Dealing with inlaws

Parent Cafe
1

Since there were so many stories from the other thread, it makes more sense to start a thread solely dedicated to inlaw issues.

I will start, as I have a mother who tries to be too involved, and inlaws who are totally not involved. I am an only, and that could spawn an entire thread on parental relationships with only children, lol. Anyhoo, my mom is very opinionated, and has had a difficult time transitioning from parent child to parent-parent relationship. The good news is, I have no problem shutting her down when she oversteps boundaries. On the other hand, there is absolutely NOTHING that she wont do for me or her grandkids. The inlaws well they are totally checked out, as my SIL was the golden child. It sort of works out because I dont have to deal with them.

Ive heard horror stories about MILs insisting on being in the delivery rooms, which blows my mind. , as if viewing a persons lady parts is a spectator sport. I have learned that my kids have to make their own decisions, and I will give my opinion when asked, but no other time. Fortunately, I really like my sons girlfriend, so I hope they stay together, as I think we will have a great relationship. I will not guilt my kids on holidays and force them to drag their kids all over town. They should be allowed to create their own holiday traditions.

2

In my own amateur opinion, engulfing parents and ignoring parents (including in-laws) are two sides of the same coin. Neither one is healthy.

With my own recently moved-out adult son, I try to stay somewhere in the middle ground. Here if he needs me, but not needy or clingy (easier said than done). He doesn’t have a GF yet and I’m sure things will change when that happens. Just praying I have the good sense to have the grace and patience that I wish I had received as a young wife and mother.

IMHO, it is a little tougher with sons, because they do tend to gravitate toward whatever their wives want to do (as it should be). This can be a positive or a negative.

I generally feel that my husband gets it right with his mom. He loves her deeply, and helps her alot (probably too much in a certain sense - she’s been divorced a long time) but he’s never let her come between us. We are usually a unified front.

3

My MIL just doesn’t like me. I’m not Christian, not conservative, and therefore not good enough for her kid. She’s made that clear. We’re also both very stubborn and butt heads.

She has scoured my facebook before to find ways to jab me… so now she’s blocked from that.

The thing is, I’m not even entirely sure she cares about Mr R. He was the baby and got pretty shafted growing up. Both brothers got braces, he didn’t. Both brothers didn’t have student debt, he did. Both brothers had help with rent, he never did. The list goes on with little things like that. It’s all about control with her.

FIL is better but he can be extremely rude, too. The days leading up to the wedding were the worst when he argued with me every time he saw me about my choice not to have a religious ceremony. I always ignored it and walked away because it wasn’t going anywhere productive.

But then there are times when they can be wonderful. They’ve helped us when we’ve needed a dog sitter and have always been supportive when I’ve been ill/in the hospital. I really can’t understand the bipolar way they treat us.

4

To be fair, I know people who have had others in the delivery room than their medical team. It’s quite easy to stand/sit at the laboring mother’s head and not see anything that’s going on down there. Heck, I remember whenever my husband wanted to see what was going on when I was pushing my kids out, he had to move from the head, down around to the end of the table.

5

@teriwtt Sure if a woman wants other family members/inlaws there, thats fine. Ive heard too many stories of MIL insisting on being there because “well thats not fair, her mom gets to be there”. Ive heard of women making not letting their moms be there because the husbands also said , well its not fair, so no moms should be there.

If a woman wants her mom in there, I think she should be allowed to have her there. It shouldnt be about equal time.

6

My favorite is when in-laws blame the spouse for the “change” in the adult child.

Um, your adult child is an adult capable of making adult choices (let’s hope). He/She chose this spouse, and chooses to go along with him/her, so any problems on that front belong with your adult child (not your child-in-law).

I’ve been on the receiving end of some blame, as if I have loads of control over my very head-strong husband. I should be so omnipotent. :slight_smile:

7

romani, I never accepted my MIL’s FB friend request. She just overstepped her boundaries way too often from 200 miles away, and I didn’t need that in my daily FB life.

8

He chose you! What does she not “get” about that?

9

YDS, I accepted before I knew what I was getting in to. A decision I’ve long-since regretted!
SouthFlorida- I clearly brainwashed him and forced him to choose me :stuck_out_tongue: (it actually wouldn’t surprise me if she legitimately thought that…)

The other two SILs are moderate to conservative Christians. I am just the one on the outside. My FIL routinely tells me not to portray conservatives poorly in my work. Which is hilarious since A- my work is around the early 20th century where “conservative” isn’t even in the ballpark of what it means today and B- most of the atrocities I write about were done in the name of early 20th century “liberalism.” But they constantly feel attacked by larger society so I become something they can push back against.

It’s taken me a long time to understand any of this. I grew up in a very live and let live area and family where no one cared about your politics, religion, race, etc. It’s been a hard transition but I thank my lucky stars that Mr R didn’t get brainwashed by that nonsense.

10

My in-laws have been deceased for many years. We never had any issues with them because we didn’t live near them. My f-i-l never really liked me and insulted me a few times (ethnic slurs)–no one was good enough for his son. I didn’t make an issue of it. That was just his personality–he was a grumpy old man, and I’m glad we didn’t visit often. H and I are both from large families, so our parents had/have plenty of other kids/grandkids to pay attention to. During the 6 years we lived near my parents, they were totally hands off. They let us be grown-ups and never commented on our decisions/mistakes. (Looking back, I realize they were biting their tongues many times. . .) There were a few times when we could’ve used some help from them–and I wish they would’ve “cared” more, but I guess I’d take the lack of attention/help over too much involvement. No do-overs, anyway. Because my grandparents were not involved with my parents, and my parents were not involved with us, I can’t see myself being overly involved with my kids/grandkids. I would offer some babysitting, though!
S is dating a young lady who could possibly be a future d-i-l. She is an only daughter, so naturally I would expect her to have a very close relationship with her mom. I am not the kind to get jealous of time spent. In my family, it seems that kids are closer to their mom’s extended family, and I totally expect any future d-i-l to greatly prefer her own mom/family over me/our family. I can’t imagine being in the delivery room. A phone call after the baby is born would be what I’d expect. If a d-i-l or daughter begged me to attend her child’s birth, I’d go only if the dad also wanted me there. I feel this is a bonding moment for the couple, and I wouldn’t want to intrude on it.

11

When and if I get to be the MIL I plan to keep my mouth shut and just give support when needed. Famous last words perhaps but my parents TRIED their best to do that and it seems to have worked out well. And I really do think Ds get a pass on wanting to be with mom over MIL.

Romani–hopefully things will relax on the “not good enuf for my son” the longer you are married. Things do tend to mellow over the years. And hopefully you’ll have lots of years together so TRY not to hold grudges from the get-go. Personally (and from good experience) try to keep things unheated, steer to other topics when it gets even close to bad territory. Don’t push it. Swallow some comments you may have–not answering or changing topics is a time honored way of keeping peace. Your H will appreciate it and give you brownie points (I have lots of brownie points!) My H would say “Surprised you aren’t in the ER after biting your tongue so hard…” I could say the same to him too.

12

I’ve gotten pretty lucky with my inlaws. When DH was diagnosed with cancer, his mother went off the deep end for a little while. She wasn’t mean to me, but she forgot about all those boundaries that are supposed to be there when you have an adult son who is married. She told DH (not in my presence) that “no one could take care of him better than she.” Since I’m a registered nurse, that really chapped me. DH has since recovered, and once it became clear that he wasn’t in imminent danger of dying, she calmed down and things eventually went back to normal. She is very affectionate to DH and our girls, and actually to me as well. My FIL has always been very nice to me. He is single and not in the best of health and is has serious financial problems. Once a month, I cook him some casseroles and bring him about a week’s worth of food. He thinks I’m wonderful for doing that. It’s really not a lot of trouble, but it apparently means a lot to him.

Reading CC posters’ inlaw horror stories always makes me feel very fortunate.

13

Having been through the mill with my own family of origin and my mother in law (fortunately or unfortunately, the only relative my wife has in her life), these are very hard. Societally, we are told that family is inviolate, and as a spouse when dealing with in laws we are supposed to keep the peace, turn the other cheek, in the name of family harmony and the like. It took me a number of years of therapy to figure out that a lot of what we are taught quite honestly is self serving BS (it serves those who break the bonds of family, who are difficult, not those who are nice and caring and respectful), that the whole blood is thicker than water and so forth is in effect propoganda to justify family members behaving badly.

That said, there are things that someone can be willing to accept, and should, if your spouse is a nice person and a relative is a jerk, that is on them. However, if your spouse allows family members to denigrate you or treat you badly, that is an issue, when you become a spouse, when you have your own family, they have to rank above everything, or at least they should. I am not talking the trivial blow ups, the tense moments, I am talking the parents, for example, who treat their kid’s spouse with anything but love and respect, who denigrate the spouse, it isn’t right to allow parents to do that. Whether is is ethnic background, economic status, hair color, whatever, when a child chooses someone for a spouse a parent has to accept the fact that they may not particularly like the person, but that out of love for their child they should at the very least be respectful. Obviously, no parent is perfect, but unless it is something where the kid is truly being hurt (like the wife is a drug addict, with big problems), parents basically have no right to do what others have talked about. It can be hard, because you love your spouse, and it is very, very hard to have to deal with parents being mean to your husband/wife/partner, it in effect puts the kid in the middle between people he/she loves, but in the end if it is that toxic, both the spouse and the child will suffer, it can/will destroy their own harmony. It is where the concept of boundaries comes in, what kind of behavior is acceptable, what kind of behavior isn’t but is worth overlooking, and what are the showstoppers.

14

@Nrdsb4 That is an awesome thing you do for your FIL

15

My in-laws live in town and my parents do/did not, so we saw the in-laws more often, and they of course got to see more of the kids growing up. My kids were the first 2 of 3 on DH’s side, and the 5th/6th out of 7 on my side, so I had watched my parents grandparent for a while before mine were born. And was somewhat puzzled at the way MIL/FIL behaved. The stories DH tells about growing up involved being yelled at a lot, and corporal punishment that would be, ahem, discouraged today. But my kids have great memories of their grandparents, who let them get away with murder and did not make the slightest attempt to discipline. DH said he didn’t recognize those people. You hear people talk about spoiling the grandkids, and we saw it. My parents may have relaxed the rules a bit for grandkids, but they still had pretty high standards of expected behavior in their home, which they enforced. Lovingly. My sister said when her kids stayed with our parents for a week they came home better behaved.

I think the difference is because MIL/FIL never had what we would now call good communication or problem resolution skills. Their 2 options were to let anything go or lose their tempers. With the grandkids, they chose let anything go.

My family and my in-laws approach a lot of things differently. When my family gathers for a holiday or special occasion, the hostess will propose a time, check if that works for most people, adjust as necessary, then communicate the particulars. Like maybe show up any time after 4, we’ll eat about 6. Or bring a snack to share, people will be coming and going all day. Or something specific enough that you know what hospitality is being offered and what is expected. In return, guests (siblings, cousins, whoever) will let the hostess know things, like we can’t make it, or we’ll be there early but our kids have soccer and can’t make it until after dinner. Or we’ll be there at 4 with 2 side dishes and help you get the table set.

With the in-laws, it’s always a mystery. They were so determined not to impose that they couldn’t help us plan our day. What time should we show up? Whenever you want. Can we bring anything? If you want to. When to you plan to eat? We’ll see. So we show up and may find the rest of the family in the middle of the meal (we didn’t want to tell you when to come). Or no one else has gotten there yet, and then hours later someone shows up, but they’ve already eaten. Or we bring a casserole which turns out to be the 4th casserole but there is no dessert.

The lesson my kids took from all of this is that different families are different. Probably not a bad lesson. They know my in-laws drive me batty on occasion, but they are able to take it all in stride.

16

My FIL has always been grumpy. In recent years, he has become mean. He was rude and mean to me at Thanksgiving six years ago, and I haven’t been back. It was a straw breaking the camel’s back moment. My daughters have said that they’re afraid of him. My MIL has Alzheimer’s disease. Before she became ill, she was very kind to us.
My husband is his parents’ caregiver. His siblings rarely visit. I don’t think any of them particularly like their father.

My parents and family have always been welcoming to my husband. But that’s just who we are. We’re nice people. My husband’s father and my husband, not so much.

17

I have given up on my in-laws for holidays. They either won’t commit to plans more than a week ahead of time, or they prefer to celebrate at home by themselves. I have always been willing to host or do the local travel. No more. DH and I are going to visit our kids where they live instead of flying them home. Bah!

18

I have wonderful in-laws. True, my MIL was a bit overenthusiastic as a new grandparent and tended to steamroll us a bit but it wasn’t toxic. FiL ignored me for years until I produced grandchildren. Suddenly I was alive and useful!

Still, they are tipping the scales heavily into the wonderful side although I worry about how much they gush about Donald Trump…

The real toxicity in my family is with my Stepmother. She and my Dad married when I was 40 or so. She slowly but surely closed ranks with her two closest daughters around my father and exiled my sister and I from his life. She was never warm and accepting, never loving, and outright hostile when he wasn’t present to witness it. Poor Dad didn’t even really know until near the end when he was too weak to fight. He was naive and trusting and he didn’t want to be alone. Too bad he chose someone so mean. Now that he is gone, I think I will send her cards every so often just to make her nervous.

19

<<<
The real toxicity in my family is with my Stepmother. She and my Dad married when I was 40 or so. She slowly but surely closed ranks with her two closest daughters around my father and exiled my sister and I from his life. She was never warm and accepting, never loving, and outright hostile when he wasn’t present to witness it. Poor Dad didn’t even really know until near the end when he was too weak to fight. He was naive and trusting and he didn’t want to be alone. Too bad he chose someone so mean. Now that he is gone, I think I will send her cards every so often just to make her nervous.
<<<

I’ve seen this happen a few times in my social circle. I guess some men are too naive or oblivious until it’s too late…or they don’t want to face a divorce in their senior years.

One of my dear friends’ dad was suddenly widowed in his early 60s. He had several children. He was lonely and soon remarried. His new wife was very involved in her children’s lives and I guess it wasn’t at first obvious to the new husband that such involvement would, by default or intent, cause an exclusion of his children. His children did bring it to his attention, and the short-lived marriage did end over this one issue. He did remarry again to a wonderful widow (actually the mother of another friend of mine) who fairly treated everyone.

20

Of my three nieces who have married, two have lovely inlaws, one has a nice FIL but a strange MIL. (Honestly, I think she has OCD, and possibly other issues.) Luckily the strange MIL, while rude to my sister (and to my mother at the wedding) is apparently as pleasant as she is capable of being to my niece.

Although I am that apparently dreaded person, the mother of an only son, I have very much liked the two GFs S has seen fit to introduce me too, and would love to have a DIL and look forward to loving her. I hope to make myself sufficiently pleasant to a DIL that she would WANT to spend time with me.