When you're a MIL, what will your DIL think of you?

[Anonymous]

Anyone willing to be honest and lay it on the line? Will she hate you with the white hot fury that you feel for your MIL?

[Anonymous]

I love my MIL! Would love it if a future DIL felt the same way about me.

[Anonymous]

Like everyone else at first, she will think I'm a cold bitch who is haughty and has no sense of humor. If she digs a little farther, she will like me.

[Anonymous]

Don't care.

[Anonymous]

Probably that I'm nuts, since that's what everyone thinks now.

[Anonymous]

She will probably think I wasted my life by staying home, that I'm a little neurotic (because I am) and that I fucked her husband my son up in myriad ways that makes living with him harder than it should be. But she will never have cause to hate me for being demanding or trying to control her because I never will. I am living with that shit now and the only thing that gets me through it is telling myself that I am learning what not to do if I one day have a son who gets married and has a family.

[Anonymous]

She will think I am warm, welcoming and funny. She will think I have had an interesting life. She will think I raised a great son. Maybe if I am lucky we will spend time together.

You asked.

[Anonymous]

I love my MIL. She is great. I hope my future DIL (or SIL) feels the same way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Like everyone else at first, she will think I'm a cold bitch who is haughty and has no sense of humor. If she digs a little farther, she will like me.

There is never a second chance to make a first impression. I suspect that she would have no interest in delving further.

[Anonymous]

I have no idea honestly. But, I hope to be a better mil than mine is to me.

[Anonymous]

I don't know. I don't dislike my MIL. She's a compete ditz, but not malevolent.

[Anonymous]

I will try to emulate my MIL in every way possible: I will stay out of her business, take her side in any dispute between her and DS that I hear about (although, per my first characteristic, I probably won't get involved to begin with), and make her delicious poundcake for breakfast, after which we will read the paper in front of the tv and then, tired out from the strenuous activity, each take our mid-morning catnap (this is how my MIL spend the day if we are alone together). If she is the type of person who jogs in the morning I don't know if I'll be able to connect and bond with her on this deep level.

[Anonymous]

She'll tell my son she thinks I need to watch it with the booze and she won't believe him when he tells her I barely drank during his entire childhood.

She'll tell him she thinks I am going color blind because she can't imagine why else I wear such flashy outfits. She won't believe I used to tend toward preppy frumpy.

She'll think I need to tone down the make-up and learn how to apply lipstick properly.

She'll also complain I am too noisy in bed with his father/my husband/her FIL.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

She will think I am warm, welcoming and funny. She will think I have had an interesting life. She will think I raised a great son. Maybe if I am lucky we will spend time together.

I hope this.

I don't dislike my MIL. We don't have anything in common as people. I am respectful to her and how I refer to her to DH. I do think she has some issues. For example, she doesn't speak to one of her children at all. This was long standing well b/f I entered the picture. So I guess I know enough not to get on her bad side.

[Anonymous]

I hope she will like me. I am controlling and have a hard time hiding my opinion about things. I've had a lot of practice with my much younger siblings fiancee, who I think at first thought I was pushy about breastfeeding (I was trying to help her, turns out it was really idiotic of me). My strategy here is to be totally open, to apologize when I mess up, and to do the best I can with my personality. It is what it is. I'm not the nicest person in the world, but I'm not the worst. I'm generous and loving and I know that I'll love her, so I hope that helps bridge any gap my character flaws create. I know she will have her own character flaws, and surely they will annoy me. I'll probably have to stifle feelings of jealousy that my little boy loves another woman best now. But, I'll try to be the grown up about it.

With my own MIL, I try to be as generous with her as I hope my future DIL is with me. I don't necessarily like MIL, despite years of trying, but I do care about her. Respecting her is a harder one. she is manipulative and while this may seem like a crazy reason to dislike someone, she wastes things to a degree that is just unthinkable. Very wealthy and treats everything like it's disposable, doesn't ever repair anything, doesn't recycle, etc. So it's just hard for me to get past those specific issues. So sometimes I imagine that my son's wife would look at me one day and think "she laughs at the wrong times, she judges people who don't repair things instead of buying new, she worked too much, she's bitchy to FIL" etc. All these things could be said about me. I try to put myself in that place, and think, some kindness to MIL, who loves my husband and kids more than anything, is in order.

I hope someone will do at least that much for me one day. But, I also will try not to push at her or manipulate her. Seems like that's the number one complaint people have.