Stuck between parents and DH

Very good point

I agree with other posters that I think that you have a husband problem here. He seems to want to be treated like it’s the 1950s!!! I would never expect to be waited on by anyone and I think he’s extremely rude and disrespectful to expect people to have to always follow his way. Where’s the compromise and tolerance?
At my mums she’ll make us a drink/food but we can do it too and often do! Same at either of my in laws. At our house I’ll make them a tea or whatever but they can use the kettle and make their own as well! I think your husband has a very strange attitude towards other people.

He sounds incredibly narrow-minded and judgmental. Can he not accept that you just have different approaches? Why is he so convinced that his way is the only right way?

I wouldn't be willing to tolerate his rudeness, personally. How dare he say that you have been "dragged up" just because you take a less formal approach?

The more I read, the more convinced I am that you would be better off without him.

What are you actually getting out of this relationship, OP?

he's very judgmental! I don’t know how you can bear it!

my family is like yours and part of it is that even though I’ve left home when I am with my parents we act as we did when we did live together as a family.

was his mum like this when they were kids when there weren’t guests? Is your DH as restrictive with your kids in the house?

@clawcliphurts

How sad that your husband can't see and celebrate your birth family for who and what they are? People who don't stand on ceremony and treat their family as family instead of guests who must be contained. I would welcome the former but the latter would make the visit a nervous one for me.

What a pity he can't compromise and soften a little. After all, thank goodness we are not all the same in life and, provided we treat each other with mutual respect and kindness we should embrace each other's differences.

His attitude will drive the two of you apart at some stage unless he accepts that we are not all the same and we don't all do everything the same. Don't let his attitude adversely affect your children. 🌹

I think you have a bit of a Husband Problem tbh

I'd divorce him now, tbh.

I wouldn't let anyone have a key and just walk in. That would make me very uncomfortable!
But using the loo, or making a cuppa? Of course!

For what its worth, I think you have a very difficult problem here, with no easy answers. Your families are almost at opposite ends of a range of behaviours and while noone is wrong, working out how to jog along together is not easy.
It sounds like you recognise that, and are trying to help him to understand it too, which is the most anyone can do. I wonder if it would be worth trying to explain your insights to each of the grandparents?

To make your family work you all need to see how your behaviour appears to the others, and somehow move towards a place that works for you all.

You have much in common - you are an extended family, after all, with shared grandchildren who I'm sure everyone will want to nuture, protect and foster relationships even if there are different ways of showing it. Thats a good place to start.

Good luck

I was on the fence a bit when I read your first post, but leaning towards sympathising with your husband. Then I read your subsequent posts and realised that your parents are normal and your husband is batshit.

Don't allow him to try and isolate you, OP. Maintain the relationship with your parents. Whether or not you should maintain the relationship with your husband is a different question. I would want him to get some help, personally.

His mum sounds lovely but fucked up, and your parents sound not at all fucked up, but not very nice.

You’re so blasé that they ignore your kids’ birthdays!

Your partner sounds like hard work. I doubt my input is going to affect anything but he needs to loosen up a bit. Hope you can manage to keep the kids seeing both sets of grandparents.

Your DH maybe is very anxious himself, maybe he feels in some way like he’s protecting his mum by holding her up as the only standard? The strange thing here is not accepting that different families do things differently. I wonder if he was allowed to go to friends houses as a child. You get on with his mum, you respect her ways, he is the one who is intolerant and judgemental. And it sounds like he thinks your family look down on him - do they? Does he assume that other people do this, eg at work?

This is one of the most bonkers threads I’ve ever read.

Your husband is the problem here - not you or your family.

In my opinion both sets of parents have their quirky ways, both good and not so good, It's your DH digging his heels in and insisting his parents way is the only way I find most sad, that and his total intolerance of people that are just different to what his used to. I wonder how you run your own household, do you have to get the 'dollies' 😊 out when your friends pop round for a cuppa, if they're allowed to just to pop round that is. You remind me of my my own family and my late husbands, similar to you his Mum was much much more formal and you didn't dare just pop in, which is sad as she missed out on lots of impromptu visits, whereas my family home was always loud and busy with people popping in and out constantly, the difference being that my late husband loved the difference. Don't let you dh cut you off from your family.

Tbh I allow my parents to use our bathroom sounds weird too. "Allow" to use the bathroom???

Well done @clawcliphurts for taking control of this slightly bizarre situation.
If he doesn't want to hang out with your family, that's his perogative. At least you can now spend yome with your family without worrying about his reaction/feelings etc.

He sounds like he's been raised with some strange ideas about what is rude. But, he sounds unlikely to change, so let him do him and you do you.

This is all very sad, OP.

It actually sounds as though your MIL is a nice, kind person who has some undiagnosed psychiatric issue which explains why she has particular hang ups around things like using the toilet and food. Certainly the fact that whether or not you are offered anything to eat or drink at her house depends on whether or not she has been able to face going out to the shops would suggest that she is really struggling. It sounds like she wants to be hospitable, it's just that her idea of it and what she feels able to do is very different to most people's. She clearly has a deep seated need to be in control of her immediate environment, which means she's out of her comfort zone when visiting other people or receiving visitors.

Your DH is not doing her any favours by pretending that her way is normal and everyone else is the problem. I think there is probably some jealousy on his part around the fact that your upbringing and relationship with your parents has been so much more relaxed and that you don't have ingrained hang ups around things like using the toilet at other people's houses.

But your different upbringing is not your fault, just like his different upbringing is not his fault. If I were you I would explain that you are more than happy to be kind to his mother and take her as she is, even if it means sitting still in your chair hoping that you might be offered something to eat or drink, but you need him to meet you halfway and accept that this is not how things were for you growing up, and it is not how you want things to be for your children.

Your home belongs to both of you. It's not just his and it's not just yours. You are welcome to have your family visit you at home, and you can of course allow them to use the toilet and make cups of tea. He doesn't make the rules.

I would not reduce the amount you have your family over at all. Tell him that this is what is happening, and if he's not comfortable with it then he's free to go out.

I didn't get on with DH's father, they'd had a difficult relationship after he and DH's mum had split, and he'd put his second wife before his children which really hurt DH. I would have not seen him at all by choice as he was quite a difficult and outspoken man, but I knew it was important to DH and so we had a very superficial relationship of kinds and DH thankfully grew much closer to him in his last years. When he passed away, DH was devastated and I knew that keeping contact had been the right thing to do.

Your DH sounds like an absolute arse, sorry. How can he resent the people who gave you life and made you into the person you are? It doesn't make sense.

Please don’t isolate yourself from your parents, to compromise I just wouldn’t invite them over so much.

i find your dh’s thinking very stifling, rigid and not the norm. I’d much rather people made themselves welcome in my home, helped themselves to tea and coffee and felt comfortable when here.

He has serious issues from his childhood that his mum has caused, she sounds like she has anxiety and OCD. [ wiping the toilet after each use is not the norm)

@EllieQ
Those are great questions and viewpoints.

Reading this, it does sound as though your MIL has some mental health issues (anxiety/ OCD) meaning your DH has picked up some odd ideas from his upbringing, and it’s hard to break away from those. She does sound like a kind person, and it’s a bit worrying that she sometimes doesn’t offer you food because she hasn’t been able to get out - do you mean she’s going without food herself because her anxiety prevents her leaving the house to go shopping?

Your DH could be a controlling person who is trying to isolate you from your family, or he could be someone who has grown up with strict (strange) rules at home, unconsciously accepting that things must be done a certain way, and is struggling with the clash between the two families - small and quiet vs large and loud, rules vs relaxed, ‘proper’ hosting vs help yourself and make yourself at home, and after so many years it’s getting to him? Maybe as your children get older he’s realised they will notice the difference in the way they are treated? It’s hard to know what is happening here just from your posts.

What ‘rules’ does your DH enforce at home - do your children have to ask for snacks, do you have to ‘serve’ everyone, are the children allowed to have the TV on, or is he more like his mum?

Of course every family will have differences in the way they interact - formal/informal, quiet/more social. Why is it grating on him more now - after how many years? Threatening to leave over it really seems very odd - is something else going on or did something happen recently that was "the last straw"?

He seems very rigid in his thinking, unsociable and maybe his mum has OCD? How does he cope with the loo at work?Whatever is going in his head his inflexibility and need for control will only worsen as he ages. I'd go see your DPs with the DC and leave him to sulk at home. Be very wary of letting his behaviour alienate you and your DC from f&f.

Your DD will of course manage her future home in her own way and he's already projecting his need for control onto her.

Other than kids turning the TV on when they want (which is just rude and definitely not a posh thing!) your family sound quite normal.

His family sound a little odd!

Your DH doesn't sound very flexible!