Anonymous wrote:I get it, DCUM is a great place to vent, and anonymous commiseration can be helpful. I have done my fair share of complaining about my MIL. And I have also come to the defense of many.

But in the aggregate, what is the reason why so many of us are so easily irritated/annoyed by our ILs? Logically it doesn't make sense that we all married someone with objectively annoying parents, right? What is the psychology behind it? Is it a subconscious sense of competition ("DH is MINE now")? Is it because we didn't get to choose them like we did our spouse and our friends?

Because the format of DCUM attracts nasty, angry, and ugly people OP. Women here are sooooo nasty. It makes me sick.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You all can speculate and analyze all you want but trust me when I say your in laws, especially your MILs, dislike you as much or more than you them.

Of course, this is the very reason I have issues with her. When I got married I didn't have any issue toward her, I rarely thought about her. She made it quite clear how much she disliked me from the start of our marriage and then the issue becomes that you are stuck with her. Unlike other people in your life that you can walk away from, your in-laws you can't because of your husband. They will be in your life to a certain extent and will be around at important times such as holidays or family celebrations.

Think about every family celebration being dampened because your MIL makes rude and unpleasant comments to you about your appearance. Do you snark back at her and be rude to her on her level or do you act mature and ignore and try to keep the peace for the sake of the family celebration only to simply despise her even more later that you even have to think about this. If you tell her simply that what she said isn't kind, she waits until the following day and goes crying to your husband about what you said and its just drama, is it worth it? If your husband has heard it all before and ignores her then you have to deal with her passive aggressiveness next time you see her where she ignores you. Can't she control herself, isn't she at her age mature enough to know that putting people down is not nice, is not playing nice and not creating a nice environment. So it gets too hard and you simply give up, stop caring, stop trying, move away and see her every so often and when she makes those comments you have so little care factor they no longer sting because you simply look at her and see what she is - a complete nut job, who goes through life thinking you can criticise and mock other people and then expect they will like you and do anything nice for you. OMG its crazy to think treating people poorly will result in anything other than being treated poorly or avoided in return. However it is then that a MIL cries about poor her, look at her terrible DIL ruining her family.

Its so predictable.

100%. My DH's family is very misogynist and they were going to be suspicious/unhappy with pretty much any woman he married. They think they wanted a DIL who was very traditional but truthfully I don't think there are many women my age alive today who would make them happy because, at a base level, they think women are less than (yes, even the women in his family) and that their job is to serve and support the men in their families. They also have this thing where no matter what a man does, we are all supposed to empathize and support him and simply see him as flawed but worthy. So if a man is an alcoholic who cannot keep a job and pisses himself in public and winds up in jail on the regular, and his wife leaves him, she is a terrible shrew who abandoned a sick person in a time of need. They just hate women, basically.

My DH was incredibly smart growing up (like genius level) and wound up getting a full ride scholarship to an Ivy League school, and it changed his life. He also had a close friend in high school whose parents were immigrants and professors and who took him under their wing because he was so bright. Those two things led him to understand that the way his family approaches the world is backwards and that they simply don't understand a lot of things. He is very generous to them in that he really does not judge them -- he sees that they are products of their environment and history and is very empathetic. But he also doesn't want to be like them and is grateful every day that he made it out of that house and that town when he did. He is truly an amazing person.

So yeah, I can't stand my ILs and I know they can't stand me either, but that's a price worth paying to be with my DH who I love and to have the child we have together. But that doesn't mean the way they talk to me or the way they talk about women in general doesn't impact me or drive me crazy. It just means I'm willing to navigate that for his sake. It would obviously be different if he agreed with them or didn't stick up for me, but he knows they are wrong and he always shuts it down when they do this stuff. Honestly, I think it's harder for him to be around them than me but he feels he has a family obligation. I think the only time I was more annoyed by them than he is was around the time our DC was born because they were extra awful to me then, but otherwise they just ignore me or belittle me and I go spend time with DC or alone reading and it's not that bad.

I would have loved for DH to be an orphaned only child.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most of that. Because they are family we didn't pick and we have to be nice to them. Because our spouses don't always stand up for us or the young family needs over old traditions. My inlaws are nice people but i wouldn't hang out with them if they weren't dhs parents. Same for my SIL who i fine nice but grating and frustrating in many ways. But shes nice to my kids so we see them a couple times a year and its enough for me.

The bolded is false. You picked them.

Did you not meet them and get to know them before you married? If not, it is your fault.

Some of you need to marry orphans. lol

Was this an option? I think many would have chosen it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I appreciate the color on all these replies.

But I think maybe I didn't ask the question well. I'm not trying to dismiss the individual issues that people may legitimately have with their inlaws. I'm asking why we seem to let it affect us so much?

A lot of this is just annoying quirks or behavioral traits that I have to think, at least for me, just roll off my back when other people have them. Of course their is truly reprehensible behavior out there. But we comment on the faces they make, the type of food that is served and how they eat it, the types of stories they tell, the way they engage with their grandkids that is just...different than our subjective expectations. With my own MIL, even when I can laugh about it, I am so ATTUNED to it. I work myself up before visits, I am always paying attention for the next annoying thing to notice, etc. Even after 20 years, I am predisposed to find my MIL annoying. In contrast, comparable behavior from my own father I don't even really notice unless DH points it out.

I know I'm generalizing and I know that the holiday season will give a skewed sample judging just from DCUM posts. But still, in the aggregate, it appears that our outlook toward our inlaws is so much more judgmental than it is to other people in our lived.

It's the "b**** eating a cracker" thing. People here commented about the underlying issues. The underlying issues make the little things more annoying. Your best friend can announce she's gluten free and lol, oh that Larla always trying some fad diet. But when MIL does it she's attention seeking and insecure and uninformed. Because of all the other underlying issues.

Yep! BEC is totally correct. There are so many little cuts over the years that it's all just one big torture. It's not about what little thing they're doing wrong now, it's the fact that it's a thousand little things over the years. And nothing changes.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I appreciate the color on all these replies.

But I think maybe I didn't ask the question well. I'm not trying to dismiss the individual issues that people may legitimately have with their inlaws. I'm asking why we seem to let it affect us so much?

A lot of this is just annoying quirks or behavioral traits that I have to think, at least for me, just roll off my back when other people have them. Of course their is truly reprehensible behavior out there. But we comment on the faces they make, the type of food that is served and how they eat it, the types of stories they tell, the way they engage with their grandkids that is just...different than our subjective expectations. With my own MIL, even when I can laugh about it, I am so ATTUNED to it. I work myself up before visits, I am always paying attention for the next annoying thing to notice, etc. Even after 20 years, I am predisposed to find my MIL annoying. In contrast, comparable behavior from my own father I don't even really notice unless DH points it out.

I know I'm generalizing and I know that the holiday season will give a skewed sample judging just from DCUM posts. But still, in the aggregate, it appears that our outlook toward our inlaws is so much more judgmental than it is to other people in our lived.

The thing that distinguishes my ILs from all other people is that they lay a claim on my time and energy but don’t seem to like or respect me.

If I had friends or family who were as rude or dismissive of me as my ILs are, or who straight up ignored me in social situations as my FIL does, for instance, I would just walk away from that relationship. But since it’s my DH’s immediate family, and because we have young kids, I pretty much have to spend time with these people.

So yeah, if my MIL is doing some inane annoying thing, it bothers me way more than if a friend or my brother did it. Because I’m already annoyed to be around this person who treats me so poorly.

And like others, the treatment got worse when I had kids. It’s so weird because you’d think that’s something that would make people act a little more kindly towards a DIL or SIL. I truly don’t get why it seems to spur resentment and anger. And then the baby arrives and they were so demanding about time with the baby and the idea that it was a package deal with me (sorry, but newborn infants usually spend a lot of time with their moms, this is normal) only made them more resentful. It is so weird. It’s like they are excited about this new family member but, ugh, why is the human who manifested this person into being still here? I just cannot.

We leave to go see them tomorrow and the only thing keeping me sane is that we’re staying in an AirBnB and not with them.

Same. Add to this that my MIL constantly tries to start fights with DH and I (each other) to try and destroy our marriage- and we have been together 17 years. We no longer see them - it is sad as they are the only close family we have in our area.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most of that. Because they are family we didn't pick and we have to be nice to them. Because our spouses don't always stand up for us or the young family needs over old traditions. My inlaws are nice people but i wouldn't hang out with them if they weren't dhs parents. Same for my SIL who i fine nice but grating and frustrating in many ways. But shes nice to my kids so we see them a couple times a year and its enough for me.

The bolded is false. You picked them.

Did you not meet them and get to know them before you married? If not, it is your fault.

Some of you need to marry orphans. lol

My MIL and I went to get our hair done before the wedding. I actually thought she was really nice, nil problems beforehand or none that I knew of. For some reason after the wedding things changed dramatically. It was crazy, really crazy and all these years later I still look back on it and shake my head at the absolute bizarre stuff she did. I have never experienced anything like it in my life, even now.

Honestly I still don't think I understand what happened or why, I have my opinions but her behaviour was so over the top I have literally never witnessed anything like it in my life and hope I will never meet anyone like this ever again in my life. My MIL had no handbrake, she had no one tell her stop, they seemed stunned as she sat crying and bawling. This led her to get crazier and crazier. Honestly when she told Dh and FIL that I had tried to kill her, I ended my relationship with her immediately. Funnily enough she was happy to still be around me despite telling others I had tried to kill her and DH and FIL didn't believe her but she never apologised. We have since moved away. I didn't pick this, no one picks this.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Forced relationships with people we would never be interested in knowing or hanging out with. Luck of the draw.

This is accurate!

OP here. I agree with this. But I feel like that is only a partial answer. It is a crapshoot who you end up with as inlaws, but why does it seem that we get "bad" one much more than half the time? And our spouses were produced by these people, so unless you think who you are and how you parent has nothing to do with how your children turn out, it seems that we *should* get along with these people?

There has to be some underlying resentment or competition or something at play! Again, speaking in the aggregate, not about individual situations.

My MIL was overly concerned about her family traditions/culture being passed on. She was openly upset if my family had any involvement in our lives this included that our children would be babysit only by her. My MIL was also use to being the person DH went to for advice. I honestly feel she didn't trust me and didn't even trust DH to make good decisions for our lives. Well she didn't care about my life but she did care about DH's and it was obvious she only wanted him to listen to her, in fact she told him not to listen to any advice I gave him regarding money. She was panicked I would take him and he would move away. She was panicked that he would not be there to help them or support them. She continually put DH in positions of having choose between what I wanted or what she wanted, it was so obvious I started changing my mind, wink wink, so there was no competition. She would get giddy when DH chose what she wanted. I really do think in her mind, DH choosing her was him loving her more, being more mindful of her wants and needs above his wife, it made her feel good. I know she was jealous because she would get upset if we laughed together or showed affection in her presence, by affection I mean sitting too close on the lounge or our hands touching, I saw this in her glare, her verbal huffs and her banging dishes violently in the kitchen each time we laughed together, in fact to this day I can still tell when DH is in her presence when I call him because he still gets tense and stiff and has a certain tone. Anyone else he is relaxed and easy going. I can then hear her in the background talking banging stuff around.

In essence I feel the problems arose from competition, control, jealousy, fear. Fear of change, fear of a changing relationship with her son, immaturity on my MIL's behalf to not control her own emotions, menopause.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most of that. Because they are family we didn't pick and we have to be nice to them. Because our spouses don't always stand up for us or the young family needs over old traditions. My inlaws are nice people but i wouldn't hang out with them if they weren't dhs parents. Same for my SIL who i fine nice but grating and frustrating in many ways. But shes nice to my kids so we see them a couple times a year and its enough for me.

The bolded is false. You picked them.

Did you not meet them and get to know them before you married? If not, it is your fault.

Some of you need to marry orphans. lol

My MIL literally did an about face when we got married. So no, the dating period was not a good indicator of how difficult she would be as a MIL. I went into our marriage thinking that we would end up close! I avoid her at gatherings now because of YEARS of her antics and I found it's the best way to preserve our relationship. I don't know if she'd say we have a strained relationship though. But I certainly think we do. I am guarded and different around her. When I was more open and loving, I got burned and hurt. So I stopped. Things have gotten better for me emotionally, but I am not sure she's even noticed.

Anonymous wrote:I can’t imagine not loving my in laws. It never occurred to me even that I get to not like them. I love my husband and they cone with him.

That being said, of course they do things that irk me and have different customs / preferences. But unless they cross a line to intentionally harm my kids (which they wouldn’t I know) it really does matter go make it an issue for me. For example, my mil pushes candy and sweets on my kids 24x7. It irks me but I let it slide bc it comes from a place of love.

It helps that I am pretty sure they approach me the same way. I come from a different ethnic background than my DH. I do things differently with my kids than they did with theirs. But, they are ok with letting things they would it choose themselves slide.

Both sides need flexibility and kindness.

Weird post- yes, you are free to like/love whoever you choose, regardless of familial/marital ties

Anonymous wrote:Most of that. Because they are family we didn't pick and we have to be nice to them. Because our spouses don't always stand up for us or the young family needs over old traditions. My inlaws are nice people but i wouldn't hang out with them if they weren't dhs parents. Same for my SIL who i fine nice but grating and frustrating in many ways. But shes nice to my kids so we see them a couple times a year and its enough for me.

The bolded is false. You picked them.

Did you not meet them and get to know them before you married? If not, it is your fault.

Some of you need to marry orphans. lol

Anonymous wrote:You all can speculate and analyze all you want but trust me when I say your in laws, especially your MILs, dislike you as much or more than you them.

Of course, this is the very reason I have issues with her. When I got married I didn't have any issue toward her, I rarely thought about her. She made it quite clear how much she disliked me from the start of our marriage and then the issue becomes that you are stuck with her. Unlike other people in your life that you can walk away from, your in-laws you can't because of your husband. They will be in your life to a certain extent and will be around at important times such as holidays or family celebrations.

Think about every family celebration being dampened because your MIL makes rude and unpleasant comments to you about your appearance. Do you snark back at her and be rude to her on her level or do you act mature and ignore and try to keep the peace for the sake of the family celebration only to simply despise her even more later that you even have to think about this. If you tell her simply that what she said isn't kind, she waits until the following day and goes crying to your husband about what you said and its just drama, is it worth it? If your husband has heard it all before and ignores her then you have to deal with her passive aggressiveness next time you see her where she ignores you. Can't she control herself, isn't she at her age mature enough to know that putting people down is not nice, is not playing nice and not creating a nice environment. So it gets too hard and you simply give up, stop caring, stop trying, move away and see her every so often and when she makes those comments you have so little care factor they no longer sting because you simply look at her and see what she is - a complete nut job, who goes through life thinking you can criticise and mock other people and then expect they will like you and do anything nice for you. OMG its crazy to think treating people poorly will result in anything other than being treated poorly or avoided in return. However it is then that a MIL cries about poor her, look at her terrible DIL ruining her family.

Its so predictable.

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I appreciate the color on all these replies.

But I think maybe I didn't ask the question well. I'm not trying to dismiss the individual issues that people may legitimately have with their inlaws. I'm asking why we seem to let it affect us so much?

A lot of this is just annoying quirks or behavioral traits that I have to think, at least for me, just roll off my back when other people have them. Of course their is truly reprehensible behavior out there. But we comment on the faces they make, the type of food that is served and how they eat it, the types of stories they tell, the way they engage with their grandkids that is just...different than our subjective expectations. With my own MIL, even when I can laugh about it, I am so ATTUNED to it. I work myself up before visits, I am always paying attention for the next annoying thing to notice, etc. Even after 20 years, I am predisposed to find my MIL annoying. In contrast, comparable behavior from my own father I don't even really notice unless DH points it out.

I know I'm generalizing and I know that the holiday season will give a skewed sample judging just from DCUM posts. But still, in the aggregate, it appears that our outlook toward our inlaws is so much more judgmental than it is to other people in our lived.

The thing that distinguishes my ILs from all other people is that they lay a claim on my time and energy but don’t seem to like or respect me.

If I had friends or family who were as rude or dismissive of me as my ILs are, or who straight up ignored me in social situations as my FIL does, for instance, I would just walk away from that relationship. But since it’s my DH’s immediate family, and because we have young kids, I pretty much have to spend time with these people.

So yeah, if my MIL is doing some inane annoying thing, it bothers me way more than if a friend or my brother did it. Because I’m already annoyed to be around this person who treats me so poorly.

And like others, the treatment got worse when I had kids. It’s so weird because you’d think that’s something that would make people act a little more kindly towards a DIL or SIL. I truly don’t get why it seems to spur resentment and anger. And then the baby arrives and they were so demanding about time with the baby and the idea that it was a package deal with me (sorry, but newborn infants usually spend a lot of time with their moms, this is normal) only made them more resentful. It is so weird. It’s like they are excited about this new family member but, ugh, why is the human who manifested this person into being still here? I just cannot.

We leave to go see them tomorrow and the only thing keeping me sane is that we’re staying in an AirBnB and not with them.