My exMIL is an absolute doll. Granted, she lives in the midwest while we live in the northeast, but she was always kind to me and never tried to meddle. Even now when ExDH and I have been divorced for 9 years, she still sends me nice text messages about my daughter, and how I'm a great mom and all that. She doesn't have a mean bone in her body.

I just realized... she was a SM herself! My exFIL (now passed away) had a daughter before he married ExMIL. Apparently, the daughter had a lot of emotional problems and the BM couldn't/wouldn't take care of her anymore. When daughter was in her early teens she moved in with my exDH's family and I guess she was a complete nightmare. Skipped school, ran away, drinking drugs, promiscuous to the point that she offered herself to my exDH who was her BROTHER and far younger than her. *shudders* Anyway, the predator sister eventually moved to CA and had a couple babies probably by rando johns because she was prostituting herself to feed her drug habit. At one point she had these two kids panhandling as toddlers. exFIL/MIL begged her to come home. She did, got clean, met and married a man from rehab and had another kid. That lasted about a year before she went back to CA and had FOUR more children with no known father, each born addicted to a cocktail of drugs, each taken from her at birth by CPS. Baby #7 was born at 28 weeks. It's a miracle she's alive.

exMIL adopted kids 1,2, and 4. Kid 3 stayed with his father. Kids 5, 6, and 7 were all adopted to other members of the family so amazingly they all know each other. Anyway, my point is my exMIL took in a nightmare skid who totally broke her heart. Then she adopted skid's 3 small children who weren't even blood related to her when she was in her early 50's. The older two kids were troubled, of course. She got baby #4 when he was 3 days old but he was withdrawing from heroin. (He's in the military now and a great kid.) She actually wanted to adopt baby #5 too, but exFIL said it was too much for her to handle. I don't get the impression he was much help.

She's a pretty cool lady.