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Not everyone feels that way about ILs being "family." It's not wrong, it's just different. Different doesn't equal wrong.

My DH does not view my FOO as his family now - he's told me so. He also finds it very strange that I consider his FOO my family now. None of this is an issue, because neither of us choose to make it one. We just see things differently, I'd be picking a fight if I tried to tell him he should be seeing my FOO as his now. Why bother? He's supportive of us and the kids having a relationship with them, he shows up to family functions, is pleasant and gets along with everyone, and he's been supportive of me using my time and energy to help during family stresses.

What "family" is can vary greatly from person to person, and one person's definition is may not fit with another and it's impossible to impose your definition on another person. Different is not wrong. 

Sometimes all you can do for your sanity is just detach a little bit and keep some distance. After our older son was born, I began to have a lot of issues with my MIL. And it was similar to yours - snarky comments and digs all over the place. Hindsight being 20/20, I now realize she had it in her head as far back as my pregnancy that we were going to exclude her. She did that to her own MIL I found out later on. We had no intention of excluding her, and I though we had a good relationship until one day it appeared to just blow up.

The whole experience to me is a big example of what you fear, you create. She pushed back and pressured us immensely when things weren't going the way she wanted. She became hyper critical of me, and I just went running for the hills. I left maintaining our relationship with her to DH, because I was very tired of going out of my way to include her and getting picked at, criticized, and guilt tripped because no matter what I did it wasn't enough.

I think there's a balance between showing the example of including both FOOs with children, but at the same time not giving the example of being treated like a doormat just because someone is family.   

Quote from: jdtm on June 30, 2014, 11:48:44 AM

QuoteDH doesn't send his mom something for her birthday - that he put on the calendar himself? His consequences to deal with.

I agree - no present from son should be his consequences alone.  Of course, I am assuming that you purchased your MIL a gift and/or card sent from "just you".  I am also assuming that you receive gifts or cards on your birthday/Christmas/anniversary/etc. from your ILs.  I am also assuming that you attend meals/snacks prepared by your MIL or eat meals/snacks paid by your FIL in a restaurant.  Actually, we're really talking about kindness and respect and consideration and social manners here, aren't we?   Not - your family/my family or you give/I take.

To answer all of this: when DH remembers, he signs it from all of us. MIL doesn't acknowledge my birthday. I'm ok with that. I will say happy birthday to her if we see her near her birthday. Any present for my parents is picked out by me, and the card is signed by me on behalf of DH/kids. My parents also don't buy him birthday presents and he is happy as a clam with that. If they see him near his birthday, they will say happy birthday. That's it.

MIL gives DH and I one gift for the two of us at Christmas and a basket of stocking type stuff for the two of us. She gets one gift from the two of us and a stocking. DH picks all of it out.

I eat food my MIL prepares - she WILL NOT eat food she knows I have prepared, so DH makes any food for any time we see her. The one and only time we ate out them, DH and paid for our own meals. We're grown ups.

DH and I are happy with all of this. Since we decided to go this way, DH says he finds holidays and family things much less stressful. My point is, it works for us, and a blanket "don't do yours/mine" is telling other people how to run their marriage in a way they may find stressful and causes issues between them.

It's not a desired effect. It's about a grown adult acting as a grown adult. If these men were single, who would get the blame then when they drop the ball? Why does a DH get a free pass to hurt his parents feelings by not remembering to do those things? Oh well, he's a man so it's ok. But jeez, how awful is his wife for not doing it for him. My brother used to be terrible about stuff like that. We held his feet to the fire over it, and so does SIL. He's much, much better about it now because he was held accountable for forgetting and he had to clean up the messes he made by doing so. Same thing if I screw up when it comes to my parents. My fault, my consequences. DH doesn't send his mom something for her birthday - that he put on the calendar himself? His consequences to deal with.

It's up to a married couple to figure out what works for them. Some wives are happy to be the social secretary, and some are not. I don't want my MIL's feelings hurt, and feel zero satisfaction when they are. It make my life worse when that happens. So just because a couple choose the yours/mine way of communicating, doesn't mean they're out to get their ILs.

I think the yours/mine approach gets twisted into something it's really not. It doesn't mean you never interact with your spouse's family. It just means you let them take the lead and responsibility for the keeping up of the relationship. If my DH asked me to help my MIL, I would. I have asked him to help my family before and he has. My DH opted for a very long time to not go visit his mom and only see her at our home. That was his decision, he had reasons that were very big to him, I didn't necessarily agree but it was my job to be supportive of my husband, even though I knew his mom was not happy with it. That's how yours/mine looks to me.

Here's the thing - it's up to the married couple to decide how they want to handle it. It has to work for them. DH and I manage our household pretty evenly - we both work roughly the same hours, we both spend roughly the same amount of time solo-parenting due to my shift work, we manage bills together, manage chores together etc. No one expects him to buy birthday presents, help my parents out, call them up to chat or catch up. But the expectation of me is different. There's a lot of "the younger generation" that is no longer buying into the woman as social secretary thing anymore.

My job in our marriage is to be supportive of the relationship my DH wants us and the kids to have with his FOO - and that's what I do. If he is not willing to put in the effort, why does that become my responsibility? The mine/yours issue seems to be primarily with the DH's FOO. It's not very often that I hear complaints from the mothers of DDs who's SILs don't pick up the slack for their DDs. They complain about their DDs.

I haven't posted in a long time, but still frequently read/lurk. This post caught my eye, because my own MIL stepping in to have the 'firsts' when ODS was a baby caused some issues. She didn't have bad intentions, I just truly believe she didn't think that they were things I might want to do. It would've done a lot for our relationship if she had asked first, so I could've gently explained I would like the chance to do those things for my baby. And her feelings wouldn't have gotten hurt that the things she just sprung on me out of nowhere didn't get used.

Pooh, your DS and DIL are lucky to have you in their life! Open communication is so important.

My DH does this to his mom all the time, and it drives me insane. He lets her believe we're coming to visit and then at the last minute says no, and figures that since he never for sure said we were coming it's all ok. And she's super nice to him about it, but it really bothers her because she takes it out on me. I really, REALLY wish she would call him out on it, because if I point it out he just comes back with "Oh she's fine with it, she understands, blah blah..." It's rude, and I'm sorry your son is acting that way.

Tessa, I think I remember some of your story from previous posts.

It may not seem this way, but it might be in your best interest to form some kind of cordial relationship with this girl. You'll probably never be best friends and that's ok, but if he sticks with this girl long term you're going to have to find a way to cope with her. If it's serious enough that he'd miss a holiday with his family for her, it means she could be your DIL or mother of your GCs someday. Ultimatums rarely give the desired result, and if you want to stick with "her or us", be prepared for the fall out. They've extended an olive branch, and I think it's better to set up some boundaries now than deal with a huge mess or possible estrangement down the road.

Our tradition changed drastically this year, we usually had dinner at my GP's house. However, since they're no longer with us, we're starting from scratch. DH and I decided to host dinner at home this year. I work part of the holidays, I'm nearly in my third trimester and DS is a busy little toddler. So home was a great option for us and it gives anyone who wants to see DS the chance to stop in or stay for dinner. My MIL is refusing to come, because my family will also be present for parts of the day. DH and I were both upset, but decided we're not going to let it ruin the day and just have fun trying out some new traditions.

It's a shame your MIL can't see the bonus GCs she's got right in front of her. Especially if and when they're aware of the way they're being treated.

I grew up with a step-GF, who was around before I was born. He was always our Grampy, and never treated us differently. My DF was estranged from his DF, who died when I was a toddler. I suspect even if he had lived longer, we still would not have had a relationship with him.

In our situation now, my DF is remarried and our DS is his only bio-GC (so far). SM has many GCs, but everyone is treated the same. So much so, I didn't find out til well after they were married that one of her GCs was not a bio one. They never ever distinguish between bio or step, and when my stepbrother started dating a girl with a child, they view him as a GC too. All the kids call them by their GP names, regardless who they 'belong' to. I'm thankful that my family has the sense not to put kids in the middle, since they have nothing to do with the choices their parents are making relationship-wise.   

If she doesn't want to have a close relationship with you, and she's been clear she doesn't, there's nothing you can do. If you can all be in the same room together and be nice to each other, you might just have to accept that's all you're ever going to get. It'd be a gift for your stepkids to just keep being polite and civil to her. If your husband is hurt by his mother's actions with his ex-wife, it's his issue to take up with his mom. Understandably, you don't want to see him hurt, but getting involved with that may make things worse.

Don't waste your time or energy trying to fix something you have no control over - her not wanting a close relationship with you.

Didi, sorry about being stuck in the middle of this still. It really couldn't hurt to find out if you have to talk to the lawyer. And really, you've had no contact with her for 5 months so you may find you have nothing to tell the lawyer or add to the situation. I think even if you contact her you'll just get stuck in the middle again - she'll beg you to help her, and blame you for her own behaviour.

It seems like whatever you've already said is on record since custody was decided. Maybe you can just tell them you have nothing else to add beyond whatever was said before. I know it's hard to see your daughter suffering, but she's an adult who made her own choices. GS is still young and needs a stable adult to look out for his best interests and make decisions on his behalf.

Quote from: Pooh on November 13, 2012, 09:29:10 AM
Then when that person has finally had their fill of it and steps back, everything starts crumbling and it must be "that" person's fault instead of realizing how hard "that" person must of been working thus far.

I think we've hit that stage. Even before all this started, I felt like we had to sort of make up for the fact that she would be the "away" GM.  And all those things I did, like reminding him to schedule visits or getting photos together for her, DH is the one who gets credit for it. He made the phone call about a visit. He handed her the photos. He gave her the bottle to feed DS. Since this started, I stepped back into what I feel is a more supportive role - if he says he wants to visit, I won't say no but I'm sure not offering myself to be treated like that anymore. We see them about as much as we did before DS was born, but not nearly as much during the first 6 months of his life.

I always thought they had this great mother-son relationship, and for the most part they do. DS's birth revealed a disconnect in their relationship that I never really noticed before. And I don't think they notice it either. DH brushed it off when I mentioned the jealousy thing to him, saying I was probably misreading things and he knows him mom better than I do. He was dumbfounded when I said she point blank admitted she was jealous. He really seems to forgot his mom is a human being with feelings and imperfections like the rest of us.

Pen, I wholeheartedly understand that it's difficult for my MIL. I just disagree with the way she's handling it, which mostly involves taking things out on me that I didn't do or had nothing to do with. I feel for her that being away from her only son and GS is hard. Especially when she hears about the things she'd like to be doing with DS that my mom is able to do - popping in for visits, babysitting etc. When this all started, I thought it was about me or something I'd done. Lately though, I'm beginning to see I'm mostly just getting scapegoated for the dumb things DH does. He loves his mom, but there's some big time taking for granted going on.

She's never ever cross with him, won't disagree with him, and won't call him on his bad behaviour when even I think she should. She poured everything she had into raising DH, and some of the conflict I've had with her is over blurring the line between mother/grandmother. She's very used to being the 'one and only mom' and now there's multiple other moms in DS's life - me, my mom, my stepmom. I never understood the whole conflict between MILs and DILs over the adult son's affections. I felt she's his mom, that's her place. I'm his wife and that's my place. I married him to have a partner, not mother someone else's grown child. I think that's why we never had conflict before DS arrived. Now she wants a mom place in DS's life - I've literally caught her repeatedly referring to herself as Mommy to DS. I chalked it up to a slip of the tongue the first few times. After about the 20th time? Not so much. She doesn't like me touching, picking up, playing with, comforting, sitting next to or feeding DS. I'm "allowed" to change his bum. Obviously, none of this goes over very well with me.

When DH does something stupid like cancel Thanksgiving, he doesn't tell her why, she'll just ask what we're up to, and he'll tell her we're having dinner with my mom. I offered to pack DS up for an overnight visit, or get him organized for a day visit, which ever DH preferred. My mom offered to plan her dinner around whatever MIL wanted to do. What MIL gets out of that is I'm forcing her son to have dinner with my own mother instead of her. So it gets taken out on me. My mother and I were both bending over backwards to accommodate her - but poor DH has a controlling wife in her eyes. It's way, way easier to believe I'm doing that than her own son is being so ridiculously inconsiderate and taking her for granted. I'm hoping that if I can get him to stop doing that, she'll back off me. I hope that in the future she'll learn to enjoy DS and his future sibling as their gma, instead of battling me over being their mother.