When did you reach the breaking point with your in-laws?

My ex-husband was already estranged from his abusive alcoholic parents, and my fiancé‘s parents are wonderful, so I am very fortunate and have not had this trouble.

1. Right from the beginning my MIL didn’t like me. A year into the marriage 14 months into the marriage after I gave birth to my son, we had a huge arguement and made my husband chose. She lost the first round.
2. It did not do much to our relationship since she lived states away but after a few times that we went to visit and she kept finding something negative to say, it strained their relationship. He wouldn’t speak to her for months at a time. I found I had to encourage him to try to maintain their relationship and just be sure to make clear that her negative comments would not be acceptable to him.
3. I wouldn’t look for fights but she learned that taking me on directly wasn’t going to be easy.
She eventually realized that there was nothing she could do to break us up so she needed to come to terms with it if she wanted a relationship with her son to continue. It helped that everyone else in the family adored me. All her sisters, children, nephew, nieces, aunts mother, siblings, cousins and her husband. She was the only one who had a problem with me.

It was her aunt who finally intervened and told her she was being foolish because she couldn’t find a better wife for her son or better mother for her grandchildren than I. She was pissed because she saw how she was driving her son away from her. She knew that the only reason my husband kept in touch was because of me. I grew up believing that you should always love your parents no matter what if they raised you with love and care. You just don’t have to agree with them or live with them.

Breaking point? I haven’t, and probably never will. I was lucky enough to get a great mother-in-law. My husband does not have a relationship with his father, though.

The rest of his family, though, or at least a portion of it, are only okay in small doses. I may make enemies with a couple of them once we have kids.

I love my MIL like my own. She’s great. I’m very lucky.

Like @jonsblond I love my MIL and I am very happy with her. It’s my DIL that I have a hard time with. My son made two bad choices. He first wife ran off a few months into their marriage, while he was on deployment. His second wife, the mother of my two youngest grandsons is a very bitter pill to take.

My older son was married four times, and I had a good relationship with all of them. In fact, his first wife, the mother of my three adult grandsons, is still very much a part of the family.

I haven’t. They have all treated me better than my own family ever did.

About the 14th time my ex MIL asked me WHY I wanted to keep pet geese. ( HELLO…I live on property and want to have a mini farm, is it THAT unclear to you!?)
I finally told her, in the final response of the decade…” Well…..I do not understand WHY ( the fuck ) you collect Mickey Mouse clocks!!!

The woman was so snobby and arrogant, she couldn’t believe her son married such a hippie! lololol

We all got along well for years. About 10 years into my marriage (you can an additional 2 years for dating before marriage) we had a falling out and it dragged on for years. It was stupid and ridiculous, but his family can hold a grudge, be passive aggressive, and do the silent treatment (although they never actually cut off, but they were obviously less communicative and we saw them much less often).

My SO was glad that finally maybe I learned how his family can be, and possibly I would stop going out of my way for them. He was 97% on my side. I say not 100% because he did point out where I might have been wrong, and I agreed I had responded badly to some things, and done some things that probably put off his family, but overall he felt they were ungrateful and judged us, especially him for that matter wrongly and unfairly.

I was extremely upset at first. For years – years – I wanted thing to be better. I tried to apologize 3 times over several years to clear the air, and for them that meant that I was admitting I was the bitch, instead of them also saying they contributed. They started it in my mind, not that it matters, I just was hoping all of us could apologize and say we regretted some things that were said and put it all behind us. Anyway, I was upset for years, then I finally got angry and decided fuck them! I really had felt a loss for those years I was upset, and then I decided it had gone on too long and I could never ever trust them with my love, because I can’t love people who are so passive aggressive, and who like to dislike people. Within months of that time all of a sudden his family was more friendly and more wanting to be with us. I guess the few interactions we had so ehow it came through that they had no power over me anymore. It wasn’t my intent, I had no strategy, I had no idea it would work out that way.

@JLeslieL: That’s an interesting story. How is your relationship with them now?

My mil hated me and did not want my (then) husband to marry me. She was totally controlling and I was not good enough for her sweet itty bitty baby boy. He is in his mid-50’s now, been single for almost 20 years, and still totally dependent on this old cow. When he left with my children, she never gave them the photos and letters that I sent, and told them I had died. When I re-united with my children, it was great fun to run into her in a carpark with my son, do the ‘portlandia’ wave, “Hiiiiiiiiiii!!”- she of course will not speak to my son now because he lives with me.

I got along just fine with my wife’s parents. It may have helped that they lived in Thailand, and I only spent 6 weeks there visiting them and my sister-in-law’s in-laws. She and her husband were there with us when we went, so we stayed part of the time with his parents. They were minor members of Thai Royalty and had a gorgeous home in Bangkok, whereas my father-in-law was a police officer with modest means, and lived well out of the city and had little room for guests. All have now died, so there won’t be any grand parting due to anger.

@jca Pretty good. I still feel like I can’t trust them to not all of a sudden flip and decide they don’t like me or some other family member, but for now they seem to seek our company and are more in touch with us again. His sister seems to push people away when it is hard for her to leave something. I’ll try to explain. What finally caused the big rift was my SIL was moving about 45 minutes north to be closer to her SO. She picked a fight with me, and my response was too defensive, and her final words before she hung up the phone was done through tears. She more or less said, “I was upset about moving away from you and my brother, but now I see it doesn’t matter.” I think she felt guilt about moving away from her mom who lived just 5 houses down from her, and we were less than 10 minutes away. She seems to be a little competitive with me when it comes to my husband, or she was early in our marriage. Picking the fight with me freed her to feel she had less tying her to where she currently lived.

She did a similar thing when the business she was trying to do with her brother (another sib, not my husband) and it wasn’t working out. Instead of them ending it in a mutual calm way, they just basically stopped talking as things were bviously going down hill. They didin’t talk at all or see each other for years. Literally didn’t talk, it wasn’t that bad in the situation we had.

Right now she is getting divorced and her youngest child starts college in a couple of weeks.

It’s a pattern in the family going back generations. My MIL has had this happen between her and some of her siblings. When We got married his parents said some things that my hisband easily could have taken trememdous offense to and held it against them. When the parents of his father said very similar things to his father about his marriage it eventually led to a family cut off. But, my husband and I both don’t stay angry about things easily.

Hell IS other people! lol

I was really lucky. My in-laws were great. My mother in law, in particular, insisted on staying as independent as she could. In her last year, I visited her daily at her retirement home to be sure she ate dinner. I’m not particularly chatty, so I’d read to her and then take her down to dinner. She was a strong lady who was very accepting of whatever life offered.