Women seem to despise even hypothetical In-laws

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don’t ever pick up the rope.

And when the Inlaws dont want to babysit or pay to vacation with you, you'll be on here complaining. Nothing inlaws love more than an icy princess for a DIL.

Whether I am an icy princess or not, the relationship m in-laws have with my family is the relationship they have with THEIR son and his children. I am not going to facilitate it for him.

Add self centered to your resume. Not talking about you being the savior in your husbands relationship with his family. I am talking about you personally not trying to have any relationship with them. They don’t stand a chance from the beginning to try to have a good relationship with you. What a treat you are.

DP. I'm sorry you have your internalized misogyny it makes you think that not taking responsibility for something that isn't yours to "own" is being 'self-centered'.

Not taking the lead facilitator role is not the same thing as rejecting a relationship.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hmmm...I was not aware of the history OP's describing. If anything, I assumed that my ILs would be like family. I was truly mistaken, both for my DH's family & also my SIL's family -- which made me feel so naive once I realized that this was a common occurrence. I am not sure that entering with an open heart like some PPs are suggesting will help if you are in an antagonistic situation. Like some PPs have noted, dysfunctional family systems (with abuse or untreated mental health or substance abuse or other challenges) can be hard to enter. Unlike a PP who considered this before marriage, I did not at all. In hindsight I wish I had paid more attention to my partner's family of origin but honestly you fall in love with who you fall in love with, so I don't think I would have acted differently in the long run. I would say as advice: don't assume that the families will just meld automatically - put some work in to build relationships & also put some work in building boundaries so that you are creating a healthy nuclear family with your life partner/children.

My marriage has one MIL who is extremely selfless and confident, easy to get along with. Another one that is insecure, neurotic, and gets offended easily.
Managing a relationship with the latter is hard work, and requires "parenting" the in-law, and ignoring their erratic behavior.
But it's doable.

Picturing you saying something racist or similarly offensive to the one who "gets offended easily".

If picturing an old lady grimacing gets you off, go for it. Young women have dominated the porn industry for too long.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One day your kids (assuming you have them) will be grown and married and you will be an in law yourself. Understand that the in laws want a relationship with their child but that MIL isn’t your competition.

I don’t think many women here understand this concept at all.

I think that sometimes, it is the MIL who can be insecure and some people don't want to accept that.

+1. It’s MILs who are the ones wearing white to weddings and other ridiculous antics like that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One day your kids (assuming you have them) will be grown and married and you will be an in law yourself. Understand that the in laws want a relationship with their child but that MIL isn’t your competition.

I don’t think many women here understand this concept at all.

I think that it's MILs who start the competitiveness, though. My MIL has never acted possessive of my husband's time and attention, so I have never felt like I'm in competition with her. I'm happy for them both when he calls her, helps her out with things, and takes her out for her birthday. And she actually gets upset if she sees one of her sons not making their spouse a priority (maybe because she felt that way often during her marriage). But a lot of MILs have a difficult time with the adjustment when they become a lower priority after marriage.

[Anonymous]

Remember that in laws are your class enemies as in their interests are direct opposite of yours. Be nice and considerate but do not get too close and do not trust them to have your best interest at heart, ever!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Don’t ever pick up the rope.

100%. Not with gifts, calls, plans, emails.
Over the years, I’ve offered help with plans and it always goes badly. Now I’m out. So much better.
Don’t get sucked into the patriarchal pattern that women have to handle/take care off all relationships

[Anonymous]

Women are conditioned to despise their own mothers, not to mention other people's.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One day your kids (assuming you have them) will be grown and married and you will be an in law yourself. Understand that the in laws want a relationship with their child but that MIL isn’t your competition.

I don’t think many women here understand this concept at all.

Agree with others that often the problem is that the MIL sees you as competition.

I never viewed my MIL as competition but was kind of shocked when I had a baby and my MIL started competing with me directly. I had a girl and she’d only ever had boys and she honestly kind of lost it for a while. Some of the stuff she said to me during my DD’s first two years of life are still shocking to me— she told me I didn’t deserve my happiness, that my baby would be better of being raised by her, and that I was a selfish, mean person for wanting to spend time with my baby instead of letting MIL do so. It was really upsetting.

I think that negative relationship between ILs and DILs/SILs most often have to do with the baggage people bring into the relationship. And lots of people have baggage. The idea that you can have a good relationship with ANY in law is nuts. It really depends on what they are bringing to the table. The more important thing is to make sure you have a good relationship with your spouse that can weather any issues with ILs.

[Anonymous]

DCUM women are competitive about everything. Their jobs, their kids, their husbands, their money - everything. Why wouldn’t they compete with their MILs?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, I checked out my future in-laws while dating. If they were toxic or crazy, I wouldn’t have agreed to marry my DH.

This. I dated a guy for 5 years in college and just after, but I saw the way they treated his brother’s wife and I moved on. My husband’s parents are lovely, welcoming, wonderful people who I love dearly. I knew the first time I met them I wanted to be part of their family.

My advice is to find a partner where you love them when they’re with their family and when they are with yours - not just when it’s the two of you with friends.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I like my in-laws. We aren't super close or anything but we vacation with them once a year and I have a good time. I enjoy meeting up with them. Some things that have made this work for us

1. My in laws are not overbearing at all. When we vacation with them, I don't feel like I'm "on duty" the whole time. I can relax, have time to myself, etc.

2. DH handles everything related to them. He buys them gifts. He calls them. He arranges things with them.

3. When in laws are over our place, DH is involved with the cleaning, cooking, organizing, etc. He doesn't leave everything to me to handle. Therefore, no resentment when we host them.

4. My in laws are just drama free people. Sure, they are like any parent and will make comments or do things I don't agree with (my mom does the same) but I found its just easier to let things roll off my back unless it is something that is genuinely dangerous (like letting DS have popcorn when he was too little). But it just isn't worth it to get bothered by small stuff. DS will be fine if he has a poptart for breakfast when we are at in-laws.

This is my exact situation as well. It’s almost like drama free, helpful in-laws with healthy boundaries raise sons who become mature adults who can manage to have a healthy relationship with their parents without being nagged into it by their wife.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don’t ever pick up the rope.

And when the Inlaws dont want to babysit or pay to vacation with you, you'll be on here complaining. Nothing inlaws love more than an icy princess for a DIL.

Sorry to burst your bubble…but we would not want in-laws to baby sit and absolutely not vacation together. We have that covered. Adults are responsible for their own kids not in laws.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My advice would be similar to the advice I give regarding choosing a partner:
Recognize your value
Understand what your boundaries are and maintain them
Be flexible, kind and polite but don't be guilted or pushed
You are not responsible for managing someone else's feelings
Do not take responsibility for things that are not yours to be responsible for

I come from a dysfunctional family of origin and had worked really hard to understand it before I even met DH. It took me a while to see his family dysfunction because it was far more subtle than mine - but no less toxic. Because of the work I'd done prior, I was able to avoid getting sucked into their drama but there was a lot of backlash that nearly derailed our relationship because DH didn't see it and/or was too uncomfortable to address it. Now that the older generation is dead, DH and his same aged relations are better able to see it and my relationship with his side of the family is really good. I love the younger generation and am close to a lot of them but I'm still a bit reserved with those who are my age/older - lingering trust issues. They stood by either silent or complicit while I was bashed.

Yep. If you can stick it out eventually time will take care of things. 👍

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don’t ever pick up the rope.

And when the Inlaws dont want to babysit or pay to vacation with you, you'll be on here complaining. Nothing inlaws love more than an icy princess for a DIL.

Whether I am an icy princess or not, the relationship m in-laws have with my family is the relationship they have with THEIR son and his children. I am not going to facilitate it for him.

Add self centered to your resume. Not talking about you being the savior in your husbands relationship with his family. I am talking about you personally not trying to have any relationship with them. They don’t stand a chance from the beginning to try to have a good relationship with you. What a treat you are.

Sorry princess, they are not owed a relationship. You are not going to get the reaction you want from pp as they are not a doormat. Give it up and move on.

[Anonymous]

Even when the DIL-MIL relationship isn't toxic it is still competitive in a turf battle sort of way. That's true in every dilmil relationship I've ever seen. I don't think there's any way to avoid it.