Post # 1
Member
367 posts
Helper bee
I crossed a line of complaining about my Future Mother-In-Law too much with my fiance and I need tips on how to deal with her. Don’t get me wrong, she’s a nice woman and very generous but so incredibly passive aggressive, treats my fiance like a child (he’s 33 and I have to break a lot of the poor habits his mother let him get away with his whole life – – – How Hard Is It To Turn A Light Off?!?!?! I digress) She is either very flippant about certain things having to do with the wedding or she makes a big deal about really small things that really don’t matter. I guess what I am looking for are some tips for dealing with her, she’s going to be in my life forever and I don’t want to have to down a glass and a half of wine just to visit my in-laws. She isn’t used to having to share her sons either, her oldest son is married and his wife’s family doesn’t live close by so she is used to hosting everything and everyone doing as she says. I come from a big happy Italian family that I love to be with. She just doesn’t realize my fiance didn’t find me under a rock with no family of my own. Help please, I don’t want to upset my fiance and I want to be able to find a way to enjoy her company.
Post # 2
Member
197 posts
Blushing bee
My Future Mother-In-Law is overbearing and makes big deals out of small things and will down play anything big that she’s done. She is scrambling to hold on to her baby son.
It all boils down to whether your Fiance cares about his relationship with them. My fiancé hates his mother and wants nothing to do with her. We’ve already decided that our kids will see them maybe once or twice a year for the holidays, but otherwise, very little contact. We don’t want bad parenting rubbing off on them.
Post # 3
Member
367 posts
Helper bee
lolac : My Fiance recognizes that his mother is crazy but I think he’s reached his limit of me complaining. He agrees that the things she complains about or questions is ridiculous but he’s tired of hearing me complain about her. He thinks I hate her and I don’t she’s just so exhausting.
Not for nothing but I wish we could get away with only seeing her two or three times a year, I can’t deal with all of her opinions and crazy comments.
Post # 4
Member
197 posts
Blushing bee
winewithwedding : well, the good thing is that he recognizes her crazy. I know my Fiance hates talking about how we dislike her because there’s nothing we can do. At the end of the day, nothing we say will impact her because she’s a narcissist. Nothing we do will hurt her because she’s a narcissist. Talking about it doesn’t do any good because anything we come up with, will likely end up making her look like the victim.
Does he have a problem with you hating her? I know you don’t, but I’m wondering if that’s impacting his attitude towards it. Maybe he’s uncomfortable with his perception of the situation. You guys will be a family soon, so I always say immediate family first (even if it’s just you two). If you don’t want to see them more than a few times a year, then work it out with your Fiance and don’t! You’re an adult, and you have a family too.
Post # 5
Member
371 posts
Helper bee
- Wedding: November 2025 - City, State
Is there someone else you can gripe about her to – your mom or sister, you future sister-in-law – so you can express your frustrations but your fiance doesn’t have to hear it?
If you give specific examples, we might be able to give advice on how to deal with a situation. Passive aggressive and makes a big deal out of small things is a little vague to work with (for me anyway!).
You might also want to look into DWIL Nation on BabyCenter (Am I allowed to mention other forums here?) I haven’t checked it out myself, but have seen it recommended enough times to remember the name. I think DWIL is “dealing with in-laws.”
Post # 6
Member
13973 posts
Honey Beekeeper
Girl, I feel ya. My Mother-In-Law and I barely talk. I drink a lot of wine when she’s around. She’s passive-aggressive and opinionated. She treats DH like a child. She’s never accepted me and never made me feel welcome. We’ve been married 5 years and together for almost 10 and it’s never changed. All I can say is that you should try to deal with her as much as you can, vent to other people and not to your FI/DH, and try to put as much distance as possible between you.
Post # 7
Member
367 posts
Helper bee
MollyCatherine : oh god… how much time do you have. I’ll break down the three most recent issues.
First, according to my fiance she’s “devastated” that I didn’t take her with me when I bought my dress. My mom and I are really close and this was something I didn’t want to do it with anyone but her. When I saw my Future Mother-In-Law after my fiance told me shes devastated she said “oh so I hear you got your dress, that’s exciting, I would have liked to have been there but I’m guessing you didn’t want my opinions” I simply said, it was something my mom and I wanted to do alone and I want the dress to be a surprise to everyone.
I asked if she would like to get hair and makeup with my MUA and hair stylist. It was getting to the point where I needed a count to decide if I needed a second person for each. I gave her a month to let me know. I finally had to go back to her and ask her “Hey *crazy* (my secret nickname for her) I need to know if your doing hair and makeup I need a head count” “Oh well I guess I’ll do makeup but I was going to go and get my hair done by my hair dresser” Her hair dresser is an hour and a half from the venue, our rehersal dinner is near our venue because I don’t want people traveling all over the place. I brought this to her attention that it would be a lot of traveling the morning of the wedding especially if she is getting her makeup done with my MUA and she ignored my text for 3 days. I finally had to ask her again and she said “I guess I’ll go with you” – Now she won’t stop harrassing me about having a hair trial with her, I keep saying if she wants to pay and drive an hour out of her way…
Lastly and not having to do with the wedding, my fiance’s birthday was last week and he and I were away the night before, he mentioned that if we were home early enough and not super hungover his mom asked if we wanted to do dinner over her house. He told her, it would honestly depend on how we’re feeling and it was kind of up in the air. Fast forward to his birthday and she doesn’t call or text him to wish him a happy birthday we get home at 1 and wondering what’s going on. He asked me to text her because he felt weird asking if she was throwing him a bday dinner I said “Hi *crazy* Fiance said you mentioned dinner but nothing sounded confirmed wondering what the plan is” She snapped at me and said of course and that we should be there in like 15 minutes. When we get there she is like I didn’t think I would have to confirm dinner, my Fiance was like well maybe if you called me in the morning to wish me a happy birthday this wouldn’t have been an issue. This went back and forth for a while and then I was brought into it by her and I just shook my head said it’s between you two and walked away. I can’t control my facial expressions when I am aggravated so it would be best if I just walked away.
So that’s just a snippit of the things she does.
Post # 8
Member
367 posts
Helper bee
JiminyCricket : I am sorry you have to deal with this too. It’s hard, she lives like 20 minutes away from us so distance is hard unless we have plans. My fiance loves his mom but he recognizes that shes a nightmare and that we just have to suck it up sometimes. I just wish she would chill the eff out because she is the one stress I have when it comes to wedding planning.
Post # 9
Member
289 posts
Helper bee
winewithwedding :
I giggled when I saw your secret nickname for your Mother-In-Law.
The dress debacle was rather presumptuous. Since you and your Mother-In-Law don’t have a close relationship, she shouldn’t be expecting you to invite her to go wedding dress shopping. Her comments were uncalled for as well. You are not obligated to ask for her opinion.
I agree with your concerns about too much driving on your wedding day but you can’t control your MIL’s decisions. Let her drive around if she wants to. She probably feels more comfortable going to her hairstylist. I’m wondering if she felt pushed into choosing your beauty staff.
You told your Mother-In-Law that coming over for your fiance’s birthday was up in the air right? That means she wasn’t sure what the plan was. I do think that choosing not to reach out for her son’s birthday was petty so I can see why that would annoy you. Your fiance should not have expected you to talk to his mother because he should be handling potentially sticky situations with his own family. It wasn’t fair to put you in that position.
I think you have every right to be upset about your MIL’s behavior. I would encourage you to vent to someone other than your fiance because most people get defensive if they feel like their parents are being criticized…even if the criticism is justified. I’m sorry that you have to bother with Crazy.
Post # 10
Member
395 posts
Helper bee
winewithwedding : Just replying to say I feel ya. I have issues w/ my Future Mother-In-Law as well. She relies on my FH and his brother (who is married and has 2 babies) for advice and emotional support, doing chores and tasks, and even asks them for loans (which thus far she has always paid back, to her credit)… Basically, she tries to use them as her substitute husbands (she is divorced). She has admitted that she resents to some degree the fact that her kids are growing up and starting families of their own. I find her level of neediness to her kids kind of inappropriate, especially since she wasn’t the most nurturing of mothers to them growing up.
Future Sister-In-Law takes a lot of flack and strange/rude comments from her. In particular she likes to criticize what Future Sister-In-Law spends money on and the fact that she’s a stay at home mom. Whereas she straight out ignores me. Like, just doesn’t respond sometimes when I’m speaking directly to her.
Fiance knows she’s crazy but she is his mom, so we’ve discussed boundaries for minimizing the impact her odd/bad behavior will have on our lives. I try not to complain about her to him, and I rely on him 100% to enforce the agreed upon boundaries that we’ve discussed.
My advice: find a friend or even an online group to vent to. If you post, use a throwaway username. DWIL and JustNoMotherInLaw are two popular ones. Together with your Fiance, come to an agreement about how what she does will be dealt with and let him handle any issues. Good luck!!
Post # 11
Member
68 posts
Worker bee
I also need help dealing with my Future Mother-In-Law. She hates me. She’s called up my fiancee twice telling him to seriously reconsider what he’s doing. This thread makes me petrified of my future dealing with this weirdo woman. Here’s my plan. i’m going to facilitate a meeting with her and my fiancee. i’m going to say “(insert fi’s name) says you have some concerns about us. I’d like to take this time to address them together, so that you understand that i’m not a horrible person.” ok, i’m not going to say those exact words, i’ll say something more tactful, but i’m thinking of just scheduling a meeting. i don’t see how it can get any worse to be honest. I dont’ know what else to do. i don’t want to deal with hatred for the rest of my life.
Post # 12
Member
6 posts
Newbee
You’re basically describing my life lol. I also come from a big Italian family who do things their own way, while my Future Mother-In-Law runs her own show due to their extended family living far away.
Whenever I get annoyed with her I just remind myself why I’m marrying my FH and things feel a little less bad.
Post # 13
Member
367 posts
Helper bee
groomsister35 : Thank you for the advice. I completely agree with you that I can’t control where she wants to get her hair done. Part of my reasoning was if she wanted her make up done she would need to work around that schedule and to drive back and forth on a good day with no traffic would be 1.5 hours both ways, she would have to take into consideration that it’s a Friday wedding (I tried so hard to not do this to people but it was our only option for our venue) and where her hair stylist is and known for heavy traffic. I just didn’t want her stressing out about driving on her sons wedding day. I also wanted to be nice and include her in some girly stuff since she has no daughters and my future brother-in-law eloped so she never got to do these things.
My fiance normally would never put me in that position but it was just weird since it was his birthday and he didn’t want to sound like he was asking for a dinner. The two of them are classic poor phone communicators so that didn’t help the situation.
Post # 14
Member
367 posts
Helper bee
lavieenviolette : Thank you, I will look into those forums! Sorry you have to deal with a batty Mother-In-Law too
pepperzo1 : biancalexandra : So sorry you both have your own *Crazy* to deal with. Good luck to you guys. This morning I went for a run and used all of her aggravating tendancies as motivation to sweat and then I sat in the sauna for 5 minutes and just breathed and I feel SO much better. andorphins really do make you happy 🙂
Post # 15
Member
289 posts
Helper bee
pepperzo1 :
Are you serious?! What’s wrong with some people?
I can’t imagine how upset you were when your Mother-In-Law called your fiance.