She's ok, I guess
My MIL is very nice in general, but from another planet. She's done things like: offer me her g-grandmother's honking bigass diamond for an engagement ring "except if you divorce, I want it back, you can't just run off with it." Uh, ok.

-On our wedding night hubby's brothers, sisters and mum came to the house, asked me to make them something to eat (I made toasted cheese sandwiches with an apron tied over my wedding dress. They didn't even give me time to change.) and then stayed well past 11pm. I was hiding from them in the living room, sobbing "Can't you tell them to go home?" I found out later that since we had co-habited for 4 years, 'the wedding night didn't matter anyway'.

-Next day, she let my very young nieces and nephews rip open my wedding presents "because you know, it's so fun for them and you don't mind, do you?" No, they're just the only wedding presents I'll ever have. She had already gathered up presents and the cards tucked under the ribbons SEPARATELY meaning I had about 75 mystery presents with no idea of who had given what. Took me 6 months of fishing calls to sort it all out.

-Constantly harps on my weight in this clueless nice lefthanded complimentary way, "Oh, you have such a lovely face... In this picture, you're really a good weight... I bought the largest size they had, I'm sure it will fit (it's 4 sizes too small)" despite years of me telling her directly that I don't like it and to stop it.

I guess she's somewhat like Barbara Bush-nice enough in a rich, priviledged, 'why can't the poor be more like us?' way. His brothers and sisters are the same. My family are hillbillies right out of Tennessee. I'm the first to go to college, my grandmother was proud to make it all the way to 8th grade and my great grandfather couldn't read or write. Truly a clash of two worlds.
(TDub Nunc id vides, nunc ne vides on, Mon 12 Sep 2005, 3:19, Reply)