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2nd Trimester
KRISTA555
member
Anyone else the "black sheep" of your in-law's side of the family?
KRISTA555
member
It's probably because I'm pretty outspoken about my opinions (I still use discretion, but I will speak up if the need arises), and when I first met my FIL years ago, I told him that he made me uncomfortable and feel unwelcome in the family because of the way he spoke to me. We get along fine now, (albeit awkwardly) but that's only because FIL really watches what he says around me because he knows I'm one of the few people on earth who will call him out. He has bad foot-in-mouth syndrome.
When I told FIL those things, I was respectful and didn't put him down at all. I just told him from the heart that when he said certain things, it made me feel uncomfortable. MIL, at the time, was sitting right there and in a sense was agreeing with me because she nodded and further explained my feelings to FIL.
My in-laws are still really nice to me, but they definitely favor their other daughter-in-laws, who are extremely sweet, submissive, and would never tell FIL he was being rude like I did.
MIL is always posting things on their Facebook walls about how much she misses them, etc etc. It makes me a little jealous and sad. I've really tried to make an effort to have a good relationship with them, but I feel like they resent me because of what I said to FIL years ago.
I still can't get over the idea that they wish my husband would've married a more submissive, quiet woman like the other DIL's.
Kinda sucks.
Does anyone else experience this?
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Anyone else the "black sheep" of your in-law's side of the family?
I am def the black sheep in the famiy. I have been for a really long time. We met back in 1999. I have been around that long. His parents are not from America and will talk their language in front of me all the time and make me feel uncomfy.
A lot of stuff has happened to the point where mil didn't want to tell my dh stuff about her life, bil life becuase of ME. We don't talk we don't even see each other.
My dh wanted them there when our dd was born and for her baptism but they didn't want to come becuase of ME. that is how bad it is.................
I am not sure about the who submissive thing but I am not quiet and will speak my mind.
Kind of. My IL's are WIERD. DH swears he was adopted. Even his extended (grandparents and aunts and uncles) distance themselves from them whenever possible. I'm outspoken like you and when we are out in public together and they start making a scene, I will tell them they are being inappropriate. My MIL is always upset that I would dare say anything and doesn't see anything wrong with their behavior.
They embarrass the $hit out of me sometimes. Like when they started a food fight at a local restaurant, during the Sunday Church rush. I was mortified. My SIL and BIL were in their 20's. REALLY????
Yes yes yes I am! My husband comes from a wealthy family and I come from the opposite. When we met we were still high schoolers and I would come visit and they'd purposefully talk to my DH about me in front of me. They thought I was a bad influence on him. Until the day we were married his family was in denial over me being part of the group. His dad would introduce me as a "friend" even though we'd been together for over 4 years. His family even had pictures of DH and other girlfriends around the house... not a single one of me.
After we were married, they started to come around... but man did it take time. Most of the resistance is from FIL. He always has to be the big man who is right. He talks over people and will not admit when he is not right. (so disrespectful) His opinion is "the way." The whole family is passive towards him.. except me. I'm pretty sure I'm the first one to not put up with his attitude. FIL gets frustrated with me and sometimes I do back off to avoid a fight. I don't want my DH to feel like we can't all be in the same room but sometimes FIL gets me so frustrated I just leave the room.
My DH and I are making the in-laws grandparents for the first time so MIL has been very nice to me and she really has come around. FIL said we are not allowed to call him grandpa because he's not ready...
I KNOW DH's parents wished he would've married someone who was more "cookie cutter" to their lifestyle. They blame a lot of our financial troubles on me. I will be the black sheep forever I'm sure because money is not the center of DH and I's life. So to answer your question the long way, YES I experience it every time the in-laws come around.
Glad I'm not the only one. (:
C.
E.</p>
This is me, except reverse the FIL and MIL in law. My MIL ignores me 95% percent of the time and the other 5% she is either snarky or passive aggressive. I cant stand being around her. Last christmas her other DIL and niece she gave them coach purses, she gave me a set of nesting bowls (which i already had) from her old pampered chef days. granted pampered chef is nice, but she has stock she tries to get rid of from YEARS ago when she still sold it.
WOW. I can't handle people like that. They probably wouldn't like me either.
I'm in the same boat, so I feel your pain. My MIL has disliked me from the start back in 2000. I've tried really hard, but it got to the point I just quit trying with her in 2010 and things got even worse. She meddles in our relationship constantly and puts me down in front of my step daughter. When I confronted her, things got real ugly. There isn't any hope for us and I've learned to just move on, but it still hurts. I'm also very outspoken and she hates it. We stayed the night there on a holiday once and when I got up the next morning to help with breakfast she started in on how I'm a horrible wife and blah blah blah, so I told her that DH loved me and that she should learn to accept me because I'm not going anywhere. Her response to that was "Don't get between a mama bear and her cub." Um.... She's crazy... my response was.."Good thing I'm not scared of bears." She's hated me since then and has told me so, but is pathetically sweet to me in front of DH so he does not understand what I told him goes on. SD even told him what she's been doing when she is around and he didn't address it, so now I just avoid her. I'm nice and civil, but I think she's a horrible person...great mom...but that's it. The rest of his family acts the same way towards me when they are around her, but nice when she's not and it hurts my feelings. I'm learning just to go on with life and if they want to be that way then fine. If you hate me, then you hate a part of your grandchild and I won't tolerate that around my child. After what she did with my step daughter I won't give her the chance to do the same with my LO.
Make a pregnancy ticker
Geez that would be hard. I don't know what's harder: still talking to and being around IL's who you feel don't really like you, or not talking to them at all. I think your situation is harder. That has to be a little painful for your dh.
I am. My MIL and SIL are so f'n rude. I had a miscarriage in March of this year, and my SIL (who thinks everything should be handed to her) had the nerve to call a couple days after my m/c and ask to HAVE my baby furniture, in her words "since you wont be needing it now". I was floored/pissed...the works. But kept my cool for a few days anyway. Then my MIL calls and asked me to "pitch in" to buy furniture for SIL's baby when she was given a crib and everything else! What set me and my dh off is the fact that her friends were supposed to give her a babyshower but backed out, MILs friend and I got together and threw a baby shower for her, and she still EXPECTED me to throw her another babyshower "because I am her 'sister' and thats what 'sisters' are supposed to do". 3 *** baby showers, meanwhile her and MIL has yet to this day bought anything for my DD and DS (even forgot about their birthdays lastyear) and dont even acknowledge that I have an older DD from a previous relation. My MIL asked me a week or so after-we tried to avoid them for a while to let things simmer down, so Dh and I tried explaining peacefully and telling MIL that we thought it was rude of them for all the things mentioned above....
MIL told SIL (self-centered ***), who blew everything out of the water and tried saying I was the insensitive one because I was "jealous" because we arent having the baby we lost in March. They are by-far the most dumbest/rudest/inconsiterate *** people I have ever met. To this day they still dont understand how rude and inconsiderate they are. --Then MIL stops by a few days ago (after my JBF sale shopping spree) and says in front of Dh and I "Well, from the looks of it you wont be needing a babyshower!" in a rude tone. My Dh fired back "Yep, youre right, because WE buy everything for our kids, and dont EXPECT everyone else to do it for us"
I cant stand my IL's. They can all rot in hell, and honestly my kids are FAR better without them in our lives-I'd hate for their stupidity to rub off on my children anyway. Dh agrees. (FTR: My Dh is the only decent one out of the whole family, I could swear he was adopted!)
Me too.
I think the frustrating part for me (and it sounds like you too) is that I don't deserve the scarlet letter. I'm a good wife to DH and treat him very well. I am a good mother to my DD. I don't do anything to really deserve being treated differently, other being different from what they're used to.
I really hope, and will strive to, be more open to whomever my children choose to be with.
Geez, it's like an episode of "Everybody Loves Raymond" except way, way worse. Cut the cord already, lady.
I hope one day your MIL is being rude to you and your DH overhears from another room or something so he can get a grasp of what you've dealt with. He should believe you though.
I know this is all going to sound so strange to people but the facts are the facts in our family.
I love my MIL - she is a sweetheart - she tries so hard to be kind to us - especially since she knows how terrible her children are to both of us.
All my BILs and SILs are weed smoking, 40 ounce drinking, cigarette puffing ghetto types. They are opinionated, rude, aggressive and most of the time completely off in their own world.
My husband and I are not straight laced or uptight. We drink when we want to, we club TOGETHER, we are best friends as well as husband and wife. We don't do drugs, we dont smoke, we listen to alternative music and have tattoos and piercings (not out of control that we are social misfits - unlike his other family members). I work fulltime in a professional corporate environment and kill myself to make things work for us and hubby works like a maniac DJing, doing web design and assisting as a super for us to have a home while I finish my Master's degree.
All of the things we ARE - make my MIL proud and supportive. The others though see us as weird.
They call it RETARDED that we don't party with others on our own - apart from each other.
They call it WEIRD that we won't "chill wit dem" in the south Bronx at the one BILs home that has more THC on his walls then paint.
They say we are wasting our time in the gym since we wont live forever.
They say we dress weird because we don't show my belly and cleavage and hubby doesnt sport a sag.
When I got prego they acted so happy for us until I showed up and the one SIL turned and said OMG you're already SOOOOO FAT!!!!! WOW - so I guess you will be like us all after all. (I have no interest in becoming anything like them)
Needless to say - they are lost in time - no plans for a future, pregnant teenage children, destructive behaviors and poor excuses for relationships within each family unit. But we are the "weird, out of place ones because we are in cahoots against the famiy according to them."
Yep, definitely the black sheep. My MIL is a total dictator, and the whole family rolls over rather than listen to her b****. She treats her (30-something) daughter and son like children. I met my husband when I was 33. I moved out of my house when I was 18, and put myself through college and grad school, have a good, well-paying professional job, and owned my own home before DH and I met. (I have a great relationship with my mom, but I grew up lower-middle class with three kids behind me so there wasn't much she could do for me financially). MIL tried to treat me like a child as well and wanted me to do everything the way she wanted it done. At first I was polite and tried to get along, but everything came to a head when we were planning the wedding - she was angry that I didn't let her plan the wedding, and I stopped even trying to let her help since she criticized all of my plans. She picked a fight with me 3 days before our wedding, and wanted to know why she and I aren't friends. When I tried to tell her that it hurt my feelings that she couldn't remember that my two youngest brothers were dead and that I had to tell her THREE TIMES, she responded, "I can't remember because your family is so different than mine! I mean, your mother has been married three times..." Seriously, lady? You're trying to blame my mother for the fact that you're an insensitive narcissist?
Her daughter got married a few months after my DH and I, and of course MIL planned the whole thing. SIL and new BIL bought a house a mile from MIL and FIL, and they go there for dinner every night. And sometimes they go there for breakfast as well. These are not kids - she is 30 and he's 38. They all vacation together, shop together, go on outings together....*shiver*. Since DH and I have no interest in seeing them more than once every other week at the most (and it would be less if I had anything to do with it) we get guilt trips every time we do see them.
Now that we're having their first grandchild I'm nervous about keeping the carefully constructed distance that we've managed to maintain. MIL has already told me (not asked, told) that she is planning on coming to my house to spend the day with me every day when I go on maternity leave before LO is born so she can take me to the hospital, and DH and FIL can meet us there. I told DH that that is so not happening - I don't even want her at hospital until I've recovered a bit, cleaned up, bonded and breastfed.
Aahhhh...who knew that a quick break at work to check the Bump would lead to such a nice catharsis? That felt good to get out...
That's exactly it, I do my very best for my husband. I too want to be open to whomever my kids become and who they want to be with. Life is too short to be unaccepting. I'm glad you shared your post!
C.
E.</p>
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Tizzle 10/07 ~ Boppy 7/09 ~ Chicken 1/12
Books read in 2013: ~ Audiobooks listened to in 2013: 3
Currently reading: The Fiery Cross by Diana Gabaldon
Currently listening to: The Dark Divine by Bree Despain
my currently-reading shelf:
I could have said this same thing! I think the big issue is I'm the primary person in DH's eyes now, followed by our children. Our differences with MIL-we have boundaries, she has no concept of boundaries. She once tried to bribe him to come put a shelf together for her after he told her he had to fix the brakes on my car (um..brakes are a little more important than a shelf she ended up doing herself!). We both laughed because I'm pretty sure I have more to offer him than waffles!
I'm in somewhat of a similar boat. My in-laws love me and I love them and we all get along, there is not hate that's for sure! But my husband has one sister and only one boy cousin so me and his cousins wife are the ONLY two women who married into the family. We are also the only two who don't live where they grew up and all the rest of their family lives around where they grew up as well so we are literally the ONLY ones from outside of the area. Like I said, his family is great and we both (me and the cousins wife) love them to bits, it's just a bit different for us because we both grew up with similar backgrounds and their family just does things kind of differently and it's kind of hard to get used to!
Daughter #1 - February 12, 2010
natural m/c March 11, 2011 at 8 1/2 weeks
Daughter #2 - January 11, 2012
Ectopic pregnancy discovered November 6, 2012 at 6 weeks
Daughter #3 - January 19, 2014
Started our exploration into the world of international adoption June 2012. We have no idea what this is going to look like but we are excited to find out!
I swear, reading your OP was like reading something I wrote myself. I'm basically the black sheep for the exact same reasons, and my F.SIL is submissive and quiet and would never speak out toward my F.IL's, etc. We all get along now, but it is a little awkward for me, too...it's just hard to fully be myself around people who used to bash me for being myself. And I was like you, I was never rude but I was not afraid to let them know they made me feel unwelcome or unliked...and they were always very offended by that and would yell and insult me. It was ridic.
It's hard, but I've gotten over the idea that I'm not exactly what they wanted for my SO...at this point, I'm like "who cares if they don't think I'm perfect for him." He thinks I am, and that's all that matters!
EDIT: What DOES bother me though is that I know that F.MIL and F.SIL have gossiped about me together in the past (F.MIL spilled the beans once to make ME feel bad for not coming around enough by saying F.SIL had told her that she was so pissed at me and SO for "how we treated" F.MIL and F.FIL...F.SIL didn't even know our side of the situation), and I know that they have such a twisted idea of me...they make me feel like I am an unlikeable person. That part is hard for me to let go, even after nearly 5 years of dealing with it. I just hate that they think I'm the whacked out/rude/selfish/whatever one. I have felt for quite a few years now that they all just "tolerate" me at this point...when it should be the other way around. I am really nice, but they never gave me a chance because they were mean to me from month 1 with my SO.
I fall into this as well. My FIL isn't my biggest fan.
It first started after his ex-FIL died and after the funeral he was ripping the man apart in the parking lot surrounded by mourners and worse....his own grown children who just looked shocked. The next day he started in on his ex-FIL. I told him to stop, that regardless of what happened with him and ex-FIL that it had no bearing on the relationship his children had with their grandpa and that he was being rude. I think he would have throttled me if we were not in public.