Health & Fitness
Monster-in-Law Behaviors
Does your mother-in-law drive you crazy? Or are you a mother-in-law who is at peace with her child's family? Here are a few things that drive us daughters-in-law crazy.
My husband’s mom is every bad stereotype about mother-in-laws (MILs) on steroids. This last weekend she was in extra-rare form and it inspired me to compile a list of things MILs do that drive us crazy. Here are some of my favorites:
Laying on Guilt Trips – Yes, I know you really want me to come to your cabin that is four-and-a-half hours away when we don’t have any vacation to use, but constantly reminding us about how we never do and falsely labeling things as reunions makes us want to come even less.
Undermining Our Parenting – Never, ever, ever ask our kids if they want to do something that we have already told you they can’t do in hopes of getting them so excited that we won’t want to say no. Guess what? We will still say no and then everyone is miserable and we will think twice about coming to visit you next time.
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Trying to Control Us - Just because we let you pay for our plane ticket home when we were a poor military family, doesn’t mean I can’t visit my side of the family too. A few years ago we did this—spent one week with my MIL and one week with my family—then heard after the fact (and indirectly of course) that my MIL was mad because she paid for our tickets and we “didn’t even spend any time with her.”
Meddling - While my husband and I were temporarily stationed in California (for only four weeks, mind you) before having to go right back to Virginia, I got a random call from my auto insurance company: “Um, your mom called. Did you guys move?” Not OK.
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Bad-Mouthing – My MIL actually wrote in a letter to one of OUR friends that she had met only once that she didn’t know why my husband was letting me get a cat because I “can’t even keep the house clean.”
Manipulating – This last weekend we were supposed to spend Friday night at my MIL's house. When my Father-in-Law (divorced from my MIL) offered to pay for a hotel instead we happily accepted. My MIL got so mad that she uninvited us to breakfast on Saturday morning and almost didn’t go to her grandson's baptism. Crazy town.
Do you have a monster-in-law? What would you add to the list?
