Reasons I Hate My Mother-In-Law

It's not eavesdropping if you shout.

2009-02-12T03:21:00.000-08:00

If you text someone's housephone instead of their mobile, you can't complain if the wrong person reads your message. Can you?

It wasn't the content of the message that I take issue with as such (she met someone on the internet, then on meeting in real life told him she loved him and couldn't live without him - hardly first-date material) but that the end of the message was "can't wait to see you".

Can't wait to see him? Really? I knew he'd told her that we're going to London for a romantic Valentines-anniversary-Arsenal weekend and I hope sincerely she won't take that as an invitation to fawn all over him and make pointed little remarks about how miserable she is without him, and how wicked I am for stealing him away.

She doesn't have a leg to stand on really, as she left her parental home at 15 (pregnant with him, if that doesn't just say it all) and he stayed til 22, so she's had a good seven years more than she's entitled to. I can only hope and pray that he stands up to her and tells her that this is a couples weekend and not a familial visit.

Plus, after the Christmas fiasco, I doubt I could bite my tongue with her. What's wrong with the meat, indeed!!

No Escape

2008-08-18T14:55:00.000-07:00

It's been over a month since I felt compelled to post here, but even from hundreds of miles away the good old MIL is getting right on my tits.

One of the things I always hated most about her was the loudness of her voice, as if she is partially deaf and can't hear herself properly. Unfortunately she is not deaf at all and so can hear even the quietest of conversations from behind at least three concrete walls. However, this does mean that I get to listen in on her phone conversations with the other half (and if I didn't there would be no blog).

The other day hosted a ridiculously drawn-out explanation by the OH on how to recover her Facebook password.

"I signed up to facebook and I can't log in."
"Do you remember your password?"
"No."
"Then you need to request your password, and they'll email it to you."
"How do I log into my email?"
"Go to Hotmail and type in your password."
"What's the address?"
"Hotmail.com."
"What?"
"H-O-T-M-A-I-L"
"Dot com?"
"Yes, dot com."
"And I type in my password?"
"Yes."
"It's not working."
"Have you typed in your email address?"
"What's my email address?"

At this stage I lost the will to live. I just live in fear that she will work out how to use facebook and add me, then find out from the OH that I rejected her and I'll get in trouble. Or worse, I'll end up accepting her and she'll start sending me messages.

Oh, God!

Dear mother in law,

2008-07-05T06:45:00.000-07:00

All that time ago, when you cornered us in the kitchen in the middle of the night to tell him how much you hated me - remember what you said? I was a bad influence. I was a stranger in your house. He was running around after me when I might not even be in his life in a week’s time. That night I swore to myself that you would come to regret acting that way, and that sooner or later everyone would leave you and you would die, alone and empty, realising that your actions had driven away everyone you loved.
Well, now it’s two years later, and at this very minute your eldest son, the one who always acted as if he was the mature adult and you the disobedient child, the one who you tried to keep attached to your apron strings until he was middle aged, the one who you drove away with your hatred of the woman he loves is on a coach on a motorway speeding as fast as he can away from you and toward me. He will come and live in my family home, where he is welcomed and loved like a son, and you will see him at Christmas and Easter, if you’re lucky. We will start our life together without you and raise our children together, without you.
I know you blame me for taking him away from you, but this had nothing to do with my actions. You caused this, it was your spite and your venom that made me want to run from you and his undying love that made him come with me. By trying to ruin my life you have ruined your own, and I hope you’re miserable.
You deserve to be.

Yours, your darling daughter in law.

Blame & Shame

2008-06-20T09:11:00.000-07:00

This was retrieved out of the drafts (and with great difficulty too, the technological whizz that I am) after being walked in on by my brother. I'd rather be caught in coitu than blogging about my dear MIL.

I don't know what made me think of this, as she's half way across the country (thank GOD) but MIL has a serious problem with blame, in that she's desperate to attribute it for everything that goes wrong.

A wee while ago a pint of milk fell off the dining room table and onto the floor, spilling everywhere. Rather than clean it up (or, as is more likely, ask somebody else to clean it up), she stood shouting and asking whose fault it was that it fell off in the first place. "It MUST have been someone, because I only put it there a minute ago! Who walked past here? I was in the sitting room so it CAN'T have been ME."

Much earlier, when the OH and I hadn't been together long, she blamed me for their running out of money the week before they were due to go on holiday. This sparked a huge chain of events which I will chronicle in due course but suffice to say there is a proper reason as to why I hate my mother in law.

A well-deserved break

2008-06-14T05:59:00.000-07:00

I am at my parents' with the other half, having a lovely breath of fresh air after the oppressive stench of the MIL.

The morning we left on the coach I had stayed at his, to be closer to the coch station, and while innocently enjoying my soft-boiled eggs her new boyfriend came blundering into the living room in a state of undress. This is the 'boyfriend' whom she denys she has, but who stays at her house and takes her on holidays while she tells him she's not interested. I wonder where he slept?

There really is no decorum to their household, even when guests are round (i.e. me) she thinks nothing of walking around in her nightdress and sometimes not even that. If that were my mum I would die of embarrassment.

On the subject of my mum, she's been going out of her way to make OH feel comfortable here, even though he's here every holiday. She insists on getting him sweets and crisps and pop from Tesco, something she never even does for me. I was unpleasantly reminded of being pointedly not invited to MIL's birthday dinner, even when I offered to pay for myself.

Don't say I don't try, folks.

A difficult weekend

2008-06-09T05:28:00.000-07:00

In only two days I have collected a veritable wealth of complaints about the MIL, so much so that I'm surprised I haven't given myself a stomach ulcer.

Saturday afternoon featured the lament that now Big Brother has started, she has to wait until September to go on holiday to avoid missing the evictions. She has even been trying to rope the BF into watching it with her, leading to me having to tell him very firmly that if he starts watching it I will dump him. And I mean it, I will.

Saturday evening, while watching The Queen on DVD, he casually mentioned that his mum was one of those people who lined the streets in floods of tears when Diana died. To this day she thinks it was murder. I realised that 'Big Brother-watching, Express-reading, Diana fanatic' is all that she needs to explain her.

Sunday afternoon was another row about BF not doing the dishes instantly as he finishes eating his tea. I don't even remember the last time she washed up, or the last time I didn't include her dishes in my washing. The whirlwind of nagging that accompanies her entrance to the house deserves a blog of its own.

Sunday evening somehow turned into a maths competition, and on the rare occasions when she got an answer right in the quickest time it was: "YESSS!! I AM CLEVERER THAN YOU!! HAHAHAHAHAAAA!!" and for another two hours it was: "nerr nerr nerr nerr nerr!!"

I don't know how I cope, sometimes...

Where do I begin? WHERE DO I BEGIN?!

2008-06-09T05:21:00.002-07:00

"Do you know why people have to die? People have to die so that new people can be born. Otherwise there'd be no room in the world. And that's a FACT."

Ah, the cost of living

2008-06-06T10:23:00.000-07:00

MIL is a grown woman, a mother, so should it be up to her son to manage her finances? Should it be him who reads the small print of her contract with the telephone comany, and work out whether she has enough money in her bank account to pay the direct debit? Should it be him who buys her groceries because the bank cancelled her cards after she got so overdrawn she could pay off the third world debt?

No, I don't think so either.

After (another) blazing row over how on EARTH he can USE THE INTERNET without knowing exactly how much it costs and how much she should expect to pay, she remarked that with a different phone-internet-TV package she'd have another $600 to pay for a holiday. Would she, or would she fritter the money away on teleshopping channels and eBay?

Yes, I thought so too.

Catching up

2008-06-06T10:18:00.000-07:00

It's been an uncharacteristically long time since my last post, but I have stocked up plenty of complaints.

MIL is the most ungrateful wench I have ever had the misfortune to encounter. Last night she loudly lamented the fact that nobody bought her flowers no matter how many times she asked, not for her birthday nor Mothers' Day. Maybe everyone remembers my example from years ago, when I first started seriously dating my boyfriend.

I bought her a lovely (and bloody expensive) bunch of flowers, put them in water when I brought them round and everything, and she didn't even acknowledge them. Not long later it was Mothers' Day and BF & I went halfs on a present, which BEFORE SHE'D EVEN FINISHED FINISHING UNWRAPPING IT she proclaimed 'Oh, it's not those soaps, is it? I hate those!'

I wonder why nobody buys her flowers.

Cancer at 23? You've had a good innings

2008-05-19T04:38:00.000-07:00

Every time I go to OH's for tea we always wait until MIL has gone to bed before going into the kitchen to cook. Not necessarily because we hate her so much (I do, but he doesn't) but because their crappy kitchen is the size of an ironing board and there are so many appliances rammed in that you can barely open the door.

Every time we wait until she's gone to bed, and every time she gets out of bed and comes into the kitchen to smoke. I swear to God she does it on purpose.

Last night I made a big show of turning all the pans off and covering the food before leaving the room and shutting the door behind me. I think she noticed, and part of me hopes she mentions it next time I'm round. The more reasonable part of me hopes she doesn't because I know I couldn't stop myself from calling her all the names I started this blog to unleash.

She makes such a point of not smoking around her 13-year-old daughter in case it damages her health (not that the fat little lump could get any more unhealthy) but thinks nothing of smoking around her son, as if the extra ten years he has on his sister mean that he's ready to die a horrible painful death.

Smoking is going to make her so sick and it will be all her fault.

Free Money

2008-05-13T05:46:00.000-07:00

The first issue I have in this post is that all MIL ever does of an evening is sit on the phone. Oblivious to the complaints of her young daughter, who unreasonably actually wants to spend time with her mum, she will yap on all bloody night at the top of her voice moaning about her awful life.

Being at the top of her horrid nasal voice, one can't help but overhear the odd snippet.

The second issue is that one of the most recent complaints was about how unfair it was that she couldn't claim disability living allowance without actually proving to her employers that she is disabled. How awful this must be, not to be able to get money for free with no extra effort involved! I'm not begrudging her her disability (as she constantly likes to tell me, she takes thirty painkillers a day) but surely a doctor's note isn't too much to ask?

Would it be very wrong to ring the anonymous shopping-in-benefit-cheats phone number, even if just to inconvenience a woman I hate? I'll mull this one over.

Children need presence not presents

2008-05-08T07:24:00.000-07:00

The Jeremy Vine show this afternoon featured the story that the government were going to start texting parents telling them how to raise their children. Callers were invited to offer their own suggestions for what should be texted.

Her contributions would be:
Ignore your children
Don't bother giving them a stable environment
Smoke around them and while you're pregnant
Allow men to enter and leave their lives as often as possible
Keep telling them how much you had to sacrifice for them
Never tell them you love them

A wonderful mother, she is.

An epiphany

2008-05-03T10:05:00.000-07:00

Thursday was the day that any guilt about this blog well and truly disappeared; a day of a bloody hard exam teamed with serious pms made me want to literally rip her horrible head off her stinking chav shoulders.

Thursday night is TV night at OH's house since I can't receive a signal at mine (nor afford a bloody TV license) so I toddled round. After all of five seconds in the kitchen with MIL lighting up I stank of smoke, possibly the most disgusting thing, but made infinitely worse when you haven't even been smoking yourself.

The whole night after this she charged around the flat looking for her keys, because as everyone knows the louder you shout that you've lost something the sooner you find it (fucking retard). This leads to me gradually turning the telly up in OH's room, because a girl who misses Hugh Laurie in House is not a happy girl at all. At 9.30 she yells 'turn it down! I'm going to bed!!' I snickered at the happy irony of it all. (Of course I bloody didn't, I seethed secretly, adding to my increasing blood pressure.)

Later in the night their dog was in the sitting room with OH and I, when MIL tried to call him to bed. She cleverly did this by standing in the other room and saying 'come to bed'. Obviously the dog doesn't speak English so she called him stupid and gave up.

Her attitude to that dog drives me round the fucking bend, more so than anything else she does. She acts like it's such a privilege to have him at her's and not at her ex's where he belongs, but refuses (REFUSES) to walk him and dumps the responsibility on OH. Last summer when he came to stay with my parents for a few weeks she actually said on his return 'I'm so glad you're back because now the dog can stay round'. When we move in together next year I don;t know what she'll do, probably give him away.

I'm going round there tonight and will not enjoy it, as exam revision has begun and pms has not assuaged and I am not feeling tolerant. Expect another long entry tomorrow.

Severe lack of manners

2008-04-25T08:29:00.000-07:00

Possibly the worst thing about MIL (and the explanation for all the other things I hate about her) is her chronic lack of manners. Even my own mother acknowledges this, and normally she never agrees with me abot people I hate.

At Easter OH and I went round for dinner, and not only was it a horrible meal (tinned veg and no yorkshire puds), she purposely gave me the worst cut of lamb while saving the rest for her own family. What kind of person does this to a guest in their home? Even when cookin for OH I make sure that if I spoil anything I keep it for myself.

Another hideous kitchen habit of hers is smoking when we're preparing food. There's nothing more I need to say about that.

The Credit Crunch

2008-04-15T12:17:00.000-07:00

The MIL has been using the term 'credit crunch' with alarming regularity, as though she knows what it means.
'Everybody has left Norwich because of the Credit Crunch.'
'I can't get Tesco Finest because of the Credit Crunch.'
With capital letters.

There is an awful lot of debt floating around her house, the majority of it to Littlewoods and QVC. Only last week a creditor came to her house to collect her weekly payment - nothing wrong with credit and all that but I can't help but think it doesn't set a very good example to her youngest daughter. Said daughter is an utter brat, but this blog isn't about her.

"Darling, do you mind if I start a blog about how much I despise your mother?"

2008-04-08T08:24:00.000-07:00

I know the username is stupid but that's kind of the point; it has no link to me whatsoever just in case I'm rumbled by the subjects about whom I write. I haven't asked their permission, you see, and feel that doing so might cause a little tension.

Petty yet hate-worthy

2008-04-08T08:19:00.000-07:00

Regardless of what I'm watching or at what time of day I'm waching it, every time I find myself in front of the telly at her house she will take the remote out of my hand and change the channel. Is it just me or is this incredibly rude?? It seems to pass by without so much as a mention but I can't stand it. It's like someone taking a newspaper off me because they want to read it, without so much as a 'if you don't mind..'.

I kept thinking, it's ok, it's her house and she has every right to watch what she likes. But the final straw was being made to miss the last episode in the series of Harry Hill's TV Burp (not the most intellectual show around but I happen to like it). If I did that to her there would be Hell.

I have a feeling this blog might descend into griping about the tiniest things. But surely, it's the tiny things that cause one to hate something?

Focalisation

2008-04-05T06:48:00.000-07:00

Because her father and grandfather had bad tempers and beat their wives, the MIL assumes that whenever the OH loses his temper with the football (which is frequent) he's going to beat me. She just can't understand that all the shit she put him through in his childhood hasn't made him into a psycho in any respect - he is a normal, functioning human being in spite of his horrendous upbringing and is not so depraved as to try to take his anger out on me. It's bloody irritating when he throws the remote control into the wall if his team lose but Jesus, it's not the end of the world. If she had raised him properly, and actually paid attention to him rather than just yelling at him all the time, she'd know that all she needs to do is leave him to sulk for a few hours and he'll be fine.

And even if he did hit me, does she really think I'm so pathetic as to sit and take it? I weigh more than he does, for Christ's sake. He would regret it.

(Disclaimer: I am in no way suggesting that victims of domestic abuse are pathetic, just that if OH abused me I would abuse him right back, so help me. He knows that.)

Not quite the same, but

2008-04-04T13:14:00.001-07:00

I drew a cute little picture of an Easter chicken and bunny on the wipeable whiteboard calendar in their hallway and it was promptly wiped off. I know it was out of date, BUT, there are plenty of out of date messages on the calendar, all of which have been allowed to remain.

Don't say I don't try.

Does it count as lying?

2008-04-04T13:08:00.000-07:00

The MIL has an inflamed liver, as a side-effect of some other medication she was taking. Rather than telling the OH she had a simple, symptomless-yet-not-entirely-pleasant inflamed liver, she told him she had cancer.

Jump to OH cancelling all plans of moving out of his mother's house, out of London and in with me. Luckily for both of us the test results came back before anything was set in stone and proved she didn't have cancer, or even hepatitis which was the alternative. If she was ill then fair enough but I hate to death the way she sensationalises every minor ailment to try and guilt OH into staying with and looking after her. It's like man-flu.

Next time I get a cold I might cry 'pneumonia!' and see if I can be moved into their house, waited on hand and foot like an invalid.

Introduction

2008-04-03T10:50:00.000-07:00

Like most women, I used to think that I was supposed to hate my mother-in-law, that it was to be expected when embarking upon a serious, long-term relationship. I thought all women in my position harboured secret fantasies about dispatching this malignant presence in various violent and illegal ways, while, of course, not falling out with the Other Half.

Recently, it dawned on me that I was wrong.

Apparently some mothers-in-law are nice, friendly types, who welcome their new daughters with open arms (and sometimes baked goods). Mine is demonstrably not in this category.

My mother-in-law is evil, demonic and an all-round terrible person. 'Hate' is a very strong word, but I hate my mother-in-law with a fiery and passionate loathing, from the innermost depths of my bones. Rather than bottle all my rage inside and risk causing myself severe ailments, or even tell my Other Half how I feel (heaven forbid!) I will document her transgressions on this blog, to prove to my disbelievers just how unbearable she really is.

Obviously, this is entirely anonymous, as I imagine the OH might not be best pleased with the content.