Moo in laws apparently are biologically programmed to be nasty

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-koss-mother-in-law-20161018-snap-story.html

A woman writes about being married and dealing with the stuff of her newly deceased moo-in-law.
The older moo was a real pill, but the DIL's father told her that MIL's are that way because there is no greater love between a moo and babybee and told his daughter what when she becomes a moo she will totally understand why her MIL was the pain in the ass she was.

Ah, the article gets even better:

"Then he said: “Let me ask you this. If you found out that Mitch (that's my husband) was a violent pedophile who raped little children, would you visit him in prison?”

“Pfft, no way!”

“Ah!” My dad held up his drink in victory. “But if it was your son, you’d visit, and bring him a cake!”"



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"[GFG's pregnancy is] kind of like at the stables where that one dumb, ugly-ass mare broke out of her corral one day and got herself screwed by the equally fugly colt that was due to be gelded the same afternoon."- Shiny

Ok...So because you love your son you have to be a jerk to his wife? How does that even make any sense?

I would totally cut offall contact with someone who rapes children (or women, or anyone), even if he was my son. But I'm not a moo, so apparently I cannot know...

Are in-laws always assholes to the spouses of their kids who are the same gender as they are? For example, will a mother-in-law always be a bitch to her daughter-in-law, and will a father-in-law always be a dick to his son-in-law? I'm asking because I wonder if the parents see their kids' spouses as some sort of competition. Mommy may not want to share the top spot on her son's priority list, or be replaced either. Same for fathers being "replaced" by their daughters' spouses. Will a MIL be a bitch to a son-in-law, or just a daughter-in-law? Or to both? In spite of their kids being adults, a lot of mothers still seem to think that their sons are their "little men" and fathers think their daughters are their "little princesses."

It's even worse when the spouse defends or justifies their parents' behavior and stands by them instead of their significant other. You don't choose who you're born to, but you do choose who you're with, and someone who will choose to stand by their insane, possessive parent instead of their partner is someone who won't have many meaningful romantic relationships. That momma's boy/daddy's girl shit gets real old, real fast.

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Cambion
Will a MIL be a bitch to a son-in-law, or just a daughter-in-law?

From my own experience. I had two long-term relationships.
1. My boyfriend's mother couldn't stand me, I was a real hate figure to her.
2. MIL didn't like me much. One could feel that she saw me as a some kind
of competition.

Mr. Kittehpeoples' mother is unhappy about our living arrangements (not married with no plans to do so, and she's extremely Christian), plus I'm not Christian, plus I'm weird for their family (vegetarian, among other things). We don't have a lot of contact because she lives pretty far away from us, but the times that we have been together, she has never once been rude to me or slighted me in any way. In fact, she's gone out of her way to make sure I had food to eat; she doesn't understand someone wanting to be vegetarian, but she respected me enough to provide for me. She's pretty much proof that you can disagree with your child's choice of partner and still be a decent person to them. So...not buying this dick FIL's argument that MILs "have" to be awful.

@ kittehpeople: Sorry but this is no proof because your MIL lives far away!
I had very good relationship with MIL when we lived thousands of km away from her
and met her twice a year. The nasty came when we started living in the same house.
It was like a metamorphosis - she became a completely different person.

I expect PNBs mostly wind up being decent inlaws, while BNPs are shitty ones. Breeders are the ones who never expected their kids to grow up into individuals (or grow up at all) and consequently cannot handle no longer being the center of their children's lives.

My in-laws are pretty rotten to each other, but do their best to be respectful and kind to me. They both grew up in a very different world, and have tried lately to keep up with changing times, etc...much moreso than others with their upbringing. So for the most part I am patient, and just avoid being stuck with them for extended times. We don't go on vacations with them or anything like that, for example. At first I was a bit of a novelty to them (vegetarian, non-Christian, feminist, and so on), but they weren't dicks and they got to know me. And they did see the important part: their son is much, much happier with me in his life, and they're in favor of that, so they were willing to learn a little.

MIL hasn't really done any "MIL from hell" stuff...just occasional gaffes from being raised by small-minded bigots herself.

My thoughts are similar to yurbles...the parents who're kind, smart, and okay with their kids growing up/being different are likely decent in-laws. The ones who have rigid ideals and preconceived notions of who's "good enough" and/or haven't given much thought to the fact that they're raising someone who will be an adult will be obnoxious in-laws.

My own parents are pretty decent in-laws to my husband, too.

His parents live across town from us. My own live three states away.

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yurble
I expect PNBs mostly wind up being decent inlaws, while BNPs are shitty ones. Breeders are the ones who never expected their kids to grow up into individuals (or grow up at all) and consequently cannot handle no longer being the center of their children's lives.

Yeah, this. Whether my own experience is proof or not (I know that the distance makes things different, but I know people I only see every few years and they're assholes every time, too; I allow that the opposite can also be true), my experience of in laws among my family members is that the ones who are overall decent people are also decent in laws. The ones who are generally assholes are generally assholes. A person isn't an asshat just because they're a MIL and having a kid who marries automatically turns you into a jerk; you were a jerk before, and you are continuing to be one, just in your shiny new capacity as MIL.

(This may or may not make sense, as kittehpeoples is once more sleep deprived. Apologies if I have rambled or am unclear. )

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kittehpeoples
A person isn't an asshat just because they're a MIL and having a kid who marries automatically turns you into a jerk; you were a jerk before, and you are continuing to be one, just in your shiny new capacity as MIL.

Yup. There's usually red flags galore on this type of stuff.