I have many, many MIL stories to tell, but I’ll keep it short. I am angry recently about my MIL who is coming to visit this weekend. This anger stems back to our wedding a few years ago. My husband and I were fresh out of school and just getting started on life. We paid for our wedding ourselves, grateful for any help the parents had to give. It all started with me wanting a small wedding, but my MIL demanding and using my husband to get a big wedding. She kept adding on things to the wedding that I didn’t want, but would use my husband to get. This all cost us money. We paid for the wedding for a year before we got married, and got slammed by a six grand bar bill the day after the wedding. She laughingly told us how she gave out “free” mixed drinks all night long to her friends and relatives on our tab (wasn’t supposed to be allowed to do this, but she is a forceful personality and somehow got the bartender to do it). My husband blew a gasket and she paid for about 1/4 of the tab. It took us MANY years of scrimping to pay the wedding debt off. Meanwhile we had to listen to comments from her on why we didn’t have more money pretty much constantly. I also found out from my friends and relatives that she ran around on my wedding day yelling about how she had paid for everything (hadn’t paid for anything at that point). I tried to put this behind us because it makes me very angry . . .
but I just found out that she gave my husband’s brother $8,000 to pay for his wedding so he wouldn’t have credit card debt. WHAT????? She didn’t care about our debt. I’m just so angry that she gave him SO MUCH more money than we got. We wouldn’t have gotten anything if my husband wouldn’t have gotten angry. Now that I know about this and she is coming to visit, I don’t know what to do. Should I bring up the wedding costs and years of debt? We never told her all of the dollar amounts as we figured it was none of her business, but she did know we had a giant debt. She is the type to snoop through closets and stick her nose in our business.
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11 Responses to “MIL From Hell .. . Where to Start?”
Sounds like a huge fight is about to happen between you two. I understand exactly how you feel. When we got married we paid for everything ourselves. WE had a small wedding and she refused to come to dinner that night, so we lost about $200 for her plate. Not a huge amount but still wasted. When DHs other sibling got married, my MIL completely paid for an exotic destination wedding plus expensive extras AND a full reception when they returned home. Not only was I p!ssed, but DH was livid at his mother. Frankly, I say…….let ‘er blow. What’s the worst that can happen? She never comes to visit? IMO the faster all this comes to a head, the better off BOTH (DH and you, SCREW her) of you will be. Just, my opinion ~ been there done that!
Give her the address of a local motel and let her know she has to pay her own way. Your wedding debt is water under the bridge and you should start fresh in your treatment of her….CUT THIS GODZILLA OFF! Refuse to participate in her shenanigans and live your life your way.
And she’s coming to visit you…why?
Oh honey….easily done. Present her with a lovely envelope with lovely paper in it….In the form of a BILL!
Type up a lovely little invoice for the bar tab, make sure you add in room and board for this weekend, utilities,etc. If she wants to do anything special inform her that is not included in the original bill. If she refuses to pay, send her an invoice every month for 6 months. Get different paper, send it on different days, use a different font, different colors, never put the return address on it. Send her birthday, Holiday, Mother’s day cards all blank on the inside with a lovely invoce folded inside.
What’s she going to do? Get pissed off and never speak to you again? BRAVO I say.
Hedwig- Your story just riled the anger in me…..We are the same! My conivving crazy MIL did much of the same….and it all starts with the wedding – doesn’t it?
My hubby and I paid for our own wedding. We wanted a small elegant wedding. So we kept it at 130 people. My Incredibly ignorant MIL gave us her invite list of 200 guest. After my hubby cut it down to 65 people the fun began. SHe started randomly inviting people we did not know or we did not like. Her “favorite” started dating some trashy pot smoking skank and my MIL invite her mother and family members to OUR wedding. I had to go to my MIL house and calmly tell her to UNINVITE them. ( I wanted to kick her azz)…..She then called my hubby who calmly told her to UNINVITE them. Only then did she – It was so uncomfortable to have to deal with. There was other crap but we ignore it…then a year later my hubby’s Brother decidd to marry the piece of white trash skank he was dating – and my in laws – in front of me and my hubby – offered to PAY FOR THEIR ENTIRE WEDDING – I almost threw up. Not only did they foot the bill – my MIL threw her a huge wedding shower – something she did not do for us. She did not even attend any of my wedding showers. I was hurt more than angry but her lack of judgement. It really jusy hurt my heart that some one who was suppose to be family would be so in your face mean…but there she was….and there she still is….we do not speak to her anymore. A person can only tolerate so much and then you have to walk away from the toxic negative situation…. Keep your chin up and know in your heart you are a good nice person and your MIL is wrong. She will never admit it – but she is a mean old hag. I wish you the best!
YES bring up how YOU are in DEBT and ask her HOW she found the money to fork out 8000 for her other sons wedding but not for your husbands, make her feel like sh*t. Discuss it with your husband and make sure he supports you and is there when you bring it up. Also make sure she is staying at a hotel. If she can fork out 8000 she can stay at a hotel. At least this way if things go bad she can go back to her hotel and you don’t have to see her again. She’s a COW.
Wow! I’m truly speechless. In fact she sounds a lot like someones MIL that I know. Very nosy and likes to “take credit” for things she didn’t help with or pay for. This woman obviously just likes being in the lime light and feels the need to get constant attention at any cost. I would probably let the whole wedding debt thing blow over since she seems like the type that won’t let you win in an argument. In fact, asking her to foot the bill she never did would be much less painful then just shutting her out completely. Let her know your true feelings and that she is NOT welcome in your home.
I don’t think you should bring up the debt for more than one reason. Mainly because it was your wedding. The budget was in your control within reason. You should be mad at your husband too for caving on extra expenses that he & she added together. I don’t think its fair to completely be mad at her for not giving you money. You said that you two had planned to pay for it, which should mean you didn’t expect money.
And I say this because I am getting married in a couple of days. We are paying for our wedding too with no help, and none expected. I don’t care how much was paid for any other sibling’s weddings. You don’t want that hanging over your head anyways. If she would have given you $8,000, then she would have reminded you of it every visit for the rest of your lives. Paying off the debt slowly is worth not having that against you.
As for the bar tab, now that’s disgraceful. I hope that 1/4 of it covered her share. That is ridiculous. She sounds like a pill.
Good luck!
My husband and I paid for our own wedding. Whem Satan, um, the MIL, wanted something, we said, “WE are paying for the wedding, NOT YOU, your job is to SHOW UP.”
If this troll was going through your husband to get what she wanted, YOU should have said, “YES, why of COURSE we will do that!” And then do NONE of it. Men do not want to bother with any of the wedding details. And if Mumsey mentions something, sure, he will pass it along, but he’s not going to “follow up” to make sure it happened. Guys just don’t do that. So, you can control the witch through passive/aggressive behavior.
Regarding the bar tab, that was just plain rude. I would have gone straight to the hotel management and complained that the BARTENDER allowed, against your wishes, someone to hand out free drinks, and that you were NOT paying for them. The hotel would have either written the expense off or lowered it substantially. I used to work planning HUGE events for corporations. Hotels will do things if you ask/complain, or more importantly, are RIGHT.
As for your wedding debt. That is water under the bridge. However, you can make the old crone pay for it in other ways. For Xmas, birthdays, Mother’s Day and so forth, ONLY send her a card (a cheap one), NEVER a gift. When she complains, then you can tell her you are “so sorry” but you are still paying off all the wedding extras SHE insisted upon and will NOT be a liberty to purchase her ANY gifts in the near future. And leave it at that!
Good luck!
My in-laws never paid for my husband’s and my wedding, they showed up late for our wedding and left early. However they shelled out thousands of dollars for my brother-in-laws wedding and stayed at a hotel for two nights before and after their wedding.
My mother-in-law never liked me because I come from money and an upper-class family. She is a lower class, gold-digging tart who purposely got pregnant to trap my father-in-law into marrying her.
She has pictures of my B-I-L and S-I-L holding my baby but never any photos of my husband and I holding our baby. My BIL and SIL never contact our child or send him presents.
I send Mother’s Day cards to my M-I-L, however she did not send me one, how rude!
When I grew up it was the father of the bride who paid for the first wedding. Now, with that said, you have to look at his financial situation these days. plus whether he is even around?
Also, whether it is the first marriage. I got married again in 2000 after being single for 22 plus years. I never liked big weddings.
We flew to Las Vegas, spent a week there, and; I think I spent about 2K to 3K.
My wife’s family could not afford even a wedding dress, or did not offer to buy one. I did not care.
This sounds like something my MIL would do. We were lucky that my parents help out with the kegs. They paid for the beer, but each mixed drink had to be paid for by the guests. Oh, there was champagne too which was paid for by my parents. MIL bought her table like 4 bottles of wine. She is what is considered a “whine-o” seriously she does “whine” when she “wines” and “dines”. OK that was cheesy. But seriously, YOUR MIL was not being fair. Now you find out that she gives more money to your BIL. ? That is just unfair. BUT like it was said earlier, it is the past now and all you can do is move on and try to focus on the present and future with you DH.
I wouldn’t let her visit. I would try to get out of it. BUT I am not you. My mil is the root of all evil. She annoys me to no end and I feel sick in my stomach when I know I have to see her. Sorry you have to deal with this. You should have her stay at a hotel on her money! ha!