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?

Surely you would just put some in your bag?
I can't imagine asking for floss or rummaging in someone's bathrooms drawers , then criticising them for having a drawer !

You floss your teeth when visiting someone’s house?

They were very regimented about certain things. For instance you can only go on holiday abroad in august, if you go any other month they believed the whole place would be closed. So every resort in the world is closed 11 months a year. They couldn’t believe Greece was open when we went in May.
They could ONLY go shopping on a Saturday afternoon, any other day/time the supermarkets are entirely empty of food. They were completely confused we went different times ‘but they had milk/bananas etc, how?!’.
All electricals are the same. So a £10 vacuum cleaner should be exactly the same as a £200 one. They would always be confused theirs didn’t last/wasn’t anywhere as good?

We also had the conversations that went round and round for hours. If you were watching TV and someone went to the toilet, when they came back it would be 30 minutes about ‘where they had gone’. After a few days staying there it literally drives you bananas.

All of them (except DP, thankfully) are terrible at washing up. All plates cups and cutlery come out dirtier than they went in. My PILs will wash up and then leave the cold/greasy water in the sink to wash up for the remainder of the day. Absolutely baffles me.

Oh God I love this. I have laughed but I'd love to meet them or be a fly on the wall.

My long haired teens / young adults will shower with their hair in a cap and then wash their hair separately. Apparently they don't like the feel of the hair products/ wet hair on their backs and the hair becomes heavy

My DD is the same. She has autism and it's definitely sensory related.

I could write a book about the odd quirks of my family and in-laws. I think some of them have a common theme which is generational, ones like the hot plates thing. That's definitely an older generation one. So is hoarding stuff like loo rolls and tinned goods - lots of people who grew up in poverty do this. And I know my own DC find some stuff I do odd, but most people my age would find it pretty normal.

My own DMs weirdest one is that she insists on calling me & DH Mummy & Daddy. Which is cringe enough but when my DB and his wife are there too, they're also Mummy and Daddy so it's bloody confusing as well as weird. My DC haven't called us Mummy and Daddy for years so it's not even for their benefit, and often they're not even in the room when she says it.

So if you were at a family member’s house and you needed something to alleviate some discomfort, you wouldn’t ask?

Not a sanitary pad, a baby wipe, bit of floss or a few paracetamol? That is unusual- both my own odd family and odd in-laws have no qualms about asking for this kind of stuff.

My inlaws are more infuriating than weird. Lots of passive aggressive jibing at each other and veiled digs and insults, constant putting each other down in an attempt to boost themselves. Really weird and stressful to be around. They, on paper, lead privileged and comfortable lives that are free of any stresses, yet they constantly snipe at each other. Almost like they're lives are so mundane and secure that they need to create drama and conflict where none is necessary.

My parents, however, are downright weird. Set times and routines for everything. Down to the same mug at 4pm each day for a cup of tea. A different set mug for coffee at 11am, etc. Same lunch everyday at the same time. Set meals, ie, tuesday is always curry, wednesday is always quiche and salad.

They have no hobbies or obligations, yet would rush back from their weekly supermarket trip (same day each week, whether they need groceries or not) to be back for 11am coffee 🤔 like, what terrible thing would happen if they drink coffee at 11.27 instead? Really weird and stiffling.

I always do cabbage or another green vegetable with a stew-even if it's a vegetable stew!

My DH is the BIL @FirstFallopians speaks of in her OP. Anyone thinking that this thread is a sexist dig at the families of sons need not worry- MIL came out with, “well I’m sure they think we’re weird”, in response to DH telling her, aghast, at one of the hundred things my parents do that baffles him. So it’s not just women who notice!

MIL is lovely and has v good boundaries. However there are some things I’m just like “wtf”. No. 1 is the refusal to load the dishwasher as you finish with an item. Instead, all of the dishes from the day must be sat (scraped, to be fair) on the counter immediately atop the dishwasher, then you load it all in one go after dinner. She can do what she likes in her own spacious house, but our kitchen is small. When she and BIL stay I resent 25% of my food preparation space being used for the storage of dirty dishes. It drives me mad. When I try to clear it Sod’s Law twenty minutes later she or BIL will go, “oh, where is my cup/glass”, which was somehow distinct from the other twenty dirty items left out and intended for reuse. DH defended this for years but admitted at this year’s Xmas visit that it’s very annoying.

When FIL was alive he had a firm timetable of morning coffee, lunch, afternoon coffee and dinner. Dinner was always at 19:30. Always. There would be a great deal of consternation if plans were made which meant dinner would have to be earlier. Even when staying at our house (as guests, when most people would normally go with the flow with the hosts) he would be put out if dinner wasn’t at half seven. He’s sadly passed away and MIL has got more relaxed and will just arrange it according to the plans we have for the day. Thank god she has because we now have two young kids who are practically feral if we don’t feed them by 6pm.

Lovely FIL also had house trousers, jobs trousers, DIY trousers and going out trousers. Any normal day may involve up to four trouser changes. We would be staying at their house and we’d all prepare to head out as planned; as the rest of us were getting shoes on he would say, “Hold on while I change my trousers”, having known when he got dressed for the day that we were going somewhere.

I know my day will come when our DCs have friends and partners calling to the house and sometimes wonder what we’ll get called weird for!

Apparently my company used to have a tea lady that would bring a trolley around the office at fixed times per day. Presumably this was the only time that you were expected to drink a hot drink during your working day!

Given how long one of my team spends and how many cups he drinks per day, I can see the logic...! 😂

They eat evening tea SO LATE. If we're going for a meal, they'll book it for 8pm, which usually means not eating until at least 8.30.... I hate it

My ILs are amazing people but...
Whenever they visit which is quite a lot, more than I would like they ALWAYS just stand in the kitchen with their coats zipped up to their chins. You can offer them a seat and they'll
Always refuse, just standing in the kitchen in the way.

Eh?
8pm is perfectly normal time to go out for dinner 😂

The weirdest thing about my ex inlaws - who are nice and also politically progressive people - is that my brother-in-law is gay but nobody ever mentions it or talks about it at all. I've no idea if my in-laws know or not and my ex-husband says they've never talked about it with him either. I once asked my MIL if she thought my BIL would ever get married or have kids and she said 'oh no that won't happen' so I assume she does know. Well, probably. She might just think he's the eternal batchelor. The strange thing is he's not secretive about being gay in any other aspect of his life, and my in-laws are in no way bigoted. They're just not a family that talks about love or any kind of emotion at all. I often wonder if my BIL has got a secret boyfriend that he's never ever brought home.

Mine (although MIL sadly passed away 6 months ago) FIL still does this; coffee only in the morning. Tea in the afternoon. No deviation from this rule, ever.

Coffee has to be stirred a certain number of times. Tea has to have a teabag waved over it, no more (basically milky water) they used to share a teabag. I leave DH to make the hot drinks as I got told off for doing it wrong early in our relationship. Even DH repeatedly gets told off for it.

FIL wipes down/dries the whole bathroom, tiles, floor the lot after anyone including himself has had a bath or shower. I think this is OCD though as he does suffer from this.

Lovely FIL also had house trousers, jobs trousers, DIY trousers and going out trousers. Any normal day may involve up to four trouser changes. We would be staying at their house and we’d all prepare to head out as planned; as the rest of us were getting shoes on he would say, “Hold on while I change my trousers”, having known when he got dressed for the day that we were going somewhere.

Awww this is lovely!
My DF is like this
Is it a shorts or longs day is often the question?
I got him some of those walking trousers which zip off into shorts " well I never ..."

That's... actually completely normal, though?!

My FiL went back to South Africa to visit family after MiL died and took his own toilet roll. He brought back some from SA too! No idea why.

He also counted the number of toilet rolls BIL and family went through while staying over Xmas and proceeded to tell everyone who would listen.

Oh! We do this. Because we love each other and enjoy each others company.

Didn't realise there'd be people bothering to judge us about it.

Aw my DM is like this, I love her. She has countless pairs of navy and black trousers. They all look the same to me but guaranteed if I suggested she come with me to the shops she'd 'just have to change my trousers' and come down wearing another identical pair. I find it hilarious but know better than to say anything!

My late mil reused the tea bags after we had our tea.

DP's mum serves bacon with everything and will sometimes shallow fry pork pies.

My MIL is adorable, she's a lovely woman but she does have some weird ways.

She puts very weird stuff in sandwiches - so she will have a Samosa sandwich or a pie sandwich, a pasta tuna bake sandwich or even a roast dinner sandwich (with the full roast dinner in it, meat, roast potatoes, yorkshire pud, stuffing and gravy). I still can't over the carb loading.

For Christmas she wraps everyone's presents in standard christmas wrapping paper then bags them together in green plastic garden bags then sticks the tag on them. My heart weeps for the waste.

She also can not trust her sons and their spouses to be adults so if we book a restaurant or an activity or say we will make a meal (they live away from us so come visit) she can not help but check and double check that the booking is made or have we bought the food in and ask how we are going to cook it and what timings we will use. She's also a bugger for being time anxious. So we will say 'The restaurant is booked for 1pm so she will say 'Okay, we will leave at 12' and we will say 'No the restaurant is 10 mins away, we will pick you up at 12.45' and she will say 'We'll be ready for 12'. I always thought it was an age thing.

Have loved reading this as I find I do more of these things as I've got older!

Late MIL ironed EVERYTHING - including socks, pants etc. Would not sit down to eat sunday lunch that she'd cooked until she'd washed up (despite me asking her not to and that we'd all do it afterwards) so invariably hers was nearly cold by the time she sat down to eat it! She always got the black rubbish bag out on Xmas day ready for paper rubbish before we'd even started opening presents. In fact we laughed about that one this Xmas when I did the same! She just couldn't sit down and relax for 1 second.

But I acknowledge my family are probably far weirder but I know no different!