I tend to trust my intuition because 9/10 times it’s correct. I had a bad feeling about my MIL from the very first time I spoke with her.
Bad vibes all around, the way she looked at me, spoke to me condescendingly, and the cherry on top was when she uploaded photos of her son/my husband from our wedding day and chose to share photos of him by himself and none of us together 💀 way to make it obvious that you hate me.
I’m curious to hear what signs you noticed early on that got your attention.
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The way she treated service people, like: You’re working for ME now! I refuse to go shopping with her and have cut way back on going to restaurants with her. I’m fairly LC now, preserving my sanity
First time I met her she constantly slagged off my other half’s dad. I thought ah I see who the problem was here. She was getting there early lol. And just spoke about herself the whole time and all her dull experiences that she thought were thrilling.
“You’re not “ex-finace” so we love you automatically.” 😒
I thought my MIL was lovely. Suspicions started creeping in after a few years but she was so nice to my face I brushed it off.
Then in the pandemic she wanted us to break social distancing rules. Pretended she didn’t know what they were at the time. Broke them with my two youngest daughters whilst my eldest had just come out of hospital and was extremely clinically vulnerable. I tried to talk to her about it and she later blew up and shouted at me in front of my kids and called me aggressive. Then lied to my SO about it all and made herself out to be the victim. Then pretended everything was fine whilst smearing me to SO’s family and trying to spilt me and SO up.
I admit I didn’t see it coming. I didn’t expect her to be that malicious.
Watching her interactions with the niblings and how she had negativity impacted their behavior at young ages by being so involved was rather shocking.
NOTHING until the wedding, a whole six years after I met her. Like I knew she was emotionally unavailable and cold to my husband when he was a kid. She had a really tough upbringing.
None of that prepared me for her behavior around my wedding. Neither of our families contributed financially yet she felt a level of entitlement that absolutely shocked me. She really wanted a say in everything and got pissed when she realized I’m not a doormat.
Mine was that my (now DH but BF back then) would eat my family’s spaghetti and not hers. Instead of just asking him why, she doubled down that he “hates spaghetti” and I was lying. Made scenes about it like every time I visited. Was super bitchy to me. Finally he spoke up that he hated her spaghetti because it gave him heartburn and upset his stomach, as he told her for YEARS. Tomato sauce, canned diced tomatoes, canned whole tomatoes, fresh cut tomatoes and noodles was what she made. My dad makes it with ground beef (or pork), diced onions, minced garlic, diced green peppers and home made sauce. She then said we were “so fancy” about eating?
When we got married, she hinted at gifting me her recipes as “that’s what DH likes to eat” and how “her GC asked for her recipes when she got married.” She was super salty when I told her no thank you, I’ve been cooking for years and that DH could ask for any recipes he wants to make. He’s never asked her for anything.
Early on, when I first met her, I was wearing a pretty dress. When everyone complimented me, she gave me a dirty look lol.
Waaaaaay too fakey-poo over the top nice to me upon meeting. Like cringe worthy. You’re soooooo pretty!!! Pet. Pet. Pet. Your eyelashes are soooo LONG!!! Pet. Pet. Pet. And I mean she was fucking petting me. Like I’m a cat. I hate being touched. Then proceeds to cut her son down in front of me. Which upset him and immediately pissed me off. I defended him, which she did not like. Day 1. First 10 minutes I knew what I was dealing with.
The look of contempt on her face when I first met her.
We stayed with my husband’s sister when we first went down as a couple after getting engaged (we live several states away) so that we could take our dog with us. She kept making snarky comments about how they had bought a big house to have guests stay with them, and we should be staying with them, etc. But more than the comments she just… Had a look of contempt and disdain plastered on her face.
Mine was very nice but while we were dating I found out she kept inviting girls that were my then future husbands age over for dinner.
She had a few friends who were from Italy (like her)
So twice these friends had nieces come over to visit.
He was still living at home and he worked full time.
She had them over for dinner, on 2 occasions and would then have him drive them home afterwards.
My Then-future BIL was a teenager and loved to throw his mother under the bus because he hated her. He knew she what she was. She used to love to catch BIL in lies which was another story. So he enjoyed letting me know when she did things. Later he also started telling us the things she would say behind our backs about me.
So I knew she didn’t like me and I knew she wanted him to find a girlfriend that was Italian.
But he loved me and didn’t let it happen.
Later on, MIL said one of those girls was a b!tch. Hmmm 🤔
She was always the victim in every story. Someone had always wronged her. It was always someone else’s fault.
When my now fiancé proposed to me, she said, I wish you luck.” No congratulations or welcome to the family… “I wish you luck.”
When my BIL and his wife had their first child, a couple years before my wife and I did, I would witness instances of MIL taking charge with the child on her own initiative and sometimes overruling BIL and his wife. The scariest thing was, they seemed to be okay with it and kept MIL very involved. Also, when I raised to my wife some of the stuff I saw her mom doing with BIL and his wife she said she didn’t see anything wrong with it. Cue the ominous music ….
One of the bigger red flags came early in our relationship. One of her other kids moved several states away and wouldn’t talk to her (I think it was over something dumb like a cell phone bill) and she told me she was thinking about ‘visiting him and surprise him!’. It just seemed like a very confrontational way to handle that situation and not respectful. I wouldn’t want my parents showing up on my doorstep to ‘surprise me!’, especially when we’re having some sort of conflict.
Later in the relationship she started coming by our apartment unannounced we decided to set the boundary of giving us a heads up before coming over. I was hesitant to set the boundary because I was worried she would blame me. My husband assured me she wouldn’t and it would be fine. It was NOT fine. She tells everyone I alone set the boundary and not just that but, I told her that she couldn’t even visit him at work. We don’t talk to her anymore but she still lies about who set the boundary and what it was.
I have so many but the one that makes me laugh most is when my husband asked my Mother on our wedding day if she cried my JNMIL interrupted and said “I did when she turned up” needless to say, it’s years since I’ve seen or spoken to her
When she met me her first words were “Oh, you’re nothing like your fb profile picture! You’re quite bigger in real life. ” She had found a very old fb profile of mine. She immediately apologized and said that sometimes she was too direct. After that first red flag, she was suuper nice and cool for almost 6 years. I never thought I would have any problems with her. There were some red flags here and ther, but overal, she was super supportive of me, even more than to her son sometimes. She was great! Aand the minor red flags were not so minor after all. During the time when she was overall great, she would blurt out stupid stuff that I would try my best to brush off at the time but these things stuck with me.
Like one time she told me that the neighbor’s cat came to eat from her cats’ food, and if she could, she would poison it.
Another time she bragged how she stole from guests of the hotel where she used to be a janitor.
Other red flags were that she didn’t have any friends, only lived with her boyfriend and constantly complained of him. Actually, she complained all the time of everything- the weather, how poor she was (not true, middle class, just can’t afford vacation as much as she wants), of the cats, the neighbors.. Everyone and everything! She was insufferable at times. In every story she told, she was always the victim, always wronged and had never done anything wrong herself.
Then almost 6 months ago my son was born and she showed her true colors. I now understand that her wanting to poison someone else’s cat means that she is ready to harm everything and everyone that is not “hers”. Like if I divorced her son one day, I might get poisoned 😂 Also I got sooo many backhanded compliments, and she was offended by my behavior (I don’t even know what I did) so many times now that I can’t count. She is always the victim and her son and I are always ungrateful. We’re not on good terms at the moment.
First time she met me over 20 years ago, she took my husband to the side and asked him if I would consider cutting my hair because she didn’t like it.
A lot of jealous tendencies and snarky comments. She’d use a lot of emotional manipulation whenever my partner spent time with me or my family. It also felt like she was in a constant competition with me and everything I did. Which is insane considering that I was 18 when we met and she was 45+. It was clear that she constantly had to feel better than me.
My JNFMIL told me she did her “due diligence” on me like second time we met and that I’m hard to find info on because I don’t really have social media.