Stuck between parents and DH

I come from a big family..lots of siblings. I could pop in to my parents any time but l never pop in to my siblings without a text ahead. I don't need to be invited but l do ask...they do the same for me. I would be very relaxed in their homes but very rarely stick on the kettle but wait and always be offered a cuppa. Your family are a bit extreme on one end and his on the other. Dh finds the amount of people at my family functions..and there are many...very overwhelming so we decided years ago that he would bring his own car so he is free to leave when he wants as me and my now grown up kids are very happy to see it out. That works well. Also my parents..now dead..never made too much fuss over the dc but they absolutely loved being part of that big, relaxed family as it gave them a great sense of belonging and enabled them growing up to be able to talk to all sorts of people quite comfortably. They were devasted when both their gps passed. My dm did remember their birthdays though and all their activities/ exams etc. Having independent parents who do their own thing is a blessing.

I do see how if his mum was in and out of your home you might resent it so some compromise is needed. But l feel he has sensed a weak spot in you when he criticising your parents so he is using it now to put you in your place. Go to counselling where all this can be put on the table and they will be experienced enough to put some compromise in place. Like you, coming from a busy family l could totally accept dhs family and their weird and wonderful ways as l am chilled but he found adjusting to mine difficult even though l think they are brilliant and a huge source of support and joy in my life .

Your parents not bothering to buy presents or engage with your kids would bother me if I were him but the rest is just a clash of upbringing - he sounds like he's picked up some odd ideas but you just sound like a bit of a pushover tbh, saying you just tolerate everything

Your DH is odd. How is he going to be with your children when they grow up?

Your family set up is completely normal. On my mother's side of the family, we can even go to aunties/ cousin houses and do the same, make yourself at home, open the fridge, make your coffee, etc. I would consider this to be a close and loving relationship.

This only changed when my sister married an abusive man, we had to be invited to go visit them, can only sit in certain parts of the house. Obviously, it didn't end well since there was physical and emotional abuse.

Although I can appreciate the differences in your DH's upbringing, it seems controlling to threaten your relationship just because you have a good relationship with your parents. His family set up is totally weird, the toilet thing is completely absurd. Although I believe he expects to be waited and served because "he's the man", like a power/authority thing. I would never expect to go to my mom's home and just sit there waiting to be treated like a queen, waiting for her to even serve me a cup of tea.

How come your mom can't make herself a cup if tea when she's at your home? I wouldn't give her keys but of course they should make themselves feel at home when they visit. A boundary would go not to go into the bedrooms but the kitchen, living room, garden should be open for them.

From your post an updates I would actually say, aside from the weird toilet thing, his family sound warmer. You say your MIL plays with and makes time for the kids and they enjoy going there. Your parents found cold to be honest, you said yourself they’re selfish, don’t interact with the kids, forget their birthdays, never invite you over. This would probably piss me off, the the popping over unannounced thing is a no no for me.
However, your husband’s reaction to say this could end your marriage is extreme! Is it just an excuse?

Your parents sound completely normal, very similar to our family set up. The difference being that my mil is also the same. All us siblings have a key to mums house, it's a very help yourself whenever you like attitude which extends to all the grandchildren as well.
Even at in laws the door is always open and if I'm ever on my own and ring the doorbell fil will always open the door with the same phrase, it's open no need to ring!
It sounds like he's looking to blame you and your parents for something that feels is lacking from the relationship he has with his parents.
Don't let him come between your relationship with your parents.

I agree that he’s the odd one - his parents are uptight and controlling. Why on earth is he going on about how you choose to behave around family?
I’d leave him out of your family events but still go. I’d make my own happy home without him if he cannot stop complaining. Where’s the joy in his attitude?

He feels totally unwelcome in their family

No wonder - you’ve stopped your mum making herself a cup of tea in your house because of him - your family probably can’t stand him because of his controlling, weird ways and that’s hard to hide.

Finding the level of informality uncomfortable i can get (my family are like yours to a degree- having once said help yourself 20 years ago they expect DP to help himself now - he likes to be waited on which i find uncomfortable- in his parents house if i was to try and make myself a cup of tea his mother would take over) but it seems a bit of stretch to hate them because of it?
the way they treat your children i'd find more unpleasant

”my dH and his family are very close. So much so that they all have keys to each other’s houses and pop in whenever they want. And here’s where I struggle. ILs frequently just pop over, let themselves into our house and help themselves to food and drink. When we go over we’re expected to do the same, they don’t entertain at all, and they have no relationship with the DC. The DC just play on their own or they watch television over there. My parents on the other hand have a lovely relationship with the DC and the DC love going over there. I’ve tried talking to DH about it but says that our families are just different.”

Leaving the toilet thing aside here for a moment, if a woman posted here that her MIL let herself into er house, helped herself to food and drink and never engaged with the DC posters would be telling her to set some boundaries, that the MIL was being intrusive and to not stand for it, oh, and to demand her key back.

There are absolutely questions to be asked around the DH’s family as well, but there does need to be middle ground here.

There’s close and then there’s suffocating. My family are close. We all have keys to one another’s houses, and if we wanted a cup of tea we would be welcome to make one. But when visiting the expectation is that you are visiting them, and vice versa. That you would expect to tell them at least that you were coming round, and that you would knock the door if they were home and certainly not just let yourself i and head straight out to the kitchen. Because you would expect to offer (in your house) or be offered (in theirs) a cup of tea.

Hisfamily sound rigid, but your family on the hand sound like they’re living in a commune.

I wouldn’t put up with that either.

Reading between the lines, you say that your parents don't buy presents and don't really interact with the grandkids.

You also say his parents do interact with the kids and they like doilies.

Regardless of toilets etc, it does sound like his parents are much more involved grandparents than your parents.

Also, if you grow up in a context of being offered tea/coffee etc then a family where you are expected to make your own can come across as unwelcoming. My DH's family were a make your own family but if you are used to it being polite to offer people tea/coffee it comes across as "I can't be bothered with you".

If you have a large family and everyone is expected to make their own food/drink and entertain their own kids I can imagine him wondering why visit?

Wow
I love that my parents make their own drink when they come round, I also raid my mums house for treats when I’m there! My mum ate my last posh scones 😂 and loves my proper butter when she’s round. I cannot imagine not using the toilet when visiting someone.
Does your husband not allow people to use your toilet when they visit? I find this so bizarre.
Yes families are different, I often find my in laws annoying and my husband certainly finds mine annoying (especially when they fill the kettle to the top) but they’re our families so we put up with them for each other.

Your husband is in the wrong. Your parents sound wonderful and normal, his upbringing sounds odd. If I went to my mum’s house, I would make a cup of tea, cook a meal, still lie with her in her bed etc.. He has an extremely odd relationship with his parents and is trying to impose these odd standards on you. Please don’t let him damage your relationship with your parents. Why is it that he has managed to convince you that there is something wrong with your parents? I find this situation extremely worrying and if he wants to reevaluate your whole relationship based on your parents then allow him. Sounds like you’d be better off without him.

YABU for allowing him to make you believe that there is something wrong with your parents, when his family is the odd one.

He can say what he wants but there is nothing wrong with your family’s pattern of sharing and intimacy. There could be if there were no boundaries—but its not that there are no boundaries but that his own family are nuts and rigidly, even pathologically, cold and repellent to each other.

Of course you should want to grow up and have a warm relationship with your daughter. My daughters still have keys to my house, i have keys to my parents house. In a normal family it is possible to trust others to be close but not exploitative. He doesn’t know that because his family is terrified and suspicious of intimacy.

I don’t see how ot is possible to stay with someone this damaged. He needs help for a childhood of severe emotional deprivation amounting to an attachment disorder.

Yeah this is just odd!

With every post you write, he just sounds more and more insane.

Its ok to be different and he needs to understand that, my parents are very different to dh’s and he found it strange at first that we walk in and help ourself at my parents and to this day dh rarely does and will wait for me to get or ask or my mum/ dad but he is getting better and its been 25 years. Yet he wants out kids to have that feeling in out home that our house is always there home.
dh parents not so easy going but its just different and DH doesn’t feel like his mums house is his home still.
but they don’t seem to impact on his life in anyway so he needs to grow up really and accept every family is different and his are not right and yours wrong or vice versa, just different .

TBH, for me, if I was at home and my in laws used their spare key to let themselves in to my house, go raid my fridge, ignore my kids etc, I’d not be impressed.
Everyone has the right to privacy in their own homes and not feel expected to jump up for a chat because people were passing by and popped in unannounced. I’d also find this rude to be honest!

Can't get my head around the toilet thing. If you for instance were to spend Christmas at your inlaws what happens when one of you need the loo. Drive around to find a public loo still open unlikely

He is in for a shock when older if he has prostate problems and needs a pee every half hour.
I have IBS not being able to use the loo at my inlaws or my parents would have had disastrous consequences

I can’t get my head round this! How is your family the unloving one when you can pop in to each others without an invite and be encouraged to make yourself at home. I’d say his family sound like the unloving ones, an invite & sometime offered a drink etc!! Madness!!

although his parents do seem more interested in your kids than yours do.

As for telling your mum she can’t make a drink at your house because it’s your husbands house too, well I think that’s disgraceful to say that to her. You should be ashamed. When you said writing it all down has made you realise…..I thought you was then going to say that you’ve realised your DH is a dick!

As for not using the toilet in relatives, WTAF is that about??!! Absolutely bizarre!!

I get the bigger family do’s might be overwhelming for someone from a small family but surely only at first till you got to know everyone, and it sounds like you’ve been together a long time.

Please don’t let him treat your parents like he is and certainly don’t let him alienate you and the kids from them.

Your family sound like the normal ones to me, certainly similar to my up bringing. At my nanas everyone used to just walk in the front door without even knocking, say hi to them and go straight into the kitchen and switch the kettle on……bet that would send your dh into cardiac arrest.

If anyone is to reevaluate the relationship, it should be you!! Your husband is trying to control you.

I still don't understand how he thinks your parents are posh. Is being bad hosts and bad grandparents a class indicator?

Does he use the toilet at your parents' home?
Do you and the children use the toilet and MIL's?
Are visitors and family allowed to use your toilet?
Are there public convenience near you?

Sorry I just think this is decidedly abnormal.
Socially and medically unhelpful.

I AGREE WITH YOU. 100%

What? Your family sound normal, his sound mad and he sounds like he’s got a giant chip on his shoulder and can’t cope with it. My ex was a bit like this and thank god he’s my ex quite frankly. His insecurity was one of the causes of his abusiveness I think but that’s no excuse. Your h needs to grow the fuck up.

I can see your DHs side to an extent. Your parents don’t sound like great grandparents missing birthdays and not interacting with them when they do see them just stuck in front of the tele however he is wrong to threaten to leave you that’s not on.
He doesn’t like them fair enough and if they had actually done something to him fair enough but they haven’t so all these comments are out of order.

Also not going to the toilet in someone else’s and holding it is not normal. It’s weird.