I like my mother-in-law. This confuses people, mostly co-workers and acquaintances who initiate a conversation by giving me advice on how to deal with her. Some people don’t believe me. Other people smirk and say, “That’s great” in a monotone voice as if they were talking about traffic or the weather. Apparently, I’m a rarity because when you google “in-laws” you get page after page of mother-in-law jokes, articles containing coping mechanisms, and www.ihatemyinlaws.com.
I should probably not that I’ve never been fond of any of the marriage acronyms: MIL (mother-in-law), FIL (father-in-law), DIL (daughter-in-law), SIL (son-in-law), DD (darling daughter), DS (darling son). DH, which stands for dear husband/hubby or darling husband/hubby, is my least favorite acronym ever. While I was still in the process of wedding planning, I avoided every single wedding blog and/or site because seeing this acronym was inevitable. Besides my overwhelming hatred for the word “hubby,” the meaning of the acronym manages to sound both infantile and patriarchal at the same time.
Anyway, my in-laws don’t give unsolicited advice, visit unexpectedly, insist I call them “Mom” and “Dad,” or any of the other complaints that frequently overtake message boards. I like the fact that we share the same sarcastic sense of humor and a love of baking. I’m sure that another reason why I like my in-laws is because I grew up in an alcoholic household and I like spending time with families that are vastly different than my own. I tend to avoid co-workers who mean well by offering me tips on how to survive my mother-in-law. (Also, how to survive her? That phrasing makes her seem as if she’s a natural disaster. I use the term survive for a layoff or an earthquake, not a human being.)
The mother-in-law stereotypes play into the assumption that the wife’s mom is the ideal cookie-cutter mom and the husband’s mom is a vindictive control freak. My parents weren’t the worst parents ever — I’ve met plenty of other children of alchoholics who had it much worse than I did — but they were definitely not the ideal parents either. Also, the whole mother-in-law complex is simply pitting women against women.
Wikipedia explains: (related: why is there even a Wikipedia for this?!)
Humor and jokes about one’s mother-in-law (the mother of one’s spouse) are a mainstay of comedy. The humour is based on the premise that the average mother-in-law often considers her son-in-law to be unsuitable for her daughter (or daughter-in-law unsuitable for her son), and usually includes the stereotype that mothers-in-law are generally overbearing, obnoxious, or unattractive.
Oh, so that explains it. My mother-in-law has already expressed that she doesn’t think that I’m unsuitable for her son, nor does she fall into the stereotypes of being overbearing, obnoxious, or unattractive … which means I’m living in an anomaly.
I can totally relate to this. No i don’t have a mother-in-law but I have siblings who have. And I have more then once been involved in arguments about this. And more then once I have confronted people about their sexism. Because that’s what, at least in my experience, see it as.
It is often the same thing, someone start to talk about their mother-in-law and calls her names. And then I ask if the father-in-law have done the same things or worse, or it if someone I know better I talk about what they did and did not do. Yes, the father-in-law have done worse things, and so on. But, in some way the mother-in-law gets gets scrutinized a loot more.
The father-in-law gets excused more and the mother-in-law is a “evil bitch”. *sigh*
I wonder if the mother-in-law trope comes from multi-generational households. If there is a mother-in-law and a daughter-in-law sharing a kitchen or whatever resource, tensions arise. Of course next add sexism and patriarchy to get stereotypes that oppress women.
I’m living in the same anomaly
While I don’t have a lot in common with my MIL we get along just fine. She has always welcomed me and been unfailing respectful of my boundaries and parenting (and she’s a wonderful grandmother).
My husband also gets along very well with both my mother and her partner (you should hear the stupid reactions he gets when people hear he has two mils). My mom isn’t perfect about boundaries (she’s definitely excessively dependent on me) but she really tries to not step on any toes and I can tell he appreciates it.
I adore my mother in law, and my partner adores my mother. It’s a lot like having an extra mother, except each of us is far more able to deal rationally with the other’s than our own.
My MIL is wonderful. She’s supportive and not pushy and I know she loves me because I make her son happy, and that makes her happy. My FIL, on the other hand, is a super religious righter who I’m convinced sees me as this horrible harpy
who turned his son into a communist. He loves to start religious and political fights with me. BUT, he is generous and has helped us out when we need it, and has said that he’s working with a mentor to not get into fights with us. So I’m working on keeping my mouth shut more often when he says inflammatory things, for the sake of our relationship– he’s not changing his mind and neither am I; if I’d like him to just respect my beliefs, I have to do the same for him.
It helps that we live states away.
My “woman I’m supposed to hate” is my stepmother. She married my dad when she was 21, and I was 13, and we went to live with them. It was *very* rocky all through high school, but she became a huge advocate for my brother and me once we were out of high school. She even waited tables to help pay my college tuition when my dad was having one of his periodic spells of insolvency. She and my dad split up in the early 1990s, a decision we thought was so stupid that we told her “we don’t care where he goes, we’re keeping you.” When my brother died in a car wreck, she was the only one who got her ass on a plane and came out to help me. We are absolutely family, and I love her dearly — it’s more like an older/younger sister relationship at this point, but I really feel like she’s the only family I have left (except for my cousins, but that’s a little different). Love her love her love her.
I’m not really close to my mother-in-law but it’s for reasons beyond “she doesn’t think I’m good enough for her precious son.” She spends a lot of time sending me annoying/slightly offensive email forwards. She insists I call her “Mom” and ends all conversations with “I love you!” even though I don’t even end conversations with my biological mother that way. We don’t agree on anything politically. She loves to share extremely private family gossip that leaves me incredibly uncomfortable. She’s like a slightly annoying co-worker you generally like but hate having to spend long periods of time with. But I don’t think any of that is a stereotype – it’s just not having anything in common with someone you’re expected to get along with on a regular basis.
rodriguez – I bet that is EXACTLY where it started.
I like my mother in law, and I get along with her, but she does things that drive me insane. She IS very overbearing, not only to me, but to my husband, and she isn’t great at taking no for an answer. She doesn’t always listen when we talk, and sort of makes things up so that what she wants will be more likely to happen.
But I like her. That’s just her personality, and she does it to everyone, not just me.
I’m jealous of people who have rockin’ in-laws.
I definitely do not. My husband, in fact, prefers to spend time with my family.
My girlfriend’s parents really disliked her previous partner, so Hanna was really reluctant to introduce me to her folks initially. She was sort of stunned when we actually got along. I have issues with some of their parenting decisions (and the fallout with which I get to deal! funtimes!), but I basically let Hanna know that if there’s ever tension between her folks and her, then I’m in her court every time and that’s that.
In my own family history and the lives of my friends, it’s actually more often than not the primarily family relationships that are the source of tension, while the in-law relationships are less fraught. My mom has really huge issues with her parents, and is on much warmer terms with her in-laws. My own primary family is actually a break with this pattern — my parents tend to be the “cool” parents, both with their own children and with their children-in-law. Mostly because they’re more laid back and have fewer expectations about whom their kids should date, marry, how they should live their lives, etc.
@rodriguez – I never would have thought of that. I’m sure that is where it started.
@charlotte – I’m glad you are close to your stepmother. I have so many friends that aren’t so it was very heartwarming (also, emotional) to hear your story.
@anna – Same with me; primary relationships are always the most difficult. And your parents sound amazing.
I think this historically comes from multigenerational families as Rodriquez says. Take a young woman from her family and have her put into another where she is suddenly in a low place in the family hierarchy. She is to do the jobs that are undesireable to the mother in law. In many cases there would be resentment and anger.
My mother-in-law is amazing. In fact, I prefer her to my mom, who drives me nuts on a regular basis.
And I’m with you on DH, DS, DD, etc. I found it hilarious, though, when one woman in one of the married boards I sometimes frequent admitted DH stood for dickhead in her husband’s case.
I think I have a pretty good relationship with my mother in law. That said, I don’t discuss politics with them because I know that they’re right leaning and I am most definitely not.
I do know that my mother in law does not like hers. I think it might have started out as a “not good enough for my son” thing that I think her mother in law got over eventually and she just couldn’t forgive or it became more passive agressive.
My mother got along fairly well with my father’s mother. The only thing I remember her complaining about my grandmother was that she gave my father a lot of backhanded compliments ala “I’m surprised my son had such attractive daughters.”
My ex-mother-in-law was pretty awful.
She called her son “asshole” (and he answered to it, despite privately admitting to me that he hated it and it made him feel bad about himself). She made frequent disparaging comments about his appearance. She told him not to marry me.
Despite knowing I have mild asthma and couldn’t get an inhaler (long story), she would smoke around me and then call me anti-social when I confined myself to the basement (where her son and I lived) so I could breathe. On my wedding day, she told her daughter (within earshot of me) that I looked like a beached whale in my wedding dress.
I’m so glad she’s not my mother-in-law anymore. And it’s very comforting and inspiring to see how many people have forged positive, healthy (if gently tolerant at times) relationships with their mother-in-laws. It gives me hope.
YES on the acronyms. Variations on “-IL” are easy enough to figure out, but I remember being SO confused when the DH etc started cropping up online (or, when I started noticing them, because it has probably gone on longer than I’m aware). I kept thinking “Is she talking about Dunkin Donuts? Dashiell Hammett? The Nintendo DS?” It took me an embarrassingly long time to clue in. Now I just think they’re silly, but then, I don’t go for internet shorthand much anyway.
I’m fortunate to be another with harmonious in-law relationships. My mother in law is my husband’s stepmother (his mom died when he was 12ish); when I mentioned this to someone before I got married, she said something like “Oh, you’re lucky, that will make it easier.” WTF??? (ok, sometimes I use internet shorthand)
She called her son “asshole” (and he answered to it, despite privately admitting to me that he hated it and it made him feel bad about himself). She made frequent disparaging comments about his appearance.
I think there are two distinct flavors or varieties of the problematic in-law(s). The first variety are parents/family systems that give YOU (as the marrying-in spouse) the heebie-jeebies, but don’t phase your partner at all … because whatever they’re doing is “normal.” That is, behavior that consolidates the family-of-origin dynamics in a way that doesn’t acknowledge or attempt to integrate the newcomer (you) as part of the family. This is the mother-in-law who thinks you’re not “good enough” to marry into the family, etc.
If your spouse buys into that and doesn’t back you (their chosen partner) up as a legitimate and now equal member of the family, then there’s a problem.
In the second variation, the problem is the one Skada’s talking about … where the behavior of the in-laws is damaging to their own child, and thus painful for you to watch/experience. I definitely have much more of this indirect pain than the more direct feeling of purposeful exclusion of me as the interloper. Instead, I see what pain my girlfriend’s parents can cause her and it makes me so angry I feel like doing them physical damage … sometimes I literally black out for a second or two after she tells me something her mother told her as a child, or whatever. And this isn’t a family that was extremely abusive of dysfunctional in any way … but the insensitivity sometimes provokes rage in me.
True stories:
When Mr MM and I were in the early stages of dating, his mother came in for a visit. The 3 of us went out to lunch and she tried to fix her son up with the waitress.
The first migraine I ever got was during a visit to the in-laws.
I don’t visit them any more unless I’m compelled to. Not that my mom is perfect, but we’re a lot closer to my side of the family than to his.
My boyfriend’s mother is a dream, very comfortable to be around. In fact, I love my parents dearly and my first loyalty will always be to them, but my outlaws are wonderful in completely different ways and have welcomed me into the family such that it is a bit like having a second set of parents. I’ve been really surprised at how valuable these relationships have become to me.
My mother has a similarly excellent relationship with my Dad’s mother – who she is, in many ways, closer to than her own.
Even the ancient Greeks and Romans had mother-in-law jokes. And I think, as well as multi-generational households, there’s also an issue of patriarchy-determined roles. There are abusive and controlling behaviours among both fathers and mothers of adult children, but most of the folks I know who have mother-in-law problems, or problems with their own mothers, the older women are fantastically *bored*. Without children at home, they fuss and interfere with the lives of their adult children, and the grandchildren too when they come along.
I think there will be fewer of these conflicts as more and more women maintain multiple and fluid roles throughout life and motherhood becomes merely one role, not the sole reason for their existence.
(not that I imagine it’s always the mother-in-laws’ doing – I provided my own parents with a truly undesirable son-in-law, and now I see they handled it admirably, all considered)
1. I hate the word “hubby,” too.
2. I’m not married to my boyfriend, but I absolutely love his mom, and if we ever were to get married, I cannot imagine that changing.
My boyfriend was really reluctant to introduce me to his mother, because she had been close with his ex-wife and – not having known what happened that caused them to split (the ex has BPD, which they’ve told very few people) – had occasionally expressed the hope that they would reunite. I finally met his mother and her partner last month, after ~1.5 years of dating, and everything went wonderfully. I really like both his mother and her partner (also a woman), who are far more laid back than my own mother, and the feeling was mutual. Come to think of it, I’ve gotten along better with all the mothers (that I’ve met) of previous boyfriends and husband than I have with my own mother. So I’ve never understood the whole mother-in-law joke phenomenon, either.
I think, even in healthy situations, it’s partly just that another family is different. I’ll sometimes find myself annoyed by my extended in-law family gatherings, and then I’ll have to remind myself that I’m just as annoyed by my Uncle M as I am by my husband’s Uncle T, or that my Crazy Aunt Bev is a lot crazier and his Aunt J. But the same things don’t phase me at my own family gatherings, because I’ve been putting up with them since I was two. My annoyance at my husband’s family is relatively new so it seems much worse.
That said, I border on despising my parents-in-law (both of them!). They’re self-centered people. I do feel guilty because my husband never seemed to have a problem with them until after he married me, and then I think once he noticed my mostly-hidden disdain, he started noticing their less attractive qualities (although it’s probably also that he sees more now that we have kids of our own). When they’re visiting and he gets especially annoyed, I sometimes feel like I’ve ruined his parents for him.
anna, I think a third category of problem, and one that my in-laws fall into, is the in-law who welcomes you into the family too much, expects to BE your mother or father, and doesn’t understand why you might not open up the way they expect, or want to spend every holiday with them. My mother-in-law never go along with her father, and when she married, she really joined her husbands family. It took at least three years before she stopped looking surprised and a little hurt every time we spent a major holiday with my (much loved) family.
Av0gadro, my dad is in the same situation as your mother-in-law. He has essentially become a part of my mom’s family and rarely talks about or visits his own family. Sometimes I think he expect me to do the same and he still sounds a little resentful when we don’t spend a holiday with them.
I have an OK relationship with my mother-in-law. I think the main thing there is that I have no obvious trigger points with her. Sure, she sometimes say and do things that aren’t nice – few people don’t – but I can mostly take that in stride; she’s not poking at any of my personal issues. Likewise, I rather enjoy cooking and such with her, and there’s no problem saying “don’t do that” when she’s doing thing with the kids I don’t agree to.
I guess I’m lucky. I know plenty of people with in-laws who manage to again and again poke at personal trigger points, and that can quickly escalate.
The thing with in-law flicks is how creepy they are. The “Daddy’s Little Girl” and “Mama’s Boy” roles just hint a the creeptastic stereotypes that society seems to dwell on. I’m specifically thinking of “Monster In Law” and “Wedding Crashers.” And I’m so ashamed to admit I’ve seen both.
I also wanted to scrub my brain with Lysol after both.
But I like my in-laws for everything that my parents aren’t. My first dinner meeting them was pretty dismaying – not only did they end up talking about bowel movements, but I could join in… and not feel weird. It was an alternate universe. People talk about this and aren’t shush-ed!?
Hah.
Blind Irish Pirate, that sounds like a great meeting! My family has a set of imaginary rules where we can’t talk about anything seemingly inappropriate like that, which makes it challenging because the only appropriate things left are boring topics like the weather or one’s job.
I also hate those stereotypes as well. I don’t fall into those stereotypes and most people I know don’t either.(That could be an entirely different post for me.)
I want to like my mother-in-law. I think, under different circumstances we might be able to be in the same room without my anxiety skyrocketing. We have similar political philosophies, and share some of the same interests, so it doesn’t seem too hard to imagine for me.
Except that she is awful. She treats my husband poorly (something like Skada describes), and once it became clear to her that my husband was “serious” about his relationship with me, she did everything she could to undermine it. And when she was unsuccessful at undermining our relationship, she switched to overt temper tantrums regarding my existence. “WHYYYYY does she have to come to dinner???? Can’t it just be you and me?” This while we were visiting her together in another state.
Like Av0gadro says, I wonder if I have ruined my mother-in-law for my husband. He, until meeting me, felt that her behavior towards him was normal. And now that he sees her as damaging he is less tolerant.
Anyway, I think my point in all of this is that the thing with in-laws is that we can’t escape them. As a previous commenter pointed out, if you have a co-worker or person you see occasionally that you dislike, you can minimize the time you spend with them, walk away, or ignore them altogether. With in-laws…we’re kind of stuck.
I cannot and will not read “DH” as anything other than “Designated Hitter.” (Also, some of my friends have a running joke where “dear ___” becomes “deer-___,” so thinking about someone’s “deer-husband” just makes me giggle. Is he half-deer, half-man, like a centaur? Or maybe he’s a were-deer?)
In any case, my boyfriend’s father is, to put it bluntly, a racist (it makes him “uncomfortable” to see us being affectionate, because I’m half Chinese, basically). He’s also judgmental as hell about pretty much everything, and spending any time around him requires some serious tongue-chewing. His mother has always been very nice to me, but I just can’t feel comfortable knowing that she’s aware of her husband’s feelings, but is unwilling to rock the boat and defend me/her son. That said, I don’t hate her; mostly I feel sad knowing that she’s also in an awkward situation, though can’t quite forgive her.
I really wish I could love his family, because my family loves him, but they’ve just been too shitty (mostly to him about me and our relationship, rather than directly to my face), and I can’t imagine ever trusting them. They have literally been the largest source of conflict in our 12-year relationship.
@annajcook: I think the distinction you make is really accurate. It can be so frustrating and heartbreaking to be with someone whose parents did damaging things. And I definitely agree with the fallout. It’s hard to be with someone who has issues stemming from things like parental physical and emotional abuse, especially because even though I knew it wasn’t his fault, knowing that didn’t dissolve the problems the abuse caused in our relationship. I imagine people feel similarly about being in a relationship with me, given my issues stemming from abuse I’ve experienced in past relationships.
I think I’m rambling, but I guess the point I’m making is that it’s frustrating to have in-laws who act difficult to me, personally, but it’s upsetting to the point of scalding anger (as you mentioned) to have in-laws who are (or were) damaging to their children.
@TMae: That’s an awful situation. It’s definitely heart-wrenching to watch someone treat someone you love with such cruelty. And it’s hard to watch someone you love continue to spend time with and make excuses for that cruel person, too. =\
Being the one in my relationship who came from a crappy (nuclear) family and did not fully process how crappy it was until well after my husband told me his opinions about it, I can say for myself at least that it took that other perspective to help me get over the “blood is thicker than water” bullshit that our society piles on us and start to demand respect for myself. I hope that everyone’s relevant SO’s mentioned in this thread have had a similar experience.
It probably goes without saying, then, that I am much closer to my husband’s family than my own. My MIL was the first person to make me feel comfortable in the family, and it wasn’t just because she’s a very warm and welcoming person; she also did things like restraining herself from hugging me too much until I was comfortable with it (which took years) in spite of her own wishes.
I think part of the friction can also be the (sexist) expectation that the wife basically become a surrogate mother, which essentially shoves the mother out of the way. But my husband would be creeped out by that idea, and even where my MIL and I might “compete” (baking and cooking), I don’t mind that he still prefers some of hers over mine because how can you begrudge a person the remembered comforts of their childhood?
Also, like Charlotte, I’m still closer to 2 of my 3 stepmothers than to my own father. In fact, I generally have gotten along much better with female family members than any male family members. It’s part of the reason I call myself a feminist in the first place.
I love, love, love, LOVE my mother-in-law. She is awesome! She was the only one who helped my husband in college despite never having much money. When she had our baby sister 5 years ago (she’s 18 years older than us and had Kylie at 40), we did our best to help her out when she suddenly found herself unemployed. I would do anything for that woman.
My father-in-law is an utter asshole. When my husband was 16, I gave him a birthday party at my house. His dad showed up and demanded he first pawn his gifts and second get a job to help out with bills. Jeff has always imagined that he is on the cusp of fame and riches and thus, doesn’t need most people and can spend His money His way. A little later that same year, Jeff took Mom back to court for some back child support from when my husband was 2. His excuse to the judge was that he needed it because my husband was college bound and he would need to help him. My husband goes to college two years later and Jeff has not provided one thin red dime toward his education. A few years ago I wa working in a jail making nothing and we were overdrawn at the bank just before christmas so I asked my husband to ask Jeff for some money since he had recently married a wealthy woman and was still getting monthly payments from Mom. Jeff refused but offered to buy my husband’s rifle from him. The rifle was worth $1,200 as it had some nifty modifications on it but Jeff would only give $400 for it. Jeff then turned around an found a buyer willing to pay full worth for it essentially making an $800 profit off of his own son. For seceral christmases in a row, we were given bibles, apologetics books, and christian t-shirts even though we’ve told them, repeatedly, that we’re not christian. At one point, everytime we went to the house, Jeff’s wife literally took me by the arm and shut me up in their back room. I thought it was because they hated me but only months later was it explained that Jeff wanted to talk my husband alone. Guess what he wanted to talk about – that I was getting fat and was an unsuitable wife and Jeff wanted to introduce him to someone “better.”. Jeff once told me that he was opposed to tax money being spent on abortions (while I was working for Planned Parenthood). I told him that the Hyde amendment already made sure that wasn’t happening and he accused me of making it up. Obviously, we don’t talk about politics or anything else. Last year, we were excited to find out I was pregnant and we announced a little early. Jeff’s reaction to the news was, “oh no, now you’ll be stuck with her.”. The pregnancy ended up not being viable and when my husband called to tell them the news, Jeff said, “god really does answer prayers.”.
My husband loves my family, even my own racist, sexist, bigot of a father. And they love him so it’s only Jeff who causes issues. And my husband, god love him, still wants a relationship with this man because he feels that they usually get along okay now and for so much of his childhood they didn’t. At the end of the day and his foul, insensitive mouth, that’s still unfortunately my husband’s father.