mil woes

If she's pushing boundaries on decision making, stop telling her things.

Your FS should step in, here, and make it clear that these are not her decisions, and she is actively causing damage.

Practice saying, "No." It's a complete sentence and should be respected.

I agree with Rebecca set boundaries. My MIL is like this and told us how we should wait to have kids etc (even commented how she didnt like that we were living together before marriage) and I said politely and firmly "I understand how you feel, but husband & I can make these decisions on our own. Can we please not talk about this"

I have a similar issue with FMIL and FFIL. FMIL says everything as if it's just an off-hand piece of advice, but it's really passive aggressive strong opinions. FFIL pretty much just says what he is thinking.

It's funny because I brought this up to FH and he basically said "When has my mother ever inteferred?" He somehow doesn't notice it because FMIL doesn't say "you have to invite your great aunt to the wedding" but she says "I just know Aunt Jeanne will be heartbroken if she isn't invited, but I guess if you guys think a small guest list is important, it's your wedding." My dad said his mom was the same way to my mother.

Our solution? We are no longer talking about this stuff with FILs. If they bring it up, we just say basically "noted." But wedding planning and our house buying process is now between the two of us. We don't share, we don't engage. We didn't confront the FH's parents because it just wasn't necessary at this point.

No means no and sometimes you have to be a broken record to be heard.

Yes, when we started dating his parents were really nice and friendly and just the kind of people that I could easily love as my future in laws. But once we got engaged and set a wedding date it's like a switch got flipped. They aren't nasty to me but they definitely have been voicing their opinion on the wedding. Like we decided to go with this BBQ catering company for the wedding, not only do they have amazing food which is really important to me but it's only $31 a plate and they have their staff serve, cut cake, clean up and put the leftover away in the fridge at the venue for us to take home. His mom however thinks it's way too expensive and constantly bugging him and me about how we need to hire someone cheaper, I can't believe you guys are going to spend that kind of money on food. So I told my fiance that he needs to talk to her cause it's our wedding and we are paying for it. Then she wants to throw me a separate bridal shower with just his family and I told her I appreciate that you want to throw me a shower but with my work schedule and everything that needs to be done with the wedding id rather just have one big one, after talking to her she still insist on having a separate shower. So then I had to get a little stern with her and tell her no we are not having 2 showers. We are starting the process of buying our first home and I told my fiance we need a realtor, so we set up an appointment with a realtor and he told his parents we are meeting with this realtor and of course they had to try and convince him on why we don't need a realtor and how we can do it on our own. So I told him that we either hire a realtor or we don't buy a house it's as simple as that. It's hard because he still lives with them and so it makes it a little easier for them to sway him their way still. I tell my fiance all the time he needs to do something about them. And that he needs to not share our business with them anymore. So I understand where you are coming from. I think you need to talk to him about it and have him talk to his parents.

2 thing I learned to say when they discuss things that they don't like that we are doing for the wedding or for the house hunting with me when he isn't around all I say is I'm sorry I can't discuss this with you, thats between him and I or I tell them you need to take that up with your son. It all depends on what the conversion is on which one I use. I was always raised on the if you have a problem with the in laws you need to have your significant other talk to them cause it's not your place.

I have the same problem with my fiancé’s grandmother and father. They’re ALWAYS trying to be in our business and have an opinion of what we should do and when we should do it. My fiancé has finally seen it for himself and distanced himself from them because of it. Obviously I also keep my distance

View Quoted Comment Yeah, thats the thing. She hardly if ever says it to our face. Just talks about us behind our back to other family/her friends

View Quoted Comment I agree, its definitely not my place to get into an argument with her. My husband is not very confrontational so he usually just lets it go. But she hardly if ever will actually say it to our face. She’ll just make a face or talk about us behind our back. My FIL does not do any of this so I guess I’m lucky with that

View Quoted Comment That's ashame. We have limited our time around the in laws and dont go out of our way to talk.

Yes dealt with this before. I left it for my fh to deal with his family and to put up boundaries. Also, I limit what I tell his family so it won't prompt them to ask questions.

View Quoted Comment I'm in a very similar situation. It is so frustrating! My husband still definitely doesn't always see it while it's happening, so I try to point it out when they're getting really involved in his brother's lives. Like right now, his SIL is 4 months pregnant and she and BIL have already announced name choices for the baby. Their parents regularly make comments to us about this future baby's name. I have already made it clear to my husband that we will not be sharing this much information with them if/when I get pregnant, because I want him to be able to see the boundaries before they are broken. We're not confronting them either, but we're actively working on keeping information from them.

My mother in law was like that too. I dealt with it but I also ended up telling her less and less about the process

My Mother Law craves attention and everything has to be all about her. And she loves drama too

I had a pretty good relationship with my soon to be MIL, however that all changed when we got engaged. She had an issue with our wedding website, guilted us into inviting my FH nephews (under 8) even though we both said NO! Nephews aren't coming now anyways due to COVID.


She has had something to say about the colors scheme. I decided to pay for her makeup and she had a problem and wanted both hair and make-up. Which she has the SHORTEST hair!
She tried taking over his bday even though I included her on my plans. Overall it wasn't much given COVID.
We bought a a new picture to hang in our living room and she saw it. Well they just moved and she bought the same one and didn't say anything to us. We went over there and I saw it. My FH told her she needed to take it back and she said "I was here first and why should I have to take it back". I bit my tongue and said "yep you're right". She then after my FH talked to her and she came and apologized...not really. 10 minutes later she makes another comment and said I won't care if someone copies me. She was being so rude. So I told my FH we will NOT be seeing your family until November after our wedding (9.20.20).
Remember:"Sons are sons until they take a wife, but a daughter is a daughter for all her life."
I think both moms are going through changes of realizing that their son doesn't need them anymore. And now they have wives to take care of them when they are sick. My FH doesn't quite believe me that his mom is going through some of that until she did the picture thing and the way she responded was extremely rude. And it was like finally he saw what type of comment she makes when he's not around.
Good luck, but I'm sorry it will never get better from what I hear!

Hi! I’m with you. I’ve been with my fiancé 8 yrs this sept. I have gotten along with his mom probably about 70% of the time, but there have been times that she’s been either really nasty with him or really nasty with me. She has an opinion about everything and she has tried to parent him, she has the mentality about she is the parent and he is a child even though he’s a grown ass adult and does not rely on her for anything. Since we moved into our own place she’s got a little better about being controlling of how he spends his money and things like that, but she still has certain opinion where she can. I know part of her is coming from a place of concern, but she has no idea how to have a relationship with her child as an adult and she’s always the victim and has no problem verbal tearing her children to pieces when she’s in the wrong which to me is a huge hell no. Things for the Wedding have been really touchy, she’s trying to make the day all about her. My fiancé and I are both on the same page that we’re just not gonna really discuss anything wedding related to her. I really wanted to involve her in a lot of the planning that me and my mom have been doing, but the way she’s been acting it just shows me that I can’t do that without there being an argument. She also has been asking me and her son when we’re going to have our first child for the past two years now since we got engaged and we really don’t know if we will ever have a kid so I feel you on that. I just ok her but as for things more permanent like the wedding, I just give her as little information as possible. I’m sorry you have to go through this.

Yes I feel your pain. My mil is always trying to nose into our finances. She's a super cheap person who trys to control everyone else spending as well. Like for instance we feel in love with this catering company for our wedding. It was $31 a plate and we were getting a bunch of food for that price, their staff cutting the cake, and their staff comes to the venue and serves the food and would help us with whatever we need for the wedding. He told his mom about the place and she thought $31 a plate was ridiculous and that we could find something cheaper. For months she constantly bugged us about going with a different catering company. She even searched for cheaper catering services herself. Finally we had enough of it and told her the way it is. The problem I had was my fiance kept telling her to much info, so I sat down with him and told him he needed to stop giving her details about the wedding if she couldn't respect our decision. I told him you better get her in line with our finances now before I do because I won't put up with it. He did end up telling her to mind her business when it comes to our money. And now we don't tell her anything about the wedding nor do we include her in any way with planning the wedding like we did before.


The only advice I have is to stop giving her details about what you guys do and definitely definitely set boundaries with her.