my MIL adored me too, when she wanted to come live with me!!!
but before that, not so much.
She never came to live with us. She could have if she had been kind but I noped out of that!!
I totally get that.
I forgot to mention that my in-laws didn’t like any of the people their children chose to marry. I learned from an aunt that had married into the family that it was the same way with her and anyone who married into the family. They called themselves “outlaws” instead of in-laws. I often wished we were close enough in location that we could spend more time together with that aunt. She was awesome, and their kids (my husband’s cousins) were/are awesome.
Sometimes people just want to be mean to other people. Sometimes they think they’re better than others. It was a little bit of each of these with my husband’s parents and me. They really wanted him to marry someone of social “stature” and they clearly don’t know their son. He is the best of the best. Yes, he has his faults, but they are very minor.
Now that MIL is widowed, she has become more pleasant to me. I finally wore her down with being sweet despite the way she and her husband treated me (and our kids) before.
Part of me wonders if it had been my FIL who didn’t like me, but he seemed very kind when he first met me. It wasn’t until we got married that they became difficult. It seemed like I couldn’t do anything right in their eyes. They gave us unsolicited advice all the time.
As I mentioned earlier, part of it was the cultural differences between the northeast and the south. They were a little bit uppity, and I’m just…well, I’m just not that way. My tagline might explain that a little bit.