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August 2018 Moms
livinthesunnylife
member
TTMA your In-Laws!
livinthesunnylife
member
Per a wonderful suggestion, this thread is for all your in-law complaints. MILs, FILs, SILs, BILs, all in-law complaints are welcome here. And that includes SO-MILs, etc. 
Re: TTMA your In-Laws!
August 18 Siggy Challenge: April Showers
August 18 Siggy Challenge: April Showers
Also the bride to be keeps texting me like we are gal pals which is super awkward because I am a people-pleaser and feel like I have to respond and be friendly but I know my husband doesn't like her or really want anything to do with her so it's a conundrum.
Me: 37, MH: 38; Married August 2017
TTC #1 October 2017: BFP on 12/1/2017, DD born 7/24/2018 @ 37+1 after induction due to preeclampsia
TTC #2 January 2020: AMA, dx with DOR in May 2020
IVF July 2020: 16 eggs retrieved, 14 mature, 12 fertilized, 3 blasts, 2 PGT-A normal
FET 10/7/20: BFP on 10/12/20!!! (EDD 6/25/21); First beta 10/16/20 (9dpt): 148; Second beta 10/19/20 (12dpt): 621; Third beta 10/26/20 (19dpt): 4732; Fourth (and final!) beta 11/2/20 (26 dpt): 22,000+
My faaaavorite story is from about 15 minutes after I had DS. He was whisked off to the NICU, and after DH came back to my room, my FIL and my mom came in, then left, then MIL came in. She quickly said hi to me, hi to DH, gave him an Eeyore stuffed animal for DS, and without even asking how DS was, she goes “look at this bruise I have!” turning around and pulling up the leg of her sweatpants, exposing a massive bruise covering the back of her leg. She fell down the stairs or something. We were like “Oh. Ew.” and a few minutes later she left. Well, a couple of weeks later DH was talking to my FIL about it, and he retold the story, which is then when we realized exactly what she had done, and how selfish this woman is. We both think it’s hilarious now, but if I could go back in time and change one thing, I’d have responded to her with “Oh yeah? Well look at this!” ripping off my blankets to expose my lovely bleeding vagina.
About me:
Married 6.26.11
BFP 12.23.13, EDD 9.2.14 - baby girl, born too soon at 22w6d due to a placental abruption on 5.5.14
BFP 8.4.14, EDD 4.15.15 - rainbow son, born at 30w4d due to a placental abruption on 2.8.15, healthy 3 y/o now!
BFP 2.28.17, EDD 11.8.17 - baby girl, miscarried at 11 weeks on 4.21.17
BFP 11.28.17, EDD 8.8.18, delivering in July - another rainbow baby boy!
Aight, my in-law situation. DH is 1st generation American. His dad was murdered when he was a kid and he has been expected to be the "man of the house" for his mom ever since. She calls him if a light bulb needs to be changed. She said her microwave was broken so he bought her a new one and took it over there to install it and her microwave was unplugged. We pay her credit card and gym membership. She lives 45 minutes from us and acts like she has to spend the night if she comes to our house because it's "so far". She acts pathetic and helpless about everything- which is very much cultural. I can't stand it. Then she doesn't understand why I won't allow her to watch our son.
Saw her a couple weeks ago and she was watching BIL's 6m old. The baby was on a blanket on the couch, MIL was in the kitchen. I asked her if the baby was rolling yet- "oh yes, both ways, she rolls great". Firmly bite my tongue and move the infant down onto a mat on the carpet. THAT is why you cannot watch my child. Common sense, you have none.
She and I actually get along fine, but it's very surface level because English is not her preferred language (she's been here 35+ years). But she is not "family" to me and probably never will be.
When my step kids were little MIL was their daycare provider, and they acted like spoiling grandparents even though they were nearly full time caregivers. DH was always fighting with his parents to enforce rules, and not give them whatever they want. There was one Christmas when they gave the kids so many gifts that the kids got tired of opening them and asked to go do something else! That kind of spoiling is ok if it is once a year or something, but these were family that they saw every week at least, and it was getting out of hand. I'm really hoping that we don't have the same issues this time around. I'm a SAHM, so I won't need them for childcare, but I'm afraid I won't promote the closeness that MIL would prefer.
My other big issue is with her driving. She's had over a dozen moving violations and four vehicle totaling accidents (her fault) in the past 5 years, and she may lose her license. Even though it would cause quite the headache for everyone involved, I hope she does because she is unsafe and won't change her behavior. I am not going to let my kid in the car with her, and I anticipate some upset and hurt feelings when it comes up. I hope the state takes her license so she can blame them and not me!
DH:45
DSD: 20
DSS: 18
Team green baby due: Aug 6th, 2018
It's always fun to tell people that my DH's ex planned my surprise bachelorette party and hosted my baby shower lol! And when my family comes in to town for holidays and whatnot, they're always invited to the ILs for dinner and all the festivities.
Our arrangement hasn't been met with bumps in the road but it's awesome. And DSS doesn't get away with crap because if he tries to play the 'my mom said' card, chances are I'm seeing her that weekend so I'll ask her
Me: 37 Him: 38
Married 11.07.2015
August 18 Siggy Challenge: April Showers
FIL has been married to DH’s stepmom for over 20 years so she was considered my MIL to me even before his mom passed. FIL met her stationed in Korea so at times she’s still difficult to understand and she hard core holds grudges. I learned a long time ago that I can tell her not to do things in the house until I’m blue in the face, but she will. Like does our laundry and folds our undies into tiny squares. So it’s helpful but a tad intrusive. They are both retired now and super laid back and go with the flow, but are pretty high maintenance to entertain. We’ve had some difference but I think they just accept that I’m more structured, uptight and anxious now. Step MIL never had kids so they aren’t the best baby grandparents. They just started connecting with DD when he was around 3. I wouldn’t leave them alone wth a baby haha
August 18 Siggy Challenge: April Showers
@ladygali That would drive me insane. Maybe every time you talk to her in person, you should add a super exaggerated obnoxious wink at the end of every sentence.
Me: 37, MH: 38; Married August 2017
TTC #1 October 2017: BFP on 12/1/2017, DD born 7/24/2018 @ 37+1 after induction due to preeclampsia
TTC #2 January 2020: AMA, dx with DOR in May 2020
IVF July 2020: 16 eggs retrieved, 14 mature, 12 fertilized, 3 blasts, 2 PGT-A normal
FET 10/7/20: BFP on 10/12/20!!! (EDD 6/25/21); First beta 10/16/20 (9dpt): 148; Second beta 10/19/20 (12dpt): 621; Third beta 10/26/20 (19dpt): 4732; Fourth (and final!) beta 11/2/20 (26 dpt): 22,000+
My ex IL’s hated me. Lol. So. It’s nice to have good IL’s.
MIL refuses to drive herself anywhere, even though she’s capable and she used to drive for years. She’d rather call DH, have him go to the store and deliver the groceries to her instead of driving herself 3 miles to the grocery store. She has very set ways that she does things and flips out if anyone changes it. The first year we were married and hosted a major holiday, I made all the food from scratch. She came over 2 hours early with canned veggies and Stovetop stuffing boxes, then informed me that I would also be preparing her canned veggies and Stovetop because she and FIL “don’t really like fresh or frozen veggies and don’t eat homemade stuffing.” I told her I’d worked for hours to make everything, she’d never really tried my cooking, and the least she could do was try it before deciding it was awful. When DS was born she came over to “clean” while I was in the hospital. She insisted on cleaning with her own bleach dilution. The woman cleaned my fucking hardwood floors, stained moldings, and hardwood furniture with fucking bleach. Those are just two examples.
FIL is generally just an asshole. He often acts jealous of DH because DH has a successful career. He likes to stir the pot, then sit back and watch everyone get mad at each other. He absolutely hates that I call him on his bullshit and generally act like he doesn’t offend me. He has very traditional views on gender roles and doesn’t like that I work outside the home. He also thinks that we’re horrible parents because we don’t regularly give DS pop to drink. He stopped talking to me for 6 months because I didn’t feed DS Gerber baby rice cereal at 4mos old. He’s generally just ridiculous.
I’ll leave the stories about DH’s brother and his wife for later since this post is already so long. I do get along great with DH’s sister & BIL though, but they act like rational adults.
My MIL immigrated to the US from Vietnam in 1975 at age 18. She had a rough childhood and is a very strong woman. That being said, she makes me feel like a shit wife and future mother because I feel like I can never compare to her. DH knows my feelings about this and thinks I'm crazy and that he "doesn't expect me to be like his mom," but I feel a lot of guilt and anxiety about it when I'm around her. She's pretty much super woman (works outside the home and somehow manages to keep life organized, her home immaculate, cooks the most amazing food, raised 2 successful sons, etc etc). I could go on.
ILs also moved practically across the country about 8 years ago so we don't see them much which sort of works for me. They also like to make us feel guilty for not visiting more, but they are always traveling so I don't understand why they can't come to us sometimes? Eh lots of nit picky things that bug me but they are good people and care about me and DH. Just have to remind myself of that on occasion.
Now my family...that's a different story. On the outside everything seems normal and low drama, but that's bc they won't talk about/admit any problems. I've tried to have some conversations with them about stuff but they deny deny deny, though I was once told "it's none of my business" which finally gave me an answer...or at least an admission
unmedicsted). Mil is a big time martyr, and tries to control people with money, it’s the only way she knows how. She hates my family in large part bc they have mire money than her. Judges based on money and can’t stand it when you don’t need or want her financial ‘help’ which always comes with strings stipulations and expectations. Constant comments on how expensive it is here where we live (CT is more hcol than the economically depressed pa city she is from).
Treats adukt children inequitably, as well as grandchildren. We never know if their visits will be lovely or hell. Mil and fil got married after both had their kids, fil adopted dh and his sister, and while he called him all sorts of things as a kid he does treat dh as his own. Mil does not treat his other sisters as hers whatsoever. They are othered and not tnincluded in finanes or family matters (recent family stuff when sil died).
Stes disliked me for for a long time, never welcomed me at all, tried to tell my parents a month or 2 before the wedding to get us to call it off (I was sooo pissed - among all the other reasons to rage that she assumed that we weren’t grown ass adults and that she thought she could control us). The stuff they did to sils over the years makes that look like nothing.
My kids adore her, are desperate for her attn and she’s hot and old with them. They are old enough to start to see it too. They cut their last visit (almost a year ago) short for some bs reason, which meant that they took us out to my middle sons fav casual place but didn’t do my oldests. He was really really upset, and that meant we were on the hook for taking them out to dinner to make up for it.
Dh dh has a major blowout this fall when he went up help them deal with sils death, and I guess we’ll see if anything changes but I doubt it.
Over the years hes cnsidered going no contact and bever really quite was there, but now that his sis died he’s all his mom has. So no contact isntbreally an option
we adore his other sils (step sisters) though!! Over tg we went down for the service (and holiday) and stayed up till 2am drinking and bitxhing and venting about them (got my bfp 2 days later lol).
11/18/16 missed m/c 9w1
08/03/17 no hb 8w
Ive been known to reshare parenting memes on fb just be be passive aggressive towards her. My examples are extreme and obviously that’s not the only reason we parent the way we do but it has DEFINITELY informed how we parent. Luckily my parents are great so I have positivevexamples and an example of a heathy adult family relationship and good grandparents for my kids.
11/18/16 missed m/c 9w1
08/03/17 no hb 8w
Aside from the drama, my MIL and FIL are just super flaky. We used to always do Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner at their house, and we'd take bets about when dinner would be ready. I think one year it was ready at 11:30 at night. These days, the kids do all the planning and cooking, and the kids have their own kids, so we usually eat close to dinner time when we get together.
They are also chronically late by hours and occasionally days. My parents live in the same town as my in-laws, about 90 minutes away. It took my in-laws 3 weeks to come meet DS when he was born. My parents visited at least 4 times in that time.
Also, my MIL is an all or nothing kind of person. When she remembers your birthday, she goes way over the top, but she might also forget it entirely. It doesn't bother me that much when she forgets mine, but she forgets DH's at least as often. We're right before and right after Christmas, and I think she just gets overwhelmed. I don't understand how you forget your own kid's birthday, though.
She really wanted to have 6 kids, so she did, but she didn't have the resources to really nurture all of them. I had to work pretty hard to persuade DH that we should have a second kid, and I think it's because he felt so neglected as a kid. They're kind people, but they never went to a play, or a track meet, or anything, and that really hurt. I just keep telling DH that my parents had 3 kids and went to everything, so we just have to make it a priority if it's important to us. Even these days, my parents are far more supportive of DH's theater than his parents are.
This woman is also a huge attention whore. If we buy something, she has to buy the same thing or something better. She threw a hissy fit when DH & I got engaged. She’d been dating BIL for 5 years at the time and felt she should’ve been engaged before us. She told DH he should’ve waited to ask me until after BIL asked her. Then she announced her first pregnancy to DH’s family while we were all at a bridal salon. I was in the fitting room trying on my wedding gown to show everyone.
When we told his family we were going to have DS, she got mad at me for not waiting up until 2am to call her personally after she got out of work. She got pg again right after me, and we had the same OB practice. She saw me being escorted into a check-up room once and was put in the room beside me. She heard DS’s heartbeat through the wall and recorded it on her smartphone. Then she told the doctor she was my SIL (she wasn’t at the time) and asked if she’d heard her nephew’s hb. After the doctor confirmed it, she posted it to FB. I hadn’t yet posted that I was even pregnant. Huge fight over that one. I’m still civil to her at family functions because DH asks me to be, but there is no relationship there. Her awfulness is a running family joke now. She tried to announce my pg this time on FB the day after we told family, but no one commented on her post or liked it. When we told DH’s parents that this baby is also a boy, BIL & family were there, and DH made a big stink about how there’d better be nothing on FB about it. So now I’m paranoid and checking her FB account.
However, FIL is remarried and Step-MIL is wackadoo. She is a nice person and means well, but good God, she is nutty. She's super flaky and one of those really high energy, annoyingly positive people. I'm soooo not like that so it's very difficult to be around her for longer than an hour or two at a time - totally draining for me and DH. I also think she has an eating disorder.
Her son (so, step-BIL) wants to be BFFs with us, but we really have nothing in common with him. He's really immature. He's about to be 30 but he acts like he's 20. His fiance is really nice, so I'm glad he picked someone normal this time (he's divorced). She's a lot younger than me and we also really have nothing in common (she like to hunt, fish, super outdoorsy....I'm not into any of that stuff), but she can at least have a normal conversation like a regular person.
It's all just really sad honestly, because DH says his family was very different and much more close-knit when his mom was alive. I think most of his aunts and uncles have distanced themselves because they don't care for step-MIL much.
and then this fall she was found dead from a fentanyl of, had been using rx drugs in some combination. To say it’s been a mess is the understatement of the year. Her estranged husband turned out she never signed any divorce papers, he’s awful... lots of mental issues and just... ugh. We tried to take their son and were not successful. Poor kid.
Sge was also a really really awful mean nasty person, and not any better than her husband. she (we’ve since learned) would pit family members against each other and tell each other that this person hated them, thought they were xyz, and created division - probably to try to better position herself. Sucks to speak ill of the dead butvshe was a cancer. She got the worst parts of their parents, and all was made worse when their bio dad abandoned them when she was 6.
11/18/16 missed m/c 9w1
08/03/17 no hb 8w
To start, I like my FIL quite a lot. He is very caring, loves DS, is a great dad, funny, level-headed, has some quirks but who doesn't?
My MIL...Well, things started out fine with her. In the beginning, I thought we would be great friends and was excited to spend time with her. Used to call her all the time and enjoyed giggling over a bottle of wine. Now, I can't say I straight-up "dislike her," but there are many things about her that are really annoying and ridiculous.
She is very scatter-brained and not the brightest bulb. For example, last year, she lost her wallet our first night of vacation. She loses her glasses, phone, purse many times a year. When we go out to dinner, we are constantly having to turn around to go get her iPad or whatever she leaves at a restaurant.
For many years she was a "closet" alcoholic. She assumed no one knew she drank but we all knew and when she finally "came out about it" she really spiraled and was in and out of rehab a lot. She'd go but then break out to go steal alcohol. She picked us up from the airport after our honeymoon completely smashed and I thought she was going to kill us driving drunk. It was the middle of the day, like, a weekday.
For a long time she couldn't hold a job because she was always getting drunk. Then she started abusing prescription drugs but they were prescribed (I think) and just taken in ways that made her high. She had several car accidents and the police NEVER checked her BAC. She should NOT have a license.
She'd blame everything/one else on her problems. Despite her having, from what I gather, a relatively tough childhood, I am firmly of the belief that you do not have to be a product of your upbringing. Lots of people have bad lives and don't abuse drugs and alcohol. I think a lot of people use that as an excuse when they get caught or too deep into trouble. That may sound bad but I have seen too many people not take responsibility for themselves.
I have kind of grown to resent her because I feel like she did all that stuff because "I took her baby away." DH is an only child and has always been close to his mom. During our pre-marital counseling we had several discussions about how it was time to cut the cord because DH literally felt it his duty to keep Mommy from drinking. Like, he would leave me at home to go spend the night at her house (FIL works nights) to make sure she wouldn't drink.
She has been clean a while now. Although, I was pretty surprised to learn that she was apparently still drinking and/or abusing Rx drugs about the time DS was born because the time she got her "year coin" did not line up to when we thought she was clean.
She is very obsessed with DS and spends too much money on him. Almost like she traded one addiction for another. She's one of those "Oh, a little xyz won't hurt" kinds of grandmas who doesn't like to follow our rules. Thus, DS is an asshole when he comes home from their house.
My ILs have 2 pit bulls who are hyper and untrained and I get nervous every time DS spends the night over there (which is fairly often - I have to admit that now MIL is clean, I do appreciate them giving us a break every so often so that DH and I can keep our relationship smokin' hot lol.) I've mentioned the dogs before - we used to have pit bulls - I don't have a fear of the breed in and of itself but I don't think untrained and hyper large, strong dogs should be around young children, period.
I still drink around MIL whenever I want (I mean, obviously not NOW, but when not pregnant) and it makes DH kind of mad but I am past caring what she "thinks" about MY life. If she is always going to butt in and be around all the time (she's one of those "hi I was just in the neighborhood" type people who just shows up at our house) I am going to do what I want.
Whew. Sorry. I think I need to see a therapist about her. Lol.
@livinthesunnylife I hate group texts. I never want to reply. I basically text my mom, sister, husband and maybe one friend consistently. Otherwise I am pretty bad about replying.
@legallykate my family (not ILs) are also super bad about planning anything in a timely manner and it is sooo annoying! I hope for your sake they come up with an idea soon. Honestly, having kids is not an excuse to not plan anything.
Yikes ladies, some of you really have it bad. My in-laws are dramatic and annoying, but they're not really bad people exactly. Also, this is timely because they're coming to visit this weekend.
My in-laws are terrible with money and always have been. They’ve consistently asked us for money over the years, which we’ve never given them because they won’t change their ways. They’re jealous of all the things their kids have, so they try and keep up. But then they can’t pay their mortgage or car repair bills. They currently have an unpaid sewer that’s at least $12,000.
DH is a third, so he and his dad have the same name. DH got in a motorcycle accident in college, and when the insurance went to make a payment to him, they accidentally put the money in his dad’s bank account and then his parents spend all the money instead of paying his medical bills. He ended up with a lot of debt that he never should have had because of them.
Last year, FIL had some sort of affair with a stripper. I doubt it was ever physical, but there were definitely pictures and text messages between the two. My SIL found them on his phone. MIL and FIL aren’t happy together, but they can’t afford to get divorced. FIL still has Tinder and OKcupid on his phone. Ew.
Despite all this, DH has an okay relationship with them. He calls them every Sunday, mostly out of obligation, but he does a good job of keeping them in the loop on what’s going on. Honestly, he’s often looking for their validation and they’ll never give it because they’re too busy being miserable and jealous. It’s just sad. If there are any updates after this weekend, I’ll definitely add more.