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I am a brand new member and just happened to stumble upon this forum while looking for information on how to deal with family staying at my house.
So my question is what advice can anyone give me on how to deal with my in-laws when they stay at my house. A little background, my in-laws live about 5 hours away and they don't come stay with my family that often. When they do they usually come for a week. I have always been taught when staying at someone's house that you help out as much as possible. However, my in-laws are not like that. The only thing they like to do (and I don't complain about it) is make dinner. My wife and I work full time, so it is great to come home to dinner made. However, they don't want to do anything else. The dinner they cook is with our food, they don't offer to go to the grocery store to buy food. My wife and I would like them to help pick up the kids from school/daycare, but they refuse. They don't help out in any other way. We also have a dog and since my mother-in-law is allergic, my dog is forced to be locked up in my bedroom and is constantly crying/whining which gets to be frustrating. They like us to take them to Costco so they can get food for themselves there. They rely on us to take them places because they don't want to drive. The main reason they don't extend themselves to do anything else revolves around cost. They are not poor and routinely take trips out of the country. I have talked to my wife about it and she understands my concerns, but just says that her mom won't change and to deal with it.
Please help! I am at my wits end
These inlaws sound horrible. Have your dog spend plenty of time in the guest bedroom before they arrive. Hopefully the allergies will cause them to stay at a hotel.
Thanks for the story, made me LOL. You sound like me.
LOL thanks - it's the only way to be! And I'm sure you'll agree!
My husband tells me all the time, "You're a good person, but you're not a sweet person." Or, my favorite version (not that I really care - LOL ) which is, "You may not be a sugary sweet person, but you are a good person."
That's right. And that's why things generally run pretty smoothly when I'm involved. I don't mess around. Gitterdone.
You mentioned you stop going for visits at their home because of several different things that happened - getting yelled at for turning on the air conditioning ! That's annoying - I do agree with some of the other posts about it's really not that awful. The dog being locked up in a room all day isn't a good idea either but the in-laws have allergies.
I do think a hotel would be a good way to go - and maybe this would be the way to bring it up. You and your wife visit the in-laws and stay in a hotel (where there's air conditioning) and when they come and visit they stay in a hotel and the dog isn't locked in a room all day.
This is one of those situations that it's hard to reverse once certain patterns have been established but I think as long as both sides understand and make the effort to stay in the hotel then after a few visits everyone will probably be happier anyway.
The important thing is for everyone to have a nice time with the least amount of stress.
To everyone suggesting having the in-laws stay in a hotel: In some families, it just isn't done. Whenever we stay up at my in-laws, we stay at their house. I have suggested to my wife occasionally that we get a hotel room...she says her parents wouldn't like it if we did that. That's just how some families are. Oh well.
Someday I might disagree with you LovesMountains, but I can't imagine when. We are the "less preferred" in-laws, and it isn't easy to deal with. It's a constant dance on eggshells. I don't believe any parents who raise a child you want to marry can be horrible people.
You owe it to your spouse tolerate the differences between the two families. Man up.
Thank you Mattie
I just think the longer I live the more appreciation I have for just how short and valuable our time together with our families really is.
We've all got that person (or people!) in our families that are more difficult to be with, or that we just can't see eye to eye with, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't keep trying to see the good in them when possible.
When you choose love you can let go of so much angst and aggravation
I just think the longer I live the more appreciation I have for just how short and valuable our time together with our families really is.
I will respectfully share a different take on this statement which I nevertheless agree with.
The wife is in a difficult space here. My gut tells me she is as fed up with her boorish parents as the OP is but is nevertheless bound by blood which she doesn't want to violate, I get that. She still loves them, presumably.
If these visits were shorter, less frequent, and/or in a variety of locales this would be a different story. But they're not, they're unwelcome impositions, really, at this point and if the OP's description of how healthy the inlaws are is correct, likely to go on for years.
So I take the statement you made but interpret it like this: the time with MY wife and kids, the family I chose to make together, is short and valuable. Spending weeks every year putting up with these pills with nothing but a clamped jaw and a phony cheeriness is IMO dishonoring my own family. Sit by and enable an unhealthy situation to go on and on and on then what...15, 20 years later if the inlaws are by then deceased say "wow, what happened to the time, I wish we had spent our family time and $$ doing xxxxxx". Because you can love all you can but nobody can beat time and when you have it in your power to stop something unhealthy but don't you're squandering time that could have been spent watering your own loving garden.
I'm looking back over this before posting and feel compelled to say that it's obviou I must believe that these visits are almost wholly without redeeming qualities (i.e., that even the wife secretly finds the visits tiresome). So I suppose my opinions are completely hinged on that.
I will respectfully share a different take on this statement which I nevertheless agree with.
The wife is in a difficult space here. My gut tells me she is as fed up with her boorish parents as the OP is but is nevertheless bound by blood which she doesn't want to violate, I get that. She still loves them, presumably.
If these visits were shorter, less frequent, and/or in a variety of locales this would be a different story. But they're not, they're unwelcome impositions, really, at this point and if the OP's description of how healthy the inlaws are is correct, likely to go on for years.
So I take the statement you made but interpret it like this: the time with MY wife and kids, the family I chose to make together, is short and valuable. Spending weeks every year putting up with these pills with nothing but a clamped jaw and a phony cheeriness is IMO dishonoring my own family. Sit by and enable an unhealthy situation to go on and on and on then what...15, 20 years later if the inlaws are by then deceased say "wow, what happened to the time, I wish we had spent our family time and $$ doing xxxxxx". Because you can love all you can but nobody can beat time and when you have it in your power to stop something unhealthy but don't you're squandering time that could have been spent watering your own loving garden.
I'm looking back over this before posting and feel compelled to say that it's obviou I must believe that these visits are almost wholly without redeeming qualities (i.e., that even the wife secretly finds the visits tiresome). So I suppose my opinions are completely hinged on that.
This is what I know...
Life is all about the choices we make and the narrative we write in our heads.
How you choose to frame this story will make all the difference in its outcome.
You have an opportunity to be your wife's hero here, just as our OP does.
You have an opportunity to be your wife's hero here, just as our OP does.
Seriously, this is just a bit dramatic..."hero??"
Don't talk about the elephant in the room, don't discuss family choices/decisions as a couple, nope. Heck even if they both talked and agreed that MIL/FIL are pills, had a laught and then agreed to grin and bear it...that's 100% better than just being the "hero."
So what when the wife turns to the OP in ten years and say "ooof, I'm so glad they don't visit anymore. How did we let that impact our lives for so long?"
Don't talk about the elephant in the room, don't discuss family choices/decisions as a couple, nope. Heck even if they both talked and agreed that MIL/FIL are pills, had a laught and then agreed to grin and bear it...that's 100% better than just being the "hero."
So what when the wife turns to the OP in ten years and say "ooof, I'm so glad they don't visit anymore. How did we let that impact our lives for so long?"
Not being "dramatic" at all.
News flash, woman want to look up to and respect their husbands.
When a husband makes a sacrifice for his wife and/or family, something THEY want, not something he wants to give them, he sets the kind of example his children will benefit from for the rest of their lives and becomes his wife's "hero".
You don't have to believe me
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