Are you ‘yourself’ with your In-Laws?

[Youngatheart00]

I ask because despite DH and I being together for 14 years and married for 10 I still feel uneasy around his parents. He and them are very close and speak often although as we live 5 hours drive away only see them a few times a year. I still feel the need to be a little fake, smiley, keep calm and carry on sort of character around them. Even after a couple of drinks I don’t really loosen up. I don’t generally have a hard time being genuine in front of others....although I am a ‘stick a brave face on it’ type of person and give little away, I suppose.

We are contemplating moving closer to the inlaws (in fact, their village!) and I’m not sure how I can / need / will behave.

Help - anyone else have a problem forming a relationship with their in-laws?

Feel fine with my parents-in-law but acutely uncomfortable around both SIL and BIL.

Hmm. Good question. No, probably not. I think they find me slightly neurotic. I find them irritating too. Very much a case of fine in small doses. No way would I move 5 hours to be with in laws - are you sure op?!

I'm more myself around my in-laws than I am around my own family. I'm very close with all of them but my DHs family are more similar to me in terms of lifestyle and personality.

Absolutely not. 23 years married and I still don't think they actually know what I do for work (or care) let alone anything more about me

I was always a much prissier version of myself around my in-laws. They were quite Methodist, as in moderate in all things. I'm quite over excitable and had to tone myself down.
I do hope
My DiL feels more relaxed than I did

To a point. I don’t swear around them - or try not to. They’d be shocked to hear me normally

As far as my pil are concerned I am barely a person in my own right, opinions, preferences or humour are not things it is recognised that I might have. So, no, I am not myself around them. I am a void who looks like me and uses all the best manners to barely escape criticism.

@cptartapp

God no. Yet neither is DH. It was one of the first things I noticed about him thirty years ago. He even puts a 'posher' voice on. TAlks to his parents like remote relatives and is very submissive and non confrontational. Won't challenge or question them at all. Everything's nicey nicey. Still does it now.

Same here! I find it totally bizarre; he's actually more relaxed around my family than his own. But at least it means that he has no desire to see them.

I'm myself, but the very best version! Tend to be in "on" mode - chirpy, make a lot of effort to converse and show plenty of interest. Wouldn't let them see my shrew side, or with no makeup

Even though my in-laws are chilled, it's just a switch I can't turn off!

For years I felt very uneasy around ILs, but it has improved over time.

I have to watch myself with MIL as she will give you the death stare if you don't use a napkin at dinner (my family only used them them if eating something extra messy, never as a matter of course), if you reach too far across the table for something and (I kid you not) if you leave your cutlery the 'wrong' way on your plate when you've finished. I feel a bit like a performing monkey doing some of this but, hey, you pick your battles. Also you have to make sure your volunteer to do things at dinner before someone else does, because if it happens one night other people always get there before you she'll assume you're being rude and lazy rather than cutting you any slack. But ho hum.

When the kids were little it was always awkward to know how to strike the balance as I knew that if I left MIL interacting with them 'too much', she'd think I was palming them off on her and making her do the childcare 'work', whereas if I didn't do it enough and was doing all the interacting, she'd see me as getting between her and the kids and not trusting her or something.

Easier now that they are older though and can choose how they interact, and MIL, having initially taken against me somewhat, was reconciled to me after we got engaged and has been rather better ever since.

My parents are very chilled out - DH can be at my parents and read a magazine, put his feet up on the sofa, have a nap after lunch or whatever and no one will bat an eyelid.

God no.

I tried being myself at first. I got told I was being pretentious for using words they didn't understand, and affected for assuming I'd hold down a full-time job. My MIL still thinks I am putting on airs if I don't censor my behaviour and speech heavily. There's no point trying to be 'myself' because anything that comes naturally, they will assume is snobby and trying to come across as better than them. So it is much less painful to be quiet and interact as little as possible. Sad but true.

Nope. But neither is DH really.

Weirdly (or not?) I am very much myself over text and on FaceTime with them but struggle more in person. I think it’s because, nice as they are, they have a ^completely* different lifestyle to me so when I’m there I just struggle to find things to do and the whole situation just isn’t me at all.

Yes, I'd say so. We've been together a long time and I've spent a lot of time with them - they were of huge help when I was struggling with my very unsettled first baby and PND and I essentially moved in from Mon - Fri for a time. They aren't perfect, like many parents they're a bit prone to stick their oar in and think the way they did it 40 years ago is best, but they're lovely people who are always there for us in a pinch. So yes, I might not be "down the pub with friends me", but I'm definitely "with people I know well and trust me".

Yes I love being around my PIL they are amazing. I count my blessings every day where they're concerned.

I rarely speak and they don’t notice or care. I’m quite the chatter around friends and and work. 23 years it’s been and DH still hasn't noticed or commented.

No. I don't think I ever really have been with anyone though.

I'm a confident person but being around my in laws makes me a nervous Pollyanna weirdo

I suspect my FiL has got the measure of me. I’ve always been on my best behaviour but he’s made a couple of comments and observations which were pretty accurate. We get on pretty well and I respect him an awful lot.

I’m very careful around MiL; I don’t let my guard down for a minute. She hasn’t got a clue what I’m like.

Yes, although probably a slightly politer version of my true self. They've been around in my life for a long time and have outlived my parents. They're not judgemental, or mean, and although we sometimes have differing opinions they're not of the sort to insist that only their side of things is right.

No. I am extremely uncomfortable and can’t let my guard down for a nanosecond. Any sign of (normal human) weakness will be seized upon, noted and used as a stick to beat me with at some point in the future. As soon as I give them the the benefit of the doubt about one of their questionable comments, and don’t immediately correct them, it will be followed by a torrent of remarks confirming my status as a 1950s housewife/“ignorant Northerner”/general lump of dogshit according to which particular bee is in their bonnets at the time.

Realistic sketch spot on!

Echo how can you do all that, it must've been exhausting??.

My MIL is like a second mum. I don’t get why people are all weird about their in-laws.

@ChristmasUserName2020

My MIL is like a second mum. I don’t get why people are all weird about their in-laws.

Allow me to introduce you to my mother-in-law. Then, you might get it.

My ex-MIL was a wonderful lady who welcomed me as the daughter she never had, despite the fact that I represented an awful lot of things she probably didn't want for her son (such as being a foreign national, when she must have hoped he'd move back home).

My MIL is simply offended by the fact of my existence.

Yes. I prefer my in laws to my own family.