Hugs. I have the same problem. His family wants to go on a cruise as a whole family next year. We will have a 1 year old. I'm already dreading having to be the "bad guy" becuase I don't want to go.
Well, I don't spend this much time with my own parents because they drive me batty in large doses too!
Have you told him this? If not, do so. Tell him it's not about his parents personally - it's pretty much ANYONE who would want to be over at your house all the time. stress that. And stress that this is YOUR HOUSE TOO and he's married to YOU. not them. You have a say in who comes to your house.
My FIL drives both DH and I batty. It's a long story but he recently bought an RV. I know he partially bought it thinking that we'll all start going camping together (NOT) but what he doesn't see is that "how" he went about getting the RV really upset DH and FIL actually did a bit of damage to his relationship w/ DH.
And plus also, we simply have no desire to go camping with him much less spending a ton of our free time with him. He's a nice man but he's very focused on himself and just doesn't take anything else into account and we're noticing that he seems to be becoming a bit manipulative too. He's not an easy person to spend time with.
DH was in Texas last weekend with his moms side of the family. Apparently, his sister thinks I hate her, and I have no idea why. We don't really talk, but she's a 25 year old drama queen, and everything is "woe me". Plus, she never made an effort to spend time with DD, she has her own life which is fine, but I still don't see why she thinks I hate her. We've never been good friends who text a lot or anything.
Is it possible that he can visit with them and you can be elsewhere like chilling in the bedroom or doing yard work or something? Maybe it doesn't have to be a real visit where you drop everything since you didn't have much notice. (Disclaimer: I don't have ILs, but I do dislike people a lot of the time)
Post by undecidedowl on Oct 1, 2015 8:00:29 GMT -5
Mine is technically a H problem too.
MIL texted me a few weeks back to see if we wanted to come to their church picnic this coming weekend. With the kids, it would take us 4.5 hours to get there. DH works until 5 pm on Friday and DS2 will.not.sleep in the car, only scream. So, best case, we would leave first thing Saturday and get there by noon. We would then have to leave in the middle of the picnic on Sunday to get home before the kids bedtime. Yeah, no. Except if I tell MIL no she will flip her shit. So I forwarded the text to DH and told him he needed to talk to her about it. He did nothing. She has not spoken to us since the text. I'm sure she is PISSED. When she finally does call shit is going to go down. Rinse and repeat. Over and over and over.
My MIL watched C last Friday while E was at school so I could go to the eye doctor. I got home 2.5 hours later and realized she had left her car running the entire time. She had NO idea that it was on. I called DH and he acted like it was no big deal. Ummmm I doubt it's normal to not realize you didn't turn your car freaking off! The radio was blasting and everything.
ETA: she will not be watching either kid anytime in the future.
Sorry @callmefia, that would drive me nuts too. I told DH that if we ever lived in the same town as his parents, we would have to set some ground rules on visitation.
I came in here all ready for an IL vent because I usually have one, but right now, I don't. They've been so helpful with E, and helping me call out DH on some of his BS because they've BTDT. I'm kind of in love with them at the moment, which I never thought I would say.
Is it possible that he can visit with them and you can be elsewhere like chilling in the bedroom or doing yard work or something? Maybe it doesn't have to be a real visit where you drop everything since you didn't have much notice. (Disclaimer: I don't have ILs, but I do dislike people a lot of the time)
I do this sometimes but last night they came when I had to start making dinner, so I just started making dinner.
Last night I was NOT friendly and everyone knew I wasn't happy without me saying it outright.
On a weeknight it sucks because I have to start dinner when he gets home. So they are all there in the kitchen while I need to cook. I HATE weeknight visits because they often want to go to dinner which is too late. And I don't have enough to make a meal for two extra people unless I've planned for extra people, but they never give us enough lead time to plan, it's always immediate. So it's awkward when they are around at dinner time.
OMG that sounds so annoying! I'd be pissed too.
Can I do a H vent too? Your post reminded me of it. Why do men think everything can be all breezy and unscheduled? It is the same for me when we try to plan anything, including IL visits I'm the one who is conscious of DD's schedule and needs. H is all whatever, she'll be fine. Um, no she won't! She only sleeps well in her crib so we better be back by bedtime or I'm the one who suffers getting up with her all night!
I worry about this too. FIL doesn't receive or contribute to any form of retirement plan. ILs have no savings and plan to count on social security. I told DH I will not live with FIL due to his poor choices. We always mention contributing to IRAs but that falls on deaf ears.
Did anyone else's ILs become annoying only after having kids? MIL has several times told H we aren't doing things right. We left a family reunion after being there for 3 hours because the kids needed naps. According to her, we've spoiled them and can't except them to sleep anywhere else now. And our house isn't clean enough, she was able to clean when H was little - uh, yea, you only had H and we have a 2 yr old, 11 mo old, and both work full time. So annoying.
MIL wasted 4 oz of pumped breast milk yesterday. She watched DS yesterday while I ran some errands, so I left her expressed milk. After he finished a bottle, she thought he might still be hungry and wanted a little more, which is fine. But instead of just making a small bottle, she made a full bottle. Of course DS only took a little bit more, so the rest went to waste.
OMG @this, that would STRESS me out. Is she married? Is there any chance of her finding another job?
My in laws have been traveling to see SIL and her kids for several weeks. They are home now and show no signs of wanting to see ours (we live much closer to them than SIL) anytime soon. I am jealous and resentful. MH is constantly like "it's not a competition!" and I silently seethe. It feels like one.
Last night at 6, my H texts me that his parents are stopping by at 6:30 (that's when H gets home from work too).
His parents leave us NO breathing room. They come at least once a week and a lot of times the use the excuse that they are driving by to go to X place near us. So they did it to us Saturday and they had a car full of other people. After they left I told H we need to get back into the every other weekend pattern after they babysit on Saturday.
My H and I only ever fight about THIS. His feelings are hurt that I don't particularly want to spend all this time with his parents. Well, I don't spend this much time with my own parents because they drive me batty in large doses too!
I want to discuss with H how he crossed a line that we had discussed needing a break from this, and he needs to learn how to say no to them. I am upset that he said OK even though I told him I needed time earlier this week.
TL;DR: I have an H problem, not an IL problem.
Often I go do something on my own--either fun or something productive when my in-laws come. Will that not work for you?
@this - are you sure she won't get anything from her pension? I recently went through my MIL's pension info and it's hard to lose her pension - I forget the exact details, but I think I explained it to her as "just don't assault your boss" and she'd be okay. Usually as long as you're vested in your pension (have worked there long enough), then it can't be taken away even if you're fired. So hopefully the situation isn't as dire as you think.
We have a similar problem where they just drop by. MIL does it not only when DH is home, but on the night he's working. She acts like she'll be a 'big help' with DS. Except she shows up at 7:15. Right as he's getting in the bath or putting on PJs for bed. I've not answered the door sometimes (not intentionally, but if the bath is running and we're upstairs, I can't hear the doorbell). Think she'd stop? No. Instead she complains that I never let her help me. And I must prefer my family.
I told her, my family calls ahead of time, asking when is a good day, what is a good time, and if they can bring dinner. THAT'S helpful. NOT riling up a toddler just before bedtime.
And they often call on the weekends at 7:00-7:30 asking if we want to get dinner. Um, going to a restaurant with DS at his bedtime is just about the worst thing ever. No free meal is worth that experience.
MIL wasted 4 oz of pumped breast milk yesterday. She watched DS yesterday while I ran some errands, so I left her expressed milk. After he finished a bottle, she thought he might still be hungry and wanted a little more, which is fine. But instead of just making a small bottle, she made a full bottle. Of course DS only took a little bit more, so the rest went to waste.
That sucks. I think I probably would have saved the rest of that bottle for the next feeding and pumped to replace it, even though it would be a little outside the usual guidelines for finishing a bottle. I hate wasting milk.
My inlaws are amazing and generous and loving but they have zero concept of time. They never account for traffic. And then my H behaves the same way.
They will say they are coming over in an hour. So we will rush around and tidy up and wait on dinner. And then an hour, an hour and a half, 2 hours to by..,,, they show up. My kid is starving because we waited. Or she is in the middle of eating because we chose not to wait and now she is all distracted and doesn't eat.
We go there every weekend. So once every 8 weeks, I stay home. They only want to see L anyway. But for some reason if I don't go, they are so concerned. Am I sick? Am I upset?
This is the stance I've had to take with IL's-FIL and SMIL in particular, but mostly just SMIL and her crazy alcoholic behavior. It took years for me to get to this point but my dealings with her (and ILs in general) are now at the "not my circus, not my monkeys" point...if she comes to me to bitch about something J and I are doing/not doing (ex. not asking them to babysit AJ ever or take him overnight, which we don't do because she won't be sober) I tell her that FIL needs to talk to J about it. And then J deals with it however he sees fit. As long as it doesn't negatively affect AJ, this system is more than fine with me.
Freaking ILs, man. Thank god my parents are pretty normal.
@this I worry about something similar with my ILs. They are AWFUL with money, and H's mom has filed bankruptcy at least once in the time that we've been together. The one thing she has going for her is that she has worked for the same company for nearly 30 years and they have some sort of "30 and out" retirement plan that she is grandfathered in for. No way in HELL will I live with that woman after all the nasty things she said about me last year.
My unrelated MIL vent is about the way she tells H that she wants to see the grandkids instead of asking. Last weekend she called H to see if he/we wanted to go out on their boat with the kids. We had plans to get some stuff done around the house and it had been a busy weekend already, so H declined. She called back later and SS answered the phone, and the woman asked SS if he wanted to go. Of course SS got all excited and begged H to go, so she basically told H that she'd be coming over to pick him up rather than asking. Um...wtf? H didn't call her out about it in that moment because he didn't want to deal with it while SS was around, but said he'd call her about it later. Not sure if he ever did. She does this kind of shit ALL THE TIME.
ECB My ILs bought an RV (well, I guess just a camper?) last year too and it was a huge ordeal. FIL kept trying to get my H involved in choosing which one to buy and my H tried to hint to me that we should chip in on it, since they were intending to let us use it all the time. First of all, I don't even enjoy camping so I don't want to be locked into taking camping "vacations" every year. Second of all, the reason he wants so much input from you is he totally wants us to go camping WITH them. Which, no. I made my H swear on his life that we would never do that.
And FIL had to be talked out of getting the much fancier one that would have required my MIL work an extra couple years before retiring (FIL is already retired). It just blew my mind that nobody else could see that was an asinine idea.
OMG. My head is almost swiveling around at the bolded!!! Thank GOD that wasn't anywhere on DH's radar. Because here's the thing- we KNOW that if we ever want to use it, FIL will want to come with us.
And 100% to your "second". FIL didn't start up on that until more recently but it's become clear that part of his "vision" for this is that we will all start taking weekend trips with him. no. Just no. And we actually LIKE camping. But we have limited free weekends and as I (think) I said earlier - FIL just isn't all that easy to spend time with. We will at some point find A weekend to do some kind of trip with him. But it's not going to become this monthly/bi-monthly or whatever frequency he's hoping for thing. That's not how we want to spend our free time.
He even made mention of taking DS with him on some trip. LOLOLOLOLOL. NO. That will NEVER happen. We don't trust FILs driving as it is, much less in a much larger vehicle, and then with our son!
@this and glitzy07, I was concerned we'd end up in this situation with MIL too. She had been horrible with money since before J and I started dating and her house had ended up in short sale (it blows my mind she was able to turn around and buy a condo but that's the 2006-2007 housing market for ya I guess), and always alluded to money issues but would never tell us much. We found out a couple months before she passed away that things had gotten worse but she still wasn't telling us a lot (SIL was filling us in, MIL knew I was pg with AJ and didn't want to burden us)...and then she passed away suddenly and we found out just how bad her financial situation was. It baffles us still today how she ended up in the situation she did, because she made good money as a teacher (had been with the same district for 15 years and had a master's) but if she hadn't passed away when she did she probably would have ended up filing for bankruptcy. She was a sweet lady and J and I adored her, but she was TERRIBLE with money.
My MIL watched C last Friday while E was at school so I could go to the eye doctor. I got home 2.5 hours later and realized she had left her car running the entire time. She had NO idea that it was on. I called DH and he acted like it was no big deal. Ummmm I doubt it's normal to not realize you didn't turn your car freaking off! The radio was blasting and everything.
ETA: she will not be watching either kid anytime in the future.
We told the ILs last night that we are having a girl. MIL was thrilled, FIL said we had better try right away for a boy, and SIL said there had better be no pink because she hates pink.
I'm not sure, I think it really depends on the job and the pension plan. My MIL has no idea what she's talking about when it comes to retirement, benefits, etc, which is why we convinced her to bring all of her paperwork and benefits guides to us so we could go over them with her and help her understand her situation. We were very relieved to find that she should end up with some pension and some SS, but we had to convince her that she can't retire early because she needs as much SS as she can get.
For your MIL, am I putting the pieces correctly thinking she was an employee of the state in Texas? Then check this website to see if you can find any more info: www.ers.state.tx.us/ It seems to imply that there may be a balance to her retirement that can be rolled over into an IRA.
@this I feel you. My ILs have nothing saved for retirement, and they consider their house their retirement account. While it probably used to be worth a lot, it's in very poor condition. The bathrooms are so gross that even though I brought heavy duty cleaners during one trip, I couldn't get rid of the mold. Ugh. It's one of many reasons we no longer stay there when we visit.
Which brings me to my vent. GMIL (MiL's mother) passed away Tuesday. It was not unexpected, beyond how quickly she went from "mildly sick" to hospice. FiL is begging DH for us to stay with them when we come up for the funeral. MiL and FiL should have divorced years ago, but they don't believe in it. So they stay together and are miserable. I assume the begging for us to stay there is so that DH can be a human shield between FiL and MiL, who just lost her mother and is probably taking her grief out on FiL. No, thank you. It's an 11 hour drive to get there, DH and I both have terrible sinus infections, I'm pg and completely not interested in dealing with MiL (we have a long history that is summed up with she hates me, she tried repeatedly to get DH to not marry and/or divorce me until I got pg, and now she's pretending to be my bestest friend).
Blah. I realize everyone here will probably think I'm a terrible person for not sucking it up to stay with them in these circumstances. It's just not happening though, both for selfish reasons and for letting DH grieve his grandmother in peace instead of taking the brunt of his mother's grief.
I am making an FB posting group called "everyone except MIL" because she comments on Every. Single. Post.
They pick V up early on a Monday and we try to have them over for dinner afterwards. But 4 of the last 5 weeks they have made plans and I get the feeling they are trying to duck it. Ugh.
They will do things like drive half an hour from daycare to their house, hang out with him for an hour and a half, then drive an hour back to our house in rush hour traffic. Does not compute.
I am sure msniq has a long list, starting with "solo cups all over the house and who reuses those things" and ends with "having her sit silently while I parent and get the sensation judgment is being passed". But mom keeps telling us she thinks we're doing a great job.
You know, I expected to have MIL vents to add here, but her latest visit (this past weekend) wasn't a disaster like it usually is. She was almost reasonable, and because we prepared a schedule beforehand and knew when, where, and what we'd be eating, there weren't any big surprises or hangry incidents. We were still exhausted by Monday morning when she left though, because we only managed to have a decent weekend by walking on eggshells making sure we didn't talk about anything serious.
We spent last weekend with MIL. She is in major BEC territory for me, so all I wanted to do was constantly yell STFU at her. Everything is about her, she's annoying as hell, and she's made terrible life choices to the detriment of her health. Yet she's a self proclaimed health expert because she watches Dr Oz
She's also her mom's caretaker and IMO is mean to her. But I'll never say that to DH. His uncle called her mean once, and DH has never forgiven him.