Topic : Getting Along With Your In-Laws

I don't know about you, but I'd have loved for someone to buy all that stuff!!!!! Some mil's just get excited and love to shop for the baby. Maybe you're looking at this the wrong way? Unless/until she steps in and tries to usurp your PARENTAL position, (not following the rules you set up for your son, etc., going against your wishes)  I don't see where what she's doing is that big of a deal. It sounds as though you're in competition with your mil, when you don't really need to be. Truthfully, it sounds like you're overreacting just a bit (sorry) in this instance. You didn't mention that she's giving your son sweets before dinner against your rules, allowing him to run willy-nilly against you rules, etc. You just mention the stuff she's bought. all that stuff costs a small fortune, and I'd be grateful as all get-out if someone had bought even ONE of those items for any one of my children. It's likely that she's going to make a fuss over this baby as well. But the relationship between a grandparent and grandchild is a special one, since the grandparent isn't responsible for the actual RAISING of the child, kwim? They get to be the "good guy". The first thing I'm going to buy my own grandchild when he/she comes along is a t-shirt that says "when mommy says no, go ask grandma!" I wouldn't go against my daughter's wishes, of course....and I WILL buy all the goodies for the baby-to-be that I can afford. That way, it'll free up money for my daughter to indulge in other areas. Maybe if you just calm down a bit, and look at it from her standpoint of loving her grandchild. She's probably not wanting to get you out of the way, she's just likely anxious to have her grandchild all to herself....since she can feed the nurturing and loving side of her by way of the grandchild.

I'd just calm down a bit, and try to see things from a different light. You don't have to compete with her...you're the MOTHER...and moms hold a special place that no one else will ever have in the child's heart. Just like grandma has her own special place. There's plenty of love to go around for everyone. As for the coat...maybe instead of her thinking you weren't dressing your son accordingly, she just saw it and thought it adorable and couldn't resist. Her hiding it from you tells me she was afraid to let you know she bought it.

You know...my kids had grandparents...that didn't give a rat's patootie about them. I have a 6yo son that his grandmother has never laid eyes on. I had him at 42, and have 3 much older children as well. I can count on ONE hand the number of times they saw their grandparents in their lives. Not only did they not indulge these kids...they didn't even care enough to see them. As long as she's not usurping your parental role, just ease up, and try to look at what she's really doing. Just being a typical GOOD grandmother. Believe me...the other side sucks. For the KIDS. Good luck...I wish you the best....

Well, well, well, what can I say about inlaws? My husbands parents haven't been married to each other in over 20 years and yet they seem to attack me around the same time. His father tries to cover his stupidity with insults towards me and sometimes crudeness. However, I much rather deal with that, since he states what is on his mind and you can "state" it right back to him but his mother is the spawn of something evil and underhanded. My husband realizes all of this but wants me to be the one to endure it and let his parents go on treating me how ever they want. I can bring something up such as purchasing land, needing a storage building, add-ons to the house, just whatever and the next time I hear about it, it's went through his mom or dad or both. If I reason with him about something, he doesn't take it as sound advice but let his parents say it and it's LAW! I am a stay-at-home-mom and both his parents and himself believe that the money he makes is his and that he is the one who has the say-so over it. We of course get the things we need but the budget just doesn't have enough for me and my sanity. I go nowhere, I do nothing. I go to town no more than 2 times a week but usually once a week. I do not take my kids to every child funtion that society has created to be the "in" thing. I don't even buy clothes for the kids, my husband and his mother normally do that, not because I don't want to though. Now, even though that usually is my life around here, both his parents think I'm some high-dollar money grubbing female who sits on her butt all day doing nothing. His father LOVES to see if he can find something that he can "tell" on me for. I have proved this several times by telling my husband that his dad would be calling him about whatever it was. EVERYTIME he has tattled, it was over somehting that was absolutely none of his business. His mother is alot like that as well, I swear they should have stayed married.

These parents are RUINING their kids. They expect thier parents to help them out WAY too much, then when they get married their spouse feels as if they are still the outsider because it really doesn't matter what they have to say.

Now this could stem from envy, because I was raised VERY poor and I'm not talking about having foodstamps and yet having a car and cable TV either. Our highlights was getting a couple bags of food in the house and eating the meat and drinking the milk before it went bad because we didn't have electricity, kind of poor. BUUUT I can't help feel that Dr. Phil does the same with his oldest boy. I feel that his diploma benefits how far they will ALL go. I know it's envy, I'll just have to get over it.

My husband and I are on our 2nd marriage each. He was married for the first time for 23 years until she booted him out with 5 boxes of personal stuff and took everything he had including his daughter. His family has sided with her and has made life pure miserable for him. They have done everything they can to honor her wishes and have excluded him from family events because she attends. For 2 years he prayed that his marriage would be healed. Don't get me wrong, she had enough and booted him out because of his addiction to presription medication. He ended up retiring from the local police department because he got caught and to top off matters, his dad was the mayor in town at the time. The problem is, he is now clean and clear and has been for the last 2 years. He and I met 4 years ago. We married almost 2 years ago. His family claim to be Christians, well they have never forgiven him and to this day, they hold her feelings above his. His mother still introduces his ex-wife as her forever daughter in law. The brothers and sister total ignore me and do not recognize me as their sister in law. 2 Thanksgivings ago, I had to sit down 2 chairs away and hear her tell everyone that she had been in that family for 30 years and was not going anywhere. Last year when his other brother divorced, they all took his side and started calling teh ex evil. My husband suffers misearably for this cold shoulder they give him. Worse, they all have parties and get togethers and never invite him. He is not allowed to talk to his daughter even though she is 19 now. Her mother has polluted her mind so much it is sad to see him week after week calling her without any response. She did not call him on Fathers Day. The rest of his family accepts this and tells him it will take time. It has been almost 6 years. He calls his daughter every Sunday because I asked him to never give up. Yet his family and even his mother never encourage her to have a relationship with her father. His sister teaches at my daughters school and when he adopted my youngest daughter, she went around complaining about it. At his 50th B-day party he made a comment that his family never helps him with the relationship and his mother yelled at him in front of the guest that it was his fault. When he wrote to her and told her how hurt he was, she dismissed it. She asks me all the time why doesn't he love her. I am amazed she would even ask. This is one of the saddest cases of alienation between families I have ever seen. I tried to write to his daughter and she got hateful and her Aunt on the mothers side wrote to me a horrible email about how evil he was. It breaks my heart to see him torn down like this. His youngest brother is getting married in August and we are not invited because the ex will be there. It is horrible how they treat him. Dr. Phil, please give me some advice on how to help him heal and accept this rejection. I feel so sorry for him, it just breaks my heart.

You sound very much like me.   We had the first grandchild on both sides, and wow was the spotlight HOT.  I love for my kids to be adored, but at first it was just TOO MUCH!  I felt smothered!  People have different personalities, I think I am more introverted than a lot of people.  And when people push too hard like that I tend to clam up and withdraw.  Looking back I'm sure I was too uptight due to new-mom jitters compounded w/ 2 grandmas holding a magnifying glass up to us.

 

I don't know if you mean that your MIL bought the baby equip for her house or for you guys.    With my first kid, my mom was talking about all the baby equip she was going to have to get for her house, and it really creeped me out.  It was like SHE was having a baby!  LOL!   But I talked her out of fashioning her home like she was raising babies again.  Now, 5 yrs (and 3 more kids) later, we're at a good place.  It helped when my brother & his wife had kids.  Took some of the heat off us, and also my SIL holds her position as mother so my mom knows it's normal, instead of thinking I'm just being mean to her  ;)

Sorry...went off on tangent....but I sympathize.  Even if she bought all that stuff for your house, I'm sure you wanted some of the excitement of picking that stuff out for yourselves, instead of her getting to do it all.  I don't know, I know grandparents get excited but there's a line when you cross into taking over / making it all about yourself.   I sense you feel your MIL is over that line.  Have you tried talking to her at all??   Maybe buffer w/ compliments first  "oh, we're all so lucky to have you.  You help us so much.  Baby loves granny to pieces.  We have enough stuff now.  Husband and I want to pick out the rest of the stuff ourselves.  So please do not buy anything else until we let you know if there's anything left we need."   Say the last part clearly, firmly, with emphasis & eye contact.  Change the tone of your voice to get across you mean business.  Don't say it all waffly or high pitched.    

I also agree w/ other poster, try to remind yourself that she's just overzealous. I think it's common w/ the baby-boomers becoming grandparents.  (my own grandparents had more kids & grandkids, they didn't act like this!  So I was shocked when everyone started freaking out when we had a kid.)   My advice is to hold firm, but also try not to be too uptight, really assess - if it's an innocent thing chalk it up to grandparent crazies, chuckle to yourself & move on!  LOL!

 

I feel ya girl. My husband works for the family business as well and if it wasn't for his efforts and work habits, his father wouldn't have a business. My husband has went as far as not getting a paycheck for a few weeks to get the company back on its' feet in the beginning! Meanwhile, his father uses the fact that his son (my husband) is a good person and wants his dads' business to succeed. He even uses his own personal credit cards to float the business from month to month and has to pull his dads teeth to get the expenses out of the man! His father his a liar and an idiot.

If I were you I would get the man on the phone and tell him what you think! However, I don't really know how much good it would do. I have done the same with his dad but it doesn't work, I think the man is just too dense. It's like my Mama told me once, "PJ, don't ask anyone to apologize for being who they are. If they are chickensh*t, they are just chickensh*t."

Oh ya...............all the stuff she bought was for her house.....my in laws have 'burned' us before by refusing to cosign on a mortgage because THEY didn' t like the house....my MIL has no interest in me....only in my son and soon to be daughter.....the trust has been broken many times before and im getting fed up...she underminds me as his mother all the time

thanks for your advice

I had problems with my father-in-law for years. I've been ill for years with severe irratible bowel syndrome, chronic fatigue, and a sleep disorder. As the years went by, my health continually became a problem in holding employment. The only person in my family convinced I was a faker was my Father-in-law. He would constantly berate me in front of my children, tell me I was lazy and it got to the point where I had to kick him out of my home.

I told him that I would not tolerate him disrespecting me in front of my children, and my wife backed me up (I love my wife so much, she has been so supportive to me). We both told him that unless he could learn to respect us as adults, and keep his disrespect to himself, he was no longer welcome to visit his grandchildren. Over the years, he has seen that I'm not actually lazy, just exhausted a lot, and he has seen me take care of my fatherly and husband duties round our home. Eventually, he came around and apologized, and we get along pretty well now. When it comes to difficult in-laws, this is my advice:

 

1. When you married your spouse, you married his/her family as well. It is part of your responsibility to look past their flaws and love them anyway. DO NOT seek revenge for slights against you by your in-laws. Be the bigger person, tell them in private about how you feel without stooping to name calling or back-biting.

2. Stick to your principles. If in-laws are very belligerant towards you, stand your ground and tell them they are not welcome to visit you/kids unless they can respect you in front of the rest of your family. Sometimes, love needs to get tough.

3. Talk with your spouse about the problem. Its important that your spouse back you up with in-law problems, as dealing with them alone makes you look like an idiot. Spouse cooperation and support is VITAL when dealing with difficult in-laws.

 

Things between my Father-in-law and I are not perfect, but he tries now, and if he says something disrespectful towards me, I gently remind him, in private, that respect is earned, not given. If he cannot respect me and the fact that I have health problems, why should I respect him? He's a good man, a bit self-centered, but he loves his family, and I never stop trying to improve our relationship, as I know that its important for our family to get along.

Ok long story short...We got married and 6 months later my husband stopped speaking to his father , turned out the father had a mistress and left family for her ,4 yrs. went by and the mistress gave him the boot so he faked a stroke and got sympathy from my husbands 4 sisters (his the only boy) and got back into the house and my MIL had no say (she's a push over) at that time we were loseing our baby boy and he passed away as my FIL was fresh back into the house he  called to give his say and my husband hung up on him and hated him even more after that and his sisters for sideing with him two of his sisters don't speak to my husband because his "unfair" to their dad . Then in 2002 and 2005 we had girls and have never met their GF my husband wont have it. Also mu husband tells me its everything about his up bringing his father a fuctioning alcoholic (this because he has always provided economicly) a weak and push over mother that complains about the father since they were tots and now about the sisters but then wants my husband to just brush it off and forgive them its to complicated and I would never finish if I mentioned everything , so fast forward to this week we were chosen to be god parents to my sister in laws child and yes the father was there and I approched him to say Hi and he did not acknowledge me and turned away or nor did he acknowledge his grand daughters (my husband never even looked at him) which I'd figured was the his last chance to try to make amends with my husband and it did'nt happen I never thought it would affect me but it did , he was rude to me and now my husband will NEVER EVER forgive him ,I really dont want a realationship with my FIL and let alone my daughters his style of life is another then ours and we have actually been very happy not being involved in their complicated bitter lives  ,is this wrong?should I just leave it be? but this is always present and always there do I even try to fix it? I don't know what to do.

 

JJ

Dear Fiona.  I have spent 13 years trying to get the future in-laws to accept me and our daughter.   She is their only granddaughter and they treat her as if she doesn't exit.  I feel your pain.   Also, the family problems have kept me from actually getting married. Anytime I try to spend the holidays with my family, Curt's family yells at him that they don't see us enough and that it's all MY fault.  When our daughter was little, I would go visit them and they would ignore me and our daughter.  There were always insults and I could expect a huge fight with Curt on the way home.  Also, they would constantly bring up Curt's former girlfriend, Monaca, who is a nurse.  Curt's mom and dad would say things like.." Monaca said that it is not natural for you to breastfeed (our daughters name)."  I could tell that they had hopes of their son marrying her instead of me.  I felt so uncomfortable going to visit either Curt's dad and his new wife or Curt's mom and her new husband so I just stopped completely.  I figure they can come see their granddaughter anytime and for the past 3 years I haven't seen them once.  Unfortunately, I don't live as far away as you do.  The mother-in-law is 20 miles away.  The father-in-law is 65 miles away.  Both have $ and let you know that your beneath them every chance they get.  Our daughter is at an age where she sees the problems and has been hurt that they wouldn't attend any of her school , religious, and extra curricular activities.  She is a straight A student, but they don't even acknowledge that either.  It has been VERY HARD for me to accept this situation because I grew up spending every weekend with my grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles.  I have a lot of great memories from those times spent with my relatives.  The Sunday get- together is no more and our daughter hardly knows her grandparents and other relatives. I asked a priest once...what else can I do?  His advice was to stop trying to please them and pray for them.

Anet 

I have been married 32 years this month and am just about fed up with my mooching in-laws and my spine-less husband who has never been able to stick up for me, he doesn't like confrontation with anyone but me. I have no close family - my dad deceased for 18 years, my mom with advanced alzheimers, my brother and his family live a completely different lifestyle than ours - all  my husband and I really have together are two wonderful grown daughters and three adorable granddaughters. One daughter and family live a 15 hour drive away and she is unhappy and would like to live closer, the other daughter and her family live 3 minutes from us, have money problems and severe health problems.  We bought my husbands family farm 24 years ago and it was the WORST mistake we could have made. When my father-in-law had serious health issues 5 years ago, I stupidly insisted that they move from 25 hours away and put a mobile home on OUR farm about 100 feet from my door., using the water right straight from our house, not paying any rent, never paying any taxes and invading my privacy on a daily basis. Then their daughter who is now 65 years old, never had a job of any type, never learned to drive a car and luckily never had children from 20 years of marriage moved in with them - now their 59 year old son has decided it looks pretty good to be living free while I work full-time to just try to make ends meet. My husband has lost several jobs recently through no fault of his own, but he can not get motivated to find a better job than a dead-end, low paying job with no benefits, while I am paying for all his health benefits and retirement. I am just about at the end of my rope - the only reason we have stayed together is because I am not willing to give up everything I have worked so hard for and my daughters and granddaughters need a place to run from their problems. We have tried counseling ( my husband wouldn't follow through), I have screamed, I have begged, I have cried - I am on anti-depressants and know that I am worth too much to think about suicide any more. We have not had sex since his family moved in here 5 years ago. I feel sooooo trapped, but I have my gardens and my animals and my job and my daughters that all make me feel like keeping going and I am too selfish to divorce him and give up all of my hard work. Suggestions, other than divorce? I feel TRAPPED!!! My husband thinks if he ignores the problems, they will just go away or I will shut-up. Am I expecting too much?