To think that parents in-law should treat their sil/dil the same as their own children

[bookbag40]

I've been quite surprised by a couple of threads on here where parents in-law seems to obviously treat their DIL/SIL differently to their own children.

One where the MIL paid for her SIL to go on holiday with them but not the DIL and one where the MIL spent loads on xmas presents for the son but hardly anything for the DIL.

I find this really hard to understand. My parents have always treated DH as they would their own son. We always get the same things offered to us and the same amount spent on us. I think they would be embarrased to give me say £100 worth of gifts and DH £20 worth. If they said they would pay for me to go on holiday but DH had to pay for himself I would be really offended and we wouldn't go.

My DCs are only little but I certainly plan to treat their spouses as one of the family. It seems horribly excluding not to do so doesn't it?

Wow

YABU

Nothing sad about it all, as you can see by the replies you are just weird to expect it

Maybe it depends how much you spend?
My parents spend around £200/300 according to need, and £100 on DH. They couldn't afford more than that and I think it's very generous.

Equally, I spend more on DH and my kids than I do our parents and siblings.

My PIL treat me like one of their children, and I treat them as extra parents. Its lovely to have a bigger family

I plan to do the same when I have SIl/DIL

I think UABU.
Families can be strange relationships at the best of times, but within that family you usually have years of bonds and love.
The child chooses the partner, quite rightly the don't go through a family process to check said partner, and this is another person to add into the family again even when good relationships occur this creates different dynamics.
If a parent wanted to spend time with their child, why not? As long as it was not permanent exclusions I see no issue with that.
I would not expect to take my husband to visit very good friends all the time as again it changes the dynamic, but some times we do get together as a bigger group.
The same as sometimes my husband invites me places with BIL's and I tell them to go together and spend that time as brothers, I am by no means upset about that, I encourage it.
My husband has also been out with my family without me, I have been out with his without him.

I say this as someone who's husband does get along with my parents exceptionally well, he loves them as much and his Mum and Dad, they love him like a child.
However they have built up years worth of bonds/experiences, he will call them, or pop and see them, take then little bits he thinks they would like independently of me.
He thinks they are the kindest, genuine people he has met, they think he is a good person they know we have a healthy and loving relationship, they have shared morals and similar outlooks.
His Mum and Dad are not in this country and he met my Mum and Dad when he was 18 years old, and they have naturally taken on this type of relationship.
Also should we split up they would continue this relationship.

They do spend the same/similar amounts on us, as in I have never noticed any obvious differences.

I have a friend she has been with her partner 30 years, she gets on very well with his mother, his Mum will give her partner money every few years this is given to the partner not both of them, there is a difference in monetary value, her Mum will on occasions give her money again this is given to her, both will see their family together and separately. Neither one has any problems and I cant see why they should.

Maybe if the relationship is happy, healthy with genuine mutual respect, the people involved do not have issues, maybe if there is already problems in the relationship these things seem important?

Cheesecake it sounds like we have the same ILs

They never want to speak to me, even though I've been the one to organise gifts, arrange visits, batch cook following a family bereavement (mil hates cooking so I did a weeks worth of dinners when her dad died just to make sure they didn't have to worry about feeding themselves - I even washed and re-bagged the vegetables), visit her mother regularly as they moved away, act as taxi driver, try to tell them/include them in wedding plans - you name it, I've done it.

They only ever want to talk to DH. Fine

Probably why the present thing doesn't bother me

I don't have any expectations. I don't see FIL nearly as often as DP does (they have lunch together quite often) but FIL is very generous about presents. However, he asks DP and I what we would like and as our birthdays are close we ask for joint things - we had a B&O TV as a joint birthday present this year.

Well BookBag40 I agree with you. Both my pils treat me the same as their ds, I'm sure that deep down they love him more as he is their son but they do treat us both exactly the same. And I know they love me dearly too, as I do them. In fact I sometimes get spoiled more than dh at christmas or birthdays because I'm easier to buy for (dh never wants anything). I am very close to both of them, I phone my mil for a chat (30 mins +) at least once a week, email/text a few times a weeks too, we see each other often and not always with dh. Mil and I enjoy shopping trips together and spa days and getting our hair done together. We actually enjoy doing things together as mil and dil. I don't spend as much time with fil but that's just because we have less in common (I can't imagine getting my hair done with fil!), we get on very well and he treats me like (and calls me) the daughter he never had.

I don't really know how else to explain it because this is totally normal for us, and it has been developing ever since dh and I got engaged and they knew we would (hopefully) be together forever. Of course we needed time to get to know each other but theirs and my intentions was always to reach this stage in our relationship where we are one family no matter if there is no blood link between my and pils or the fact that they have only known me 10 years.

I really hope I can be as good a mil to me future sil in the future because it does make life very easy for us to get along so well.

DS and i go out for dinner together sometimes and sometimes DIL comes. Quite often DIL goes out with one or both of her parents withou DS - i can't see why she wouldn't - DD visits me alone sometimes, sometimes with DGC and sometimes with SIL -

Yabu. and very needy.

They way I like to look at it is in this way - my D'sIL and S'sIL are my children from another mother.

I don't think YABU, but this thread has certainly made me think more deeply about these questions.

Re. presents specificially, I've never personally spent significantly more on "blood relatives" (hate that phrase, actually) than on others - eg. I used to buy nice gifts for my late sister's DH, & still do for my dad's partner. And my PIL don't make much distinction between DH & me, as far as I can tell, in terms of money spent. Though perhaps that is because they knew that, for years, I did the present shopping & got them a lot better presents than DH used to!

More generally, I think my PIL would say they treat me as a full family member - but that's not always been positive. My mum died shortly after I met DH, & my dad & I aren't particularly close (DP divorced when I was a teenager). So I think PIL believed I'd just be absorbed into their family, & accept all their ways of doing things.

FIL once said to me that he hoped to be a father figure to me, & I felt quite uncomfortable about it. Just smiled as I didn't want to hurt his feelings, but really I wanted an adult-to-adult relationship. I could see that PIL were both still quite interfering with DH, even though he was nearly 30 at the time, I didn't want them thinking they'd assumed some sort of authority role in my life. Our relationships have evolved but it's taken a long time to feel that I'm treated as an adult, & the same applies to DH.

I've also often felt that beneath the family rhetoric, I'm blamed when we don't do what PIL want. There have been plenty of off-the-cuff comments / digs that very much give that impression - DH sees them too. Some of it seems to stem from the notion PIL have that families must share similar views & have the same tastes. I've even had MIL give me dark looks while saying in a reproachful tone: "DH didn't used to like olives!" or "But nobody in our family has ever eaten rare steak!".

I do agree that where ILs are often excluded & there's still a lot of focus on the original nuclear family, then it's hardly surprising that the PIL find themselves on the outside when GC come along & their DS/DD & their partner form their own nuclear family. I have friends with very long memories about having been treated as outsiders, & TBH I don't blame them. Nobody wants to be valued purely as a GC production machine, & some PIL do seem to make DILs feel like that.

YABU. I think it is lovely when PIL/DIL/SIL have close relationships. But it can not be forced and the value of the relationship should not be judged by the monetary value of gifts.

Our first Xmas together my MIL spent a lot on me and I felt really awkward and embarrassed. She went totally over the top and I felt it was all a bit showy. Much rather she spent her money on DH and DS than on me. I'm not her daughter and don't want to be.

My PILs treat me the same as DH in terms of presents, invitations, etc. We have a great relationship - but that relationship is not the same. We met when young so I was only 16y so it is certainly a parental type relationship - just not quite the same as with DH and his brother.
My parents are similar with DH.

DH's grandad def treats me the same as DH - and all his other grandchildren. I call him grandad, and he would refer to me as his grandchild, which is lovely.

My grandparents live further away so we see them far less, and they don't do gifts for adults (too many grandchildren and great grandchildren now) so their relationship with DH is different to mine.

YANBU, as soon as my sisters and I settled with long term partners she made both own child and partner equal in terms of gifts. In saying that, my boyfriend's parents spend more on him than me but doesn't bother me at all as they have only two children and my mother has four plus partners.

I don't think equal presents or unequal presents or no presents at christmas has much to do with parental love.

Parental love is the kind of love where you give somebody your kidney.

Every time there is a family get together MIL summons "her" children (i.e our partners) for a photo of "just her family". Once brother in law was photobombing and she asked him to leave the photo. He quipped "why don't you just cut me out of it later with scissors?"

According to MIL, I'm not a "real" auntie to my niece because I'm not a blood relative (we are married so it makes her my niece but anyway). Yet I'm the one who takes her to the supermarket and does her washing...not my husband. (She's at Uni in the same town as me)

MIL will always treat the partners of her children as someone who has the potential to do great damage and cause heartbreak and hurt, and keeps us at arms length accordingly. Her oldest daughter got divorced from her first marriage and she seems to have used that experience to shape all future relationships with partners.

Even after my wedding, she bought some of the official wedding photos, but none with the bride in, only ones with my husband and "her" family in!

She's cold as ice.

My parents give us money as a couple and a small gift to open each. DS is buying a house with his GF so this will be our last Christmas morning as a family of four. Next year I intend to do as my mother does.

Money is all spent equally on all parents.

My mum spends the same on me and dh.

The in-laws roughly spent the same on me and dh I believe. She doesn't have a set amount like my mum does but I have never noticed any glaring differences in presents between us.

My husband's granddad always gives us money and I get less. Doesn't bother me.

It's reassuring to know, isn't it Cheesecake - sad, but nice to know there are others in the same position.

Tatty she sounds like a real charmer

What is wrong with asking for a particular combination of people to be in a specific photo? Presuming that there are numerous other photos of different groups also?

Dh treasures a photo we have in a frame of his late dad with his three brothers. Should that not have been taken because their wives weren't in it? My dad wanted one of all his parents' direct descendants (is a family tree buff). Is he not allowed that? My parents have photos of the three of us in a particular pose taken at various points over the last 45 years. No husbands or wives in the recent ones. Shock. Or the ones we always take of the kids and cousins in age order, which has now nothing to do with height order.

Are people really so insecure that they view a photo that they're not in as some kind of snub?