MIL upset with the 1st BD invite

[Anonymous]

Op, that was rude and passive aggressive. You owe her an apology (and I despise my mil, so it takes a lot for me to side with a mil!).a

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Someone contact Jeff and let him know we have a consensus!

))

[Anonymous]

OP you sound so spoiled and self absorbed that you do not even know it. Have your divorced in laws been competing with each other to see who could spoil you the most? You have been playing your family your entire life, and loving being the center of attention. MIL is not playing and she has been duly punished.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op, that was rude and passive aggressive. You owe her an apology (and I despise my mil, so it takes a lot for me to side with a mil!).a

+1! I hate my MIL who is truly selfish and lazy. But I would never do something like this to her. Wow. Just, wow.

[Anonymous]

OP, your lack of self-awareness is astonishing. I have very little faith that you understand why you screwed up so badly here, but please believe us (all of us) when we tell you that you did. All you can do is beg forgiveness from your Husband and your MIL. And then never, ever, ever use your child's birthday party to make such public accounting of which relative you like best.

(and as a PP so insightfully stated, everything you've "gone through" in this past year is called life. You need to learn to deal with it.)

[Anonymous]

Besides everything said above -- an invitation is an invitation. You do not thank ANYONE. ANYONE. You invite. Dates. Times. Places. That is all. Get yourself an etiquette book.

Stop watching the Academy Awards.

[Anonymous]

Wow. Just wow. OP you sound needy & dramatic, you created the problem, that was a really dumb thing to do.

[Anonymous]

I think you owe your MIL an apology ASAP. Shame on your husband for letting you treat his mother that way.
I am a MIL and you are a nightmare DIL.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Background: My In-laws have been divorced over 20+ years and each remarried. The father in-law and step MI are very much involved with our lives (we have 2 boys 3y and 1yr). They have supported us (emotionally, mentally and financially) and still do. They have paid for many large expenses related to the kids or even our house. They also always bring and/or send gifts for the kids when they visit. We don't ask for these, but we are very grateful and blessed to have them in our lives. However, the MIL and her husband, don't come for visit as often and when they come, they hardly bring any little toys or anything for the kids. They have not supported us in any form. They are reserved and not anywhere close to being open communicators as the other set.

Another piece of background info is that I come from a large family (5 older siblings) and since we've had our 2nd child, few of my siblings have helped us in so many profound ways when we needed help. Example, a sister taking me to hospital and even spending 3 nights on our couch helping with the kids while my H was sick after the 2nd baby arrived. A brother, made many home repairs that could have cost us close to thousands of dollars with no charge to us. Of course my family are local and both set of H's family are about 8 hrs away.

So with our 2nd son's first birthday coming up, I changed the party date to a week earlier because my H told me his mother and husband will come for a visit so we pulled the BD earlier to have them be part of it. In the invite, I felt not only this is baby's BIG MILESTONE but also it is ours too for surviving a year with challenges of raising two young kids and family and marital stresses that come with that. So I thanked my sisters and brothers and mentioned 3 out of 5 names on my side. Then I said thank you to grandparents for their love and support and specifically named the father in-law and his wife for being there for us in SO many ways. Well, apparently, this made my mother in-law upset and hurt her feelings. So as a result my husband is upset with me and now I am stressed. Let me also add that we've been so busy with kids's getting sick/colds and viruses, husband and even myself lately that I even forgot my own anniversary this week.

To me, this is just stupid. My H and I have more important things to worry about than dealing with this. I suggested to my H to call his mom and tell her that my intention was not to hurt her and that I really wanted to mention the folks who came to our rescue in tough times and that is why I named who I named. But part of me, wants to tell her : are you kidding me? and then name few profound things the other grandparents have done to shut her up, but I am holding myself back. I know if I did that, it will get to my H and as result he will be upset and I don't want that for the sake of our marriage. I really think if MI knew all that stuff that the other side has done for us, that she probably could see why I wrote the invite like that. But at the same time, I don't want to tell her all the issues (dirty laundry) right now. And one last point, is that we know the father in law and his wife won't be able to come until after the BD. So the MI will have the BD party all to herself along with my family.

....so can you relate to this? What have you done that worked for you, which was similar to this? What would you recommend I do?

I apologize for the lengthy note.

Not to pile on, but I'm piling on. That was insensitive to your MIL. And completely unnecessary. WTH would you turn an invite into a THANK YOU speech? And how did you not see this might hurt MIL's feelings? And why is it so important to bring toys to your kids? I would be grateful to a grandparent who doesn't pile more stuff into our house.

Apologize sincerely and don't get defensive.

[Anonymous]

Grow up, Op. So out of line on so many levels.

[Anonymous]

Wow, I can't believe your husband would have let you do that!

On a side note, are you related to the "hostess" in the "what kind of invitation is this" thread?

[Anonymous]

OP, are you foreign/is English your second language. Your word usage is strange ("profound" is not the word you are looking for) and your social graces are not American. Perhaps people should give you a break because of that.

[Anonymous]

You can bet your sweet bippy that your MIL will do even less from here on out, and deservedly so!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Background: My In-laws have been divorced over 20+ years and each remarried. The father in-law and step MI are very much involved with our lives (we have 2 boys 3y and 1yr). They have supported us (emotionally, mentally and financially) and still do. They have paid for many large expenses related to the kids or even our house. They also always bring and/or send gifts for the kids when they visit. We don't ask for these, but we are very grateful and blessed to have them in our lives. However, the MIL and her husband, don't come for visit as often and when they come, they hardly bring any little toys or anything for the kids. They have not supported us in any form. They are reserved and not anywhere close to being open communicators as the other set.

Another piece of background info is that I come from a large family (5 older siblings) and since we've had our 2nd child, few of my siblings have helped us in so many profound ways when we needed help. Example, a sister taking me to hospital and even spending 3 nights on our couch helping with the kids while my H was sick after the 2nd baby arrived. A brother, made many home repairs that could have cost us close to thousands of dollars with no charge to us. Of course my family are local and both set of H's family are about 8 hrs away.

So with our 2nd son's first birthday coming up, I changed the party date to a week earlier because my H told me his mother and husband will come for a visit so we pulled the BD earlier to have them be part of it. In the invite, I felt not only this is baby's BIG MILESTONE but also it is ours too for surviving a year with challenges of raising two young kids and family and marital stresses that come with that. So I thanked my sisters and brothers and mentioned 3 out of 5 names on my side. Then I said thank you to grandparents for their love and support and specifically named the father in-law and his wife for being there for us in SO many ways. Well, apparently, this made my mother in-law upset and hurt her feelings. So as a result my husband is upset with me and now I am stressed. Let me also add that we've been so busy with kids's getting sick/colds and viruses, husband and even myself lately that I even forgot my own anniversary this week.

To me, this is just stupid. My H and I have more important things to worry about than dealing with this. I suggested to my H to call his mom and tell her that my intention was not to hurt her and that I really wanted to mention the folks who came to our rescue in tough times and that is why I named who I named. But part of me, wants to tell her : are you kidding me? and then name few profound things the other grandparents have done to shut her up, but I am holding myself back. I know if I did that, it will get to my H and as result he will be upset and I don't want that for the sake of our marriage. I really think if MI knew all that stuff that the other side has done for us, that she probably could see why I wrote the invite like that. But at the same time, I don't want to tell her all the issues (dirty laundry) right now. And one last point, is that we know the father in law and his wife won't be able to come until after the BD. So the MI will have the BD party all to herself along with my family.

....so can you relate to this? What have you done that worked for you, which was similar to this? What would you recommend I do?

I apologize for the lengthy note.

Not to pile on, but I'm piling on. That was insensitive to your MIL. And completely unnecessary. WTH would you turn an invite into a THANK YOU speech? And how did you not see this might hurt MIL's feelings? And why is it so important to bring toys to your kids? I would be grateful to a grandparent who doesn't pile more stuff into our house.

Apologize sincerely and don't get defensive.

I actually don't see anything THAT wrong with what OP did. It wasn't graceful, but to me MIL sounds like a jealous teenager throwing a hissy fit. She didn't do the work, but she wants a lot of credit.

OP, you meant well, but it misfired. Just apologize for her hurt feelings and let it go. The only way this is going to get better is if you just let it go and she lets it go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think you owe your MIL an apology ASAP. Shame on your husband for letting you treat his mother that way.
I am a MIL and you are a nightmare DIL.

I am a DIL and you sound like a nightmare MIL.