My paternal and maternal grandparents spent lots of time together, although they lived in different locales. A memory of my childhood is both sets of grandparents coming to stay whenever my mother had another baby. Sometimes both sets came to babysit when my parents took off on a much needed vacation.
My parents were cordial with the parents-in-law of all their children, and frequently those parents entertained each other back and forth. Again, both sets of parents always went to help out with the babies.
We have spent holidays, and other occasions with the parents of our kids’ significant others.
Since losing my mother, I’ve spent quite a bit of time with the mother of one of my sisters-in-laws. She has been very kind to me.
My mom’s family and my dad’s family didn’t see each other often, other than at large parties and weddings thrown by our extended family in which we invited (and paid for) all of them to be invited and attend if interested. Most of my folks’ generation and my generation live on Oahu, but quite a few of the next generation don’t.
My parents saw my sister’s in-laws quite a lot over the years, but not because they particularly liked them, LOL. My sister’s MIL was the Wicked Witch of the Midwest–my BIL would be the first to say so–although her husband was a nice man whom everyone liked. She was wealthy, well-educated, and supremely arrogant. Over the course of decades of visiting my sister and BIL–weddings, holidays, graduations, etc–both my parents and I have gotten to know various of BIL’s relatives quite well. I also went to school and lived in Chicago for several years–that’s where they come from–so I saw even more of the in-laws, plus various aunts, uncles, cousins, etc, some of whom are my friends.
My parents saw my in-laws a few times in CT after the wedding, when the in-laws came to visit us. The occasions were pleasant, but since my in-laws hated everything to do with the northeast–too many trees! twisty roads! people driving foreign cars! pinko-commie intellectuals like me! (note that their son is far more left wing than I am…) people who have lived in places like Yurp!–they were unlikely to become actually friendly.
After my MIL died, my FIL and his wacko GF visited my parents in Hilton Head when they were driving down there. My parents invited them for dinner, and I gather they had a nice time, although wacko GF drove my mother nuts, following her around the kitchen and exclaiming at everything. (She did the same thing to me. )
When my father met my mother, he was 19 years old, an undergrad at Yale, an only child, and his parents in Oregon has died suddenly within a year of each other. He absolutely adored my grandmother–the only grandparent I ever knew–and she adored him. My mother, who was extremely close to her mother since her father died when she was 2, told me that sometimes she thought my grandmother loved him more than her.
People need to stop and think how they would feel if their son–and even more so their only child!–were expected to join the DIL’s family, rather than having her also join THEIR family.
I see a lot of “well of course she would rather see her own mother” when it comes to babies, and I understand it, but please take a moment to put yourself in the other person’s shoes.
The idea that the MOG should wear beige and shut up is apparently only the beginning in some people’s minds. I hope that some people will encourage their Ds to consider the feelings of their husband’s parents, also.
D has not married yet, but she has been seeing her boyfriend for a little over a year, and I think he may be the one. If so, it will be interesting to see how things play out. D is an only child, and we are a very close family. Her boyfriend is the eldest of nine children, and his is a very close family as well.
This year, D will be spending Thanksgiving with her boyfriend’s family; it will the first we have spent apart. I realize this is the natural way of things, but I feel sad. We have met the parents and like them, but I sense they are less respectful of the relationship than we are, and more insistent that their family take precedence, so we’ll see.
H and I ended up spending more time with his family over the years. Partially because he has three younger siblings and I only have one sibling and she lives overseas. Partially because his parents would invite us to their beach house each summer. Partially because my mom died in her early sixties and my eventual stepmom was unwelcoming.
I really don’t think it needs to be automatically gender biased. Be the happy, welcoming, and fun family and see where that leads.
I’ve heard of (younger) unmarried women having long affairs with married men. At some point these women “wake up” and realize that the man isn’t going to divorce his wife, after all. Even then, it’s not 40 years!
What happened that the long-term affair was discovered? Did someone finally “slip”? Or did mil just confess? I wonder what the family of the married man did?
Lady Lorna- we had a similar situation that you described. Large family/small family. We invited the in laws from the small family. They decided not to attend.
Is it possible that if they get married that you and your H could be included.
We also never left our own families for holidays when we were dating.
My in law felt since I was from a large family it was okay for me to miss the holiday with my family. I did not agree.
These situations take compromise but ultimately the couple will decide what works for them.
It took years of struggle before I became a good DIL and just stepped back. Years. I think it could’ve all been circumvented if my husband would’ve just told me up front how they were: his mom was raised on a N.Dakota farm and she is hard working to the core, can never sit still and shows her love in the kitchen and by doing things for you. Of course this clashed directly with my new DIL status where I wanted to prove that I was a good wife to her son. We butted heads for years with her overhelping and me upset because I was apparently never good enough.
My FIL (I did not learn of this until at least 10 years into the marriage) was somewhat rude, opinionated and cold and not a nurturing Grandpa that I hoped my daughter would have (my own Dad died when I was a kid). I was to find out years later that he was pretty much dropped off at an orphanage when he was 5 y/o so he was missing years and years of nurturing himself.
I was always up front to H about my own mom and laid it all out about how she was and to his credit he has always been great with her…heck, even better than I am with her at times. If H had simply explained the history of his behavior and how they were, it would’ve saved me years of butting heads with them.
I will say that having listened to my own mom say frequently that she wished my brother would come to visit more often and come home for the traditions that were important to us actually made me a better DIL in that aspect. I frequently insisted to H that he and our daughter go visit his parents without me and we always always made it a point to go up there for holidays and a summer vacation week.
Every mom here needs to have that talk with their own daughter about how important their husbands family is and to not fall into the trap of neglecting her husbands family!
Yes, carachel2, I also learned late to ‘step back’. So many miscommunications…like we stayed at in laws when we came back to home town, but they were only the 2 of them, my extended family was close and larger.
MIL was competing with all of them when gifting at Christmas, just trying to give more things to open - like a bag of foil wrapped chocolates to an 8 month old.
It was years until something was said about the (my maiden name)s and I realized she thought my parents gave all the gifts we would bring back to load in our car. That was when I opened each gift to show her one each from: my parents, my grandmother, my 3 siblings, my 2 aunts, my 2 cousins. And I asked her to please only give one outfit and one fun item per child.
But inclusiveness is the way to go…This Thanksgiving we are going to my son’s in-laws. Son’s FIL’s and 3rd wife will host. Guests include FIL’s children (spouses and grandchild) from all 3 marriages, FIL’s first wife, 3rd wife’s father and step-mother. Cousin of that step-mother. I will bring my MIL.
@greenbutton
My MIL was so very pleased with herself that she “won” the contest for both Christmas Eve (they traditionally had a huge party) and for Christmas Day dinner by having DH & I there (even when dating) and sometimes my parents even joined the Christmas Day dinner, that seemed to really make MIL preen. My mother was so great, she said, " she can have you those two days, we get you the rest of the year" because MIL/FIL have always been difficult to be around and we spent as much time as possible with my family.
I am glad my mother was such a grown up that she did not bring any pressure to bear on us at that difficult time.
I realize now what a stellar DIL I was when our children were young. Really, I’m the only person in the world who appreciates that since, in the eyes of my husband and his family, I wasn’t doing anything exceptional by spending as much time with his family as with mine. That meant packing the kids up at holidays and vacations, making a 6-hour drive, staying in cramped quarters with one bathroom (lots of fun the time my two oldest kids had a stomach bug), nonstop loud television and much grandma-induced drama. Here’s the truly exceptional part: more than half the time, my husband wasn’t even there because he was working. Kudos to me. I guess I thought it was unfair to spend more time with my own family just because I love them more and have a more enjoyable time with them. Fair or not, I wouldn’t do it that way today.
While we’re sharing MIL stories, here’s one I’ve never told anyone because it was just so weird. The first time my MIL held my oldest daughter, she said to me, “you know, if you died now, she’d never remember you.” I literally lost my ability to speak. What the hell did that mean? It was such a bizarre thing to say that I’ve never shared it before because what if I hallucinated it?
ETA: reading some of the MIL stories here, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a hallucination.
To change topics briefly, for anyone who has hired caregivers for the elderly, how much bonus did you give them at the holiday time?
My mil made it clear she did not like me, told me she was better than me due to her religion and told me she liked her daughters kids better because she had known them all her life and they were family
@frazzled1 - what an awful thing to say! I think I would have fainted. Then, maybe MIL would have thought me dead and she would have a heart attack and die. Or maybe not die, but come back and wonder where she was and if she were alive or dead or it was all a dream. A bad dream. Justice!
My DH and I were the first to have children and we had four children before any of his siblings began having children. So, his parents have four grandchildren (all ours) and his sister finally has a baby. My MIL actually said to my husband (her son), “NOW I feel like a grandmother.”
When he told me about this conversation, he also wondered if he was hallucinating! What kind of mother says that??!!!
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