Anonymous wrote:1) MIL's offense here is not that bad, nothing good comes from fighting on FB.

2) Your DW punished MIL with apparently a 2 year estrangement!

3) I have a psychotic abusive mom and the gift my DH gives me is to support the choices I make regarding that relationship (we have a relationship with some firm boundaries in place) while validating my feelings about the dysfunction and supporting me and guiding me through it. And by never being 'the problem' and antagonizing her.

+1

You don't have to be best friends with your MIL, but you're not supporting your wife if you continue to carry this grudge. Your wife cut off her mom for two years, which is pretty serious. They have reconciled. You seem really rigid -- you don't think they reconciled the right way? So you can't stop being rude to your MIL? Who is apparently herself accepting of her daughter's marriage? You're treating your wife like a child who can't stand up for herself. Apparently, she can, just not in the exact way you think she ought to.

Anonymous wrote:I'm a queer woman. It doesn't sound like MIL has behaved badly toward you. If her only offense is not fighting with people on FB, I think you have been way too harsh in your treatment of her. I'm an organizer and very involved in justice issues. I don't fight with people on FB because getting lectured or cut down on facebook never changed anyone's mind. Your MIL is actually doing the work that moves people, living her life, celebrating her daughter, continuing to be kind to those who are hateful-and that work is miserable, so I'm glad others are willing to do it.

I'm not queer but I'm a mom to a gay son. I hope to be someone's MIL someday! I love the way you framed this.

FWIW, I'd probably delete the comments but I wouldn't argue on FB either. It serves no point. My son knows that I'm always in his corner.

My take is that this isn't just about the FB comment but the long standing treatment of your DW by her mother. For whatever reason, your DW continues to have a relationship with her mother and I totally understand how difficult that is for you. Since you're not giving your DW an ultimatum about her mother (which would be a DW-DW issue and not a MIL issue), the only thing you have to do is maintain civility.

It sounds like you've been polite but that isn't enough for your MIL. I understand that, too. That's kind of the relationship I had with my ILs and they weren't crappy like your MIL has been. They were nice people but they had a different vision of what their relationship with their DIL would be than what I had. No one was wrong, just differing expectations. I was polite, saw them on a regular basis, participated in family events, etc. But, that wasn't enough because I wasn't as 'close' to them as they wanted. For a while, it caused a lot of problems in my relationship with my DH.

Your DW can't dictate how you feel about her mother. You don't need to be warm and friendly to your MIL, you only need to be polite/civil. If that's not enough for you MIL or if you struggle to be polite/civil, I suggest you and your DW work on this in counseling. It really helped me and my DH to work through it and get him to the point that he stopped listening to his parents complaints about it and to be okay with what I was able/willing to give. Hugs.

I can see both sides, but I don't agree. It's not like the bigot posted on their own wall. They commented on the MIL's personal.wall and she allowed it to stand on a memory of her own daughter's wedding. Gross.

She should gave deleted it without engaging with the bigot about it.

Honestly, you don't sound to differnt from your MIL, in another thread a poster said people tend to marry their parents...


As for MIL I don't blame her for not getting into an rgument as you said the relative is a known troll, nothing good could have come from it. I don't know why she didn't delte the comment, although maybe in her mind deleting would be giving attention saying the relative one. Anyway, she already apologized your wife has accepted it. Your role here is to support your wife in how she wanrs to manage the relationship, not tell her how she should or create more stress for her.

OP, I don't think you can be expected to suck it up. I would choose not to be around her- sorry. Your wife won't understand because she chooses to continue to be enmeshed with her but you just married in- you don't have to choose to be enmeshed with this POS also.

-one half of a straight interracial couple here and if I insert 'racist' for 'anti-gay' I would never want to see this person again.

1) MIL's offense here is not that bad, nothing good comes from fighting on FB.

2) Your DW punished MIL with apparently a 2 year estrangement!

3) I have a psychotic abusive mom and the gift my DH gives me is to support the choices I make regarding that relationship (we have a relationship with some firm boundaries in place) while validating my feelings about the dysfunction and supporting me and guiding me through it. And by never being 'the problem' and antagonizing her.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would have left the comment from my bigoted family member up, and not commented on it too. As another poster said Facebook arguments do not change minds, but I would have left the comment up because it says more about the person making the comment. MIL does not sound that bad, OP just wants to be mad.

Really? Holy cow.

Right?! I disagree with this too. If the bigoted family member was commenting on a pic of MIL herself, she can leave that up. But what MOM leaves a nasty comment about her daughter on her facebook picture of her daughter?

Yeah, why on earth would anyone feel compelled to keep a nasty comment about their daughter’s wedding memory up for others to see? I wouldn’t reply to someone who loves to rile people up, but I wouldn’t leave their nasty comment up either.

Lesbian who replied above. There are plenty of people out there who think LGBTQ people aren't discriminated against anymore, that we want too many rights, that we are just whiners. I'm okay with people seeing the messed up things that people write, it only reflect poorly on the writer.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would have left the comment from my bigoted family member up, and not commented on it too. As another poster said Facebook arguments do not change minds, but I would have left the comment up because it says more about the person making the comment. MIL does not sound that bad, OP just wants to be mad.

Really? Holy cow.

Right?! I disagree with this too. If the bigoted family member was commenting on a pic of MIL herself, she can leave that up. But what MOM leaves a nasty comment about her daughter on her facebook picture of her daughter?

Yeah, why on earth would anyone feel compelled to keep a nasty comment about their daughter’s wedding memory up for others to see? I wouldn’t reply to someone who loves to rile people up, but I wouldn’t leave their nasty comment up either.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would have left the comment from my bigoted family member up, and not commented on it too. As another poster said Facebook arguments do not change minds, but I would have left the comment up because it says more about the person making the comment. MIL does not sound that bad, OP just wants to be mad.

Really? Holy cow.

Right?! I disagree with this too. If the bigoted family member was commenting on a pic of MIL herself, she can leave that up. But what MOM leaves a nasty comment about her daughter on her facebook picture of her daughter?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you put on a happy face, it's not saying that you agree or even like MIL. You're doing it out of love for your wife. Your MIL is an ugly person.

The right thing to do regarding the facebook comments was for your MIL to delete them. Starting an argument in Facebook comments isn't pretty, especially between two family members.

OP here: You are right. I wish she would have confronted the person, personally. She didn’t even do that, and still associates with them in a friendly way. It’s the lack of loyalty that bugs me. I stand up for what is right, even if it means I lose the person who said the horrible thing!

I think you are being unduly harsh to your MIL. How old is she? You do realize women were taught not to rock the boat and it is difficult to act differently from the generation you were raised. Are you sure you never offended anyone? How would you feel if someone kept a grudge for TWO years and never gave her a re-set? You r MIL didn't even say the offensive comment! Your wife is right and you should be polite to her mom, unless you are perfect and walked in her shoes.

OP, I think it was an insult to you also that she left this comment up. It's hateful and homophobic and it's crazy that she didn't delete it. She didn't need to start an argument on her post, but she 100% should've deleted it. Did your DW ask her to? She shouldn't have to, but just wondering. I don't blame you. Even as a straight person, if someone commented on my IL's post some hateful stuff about women and left it up like there was no problem there, I could only assume my ILs agreed with that take. Maybe you could write a gentle letter to your MIL, or maybe your DW needs to have a loving talk with her. We straight people don't really know what it's like to walk in your shoes. We don't know the existential threats and heartaches and all that you experience.

Anonymous wrote:I would have left the comment from my bigoted family member up, and not commented on it too. As another poster said Facebook arguments do not change minds, but I would have left the comment up because it says more about the person making the comment. MIL does not sound that bad, OP just wants to be mad.

Really? Holy cow.

OP, you said yourself that other relative lives to troll. One of the first thing anyone should learn is to not feed trolls, on social media, or elsewhere. Leaving those comment up also shows what a hateful and horrible person the troll is, vs. “The great erasing”.

So sad to me that you can only see the worst in your MIL, where I can see a many reasons she may not have done what *you* think is right. The fact that you hold such a torch for this years later shows more about what kind of person you are than what kind of person your MIL is.

Out of curiosity, what did you post to the troll at the time?

Another lesbian here. I also don’t think this is something to make an issue of. Had she liked the comment or otherwise signaled agreement, that would be an issue. It’s Facebook.