to expect MiL to have at least popped in for a cup of tea and say goodbye to the kids?

[freddiefrog]

We moved a few hundred miles away from our families 10 years ago and in those 10 years, MiL hasn't been to visit us until this weekend.

She's here with step-FiL, SiL and her partner and BiL, staying in a cottage about 10 minutes away.

Kids have been really excited about them coming over, were looking forward to showing then around and doing stuff with them

We've hardly seen them. They arrived on Friday afternoon and had planned on leaving at about 4pm this afternoon.

We met up for a takeaway Friday evening, met up for lunch yesterday, and had thought we'd see them today - we've got tickets to a Christmas market where you can go ice skating, see Santa, mooch around the stalls, etc.

She's just rung to say they decided to head home early and had left at 11

I'm just a bit pissed off that she didn't just pop in for a cup of tea and say good bye to the kids for 10 minutes on her way home - they would have driven past the top of our lane on the way out of the village they were staying in.

The kids are gutted they didn't see much of her

well, at least you'll know if she does decide she has to visit you again in the future, you shouldn't make any effort to cancel your other plans/rush around trying to get her accomodated with what you're doing, as she'll just do what she wants anyway and not really want to spend time with you/the DGC.

She's gameplaying, freddie, in my view. Try to soothe the DCs and then ignore it.

alark I just seethe silently inside! When they do visit I get a very clear idea of when they intend to interact with us (usually around mealtimes) and plan around that. I also now go ahead with things that we would normally do on a weekend rather than clearing the diary completely and then feeling hurt/annoyed when they decide to spend 2 hours with us rather than the whole day or most of the day as I would expect. We have stopped trying to involve them in activities when they are here as it usually doesn't go to plan and irritates me even more. To be fair it isn't MIL it is SFIL who is over controlling and very intolerant

Thanks

We've had a lovely afternoon, nice mooch around the Christmas market, bought some over priced tat, made an arse of myself ice skating and done myself a mischief, saw Santa and had a roast that I didn't have to cook myself. Kids are happy again and have put it down to nanny's usual oddities.

Alark. I'm quite a laid back person I think, so it washes over me and generally I ignore it then phone my mum for a therapeutic bitch up . Our contact is generally via DH over the phone so I have little to do with her. We see each other rarely so it's never resulted in a big bust up yet

I'm a bit like a swan around her, serene and calm on the surface and a seething mass underneath with a very bitten lip. The kids adore her, so it's a bit like braving soft play, you grit your teeth in the knowledge it'll soon be over

I will never again go to any effort to accommodate her, lesson learned this weekend that if she ever deigns to visit again, we'll carry on our own sweet way

Did I see they have 800 miles to drive? Tbh I wouldn't take this so personally, they probably wanted to get some driving underway before they had a cup of tea. I know if I am visiting people, and am up early, I don't really want to hang around when I have a long journey. Be honest, would you be on here complaining that they only stayed for 10 mins if they had popped in? I can be a bit Locke that with my inlaws, there are times that no matter what they did, they wouldn't be able to please me. Just be thankful that you had a surprise day to yourself!

No, it wasn't me 800 miles away, that was another poster

I probably would have been a bit pissed off, given the song and dance she made about this visit, but at least she could have said goodbye to the kids. They were really looking forward to her visiting and saw her for about 4 hours the whole weekend