My In-laws are worse than your In-laws!

[hereyago]

That is what he is going to try to do. Actually, he told her he is only taking $500 total. And she said "OMG - I actually threw up a little in my mouth. I don't know how that will work".

.

Is she dealing pills as well as taking them? I only say that because you mentioned she won't take generics because they aren't as much as the real ones on the street.

If she is doing both, just tell her to stop being her own best customer and she will have that gambling money.

 

[roscoepc1]

I think he needs to stick to the story that he only has 200 spending cash for the trip. Then pray the weekend goes quickly.

I'd hand her $20 worth of nickels, and tell her that's it. No way in heck would I give her $200!!!

 

[rodeo65]

What man wouldn't want a My Little Pony Cake to bring to work???

Tag worthy!!!!

And the same thing I thought too.

 

[usnuzuloose]

I dont understand why your husband is complaining he should know how to stop the enabling and if you let him vent its the same. It just keeps going around.

 

[dismom2]

I've enjoyed this whole thread! I have many stories, but I'll start with just a few stories:

1. My MIL took it upon herself to plan my wedding for me. Yes, she went around, behind my back, and ordered my flowers, cake, and food without consulting me at all. I was not happy when I found out that she ordered my wedding cake especially, so I went down to the bakery and looked at it and it looked more like a 3- tiered birthday cake, and it was blue (not even my wedding color). I just went ahead and cancelled the whole order and chose a new cake, one that I LIKED. She was very mad when she found out I changed MY cake.

She also ordered my flowers, and ordered them how I said I did NOT want them. She changed our catering plans, saying her "friend" owned a catering co. and would give us a deal (it was good food) but the price she gave us was indeed too good to be true. We found that out after our wedding when MIL sent all the bills for everything she went out and ordered for my wedding to my father since she knew the "father of the bride" was paying. We told her we didn't want to go overboard, but since she wasn't paying..... I felt so bad for my dad. And he's too nice of a guy to say anything, so he just paid the bills.

I don't know if people still do this or not, but back then, you saved the top of the cake in your freezer for your one-year anniversary. Well, right after the wedding, MIL stole the top layer of my wedding cake and the wedding cake topper. She had them in her freezer and refused to give them back to me after repeated requests over the next year. When I finally got upset, I told her I at least want the topper- which I carefully picked out and it was really special to me- she finally decided she was going to mail it. The evil woman just threw this beautiful, sentimental,breakable item in a thin box with no padding and mailed it regular mail Needless to say, when it arrived at my house, it was shattered into a million pieces She never apologized or anything. That is only a small sample of how she put a damper on my otherwise beautiful wedding.

2. She wanted me to have a boy (how dare I not give birth to what she wants!), so when I had a baby girl, she made it known she was disappointed. Not only that, but for years she called her a boy's name!! Hard to believe, I know, but it's very true. After my next child came along, she refused, and still to this day refuses, to spell the name correctly. It's an easy name to spell, too. I have corrected her repeatedly on these issues, but she plays dumb and tries to convince us that everything is an innocent mistake. Ummmmm.... when you are corrected over and over, and you've seen the names in print so many times, you should know what gender your grandkids are and how to spell their names correctly.

3. She only paid attention to the first child I had. Not only favoring her, but downright ignoring the others, hurting their feelings. Yes, I put an end to that but not until my first child got a very expensive birthday present from MIL on MY OTHER CHILD'S BIRTHDAY!. And no, she didn't send anything for the birthday child, nor was she confused about who's birthday it was---she's just mean and hurtful.

4. MIL did not want any 'outsiders' in her family. All of her kids who have gotten married have major issues with MIL. I refuse to live by her. She told us she had cancer once, and come to find out it was all a lie! This was after I spent an hour on the phone with her giving her sympathy. Who does that?!
Those first years of marriage taught me a lot about my crazy IL's. My DH, for some reason, was afraid of her, but that doesn't work with me, nor does it work any longer with DH--thank goodness!! It's all my fault, of course. No- I helped open his eyes. I could write a novel about her, but I'll give someone else chance now.

Hope this threat continues. It certainly is therapeutic and entertaining, although, there are some sad stories on here. It's hard to be with a man sometimes when his mother is a controlling, lying, nutcase. Good thing I did not meet her until after we fell in love. Boy, that felt good.

 

[Lucky4me]

I believe my sister in law has borderline personality disorder with narcissistic tendencies. She is a scary person. I call her a wolf in sheep's clothing.

DH comes from an abusive family where their alcoholic Father beat the six brothers on a daily basis and then when he died, the older brothers took over beating the younger ones. His Mother died when he was 12 and his older sister became the Mother figure to all of them. She was only 19 and I think it took a huge toll on her.
She is manipulative and mean, verbally and mentally abusive if you cross her in any way. She has major control issues and has a need to be in charge of everyone's life. Gossips non stop and uses the info she gathers against family members. The strange thing is, to anyone outside of the family, or anyone who doesn't live or work with her, she is this petite, cute, bubbly, loving Mother and sister, always ready to jump in and help out her family any way she can. She entertains at her home, cooks big family dinners and is all about family unity. Can't judge a book by it's cover!

Her latest stunt was telling everyone their other sister died of natural causes, when in fact she was being over dosed on Elavil by her family doctor. She was taking it exactly the way it was prescribed, but it was way too much of a dose. I had dh get a copy of the autopsy. It said accidental death due to amitryptiline poisoning. When confronted with this information, sil went bonkers saying "their" doctor was awesome and how dare we go behind her back?! She was choosing to protect an incompetent doctor over her sister. We think she did this because she was feeling guilty. She ran the other sister's life and was supposed to be watching over her.

His sister who died was 54 and in excellent health. The meds were for insomnia.
Of course crazy sister was the one who benefited from her death. Her children received life insurance policies and she got all her sisters belongings and thousands of dollars. No one knows the exact number. She trumped up some financial papers stating where all the money went, but it was bogus. The brothers signed everything over to her, no questions asked. They support her blindly because to them- she is Mother.

His other sister was a widow with no children. She did not have a will and everything should have been split seven ways to the remaining living siblings.

She was my close friend. We talked most days and got together at least once a week. She was my movie/shopping/lunch/Disney trip buddy and she could not have been more different from her older sister. She would cry about how her sister treated her. I tried to encourage her to break free from her hold, but it was just too strong. Even her therapist told her she needed to get away from her sister. I wish I could have done more to help her.

Crazy sister has made me angry for years and has done many things to make me want to steer clear. The last issue before his sister died, was when dh was diagnosed with brain cancer. She wanted to be at every doctor appointment because she didn't trust me to make the right decisions. She had the other brothers convinced I didn't really care if he lived or died and would not choose the best treatment.
I didn't sit down and take that. I let them all know if they thought they could do better, they not only could go to all his appointments, they could move to New York city for six months and take two buses every day to sit with him in the hospital for 12 hours. No one took me up on it. It's been three years since I chose his treatment and he is still in remission.

After this, I have steered clear. She still calls dh on his cell phone and tries to manipulate him as much as possible, but I ignore it. As long as I don't have to deal with her, it's all good. I may see her at family functions a couple times a year, but I can handle that.

 

[Principessa1284]

I've enjoyed this whole thread! I have many stories, but I'll start with just a few stories:

1. My MIL took it upon herself to plan my wedding for me. Yes, she went around, behind my back, and ordered my flowers, cake, and food without consulting me at all. I was not happy when I found out that she ordered my wedding cake especially, so I went down to the bakery and looked at it and it looked more like a 3- tiered birthday cake, and it was blue (not even my wedding color). I just went ahead and cancelled the whole order and chose a new cake, one that I LIKED. She was very mad when she found out I changed MY cake

This is similar to what happened to me!! Before I knew of her insanity, MIL offered to make our wedding cake. I really didn't want a wedding cake - I just wanted to have cupcakes but EVERYONE insisted that it would be horrifying to not have a cake to cut - it was tradition after all! So MIL jumped in and offered, and I said great! I'll give her this, MIL is a wonderful cook and baker, so one less thing to worry about. She asked me what I wanted, and I told her since our colors were Chocolate Brown and Teal, I'd LOVE a cake with chocolate frosting and teal flowers. Then, where it starts to go wrong, is when she tells me in her back-handed, smooth southern way, that I am wrong and that would be terribly ugly - wedding cakes are WHITE. Oh. Awesome. Well, since I didn't care about the cake anyway, I let her do what she want and let it go. Except she kept calling and emailing me and asking me about it.. Ugh. Drove me nuts. The end product looked just fine, but it was not at all what I wanted.

After the wedding, a friend of hers asked to see the cake so she posted a picture of it to her facebook. The friend said how nice and professional it looked. MIL replied back that it was nice, but she thought the flowers were ugly and she only did them because it was what the bride wanted.

 

[GettingFuzzy]

All these terrible wedding/shower stories make me grateful all over again we eloped! Even as a kid I never wanted a wedding, so we went downtown (alone), got the license, got married, and spent the day at the zoo and aquarium.

And yes, I still have my wedding jeans.

I believe my sister in law has borderline personality disorder with narcissistic tendencies. She is a scary person. I call her a wolf in sheep's clothing.

My SIL is so scary selfish it's unreal. Quick history- I met my DH when he was on leave, I moved here by myself to live with a girlfriend and sort of start over. Which meant I had met NO ONE in his family until we were planning to elope and move.

Long story short, in public, but of course away from my BIL or DH, she asked me if I was "planning on staying or just going to leave when I was done w***ing myself out?"... Uhm, what? She had literally known me for five minutes. Later on I was told by at least 3-4 different people she had the hots for my DH. Including my oblivious FIL, who notices nothing.

A couple years later I had tried to make a relationship with her for peace reasons and she sort of blurted out, "I married the wrong brother!" No. You didn't. You may have married the wrong man, but there is only 2 to choose from and my DH can't stand her. Needless to say, she doesn't talk to our family anymore.

I have to say, that was the fastest and first time I have ever been accused of being loose with my lady business.

 

[need2cruise]

For some reason......I just cannot stay away from this thread! I have another to add!

This past weekend MIL met us up at a restrauant we were going to. She kept offering to "treat" us to dessert. Dh kept turning her down, telling her we were really too full. She asked dd if she would like a dessert. DD, young child that she is, of course wanted one! MIL orders one, not the one that dd liked but one that she said was one of dh's favorites when he was younger. When it came to the table and was set down, MIL picked it up and put it in front of dh and said "You HAVE to have this, you loved it so much when you were little, I used to get it for you all the time." Never offered dd anything or mentioned it was for her. DH passed it to dd and told her to enjoy.....MIL wasn't too happy, but luckily she didn't mention anything else about it.

Earlier in the evening though, she did mention about all the girls in the family were having a girls night out.....when I say all the girls, literally, it was all the girls. 'Course, I was excluded as usual........maybe I am a guy and someone has forgotten to tell me?? I will admit, it was pretty hurtful because there are a few that I thought I was pretty close to. If it was a party that required a gift...I would have been invited though. Funny how that all works out isn't it?

And speaking of wedding cakes....she asked what flavor we wanted, we told her. She asked about dh's favorite and he told her it was a flavor that I couldn't stand, as well as he couldn't stand my favorite flavor. We compromised and selected the neutral chocolate/vanilla to fit most taste buds vs the unique flavors we each enjoyed. So, cake cutting time......you guessed it, it was dh's favorite ONLY, no other flavor to select from. And she made the top so small that it wouldn't even fit our wedding topper, which we had uniquely made.

It really does get old. You can cut them off, then feel bad and let them back in and then get hurt all over again. I feel like a fish sometimes, I let her hook me, reel me in, show me I'm not good enough and toss me back out. You'd think I'd get smart and just avoid the darn hook!

 

[tlbwriter]

My mil is always saying stuff like, "oh, yeah.....you don't cook." Really, I am probably a better cook than she is by far. Just any little dig she can get in while her son isn't in the room because she knows he would tell her off.

So, when he comes back in the room, you say "DH, your mom just said the funniest thing! She said I can't cook! Isn't she a kidder?"

That is what he is going to try to do. Actually, he told her he is only taking $500 total. And she said "OMG - I actually threw up a little in my mouth. I don't know how that will work".

"Well, Mom, sounds like this isn't going to be enjoyable for you, so I guess I better take my wife instead."

 

[spacemountainmom]

So, when he comes back in the room, you say "DH, your mom just said the funniest thing! She said I can't cook! Isn't she a kidder?"

I should try that! However, she usually does it at such a time that she knows that I won't say anything. The last time she threw out the "you don't cook" gem it was at a large family gathering at dh's aunt's. She knows me well enough to know that I wouldn't make a spectacle.

I am soo looking forward to September 3.

Oh yeah, just found out via FB that dh's sister is apparently coming into town too. Thanks for letting us know.

 

[brookmey]

Wow! I thought I had some PITA in-laws, but I can't top any of these stories!

You guys all make my crazy in-laws look like angels, and I never thought that would ever be possible!

 

[hereyago]

However, she usually does it at such a time that she knows that I won't say anything. The last time she threw out the "you don't cook" gem it was at a large family gathering at dh's aunt's. She knows me well enough to know that I wouldn't make a spectacle.

I am soo looking forward to September 3.

Oh yeah, just found out via FB that dh's sister is apparently coming into town too. Thanks for letting us know.

Making a spectacle would be going off and yelling at her, but there is a way you can do it with a smile and laugh. and like you said, she does it because she knows she can get by with it, I say shock the crap out of her this Labor day!!!!!!!!! she makes a snide remark, just turn it around like tbwriter suggested with a smile on your faceTry it you might like it and she could possibly know that you won't take that crap from her anymore.

 

[Andtototoo]

I should try that! However, she usually does it at such a time that she knows that I won't say anything. The last time she threw out the "you don't cook" gem it was at a large family gathering at dh's aunt's. She knows me well enough to know that I wouldn't make a spectacle.

Oh, you don't have to make a spectacle to beat a bully like this at her own game. BTDT. Here's how to work it:

MIL: You can't cook for crap.

You: Excuse me? I must have misheard you. Because I thought you said I can't cook for crap. And that's not only totally untrue, but if it were true, it would be incredibly rude and obnoxious to say and we all know you're not the sort of person to be rude or obnoxious to your son's wife. So what is it you said to me?


Keep in mind - you're dealing with a bully. They ENJOY tormenting you and will keep doing so until YOU find a way to stop them. They will never see the light or stop on their own because they are getting something out of hurtng you.

 

[Jennasis]

I LOVE having completely cut off MIL. It drives her NUTS that she can't goad me into the fight she wants because I refuse to engage her. Though honestly her "fights" are usually her just dissolving into tears to garner pity and telling her "woah is me" story.

 

[spacemountainmom]

Maybe I will have to try that. She wouldn't expect that.

 

[okeydokey]

Making a spectacle would be going off and yelling at her, but there is a way you can do it with a smile and laugh. and like you said, she does it because she knows she can get by with it, I say shock the crap out of her this Labor day!!!!!!!!! she makes a snide remark, just turn it around like tbwriter suggested with a smile on your faceTry it you might like it and she could possibly know that you won't take that crap from her anymore.

This is spot on. Think of how surprised she will be. Maybe she will even be speechless, wouldn't that be nice.

 

[Pastamom]

After hearing the wedding shower stories...I remembered this one...

With all my family and some coworkers sitting there, I opened some sheets for our bed. My MIL's mother announced very loudly that they would look nice in the mirror above our bed

We didn't live together before we got married and I certainly didn't have a mirror over my bed - wasn't planning on getting one either. Should have seen that a sign of things to come...

My poor 80 year old grandma almost choked on her drink....

 

[leight]

wow just wow. I've really enjoyed reading about your terrors- makes my mom fit in quite well! Dh has the terrible in law, not me.

1st wedding- she booked the venue without us, changed the date as her venue was already booked,changed the church from a ceremony to a mass (ex-dh's family wasn't catholic) and really got po'd when I switched it back. Oh- did I mention she left ex-MIL stranded at the church inbetween cermony/reception as revenge for there not being a mass? Then lied about it to a drunken neighbor at the reception who punched my new husband and started a brawl?

2nd wedding: When we decided to get married we wanted a civil wedding with a fun reception at our annual block party for the kids to enjoy. No fuss, just family fun. She booked her vegas vacation for that week so was mad when we re-scheduled for an add-on wedding during a planned WDW trip with our closest friends. She invited herself and asked my inlaws why they weren't coming -so our add- on became a wedding at the Swan with 25 guests and we rented a 9 bedroom home offsite to keep costs low and provide flexibility for those who wanted to go to the wedding but not WDW. We paid 3x what we planned for the wedding to accomodate everyone; but split the rental house costs between the 9 of us adults who stayed the week at the rental house. She complained we didn't pay for her when we asked for $300 for the week towards the room. Then she got mad that I didn't include her in any of my plans as I did all of the arranging for this wedding on my own. I did have her & MIL light a unity candle together in memory of our loved ones not able to be with us. She was angry that Dh & I met half way up the aisle then walked to the altar together- and I didn't have her give me away. She never got over that he wasn't the family friend she wanted me to marry.

Dh thought I was making most of this up since she never did anything in front of him- always made her complaints/digs when she got me alone. But we spent 1 month with her 3 yrs ago when our rental home wouldn't go month to month and our new house closing was postponed. Then he saw first hand how nuts she is. And how crazy she she is about my 40 yr old brother who lives with her and she supports. He couldn't believe how like a married couple they were- she pours his coffee, makes his lunch, does his laundry and pays his bills. We came back after a party at friends and they were on the lanai together with another older couple and I swear we felt like we were interrupting a double date!

When we moved out into our new home, she actually told our then 11 yr old that her father was a horrible parent and he obviously wanted to watch sports more than spend time with her and her sister. (I work late shift so didn't get home until after 9pm) This is the man who came home, took the kids to the pool every nite then after he made dinner, retreated to the bedroom to avoid sitting in the living room with my mom- he wasn't avoiding the kids- but HER!

When I confronted her about this and saying inappropriate things in front of my children, she called us all liars and said she never said it. Then proceeded to say since you brought up the subject he is horrible. Needless to say- I see her at Xmas and around mother's day- but avoid any other contact unless necessary.

On the other hand, I already miss my MIL who passed away 8/12, she was a dear, loving mother & MIL and we all wish she were still with us.

 

[C.Ann]

I have to ask.. Just where (or how) do all of you end up with in-law's like this??

Off the top of my head, I can only think of four - maybe five families - out of all of the people I have known since becoming an adult (I'm in my 60's now) who have had in-law problems.. Every time I come on here and read these sorts of threads I just shake my head.. I simply can't believe that the number of people with serious in-law problems (or what they consider serious problems) are so high on the DIS.. (I'm only speaking of MIL's and FIL's here - not the sibling IL's..)

I wonder what the reason is for that? Is it the generation gaps? Have people really changed that much in the past 45 years or so? It really does puzzle me..

Do you all ever wonder how your children will get along with their MIL's and FIL's - and how their spouses will get along with you?

Kind of off topic, but this thread caught my eye and I didn't want to go and start an entire new thread about it since I'm not around enough to really keep up with it..

Guess all I can say is: "Good luck!" LOL...