Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You say she’s tough on you. How is she tough on you? Because you take responsibility for her happiness? Drop the rope.

Don't do all those extra things just for her. Do what makes you and your family happy and she can enjoy it or not.

No I won’t and will be tuning out comments about the decor.

Ok, I went ahead and invited her. Ball is in her court. The irony is she is so much nicer to her other brother and DIL, who has never even checked in with her for a single holiday in the 5 years they have been married, Thanksgiving Easter or Christmas to see if she would like to join them. They simply spend every holiday with her ex husband.

She’s your MIL, but she’s his mother and your kids’ grandmother. So yes she gets an invite as a matter of course.

No MIL invite
Plus she doesn’t like you

Do as you normally would and let her complain if she wants to. She is the guest in your home. Agree with the poster above. This is a problem you have created for yourself. When we were acting like brats my mom would always ignore us and we quickly learned that it wouldn’t work with her. My grandma would bend over backwards to appease everyone and then complain about it. Guess who was happier?

Anonymous wrote:Yes I think it’s a good plan to let your husband handle this situation from now on and ask his mother if she wants to come or not.

+1. Women need to drop this idea that we need to be social directors for extended family.

Anonymous wrote:You say she’s tough on you. How is she tough on you? Because you take responsibility for her happiness? Drop the rope.

Don't do all those extra things just for her. Do what makes you and your family happy and she can enjoy it or not.

Why are you taking everything so personally? And why does her approval of the restaurants, activities and decorations you choose matter so much to you? You don’t have a MIL problem. You have a self-esteem problem.

I usually hate the MIL posts, but if my MIL said our tree was too small I'd seriously just laugh. Who says that?

You sound nice, but I wouldn't do anything special for her because it sounds like you have and she likes her routine. Four days isn't a lot and honestly making a quesadilla, while extremely weird, is pretty easy. 4 days isn't long out of 3 weeks.

That said, it's about what you and DH want.

Sounds like she gets a break from all the stuff she hates this year, lucky you!

Enjoy your MIL free xmas.

You say she’s tough on you. How is she tough on you? Because you take responsibility for her happiness? Drop the rope.

I would invite, and do it the way you phrased it, making it more her initiative. Even if she's sort of unpleasant, completely uninviting her would be cruel.

Yes I think it’s a good plan to let your husband handle this situation from now on and ask his mother if she wants to come or not.

I would not invite her. It doesn't sound like she enjoys it. I think she might be the type who enjoys it more when people visit her. Being out of her element sounds like it stresses her out and doesn't let her be her best self. She's probably more comfortable on her own turf.

We go to our small ski house every year for Christmas for 3 weeks (me, my husband and our two elementary aged kids). We usually fly my mother in law (divorced) up for 4 nights over the Christmas holiday. She’s a homebody and doesn’t like to go out. She mostly keeps to herself, doesn’t enjoy anything really except staying home and watching sports on tv. Doesn’t enjoy eating either- is very picky and wants like a quesadilla for a holiday dinner. Doesn’t eat most things. I have bent over backwards trying to do special things she would enjoy or book restaurants she may like and it always ends up in disappointment from her. Last year she was disappointed that our tree was small. Keep in mind it’s a second house and it’s a 7’ tree. We don’t go all out with decor like at home but still have plenty. She’s very critical and tough on me. What would you do this year? I told my DH that he should approach her and say “come back and let us know if you want us to get a plane ticket for you” so it’s on her and she doesn’t feel like she needs to come and if she chooses to come it’s a conscious decision. WDYT?