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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to think PIL are being a bit ridiculous re separate rooms?

113 replies

Irishchic · 31/07/2013 22:20

My dh's brother is 41 years old. He has been with his partner for 6 years and they have a year old dd. He lives in London, (we are in Ireland) yet whenever he comes home to visit his parets, he and his partner are not allowed share a room.

mY MIL's brother is visiting them at the moment. He is in his 60's and divorced this last 5 years. He has a partner of around 2 or 3 years standing now. They also have separate rooms in the house, even though they live togethe as a couple.

AIBU to think this is ridiclous? If bro in law was like, 18 or 19, i could maybe see what their point was, but now, as a grown man, it just seems a bit daft to me.

Am prepared for the flaming for being intolerant.

OP posts:

LessMissAbs · 01/08/2013 09:53

Their house, their rules. My PIL did this until DH and I got married and I didn't mind, actually thought it quite sweet. Once they realised I was a long term girlfriend they weren't really insistent on it and would have probably overlooked it if we'd ignored it, but tbh DH snores so...

Even they, traditional as they are, I doubt would have insisted on seperate rooms after the birth of a child! Is it possible it is their way of encouraging marriage?

hothereinnit · 01/08/2013 09:55

ah, now, a civil ceremony being 'out of the question' would send me right through the roof, tbh.

all well and good having religious views. fine. imposing them on others to the point of saying their beliefs are not good enough, Not Fine.

to turn around the 'woudl you cook a bacon sandwich in the kitchen of a Muslim household' question earlier - would it be ok if the PIL from the OP separated out married people from another religion purely because they weren't married ina Catholic church?

bloody ridiculous.

and that level of nitpicking rules (not accepting civil ceremony because it's 'not right') would mean I would not be staying there at all, and telling them if they wanted to see their grandchildren they could just learn a bit of bloody tolerance.

agendabender · 01/08/2013 10:00

the convention in my very traditional, catholic family is to basically act as though the couple in this situation were married. This applies to any relationship over a certain length or living together for some time, say a year if the relationship was new when they moved in. It works for my ancient aunties who attend every day!

agendabender · 01/08/2013 10:01

I don't mean lie, by the way, just treat them in the same way you would a married couple. Pretty normal stuff!

agendabender · 01/08/2013 10:03

hot the church views marriage as a natural sacrament, so if you are married under any religion it counts as equal to marriage in a Catholic church.

Shrugged · 01/08/2013 10:09

Ragwort, because its not a matter of someone giving you separate rooms for the sake of comfort, it's a denial of the existence of your long term, committed relationship, and of the existence of the resultant child.

No, no one is saying 'Do not darken my door with your illicit offspring!', but a family member is saying that under their roof your relationship simply doesn't count, and is treating two committed adult parents as if they were under-age teenagers trying for a shag in mammy and daddy's spare room!

neunundneunzigluftballons · 01/08/2013 10:10

Not in a civil ceremony though agenda

Arcticwaffle · 01/08/2013 10:14

My parents were like this (strict evangelical Christians). DP and I put up with it for a couple of years in our late 20s but then after we'd been living together for a while, we just stopped visiting, as did my sister and her DP. Eventually my parents changed their stance and let us share a room. 17 years on and 3dc they've perhaps got used to it.

It's fair enough in a way to have strict views about this but you can't then complain if people don't want to visit.

Crinkle77 · 01/08/2013 10:33

They are a bit but it is their house and you have to respect their wishes and they are from a different generation. Are they practising Catholics as this may explain why they are so strict about unmarried couples. My mum never let boyfriends stay in the same room. It was only once I moved out and we came to stay one night that she let us sleep in the same bed but I was early 30's.

DonDrapersAltrEgoBigglesDraper · 01/08/2013 10:38

My "rural Irish" in-laws are 70, and would never behave as backwardly as this.

Thank goodness my parents weren't either.

squoosh · 01/08/2013 10:50

Have to say I find it hard to get irritated by this and don't think 'backwards' is the correct term for it. It's what they believe.

My parents are like to an extent this but it's their house so I'm not too fussed. On the up side they've just been to their first civil partnership so pretty liberal in their own Catholic way.

Amber76 · 01/08/2013 10:51

I'm Irish and my PILs would be of this view too. We were together six years before having having a child. Mil was horrified I was pregnant before marriage - never congratulated me, etc. We got married when child was a year old. The Christmas before our wedding we were invited to stay but she said I could have one room with child and DH in another room!! Like shutting the stable door after the horse has well and truly bolted.... (Didn't take them up on their offer to stay btw)

squoosh · 01/08/2013 10:52

Now that is absolutely batshit crazy Amber76!

ComposHat · 01/08/2013 11:01

I think when people insist on this it speaks volumes about their attitude to sex.

FFS we live together we don't start doing the deed every time we go to bed together. Especially not in my childhood bedroom with a single bed and a sloping roof that would make copulation an act of yoga.

DonDrapersAltrEgoBigglesDraper · 01/08/2013 11:08

Quite.

Shrugged · 01/08/2013 11:16

You're right, Compost. It's hard to explain to people who didn't grow up in Irish Catholicism ((in the past, albeit the fairly recent past) how imbricated sexuality, religion and ideas of 'respectability' are. For that generation, sex was a filthy, impure source of temptation and moral ruin that somehow magically became OK once you were married, as long as each act was open to the creation of a child. The aunt of a friend (now about 65, and a pragmatic, straight-talking type of person you wouldn't think would be easily indoctrinated) said it took her and her husband several months after they married to get used to the idea that they didn't have to stop at kissing, and that sex was no longer a sin.

Shrugged · 01/08/2013 11:17

I mean, I'm 41, and we were taught that every time a girl crossed her legs (immodest), Our Lady blushed. Or possibly cried.

ComposHat · 01/08/2013 11:38

My parents aren't Catholic, or remotely religious, but were a bit cat's bum about my partner (now wife) sharing a room even though we were in our late 20s and lived together and had done for some time. My mother was flapping around saying, 'what if she gets pregnant under our roof what will her mother say?'

In a way I took it as a complement that they imagined our sex life to be far more exciting and active than it actually is.

skylerwhite · 01/08/2013 12:54

My parents did this to me and DH before we were married. We were living together abroad, and when we came back to visit we were always put in separate bedrooms.

My sister and her then DP got to share a bed, since they had a child together. I could never get my head round the concept of penalising the couple who didn't have a contraceptive failure! My parents aren't even old, in their 50s.

2rebecca · 01/08/2013 12:57

My first husband and I had to have separate rooms at both parents' houses until engaged.
A few nights in seperate beds isn't the end of the world and as others have said if we felt strongly about it we could have stayed at a B&B.

20wkbaby · 01/08/2013 13:02

Am I the only one who would love a night or two in a bed by myself?

No snoring, sweating, nicking the duvet...

I knew I should never have got married.

AdoraBell · 01/08/2013 13:20

Xiaoxiong we've had similar here in Chile, a lawyer has told us because we married outside of Chile it doesn't count here, we'd have to get married again under local laws. OH was shocked and worried, but not enough to comply with their expectations.

For my part I'm happy to live in sin, with my British marriage certificate.

BergholtStuttleyJohnson · 01/08/2013 13:32

Yanbu and I say this as a religious person who didn't have sex before marriage myself. My mother would be an arsehole abd insist on separate rooms but I personally think it's ridiculous. I'd never make a couple sleep in separate beds at my house.

LyraSilvertongue · 01/08/2013 19:15

Ridiculous. I doubt the couples involved would be having sex anyway given that the PIL would no doubt be listening out for any sign of sinful behaviour.

greeneyed · 01/08/2013 19:55

Ha ha evokes memories. Same for me and DH before we were married despite the fact we were late 20s/early 30s and lived together. They used to cone and stay with us and when we went to see them it was separate bedrooms, very silly.

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