A Brief Regret

I am very lucky as I get on remarkably well with my MIL.
We both work at it, good relationships have to be worked at.
But with her it is an easy path of friendship which I hope I have reciprocated over the fourteen years or so I have known her.
Chris never really had a chance to meet and know my mother.It is a fact that I regret somewhat for they would have made a sparkling pair of jousting partners.
My mother enjoyed a good debate , especially after a  bucket of gin and tonic. Chris enjoys a debate any time of day and with his razor sharp academic mind coupled with her waspish tongue, I suspect that if she had lived into her eighties, they would have made for  the oddest couple of friends.
She would have amused him, for she would have reflected the sharp and typically Northern humour Chris seems to enjoy in me and he would have provided her with a challenge.
Someone who would not have let her rule the roost , so to speak.
Mind you, I could be totally wrong about this.
They could have detested each other with a passion.
But I like to think that they would have been, if not bosom friends, well an interesting couple of jousting partners, par excellence

45 comments:

  1. My late ma would have worshipped my husband. She'd have trampled all of her daughters to death in the rush to welcome a man into the family who can hang a door and unblock a drain. :-)

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    1. A practical woman.... I like that

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    2. I'd love a man in my life who can do that-my hubby can't and i have to do my own unblocking. That sounds so wrong :D

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  2. Some people love 'challenging' relationships...keeps the eyes twinkling.

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  3. I'm going on holiday with my mother in law ... I never imagined that would happen !

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  4. My late mother in law (Swedish) had selective hearing and occasionally a very sharp tongue. The fact that she was my MIL never let me hold back, which was when the selective hearing came in very handy for her!

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    1. Ah the old " deaf as a post" trick eh?

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  5. I'm sure my late Mum would have loved my BF and not just because he's normal and not my usual biker/reprobate/gothic weirdo. She might have made a better job of encouraging him to 'grow a pair' every now and again when life throws a pile of crap in our direction!

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    1. Now that sounds like the startof a good story

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    2. Don't get me started. The BF's mother doesn't have time for me and thinks I'm a freak because I don't wish to 'breed'!!

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  7. I thought for a minute you meant MILILTF - what a relief. (spelt it wrong above)

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  8. I've not seen my MIL for about 15 years, and we get along famously!

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    1. Anonymous11:20 am

      THAT was funny.

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    2. Agreed...... Best one liner of the blog

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  9. MIL's? You are very fortunate....she had 3 daughters-in-law...one was the perfect wife, professional social worker, cook mother earth...the other was the life of the party girl, smoker and beer drinker like my MIL. Then there was me and we politely "got along". You are very fortunate. And I love my DIL because I love my son.

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    1. Your MIL was a fortunate lady.... Best of all worlds

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  10. I get along with my MIL a lot more since she died.
    Jane x

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  11. Anonymous12:55 pm

    With a distance of years since my MIL passed away I find I have a lot more tolerance for her.

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  12. Anonymous1:19 pm

    since you know Chris and have your memories of your Mom...no doubt you are correct about how they'd get along! the only thing my Mom and Don had in common was me...however, my Dad was a complete surprise...he and Don would sit out in the yard,for hours on end, talking a mile a minute :) you and you MIL are both blessed :)

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  13. I met my MIL once only, when I had to visit Marcia's family and make the traditional 'Pedido', the official request of mine to marry her daughter. The Pedido is submitted by letter in traditional form (they sell pre-printed forms here for the illiterate, just fill in the blanks). The Family will then reply sending a list of tributes they require. These typically consist of so many cases of beer, wine, soft drinks; suits for the Uncles, shoes, bolts of cloth, sacks of rice, beans and other pulses; salted dried cod; cases of cooking oil, that sort of thing. Naturally a few 'lined' envelopes go down a treat as well.

    BUT... because I had already been living with Marcia for a few years and had a son by her (meaning I had obviously used the goods before respectfully asking the family's permission to do so) I was 'fined' an extra 40%. (Feminists in UK and elsewhere will be expelling coffee through their nostrils by now... 'You BOUGHT your wife!!!').

    Now that everything is hunky dory, I have never seen my MIL again although I will invite her to the opening of the restaurant and make a real fuss of her (just to prove to her I AM looking after her daughter).

    Marcia has never met her MIL. I shall not be inviting my mother to the grand opening because she is a bigoted bovine who described my boys as 'Sons of black wh*res' and disowned my nephew because he came out as Gay. I think, in all decency, I should spare Marcia her acquaintance.

    Both our FIL's are, sadly, deceased but I am sure Marcia and my father would have got on like a house on fire. Thinking about it though, perhaps it is for the best. Even at 64, the age he died 21 years ago, he could charm the pants off a girl in a way I never could. My brother from Germany is his spitting image and, unsurprisingly, Marcia is desperately fond of him. The bastard.

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    1. I was skins when I met Chris.... So if I HAD to purchase tributes...... I would be still single

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  14. How could your MIL not like you, John! She, I am sure, thanks her gods that Chris 'landed a good one'!!
    It took a while to build a relationship with my MIL but once she saw that her son was 'where he was supposed to be', she and I got along famously well. I do miss her now.

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  15. A bucket, eh? Is that the common serving of G&T over there?

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  16. Its good to speculate on things like this John isn't it?
    I often wonder how my father and the farmer would have got on - they have so much in common I am sure it would have been an instant success but as I was born late in their lives both my parents were dead long before I married the farmer, so like you, I can only guess at it.

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  17. I must say that as a sixth former I very much enjoyed mass debates with Beverley Girls High School.

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  18. My own MIL is nearly 87, and almost completely deaf. Since I have lived close-by with her for over 40 years, I call her "Mom". She is a dear who frequently drives me crazy.

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    1. 87..... Driving people crazy is her JOB

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  19. Mother In Laws, can't live with em, can't live without em!

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  20. I hope that I will do my sons proud one day and be the kind of mother-in-law their wives want to be around. Unfortunately my mother-in-law left a lot to be desired.

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  21. MIL's and our relationships with them can in some cases be fraught with difficulties. Mine has lived with us ever since I first crashed on her sofa a thousand years ago. It was her place, then Amanda divorced and moved in, then I did the same. Now she lives in our house. A funny old world isn't it? As MIL's go though, she couldn't be greater, and is easy peasy to live with.

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    1. Perhaps you too are the easy going one

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  22. I wish I could have a really challenging debate with my mum on any subject at all, but it just isn't possible. Her idea of debate is parroting the latest clichés from her favourite moralising tabloid....

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  24. Both my parents died before i married Himself. We had only recently met when my father died, and our rapport wasn't all that grand, so i thought it best to hold off Himself having to meet my father for a while. Turned out they never met.

    I think my mother would have liked Himself very much. My father never liked anyone i dated, although i do think he and my late FIL would have gotten along very well.

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  25. I got on better with my MsIL than I did with my M! No-one liked her very much. :)

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