# My mother in law admitted she favors 1st marriage children



## Lia2014 (Feb 7, 2018)

I’ve been with my husband 6 years and married 3 years. My mother in law is an 80 something year old woman. She displays blatant favoritism to his two grown children 17 year old boy and 13 year old daughter. I had always suspected that she thought less of my two babies a 3 year old girl and a 6 month old baby. when my son was born she made sure to make it known that no matter “how many additional children are born the original will always be her favorite” instead of starting an argument at the family function where this was announced, I asked my husband to speak to his mother. she told him that yes she loves the older children more and since she will die soon she’d rather the older ones have good memories of her than the little ones who will not even remember her. It upsets me so much. It makes me resent his mother so much and not want to see his older children. It makes me feel that they will grow up having a superiority complex always seeing my kids as inferior. how should I address this?


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## Rhubarb (Dec 1, 2017)

Lia2014 said:


> how should I address this?


I would say your husband should probably handle it. It's his mother. And in any case I wouldn't stress about it too much. Sometimes people get weird when they get old. Is their some reason your kids actually have to visit her? I see no reason you have to particularly like her. Just mostly ignore her, be reasonably polite and let her yammer on about her nonsense.


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## EleGirl (Dec 3, 2011)

Lia2014 said:


> I’ve been with my husband 6 years and married 3 years. My mother in law is an 80 something year old woman. She displays blatant favoritism to his two grown children 17 year old boy and 13 year old daughter. I had always suspected that she thought less of my two babies a 3 year old girl and a 6 month old baby. when my son was born she made sure to make it known that no matter “how many additional children are born the original will always be her favorite” instead of starting an argument at the family function where this was announced, I asked my husband to speak to his mother. she told him that yes she loves the older children more and since she will die soon she’d rather the older ones have good memories of her than the little ones who will not even remember her. It upsets me so much. It makes me resent his mother so much and not want to see his older children. It makes me feel that they will grow up having a superiority complex always seeing my kids as inferior. how should I address this?


How's your MIL's health? She's right that she will most likely die sooner than later.

How old are you and your husband?

You need to let your husband handle his own mother. Just ignore her and focus on your children.

How involved where you with your step children when they were younger? 

You let your husband handle his children as well.

The worse thing you could do is to overblow this with your husband. Do not put yourself and your children into a competition with his other children.


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## Satya (Jun 22, 2012)

Think of how much easier it will be to never have to bring your kids to visit her, for holidays or any reason at all. Think of how much less drama will be in your life. Your kids won't miss out - forcing love from a stone won't work in their favor. 

Give an unreasonable person exactly what they want.


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## Openminded (Feb 21, 2013)

Many grandparents have favorites and some are more obvious about that than others. She's one who is. Also, at her age she may no longer have patience for toddlers and babies so give her lots of distance. You'll be much happier that way.


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## SunCMars (Feb 29, 2016)

Satya said:


> Think of how much easier it will be to never have to bring your kids to visit her, for holidays or any reason at all. Think of how much less drama will be in your life. Your kids won't miss out - forcing love from a stone won't work in their favor.
> 
> Give an unreasonable person exactly what they want.


Yes, and you may find out that she really does not mean what she said.
It may be that she does love the children, roughly equal, but loved her son's first wife more.

I have seen this dynamic in my [extended] family and in-law relations. And friends relations.

We all have favorites. It is best never to voice them. It is flat out hurtful and mean [stupid].

Some children are more lovable. That said, keep your lip zipped. Children grow up and remember, oh, so well.

I was a naughty child. And I later matured into a perfect man. Uh, what?


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## SunCMars (Feb 29, 2016)

Openminded said:


> Many grandparents have favorites and some are more obvious about that than others. She's one who is. Also, at her age she may no longer have patience for toddlers and babies so give her lots of distance. You'll be much happier that way.


Very true!

Toddlers are a handful!

If you do not have a sense of humor, they will quickly get under your skin.


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## MJJEAN (Jun 26, 2015)

Satya said:


> Give an unreasonable person exactly what they want.


It doesn't sound unreasonable to me. The old lady has preferences, she has stated her preferences, and why they are her preferences. She may be a bit of an ass, but her logic is sound. 

I do agree, though, that it's best to give her exactly what she wants. Why bother bringing the younger kids around when Grandma isn't into them? Let Grandma have her favorites and instead go do something more fun with the younglings.

My maternal grandparents passed away when I was in my late teens. My cousin and sister are my paternal grandma's favorites. I'm in my 40's. I can count on 1 hand how many times I have seen or spoken to my grandma in the last 20 years. I've never been upset about it. People like who they like. No skin off my nose and I can't say I ever missed the woman. I certainly don't wish the old bat ill, I honestly don't think about her much, at all.


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## Satya (Jun 22, 2012)

MJJEAN said:


> It doesn't sound unreasonable to be. The old lady has preferences, she has stated her preferences, and why they are her preferences. She may be a bit of an ass, but her logic is sound.


Youre right. She doesn't believe she is being unreasonable.

The OP, however, would obviously like her children to be appreciated. Love can't be forced though. It's the grandmother who will miss out, but who knows.... Maybe she (grandma) really won't care either way!


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## Bluesclues (Mar 30, 2016)

Lia2014 said:


> I’ve been with my husband 6 years and married 3 years. My mother in law is an 80 something year old woman. She displays blatant favoritism to his two grown children 17 year old boy and 13 year old daughter. I had always suspected that she thought less of my two babies a 3 year old girl and a 6 month old baby. when my son was born she made sure to make it known that no matter “how many additional children are born the original will always be her favorite” instead of starting an argument at the family function where this was announced, I asked my husband to speak to his mother. she told him that yes she loves the older children more and since she will die soon she’d rather the older ones have good memories of her than the little ones who will not even remember her. It upsets me so much. It makes me resent his mother so much and not want to see his older children. It makes me feel that they will grow up having a superiority complex always seeing my kids as inferior. how should I address this?


How long had your husband been divorced from their mother when you got together? Were you the cause of their split? His older children are not “grown” now at 17 and 13 and were only 11 and 7 when you got together with their dad. Dad starting a new family had to be hard on them even if they were long divorced when you met. Is it possible that your MIL shows favoritism to the older kids because she knows they already feel inferior to Family 2.0?


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## Openminded (Feb 21, 2013)

SunCMars said:


> Very true!
> 
> Toddlers are a handful!
> 
> If you do not have a sense of humor, they will quickly get under your skin.


They definitely are.


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## MJJEAN (Jun 26, 2015)

Satya said:


> Youre right. She doesn't believe she is being unreasonable.
> 
> The OP, however, would obviously like her children to be appreciated. Love can't be forced though. It's the grandmother who will miss out, but who knows.... Maybe she (grandma) really won't care either way!


I'm going with she won't care much, if at all.

There is a theory that our grandparents/great-grandparents (depending how old you are!) weren't generally very demonstratively affectionate because A) it just wasn't appropriate to "wear your heart on your sleeve" and B) infant mortality was higher and there was a chance that young children would die, so there was a certain level of emotional "just in case" detachment until the child(ren) were older and more likely to survive. These are people who remember living through the Depression, WWII, and were around when the polio vaccine (among others) was new. They just don't see the world the way we do.



Bluesclues said:


> How long had your husband been divorced from their mother when you got together? Were you the cause of their split? His older children are not “grown” now at 17 and 13 and were only 11 and 7 when you got together with their dad. Dad starting a new family had to be hard on them even if they were long divorced when you met. Is it possible that your MIL shows favoritism to the older kids because she knows they already feel inferior to Family 2.0?


You know, it is entirely possible Grandma feels like she needs to circle the wagons around the grandchildren that went through the divorce, the remarriage, and the rise of Family 2.0 along with all the accompanying emotions. Maybe she feels getting attached to Kids 2.0 is disloyal to Kids 1.0.

When contemplating mortality, people throughout history have very much wanted to be remembered. At 80, this woman has limited time and energy she can devote to others. Maybe she is investing in the older kids, as she says, because they'll be the ones to remember her and not for any other reason.


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## FieryHairedLady (Mar 24, 2011)

She may live alot longer and the little kids will remember her. How can someone be heartless to toddlers? 

Our youngest son is 5. 

We love all our kids, older and younger.

Kids are our future, our immortality.

I love being able to have grown up conversations and do grown up stuff with our adult kids, I also get a big kick out of baking cookies and doing silly stuff with our 5 y/o.

Bonus with the 5 y/o is he is a little dreamboat sweetheart and is so good. 

I couldn't imagine missing out on the precious gift of life.

That old woman is cutting herself short.

I love babies and toddlers.

These 2 kids are equally his sons kids as the other 2 are.

What a witch.


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## SadSamIAm (Oct 29, 2010)

Lia2014 said:


> I’ve been with my husband 6 years and married 3 years. My mother in law is an 80 something year old woman. She displays blatant favoritism to his two grown children 17 year old boy and 13 year old daughter. I had always suspected that she thought less of my two babies a 3 year old girl and a 6 month old baby. when my son was born she made sure to make it known that no matter “how many additional children are born the original will always be her favorite” instead of starting an argument at the family function where this was announced, I asked my husband to speak to his mother. she told him that yes she loves the older children more and since she will die soon she’d rather the older ones have good memories of her than the little ones who will not even remember her. It upsets me so much. It makes me resent his mother so much and not want to see his older children. It makes me feel that they will grow up having a superiority complex always seeing my kids as inferior. how should I address this?


I think most Grand Parents have favorites even if most would never say it out loud like your MIL did.

I know our kids are their grand parents favorites vs my wife's siblings kids. We spent more time with them. Went camping with them. There is a reason why our kids are more attached to the grand parents than their other grand children. 

I think it is probably the same thing with the 17 and 13 year olds. When they were young, your MIL was younger too. She got to know them. She was 63 when the oldest was born. There is a big difference between 80 and 62. Guessing she was much more active and into grandchildren at that point in her life.

I say stay quiet about it. Certainly don't take it out on the 17 and 13 year olds. Sounds like you do in your comments about them being grown and how this makes you feel about them.


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## username77 (Dec 27, 2017)

She's 80, she'll be dead soon enough. Once a person is over 80 you just deal with their BS silently until they croak.

Also the nature of how your husband divorced, and what if any factor you played in that could potentially be a reason too.


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## Herschel (Mar 27, 2016)

Who cares? Haters gonna hate.


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## zookeeper (Oct 2, 2012)

My guess is she doesn't like you and your children are simply a reminder of your existence. You have not shared any details of how his first marriage ended and how you came to be married, but I bet the answer is in there somewhere.

Married for 3 years with a 3 year old child suggests that you got married because you got pregnant. If she believes that you trapped her son into marriage with an unplanned pregnancy (true or not) it would explain her feelings. 

Shame that such a thing would affect her feelings toward innocent children, but you have already confessed to the same thing regarding his other kids so I'm sure you can understand it. 

Your kids will be fine either way. As long as you don't convince them to feel otherwise.


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## Middle of Everything (Feb 19, 2012)

MJJEAN said:


> It doesn't sound unreasonable to me. The old lady has preferences, she has stated her preferences, and why they are her preferences. She may be a bit of an ass, *but her logic is sound. *
> 
> I do agree, though, that it's best to give her exactly what she wants. Why bother bringing the younger kids around when Grandma isn't into them? Let Grandma have her favorites and instead go do something more fun with the younglings.
> 
> My maternal grandparents passed away when I was in my late teens. My cousin and sister are my paternal grandma's favorites. I'm in my 40's. I can count on 1 hand how many times I have seen or spoken to my grandma in the last 20 years. I've never been upset about it. People like who they like. No skin off my nose and I can't say I ever missed the woman. I certainly don't wish the old bat ill, I honestly don't think about her much, at all.


Bull****.

Shes a dumb old *****. Plain and simple. As @SunCMars said, I too have MUCH experience in my family with favoritism and "Golden" children. My piece of **** uncle older brother of my Dad was a golden boy. I could tell my dad was chasing the love he got from my Grandmother his entire life. Same goes for a BiL of mine. Oldest is GOLDEN. Others are obviously 2nd rate to everyone BUT my ***** MiL.

I agree with SunC that we naturally get along better with certain people. But to express this in such a blatant way? Makes someone a PoS. 

Perfect response to them would be "oh goody, now we dont have to give a **** when you die. Free day off of work at least"

Trigger for me? VERY much so. I have little to no tolerance for people that worship their Golden children.


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## Need_advice123 (Nov 8, 2017)

You're focusing too much on your mother in law. Mother in laws say some crazy stuff sometimes. She probably didn't even mean it the way you interpreted what she said. She is 80 something years old and you're worrying about her way too much.

Don't let your feelings for her muddle up your relationship with your husband. And his kids from his previous relationship are his responsibility. You don't have to love them like your own, but you should respect that they are his kids and support his time with them.

If your marriage with him were to ever fail, I'm sure you'd appreciate that he loves and wants to be involved in your kids lives. It would suck if he got involved with someone else and started ignoring his kids with you because she had some problem with your baby and toddler. Same with you...if you got involved with someone else and he started shunning your kids.

You don't have to like his mom or kids, but you should support him. And have respect for his family...crazy or not. It's her loss if your kids aren't in her life as much.

Don't stress it, however. And don't let his mom get in the way of your marriage. Don't sabotage his relationship with his kids either. Kids need their dad even if their parents aren't together any more.

Bottom line...enjoy your husband and kids. Be glad he's not a deadbeat dad with his older kids...It's actually a good quality and you should love him for that. And don't let mother in law stress you out. Let your hubby deal with her. A lot of people don't like mother in law....they just deal with them because they're part of the family.


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