My parents are very involved in my marriage. I need some advice! (holidays, relatives)

[kitty61]

If you don't want them to interfere stop using their home as a stopover point and a place to have meals. Be fully independent. Find your child a school close to your own home. Pack her lunch so she can stay at school during lunchtime. Hire a daycare to take care of her when you can't get home soon enough to pick her up at school. Ask her father to help with pickup and drop off. Keep your visits with parents to Sunday 6 o'clock dinners a couple times a month and homeward at 8.30 or 9 pm.

You said you are really busy and I know many parents who haven't got a moment to spare either. Don't run yourself ragged. Check out a good, reliable sitter and plan to go out and spend some time alone with your hubby. Don't depend on your parents as babysitters.

Free up some of time for yourselves. Hire a cleaning lady to come on the weekends and that can mean laundry as well. Both you and your husband are working and likely able to budget for the above. I know I used to work 8 hours on Saturdays doing chores and errands. Make a point of taking weekend days to truly relax.

[RamenAddict]

Originally Posted by kitty61

If you don't want them to interfere stop using their home as a stopover point and a place to have meals. Be fully independent. Find your child a school close to your own home. Pack her lunch so she can stay at school during lunchtime. Hire a daycare to take care of her when you can't get home soon enough to pick her up at school. Ask her father to help with pickup and drop off. Keep your visits with parents to Sunday 6 o'clock dinners a couple times a month and homeward at 8.30 or 9 pm.

You said you are really busy and I know many parents who haven't got a moment to spare either. Don't run yourself ragged. Check out a good, reliable sitter and plan to go out and spend some time alone with your hubby. Don't depend on your parents as babysitters.

Free up some of time for yourselves. Hire a cleaning lady to come on the weekends and that can mean laundry as well. Both you and your husband are working and likely able to budget for the above. I know I used to work 8 hours on Saturdays doing chores and errands. Make a point of taking weekend days to truly relax.

Good suggestion about the school. Why is it almost an hour away? Are there no schools nearby? Once you are out of the infant phase there should be a lot of nearby options.

[ndcairngorm]

Originally Posted by RamenAddict

Good suggestion about the school. Why is it almost an hour away? Are there no schools nearby? Once you are out of the infant phase there should be a lot of nearby options.

I think they picked this school because it was near the OP's work - it just happened also to be near the parent's house.

[Spuggy]

You opened the door to your parents. You teach people how to treat you by what you allow. How you and your husband spend your time and who you are friends with is absolutely none of their business. If you do share that is a privilege they are abusing , stop sharing so much. Stop using your parents and then complain about them. Stop using your parents, stop discussing your personal life, stop them when they offer an opinion about your husband or what you and husband do, and start setting healthy boundaries.

[parentologist]

OP, you are so lucky! The life you describe having, sounds fantastic! You and your husband are happily married, have a beautiful daughter, have a great group of friends with a wonderful social life, plus you have family nearby to be grandparents to your daughter, and to help if you need them. Take a step back, and be grateful!

Now, how you manage the fact that your parents are overly intrusive is in YOUR hands, in how you react to them. They are NOT going to change. What you have to change is how YOU react to THEM, without behaving badly or alienating them. You need them, and they need you, and I'm sure you do love them.

As said above, you don't have to respond to them every single time they reach out to you. After all, it sounds as if you see them daily, eating there after you pick up your daughter. And for this, too, be grateful! You will not have this forever. Just let the phone go to voicemail. Text them back once saying, busy, see you at 6. Ignore all unsolicited advice. Do not respond. If they persist despite this, answer them honestly. "Mom, I have a happy marriage. Please stop." Once. No more. If they persist in criticizing your husband (which sounds totally unwarranted), get off the phone. If they do it in person at their house, say, "I have to go now." And grab your daughter and leave. If they do it in YOUR house, take mom or dad aside and say, "This is my home, and my husband's home. I cannot allow you to criticize my husband in our home. I love you both, and I will not ask you to leave. But I will take my daughter and I will leave. When I come back, I am assuming you will have gone home. Please never put me in this position again."

Plan to have them over perhaps every other Sunday. And that's it. Leave Saturdays for friend gatherings.

When they start in criticizing, just get off the phone with an excuse. Oh, the pot's boiling over - gotta go! The toilet's overflowing - gotta go! And don't talk to them again until the next time you would normally see them, such as when you and your child stop over there when you pick her up.

And yes, DO leave your daughter with them and go away with your husband, as much as you can. THey won't be able to do this for you forever, so have fun now while they can help you. You can still have a loving relationship with your parents, and your fantastic happy life with your husband, daughter, and friendship group. You just have to set boundaries with your parents in a loving but firm way, and simply leave any situation where they start to cross that boundary, namely, where they criticize your husband, or criticize your perfectly healthy lifestyle choices.

[Inkpoe]

Originally Posted by mysticaltyger

The other thing that stood out to me is the dogs. They're a lot of work and I wonder if our OP and husband haven't bitten off more than they can chew in a number of different areas.

But as another poster said, I think a lot of meals is about planning. Our OP could learn to cook multiple meals on weekends and then just heat stuff up during the week. Our OP could also learn to re-think the standard meals they eat. There are lots of meals out there that don't take a long time to make, but it's outside the standard way they currently do things.

Yes, I was sympathetic until that post. The OP's schedule is actually extremely doable with all the things she has to do on a daily basis. IMO it doesn't even come across as an organizing problem-- it just appears the OP doesn't like cooking and perhaps having to help her daughter do what little homework she does. All that's taken care of by either her parents or husband.



And since the dogs were brought up, and framed as a burden... I think the dogs needs to be rehomed with people who will have more time. With a husband that has 2 jobs and her being gone at least 10 hrs a day (if she doesn't go to her parents)... those poor dogs deserve better.

[chicagoliz]

Originally Posted by ndcairngorm

You complain about your parents being involved in your family's business but you are inviting it by not acting like adults. You need to start raising your own child and providing your own meals just as you would if you lived in another state. If you want to eat at your mom's every day you must accept the fact that she feels you're still her baby.

Are you using your parent's address for your daughter so she can get into a better school? I can't imagine a child being assigned to a school 50 minutes away from her house. Or is it a special school which just happens to be near your parent's house? This seems like another dependency to me.

And BTW, it does sound to me like your daughter gets to stay up too late. Maybe this is only on weekends - but don't forget, young children need a lot of sleep. They'll run around and have a great time if you let them, but staying up every night until 9 or 10 is not good for their health.

I agree that maybe you should start to monitor your calls and not pick up every single time. Don't make excuses when they ask where you were - just say you couldn't pick up right then - you were busy, and don't explain further. They'll eventually get the message if you decide to start limiting the calls.

This, except for the part about your daughter being up too late. That is your decision. If she is okay with being up that late and is getting enough sleep -- wakes up early enough on her own, then don't worry about it. My kids were always up until at least 9, and 10 on weekends. (And you can put a kid in bed but you can't make them sleep.)

Originally Posted by mco65

The way i see it, you have 2 choices.
1. Tell your parents to STOP and give you some space.
2. MOVE far away..

Personally i would opt for #2 but to each his own.

This would be hard, though, if the OP and her husband have jobs in the area and mostly because they have a huge group of close friends in the area. If you have that, it is almost impossible to replicate someplace new.

Originally Posted by MrsD2015

Well, I pick her up at 5:30 from school, then if I drive straight home and do not stop at my parents house I would get home around 6:15 or 6:20 depending if there is not any accidents causing delays.

Then, cooking, taking the dogs out, feeding the dogs, bath time, homework time, cleaning the kitchen all that takes time.

When my husband is home, it's wonderful, because he loves cooking and helps me with our daughter, he even helps her do her homework, but he is home only 2 weeks within the month, he is a nurse and works nightshifts. We have complicated schedules.

What the heck kind of homework is a school for 4 year olds giving? Something is wrong here.

What do you mean he is home only two weeks a month? Is his work so far away that he stays in some kind of apartment in another town? Maybe my note above is wrong and you should consider moving to the city where your husband's job is located.

I understand nurses can have complicated schedules, working nights, etc. I have had neighbors/friends where one spouse was an ER doc, or a police officer and they had those types of schedules, too. Yes, it can cause some difficulties, but sometimes it's nice, too, since that parent can be home during some days. That sort of schedule is something a lot of families deal with, and while some things are tough, it's not impossible. You take the good with the bad.


And my goodness -- your poor dogs! Don't you need to get home as early as you can to feed them and let them out? Why do you keep them waiting? Why do you make them needlessly wait an extra hour or more before they get their needs met?

6:15? That is not at all that late to get home. I don't think I've ever had a job where I got home earlier than that. And I've had quite a few where I got home later. I never depended on my mother to feed me after work.

Originally Posted by MrsD2015

I do help her when I can, due to my work schedule, I cannot help her as much as I would want, they don't drive, so they depend on me or my husband, whenever they want to go somewhere, or whenever they want to be picked up to go to my house.

So, in reality, I only depend on her to make dinner.

My life revolves around them so much because I work so close to their house, so of course, I had to find a school nearby for my daughter, I don't live that far, 25 minutes without traffic, but traffic complicates everything, so in reality my commute is 50 minutes, sometimes an hour, with traffic.

You depend on her to make dinner? There are lots of semi-prepared foods you can buy and have on hand that just require you to heat up. Ideally you could plan ahead and make food on weekends or use a slow cooker, but I understand sometimes that is a lot, so if that's not an option, there are still plenty of other ways to get dinner without involving your parents.

[Mikala43]

It sounds like you have a very good relationship with your parents except for their commenting on how you run your life.

I didn't see where you have tried to sit down with them and tell them their comments are going over the line, and you would like it to stop.

[joee5]

OP needs to tell them it's their life and to mind their own business.

[Maddie104]

I had almost the exact situation that you are describing only with my in-laws who lived within a few blocks of my home and my daughter's school. My husband worked shift work and I had a job that often involved late hours. My in-laws were a great support system since they were dependable, loving to my daughter and economical. My mother-in-law was a great cook and saved meals for me when I went to pick up my daughter. The downside was they could be critical and judgmental re the amount of hours I worked, the wisdom of sending my daughter to private school, how we could afford certain things, etc. I simply let things go in one ear and out the other as the price to pay. Basically, they held fast to what I considered outdated notions of marriage and parenting. They also tended to have a lot of rules about what time to go to bed, have dinner, etc. Since my parents were the exact opposite, I was able to get a balanced perspective.

Everything turned out fine and my daughter greatly benefitted from the time spent in their home. Looking back it was well worth enduring the minor criticisms and judgments. Many years later (my daughter is now an adult), my MIL complimented me on what a fine job I did with my daughter.

FWIW, I never told my husband about these issues as I didn't want to disrupt a good thing.