to the rest of the family, talking about how thin skinned and entitled you are. The fact that MIL knew something up and has never reached out, is all that I would need to know. She's one of those women from a previous generation who just wants to pretend everything's OK and ignore unpleasantness.

The OP described her relationship with her MIL in very positive terms that have been going on for five years before this family pie recipe debacle. They had been getting along fine. Why would you then assume so much negative behavior from the MIL? Some of you folks are really projecting your own situations and anger in this topic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:MILs take note- treat your DILs like family or you won't be spending time with your grandchildren in the future.

That's some good advice for all the future MILs here which is pretty much the majority of DCUM's demographic. Just FYI although there are a few MILs here they are small minority.

I'm sure all the future MILs here now are quite confident that they will be just the best most perfect MILs when it's their turn....just like all the current MILs used to think.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP with an update here: I decided to take the advice that a lot of PPs gave and I reached out and texted my MIL and said, "hey there has been something weighing on my mind for the past few days now that you said regarding the family recipe I asked for and I wanted to address it with you since I figured being up front and honest with you is the best approach, would you prefer we discuss it over the phone, text, or in person?" My mil got back to me within less than 5 minutes and said in person will work because she has an idea what this is about. Which I feel even shittier about because if she has an idea why I want to talk to her why did she not follow up with me or address my response on the phone? We are going to meet next Saturday for lunch.

Sorry you are feeling badly about this development, I hope you can find it within yourself to show your MIL some grace even if you believe she has shown you none.

Thank you so much! How much grace I give depends on her response to my hurt feelings. That will say it all about her as a person and how she really feels towards me.

I only read the first and last page but want to say: think about the long game.

What if one day you have a kid or two? They get to the age where they are thinking more about family relationships and ask you "how come we don't spend a lot of time with Grandma?"

What will you say? "Well, before you were born we used to be close, but then one day she didn't give me a pie recipe." ?

I know your feelings now are valid, but can you see in hindsight how ridiculous it would be to let a rift form now? Proceed with caution, but if you otherwise had a good relationship, you might have to learn to shrug off this slight as something she it's irrational about but you can't change.

-NP who regrets not trying harder to have a better relationship with my own MIL

I would never cut her off from my children I would just have my husband be responsible for maintaining tne relationship with her grandchildren. I have decided to take into account the other advice some PPs gave which is to continue to attend larger family functions and of course be cordial and polite but depending on my MIL's response when we meet for lunch to discuss my feelings on Thursday I will not be engaging individually with her thru text/phone call or one on one get togethers.

Next Saturday not next Thursday..sorry as I was typing this out I was thinking about something I have to do next Thursday

Good luck Op. I think you know the main scenarios now. Take the high road and be ready to detach and be civil, forever.

Ps glad your spouse understands and IS on your side. (Mine puts his mom first no matter what)

DP here. My DH did this for a couple years, then pursued therapy, which he would never (ever) admit to his family, thankfully. DH's family is (ahem) "not the therapy type" - isn't that so often true, of those who need therapy?

He uncovered so much, in talking with another male, who was qualified to assist him. DH became relieved to know the source of his anger issues, and it helped him so much. I had nothing to do with his therapy, DH had to see that I was separate and well after the issues. I stayed out of it. Taking the first step was a big accomplishment for him!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Be ready for her to deny her original comments entirely and paint you as a a silly loon.

In which case OP can laugh and say, so glad we are in agreement, are all family and will share recipes! what books are you currently reading?!?

This. I predict that mother-in-law will gaslight OP. "You must've misunderstood me" "I didn't say that" or she'll focus on the recipe and not the larger implication of what her not sharing it was telling you. And when she's backed into a corner and her rude, unloving behavior is pointed out rather than apologize, I think you could probably count on her to bad mouth you to the rest of the family, talking about how thin skinned and entitled you are. The fact that MIL knew something up and has never reached out, is all that I would need to know. She's one of those women from a previous generation who just wants to pretend everything's OK and ignore unpleasantness.

The OP described her relationship with her MIL in very positive terms that have been going on for five years before this family pie recipe debacle. They had been getting along fine. Why would you then assume so much negative behavior from the MIL? Some of you folks are really projecting your own situations and anger in this topic.

I'm basing my response not on my own life (I loved my dearly departed MIL very much) but on the fact that OP said what she she said on the first phone call and MIL didn't respond or follow-up. And then when OP got up the courage to address this face to face and called MIL to schedule it MIL intimated that she thought something was up. She said that and was fine with prolonging the discussion several more days. If I were the MIL I would want to get it sorted asap. This woman is avoidant. If I thought I had hurt someone I really cared about I wouldn't remain silent, and when confronted, I wouldn't let it continue to fester for more days. Nah. This MIL is not nice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Meh. Childishly rigid MILs have sons who marry someone like their mom and the family continues to enjoy the drama over any little inane thing.

My MIL's son married someone who has nothing in common his mom. I don't meet her drama with drama. I just keep my distance and teach my kids not to repeat the cycles of the past.