What’s a weird thing your In-Laws do?

[FirstFallopians]

I was thinking there about how my BIL maintains that all families are a little bit weird to someone else.

Thought he was being flippant but then I remembered that my in-laws keep their family toothbrushes and toothpaste in a drawer in their bathroom. If you need a bit of floss after Sunday lunch you need to stick your hand into a sticky, damp mass of plastic and bristles.

What slightly weird things do your in-laws do?

Fucking hell. 😳

I adore my PIL and they are beyond brilliant, but my MIL has a bizarre/hilarious habit which we call "minimising" where she'll cut down packaging to throw it away while you're still using the item. So if you've eaten the top three inches of rice krispies in the packet, next time you open the cupboard the top three inches of cardboard box will have been cut away. Sometimes she rips the top half of the page of the newspaper away when she's read it, and will then carry on reading the bottom half of the page.

No one knows why. She always does it at her house, occasionally at our house and even once at my SIL's ex-husband's house (everyone's still extremely friendly, he found it bizarre/hilarious too). DH says she's done it forever.

My MIL doesn't get dressed on Sundays. Sunday is pjs day, even though we visit for dinner every other week. She doesn't even put on a bra. I love slobbing around in my pjs more than most, but not when I have guests!

Can’t really think of any specific behaviours other than obsessive use of hand sanitizer. They are nuts, but it’s a kind of hidden craziness that creeps up on you gradually over a few years.

My in laws go on holiday on their family members birthdays. It happens too often to be a coincidence.

My in-laws died many years ago and were lovely people but had their quirks nevertheless. They were obsessed with toilet rolls. Wherever they travelled they took toilet rolls in the suitcases as if they hadn’t been invented anywhere else. When a new supermarket opened near them they had a trolley each and packed them to the gunnels with toilet rolls.

I don’t have IL ones but I think we probably have a few of our own that are normal to us but others may raise an eyebrow.

We all clean our teeth our teeth in the kitchen.

The children always get dressed in the kitchen.

We have different slippers for different rooms, depending on whether it’s hard floors or carpet and change over at the threshold.

We use a pan to make hot drinks instead of the kettle.

What a great thread. I've been holding it in for too long.

MIL never ever puts anything in the sink. Her own dishes are always done immediately and kitchen is completely spotless, without even as much as a toaster on the counter top.

We tend to pile up dirty dishes in the sink to, uhm, soak 😅. I promise we're not filthy, but having small DCs means it's never pristine.

MIL always expects to be waited on, even straight after I had babies, which really annoyed me. On the rare occasions she makes herself a drink in our house, she always leaves the dirty teaspoon on the clean countertop. Despite the sink being just there (with plenty of spoons in it, probably) AND a huge spoon rest!
Drives me crazy.

They also don't recycle and use lots of foil to wrap the tiniest things instead of using reusable containers. They get me lovely gifts but always wrap them in lots of non recyclable paper, using way too much tape- think all around it. It used to upset me and I tried to start using reusable bags for gifts, as I am not really bothered about wrapped gifts, but it didn't catch on.

No one, not my DH or my SIL can figure out ILs complex system of waste management. Waste must be emptied into a mystery place none of us are allowed know about in case we get it wrong. If you stand with a tea bag dangling asking where to throw it someone jumps up and removes it from the room. I've enquired and been told 'we'll deal with it', they have a series of unmarked bins in a utility room but even when DH asked which is which he got the same answer. Its like the 3rd secret of Fatima and a bit of an ongoing joke with us.

Another weirdo here. Can’t stand bins, dirty smelly annoying things. All rubbish into disposable bag. Done & dusted.

My parents eat a take away pizza at the table with cutlery and plates. They even warm the plates up while the delivery is on its way. Surely the point of a take away is zero effort?

🤣🤣🤣

Ok why for each

Well you do have bins @DemelzaandRoss, they’re just disposable ones in the shape of bags 😂 That’s no more sanitary than using a bin.

I adore my mil-she's an angel on this earth

She took me in,and showed me what a mothers love is (mines a narc)

But by God,she's set in her ways

At Christmas,I'm all for 'rip it all open,at once'

She's more a 'open a present an hour-anything else is greedy' (we'll still be opening presents at bedtime)

She also measures my baileys so I don't get too pissed (she's not tight-she does the same with her drinks)

I can have the whole bottle if I want it-just carefully measured per glass and its got to be washed up in between drinks

She takes about 15 minutes to make a cup of tea

When I do my washing,I just chuck it all in (it's only dp and I so nothing left in pockets)

She separates every sock,pair of pants,pillowcase etc,checks every pocket-twice and puts it all in,an item at a time

Shopping is interesting

She will check every item at least 3 times,potter back and forth between items and dither on which one to buy (darling fil,when he was alive,used to joke about it)

She refuses to use the dishwasher unless we go down to see her-even though her brother went to a lot of trouble to find,buy and install it

She refuses to use the internet-but will ask me sometimes to buy her things 'via your computer' (She can't get her head round the fact I use my phone)

We then row over who's paying (I'm more than happy to buy her whatever-its never over £10 but she won't have it-we normally compromise and 'ill pay you later' I always 'forget')

When she comes to stay,she will fill the car with her own bedding (she seems to think we don't have any for her),her own tea bags,milk and mug,enough shopping to fill tesco (she seems to think we have 50p to live on a month) and her normal luggage

She's stubbornly independent,fiercely strong and we utterly adore her

Wash her underwear and socks in the bidet

Surely not!! 😵disgusting!

My BIL was in a relationship with a woman from China and on one of his visits over there they got married. However, he didn't tell anyone beforehand and he just came home wearing a wedding ring. Apparently my in laws suspected he'd gotten married but NO ONE ASKED HIM! For months it just wasn't mentioned. One day I asked him outright and he told me all about it.

I have absolutely no idea why everyone was so cagey about it. It was bizarre.

My family are really fucking weird. I'm sure my husband would have a field day with this thread.

My inlaws were wonderful people. Quirky but lovely.

One stand out thing was using 1 or 2 teabags for 5 or more cups of tea. Not in a teapot either so the bags stood no chance. They had a special set of teabag tongs to dip them in the hot water, one cup after another. No squeezing of the bag to get out any extra drops either so the tea was always a bit 'thin'.

Then again, I'm from a family where the teapot is on the go all day so more used to stronger tea - perhaps it's me who's the heathen

I forgot to add, my MIL also irons socks!!
Whereas I tend to not buy any clothes that require ironing at all. I just try not to do it.

DPIL and DPs are relatively normal judging by this thread - although for many years I was baffled by the bathroom sink at DPIL's that had the hot and cold taps on the 'wrong' way round. They had 5 sinks in the house but only that one had the taps that way round, through several changes of sink & tap because DFIL liked it that way. He never used that bathroom!

Their friends were the best source of these stories though. There was a lovely man who waited outside the bathroom door in order to squeegee the shower after each use. He didn't trust anyone else to do it!

Mine make Xmas dinner with no gravy. I bloody love gravy.

Our kids also brush their teeth in the kitchen on weekdays. If I sent them back upstairs (4 and 9), I'd lose them to the Beano / Sylvanian Families and have to go and hound them back downstairs. They get dressed, come down, eat breakfast and then we brush teeth, hair and wash faces in the kitchen and go. We have a drawer in the kitchen with their toothbrushes and paste, hairbrushes and bobbles and clean facecloths. Is that weird?!

We do this too 😂

With PIL, everything that could conceivably be spicy has to be spicy. Condiments, snacks, crisps, dips, cheese, every meal (bar breakfast) has to contain chilli in some shape or form.
All of DH's family suffer from indigestion and stomach issues. Could it be the chillies? Of course not..