Do you feel like an outlaw as an in-law?

Parent Cafe
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My BIL and sister came over yesterday to talk about prostate cancer. BIL had it and surgery and H is facing it. It was so very nice of them–they decided to do this on their own with the pretense that they made us pumpkin bread (which was delicious). I thought that was so thoughtful of them.

I don’t do a lot with my sibs but we don’t talk forever about things that others weren’t invited to–that would be rude. Two of my sibs and their spouses travel together. I have not traveled with any of my sibs so far, but am open to the idea. We shall see how things evolve.

My BIL does a lot with his SonIL’s family, as he has no other family in Bay Area other than his D, SIL & grand. It works well for all of them. I’m glad they’ve absorbed him into their family as we only go up for a week or so at a time one or more times/year and he rarely visits us in HI. H is his only remaining sibling.

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I hear ya.

With SIL+BIL and DH’s Aunt & Uncle, we are out of sight, out of mind. We are always the ones to be reaching out, contacting them, initiating things. If left to their own devices, there’s just…nothing.

My DH ends up chasing after them a lot. And doesn’t get a lot back from it. It’s mostly fine when we’re with them (with the exception of their normal drama of ‘what are we going to eat?!’), but in the long stretch of in between times, it’s like nobody exists and they live in their own caves and never come up for sunlight and fresh air.

I have chosen to stop chasing after their attention & time because after 30 years, they’ve demonstrated that they are not able to be the people that I’d like them to be. My husband, however, still chases after their attention and affection. Quite unsuccessfully.

Over the past 10 years, about 75% of the time when we’ve done things in person w/DH’s relatives, it’s because WE initiated it. WE pursued it. WE herded all the cats and made it happen.

They regularly get together at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Are we ever invited? No. Do we invite them to our place for either holiday? YES! The last time they took us up on that offer was 7 years ago when they all came here for Thanksgiving. Are the ages of young children a factor? No, hasn’t been for a long time. They just don’t want to come here.

Every year, SIL says the same thing, “Oh maybe we’ll come for a few days between Xmas & New Year’s.” Every year, nothing ever comes of that. When SIL says, “Maybe,” what she really means is “No.” She just doesn’t want to say “No” out loud to you, wants to save face and make it seem like she’s being flexible and accommodating when she’s really not.

We are 1 day’s drive from where SIL, BIL, Aunt & Uncle live. SIL has done day trips to Disneyland before with her kids & a friend of hers. Or with her kids & her DH’s brother + the brother’s girlfriend. Or just an adults-only Disneyland day trip with her and a couple of girlfriends.

We are just Disney people in our immediate family. Has she ever included us in this? No. Do WE tell HER when we’re going to Disneyland so she could join us? YES. Does she ever join us? Only ONE time…after MIL died and basically MIL’s estate paid for the tickets for her, her 2 kids, and I to go for just a day.

There have even been times where we had made arrangements to meet up w/SIL & her 2 kids at a mutual friend’s house for a BBQ and SIL never showed up. Totally flaked. She “forgot”, thought it was the following weekend.

So instead, we do other things. We’ve expanded our extended family to include close friends. We have holidays with them. We go on trips with them. We don’t invest a lot of emotional capital in SIL, BIL, Aunt & Uncle anymore.

My kids and I have stopped caring. My DH is still playing the role of Charlie Brown with the football, continuing to think that maybe just this one next time it will be different.

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We usually do an annual family vacation right before Christmas some where warm. We start planning in the beginning of year and everyone is invited - my siblings, our kids and their SOs. My sister and I have organized girls’ weekend with some friends and always invited our sister in law, and she has not participated. It’s her choice, but we let her know our plans very early on.
When we are on the family vacation, we would do a lot of family pictures, and there would always be an out law picture (everyone who married into the family). We would do a picture of my siblings with my Mom without the out laws.

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Wow! I’m so sorry, that has to hurt coming from your siblings and family. I guess at this point, I’d personally quit inviting and take that mantra “ they give me what they want to give me” that someone posted..

Or…put it out there very nicely. “Why do you never invite me? It hurts more than you know. Is it something I have done?”

I did something like this years ago with my MIL. She would say catty things to me and do little things to make me uncomfortable. All behind anyone’s back of course. After 8 years of marriage she did one thing and I decided I’d had enough. I didn’t care what DH thought.

I was sweating bullets and called her. I was very nice, polite and told her that all I had wanted since we got married was her to like me. And I’d like to know what I had done to make her say little things and do little things. She was caught off guard and asked “like what”. I said I’m not getting into that and that she knew the things she’d said and done. Was there something in particular I had ever done or said to warrant that behavior towards me. She started crying (in my book an admission of guilt). She said she had to talk to her husband. I did say something crappy at that point like,” oh great, now you’re crying and going to say I made you cry.”. So we git off the phone.

I got up the nerve and told husband what transpired, thinking he would be so mad. He wasn’t. Never said a thing. Just shook his head like “good for you”. We’ve never discussed it.

I didn’t realize then, but he had major issues with her. She divorced his Dad when he was 12. Was having an affair with her 17 year older boss and they got married. He was an alcoholic. Not abusive, but they were just furniture and he could be a bit of a pain. I don’t think he’s ever forgiven her.

P.s. after the talk, she couldn’t have been nicer for years and years.

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Oh, we did quit inviting quite some time ago. I know it isn’t personal in the sense my siblings don’t actively dislike me or intend to be mean. And there’s no requirement that siblings-in-law be anything more than cordial; I feel needy by wishing we were actually friends but clearly that’s not gonna happen so you have to adjust your hopes.

Asking my FiL/MiL anything directly always ends in disaster. They feel so personally judged by any sort of question at all, are the most defensive people on earth , esp my FiL. I don’t want to put DH between me and them, so I work on accepting that not every family is warm and fuzzy and functional. It’s been more than 40 years and I’m still “working on it” !!

I am sorry for your own trials, that doesn’t sound like much fun. If anything, my experiences have made me super aware of how I treat my own DiLs and I hope I am doing a good job so far :slight_smile:

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For those still with living parents/in-laws–

I have observed two huge pivot points in the outlaw/in-law relationship. The first is when the last parent dies-- the siblings then have to adopt new ways of dealing with each other because the old pattern (“I did more for mom than you did”) is over. The second pivot point is when one of the siblings becomes widowed or divorced. The old “This is how we do Thanksgiving” often changes just because of the change in status, patterns no longer work, etc.

So it’s morbid to think about. But when the power players leave the scene- the surviving family members often become MUCH nicer, more cognizant of their shabby treatment of the outlaw, etc.

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As someone who never was a fan of my own in-laws I really love my son’s in-laws. We’ve become good friends.

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I like my DIL’s parents. I thought of contacting her when I was told not to come for grandson’s BD this month. (“Small party at gym, busy work week for me”). I decided not to, as intrusive. After all, they are her parents. They helped with babysitting for grandson for months after birth, which the kids paid for (partially?).

It is difficult when I live across the country.

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Good call, Bookworm! I know that birthday parties with my grandkids are informal, small, lowkey affairs, because it is hard work raising kids, working and organizing life. Perhaps you can go for a separate visit to see your grandchild….

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I am the grandparent who is close by and it is easier for me to show up for many of my grandchildren’s events. When other grandparents visit, I try to give them space to spend time with the grandchildren. I talk about them often with GD1.

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I am the grandma who does shopping and dining out. The other grandma does baking and arts&craft. GD1 actually told me that she didn’t like my cookies, but she likes the candies I buy for her.

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I appreciate her honesty. I tell my kids I want to KNOW if they don’t want something or don’t like something. I am happy to buy them gifts, make special meals, bake them things, etc., but I don’t want to waste my time for something they don’t even like.

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Could you please talk to my mother about her zucchini bread? She doesn’t seem to remember the thousand times I’ve told her I don’t like zucchini — in anything.

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lol - I’ve been a vegetarian most of my life and my MIL is always asking why I won’t eat the shrimp or if I want a taste of chicken. I gave up drinking alcohol about 7 years ago but here she comes with a bottle of wine, shocked when I tell her “no thanks”.

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I hate when they “needle”. So passive aggressive.

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Isn’t it frustrating when somebody just can’t accept that you don’t eat or drink something? Somebody I know does that often re: drinking alcohol. I have reasons for not doing that. Even explained it to the person. Yet still they persist. Now I just change the topic or in some instances (if it’s a phone call), I find a way to end the conversation short so I can politely hang up.

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I get a perverse thrill when the person who has been obnoxious about what I eat or drink (usually a toxic friend but occasionally sister-in-law or other relative) ends up with a grandchild with strange food preferences. Cosmic justice. You couldn’t deal with me not drinking, but now you are preparing meals of only white foods which can’t touch each other on the plate and can’t involve potatoes? Or a kid who lives on Cheerios and won’t eat pasta or fruit…

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Me too. (Mother of white food only eater)

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Boy howdy, did I dodge a bullet!

Mil, sil, Friend C, and friend L (the, “difficult,” one) gathered at friend L’s yesterday for a lunch and to talk about their trip to Temecula.

For context, the trip was decided on by sil and Friend C. Just the two of them went out to the area last year. Friend C is the one who formerly lived in Riverside. When they decided to return this year, they also decided to invite mil and friend L. Mil and Friend L were told,“This is what we are doing. This is a casual, laid-back place. We want to do some wineries but mostly hang out and relax. Not a go, go, go trip. You’re welcome to join us.” So, mil and Friend L decided to go.

At the planning session yesterday, Friend C (who was the expected driver) said she’d rented a car and it was going to cost $X (they’d all split the cost). Friend L thought that was too much. “Ican do better.” Friend C, “Sure. Feel free to look. I can cancel this.” Friend L does find a better rate, but must pay right now, no cancellations. So Friend L books the rental car. Even though Friend L doesn’t want to do any of the driving. Some train ride she and mil were going to do separate from sil and Friend C isn’t running because of mudslides. Idk if Friend L assumed Friend C would drive them to wherever the train would have taken them. But, Friend L likes every second planned, all dinner reservations made in advance, lots of shopping and sight seeing constantly. Friend C and sil like to do some stuff, but are, “looser.” Anyway, lots of conflicts at this planning session. Friend L is unhappy they aren’t flying into San Diego instead of Ontario. Finally Friend L (remember, the difficult one who was invited and told how the feel of the trip would be), finally said, “I guess we should have talked more ahead of time about everyone’s expectations.” Friend C is ticked. She drives sil home and on the way says, “I’ll pay my share of the Airbnb, but I DON’T THINK I EVEN WANT TO GO NOW!” :scream:. Says she can’t put up with bossy, know-it-all Friend L for a week. Mil and Friend L aren’t aware of this possibility yet. If that happens, sil will be stuck driving.

I think Friend C might still go, but the handwriting is on the wall that this trip is going to be fraught with issues.

But, it will be interesting to see if Friend C does cancel, if any of them think to ask me instead. My answer will be a hard, “no,” but I am curious if they will think of adding me as a replacement.

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Ack! Nothing boring going on with your in-laws! So glad you are on the outside of the circus looking in. Go pop some more popcorn!

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