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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To absolutely HATE HATE staying in my in-laws´ house even though they are kind, decent people?

191 replies

savebraveted · 05/01/2016 14:01

I only do it twice a year for a couple of nights and it turns me into a horrible, huffy, critical meanie. I don't understand what happens to me. Admittedly, it is not a comfortable experience, tiny house, one bathroom for nine people, everyone shouting after bedtime while our 3 kids are trying to sleep, no space to put any of our clothes, no privacy etc.
My MIL is currently snoring in the most repulsive way sitting next to me on a small sofa and I am bored out of my wits while they all discuss their own family matters between themselves.
BUT they tend to our every need, feed us, shower the children with love and affection, the kids enjoy themselves and I don't have to wash up. Obviously part of married life is to share time with families and my DH is lovely with mine.
I turn into this horrible, snobbish person and I just ache to go home. Why the hell can´t I be more accepting and patient? I usually am in other areas of life - I just see this place as total hell....aargh.

OP posts:
rookiemere · 05/01/2016 15:04

Santa the glasses are roughly this size:
img1.etsystatic.com/000/0/5985843/il_570xN.255579851.jpg

Hihohoho1 · 05/01/2016 15:06

I am a mil and provide my dils with huge goblets of wine. Maybe that's why we all get on so Grinwell?

rookiemere · 05/01/2016 15:07

Actually this thread has reminded me how much I hate staying in people's houses and why I'm reluctant to book a trip back to where I was brought up which will require us to do that.
I'm going to suggest to DH that we just go for a long weekend instead and save the week for a real holiday.

chrome100 · 05/01/2016 15:09

I feel like this at my own parents' and they only live 2 miles away! Luckily I don't have to stay over, but even on Christmas Day I needed to escape for a few hours. I love them to bits but find the constant talking and formality (they are very formal) hard work.

tibbawyrots · 05/01/2016 15:10

My ex-MIL would have a glass of wine in my hand before I was in the door... made it tricky when I was pg and hadn't yet announced it!

My mother would pour a thimble glass of wine and then look shocked if you got the bottle back out of the fridge. Why even recork it when there's 4 of you drinking?

ApocalypseNowt · 05/01/2016 15:12

Have you got a spare son i could marry Hihohoho1? I'm sure DH would understand.... Grin

thegiddylimit · 05/01/2016 15:14

Thank goodness I'm not the only one. Now the kids are at school I send DH and the kids to visit at half term so they get to see them regularly but I don't have to go! I do feel terrible because MIL is really lovely and plans lots of nice things for the kids to do. But OMG they don't have central heating, have only one bathroom, don't get up until about 2 hours after we're all dressed and breakfasted, think it's abnormal to eat before 8pm and then wonder why the kids get exhausted and grumpy (not so much an issue with the school kids but it was a nightmare when they were tiny). And FIL boils cheap wine before he serves it in the tiny glasses. Shudder. Before we had the kids I use to buy them a case of wine every Christmas to make sure we got to drink decent stuff when we were there.

We're going to visit in the summer for a big anniversary and I'm already telling DH we need to stay in a hotel or get a self catering flat but he thinks they'll be offended (despite having SIL, BIL and 2 teenagers staying there the same weekend). It's very difficult.

TheWildRumpyPumpus · 05/01/2016 15:14

I have a similar problem with my own parents house. DH and I (neither of whom are slight) have to squeeze into a 4 foot bed which is matted with cat hair as the pets have full run of the house.

Food is bought from the bargain fridge (no money issues) and kept past its use by date before being eaten off more cat hair laden crockery. No dishwasher which would be fine if they ever washed the draining rack/board - both are covered with mould/gunk.

There's no telling them though. I clean each time I go and it's worse when I go back next time. I dread every visit.

TheTigerIsOut · 05/01/2016 15:16

It is the over crowded situation that gets you like that, not the inlaws. I feel the same at my parents' house.

The place is not small but my mother has a lot of stuff in it, so this last Christmas we were, basically, 3 families staying in the house. My former room has become my mother's office and is crammed with stuff. It was a small room before she added a big desk, book shelves and decided to change my twin bed into a queen size one for "the visits". There was probably about a 3 sq ft where I could walk in the room, no place to unpack my bags, I had been waiting for 3 hours for the shower to be free, and in the middle of this chaos there comes my (adorable) autistic nephew, connects his karaoke to my mum's computer and starts singing full volume. I admit that by this point I was about to explode, but instead I just bursted laughing.

I could have stayed in a hotel, but staying in the same house with my parents and my sister' families allowed us to have a lovely family time, like providing full time fun for DS with his cousins, I managed to catch up with my sisters and I certainly enjoyed some very long (and peaceful) conversations with my father at 6 am when he goes out to get the paper. Grin

Now, if it had not been my family, I would have made a runner after the first night!

tiggerkid · 05/01/2016 15:21

You aren't being horrible. There is no place like home :)

Frisk · 05/01/2016 15:22

BOILS wine? Was that that a typo?

BreakfastLunchPasta · 05/01/2016 15:22

YABU. I think you just need to be more tolerant.
I don't find staying at my in laws easy either and for very similar reasons. However, it's not all about me, it's about spending time with family, the DC bonding with their grandparents etc.
I also know that my dh doesn't find it easy staying with my family (neither do I, but it's more awkward for him because my family is...different) but he gets on with it.

GnocchiGnocchiWhosThere · 05/01/2016 15:23

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

fatpony · 05/01/2016 15:23

rookiemere - I so sympathise with the tiny wine glasses! My PILs have this minute thimbles from the 20s/30s, one glass just doesn't do it for me. I've been known to sneak back into the kitchen for a few refills while everyone else is watching TV. Plus their drinking water glasses are the same and it drives me mad - I have to get up a couple of times in the night to refill the glass as I've drunk it/ grrrr

highinthesky · 05/01/2016 15:23

Table wine is what respectable family people drink when having a meal.

Nothing vaguely slutty like a party wine.

Sparkletastic · 05/01/2016 15:30

I feel your pain. Leave kids to stay with PILs and you and DH book into hotel citing lack of space / bad back / rampant IBS or whatever saves their feelings.

Optimist1 · 05/01/2016 15:32

high, that explains why I was a stranger to table wine, then! Wine

GoEasyPudding · 05/01/2016 15:33

Staying at my inlaws I find very hard too. I become constipated both physically and emotionally...that my friends, is not a good combination.

I am all bunged up popping laxatives while I scowl at the polyester sheets and duvet cover. I also can't sleep well so I become an exhausted wreck by the end of it.

I get so bored as well, not knowing what to do with myself. I sit on an uncomfortable slidey sofa where I can't get any purchase to sit up right, listening to them below back and forth about cups of tea being too hot or too cold.

I have to go 2/3 times a year for 4 nights each time. I get far less time away on an actual holiday per year so I feel rather aggrieved about it.

rookiemere · 05/01/2016 15:35

Fatpony - I think DH found the glasses even harder than me as he is used to having about half a bottle per night (at weekends only), they even have this funny implement for pumping the air out of the bottle so you can keep the wine for longer.

I've started bringing along protein bars to secretly supplement the pensioner sized portions - next step is a bottle of wine or two!

fatpony · 05/01/2016 15:35

Oh god and the formality. I love them a lot but every meal has to have a full table laid for every eventuality - neither DH or I eat cereal yet every morning there is a bowl and spoon at our place (alongside the main plate and side plate)> `Then there is the sugar bowl, sugar spoon, fancy napkins, butter knives as well as regular knives, three different butters, three different milks (semi, full fat and soya), a spoon for each pot of jam/marmalade, it goes on and on. A different tablecloth for each meal and then an interim one put on once the table has been cleared. Then we spend about two hrs clearing up and putting everything away, only for it to start all over again for the next sitting. I sometimes feel like ramming my dirty toast knife into the butter dish and smearing it all over the table.

GoEasyPudding · 05/01/2016 15:36

...but yes, it's not about me, it's about family time and I have been putting on a brave face for many many years. If I could just even up the holiday time a bit I would feel so much better.

Pigeonpost · 05/01/2016 15:38

Are you me? I am EXACTLY the same, I detest it. We tried to say we'd stay in a hotel "to make it easier for them" but they were horribly offended at the idea so we had to suck it up. Grin and bear it and be grateful it's only twice a year. Our visit is coming up soon and I am dreading it...

BoboChic · 05/01/2016 15:38

ROFL fatpony. My mother was like that about table settings. Towards the end of her life she ate nothing but the rigmarole of hot plates, serving dishes and solid silver cutlery at every meal never failed!

fatpony · 05/01/2016 15:42

It's awful isn't it Bobo - made worse that I come from a super casual/lazy family. We chuck cutlery and plates on the table and people sit down to eat when they want. So totally against what I grew up with! At the in laws we all gather, sit down, and then MIL springs up and down like a yo yo as stuff such as sweetener and almond milk have been left off the table. Oh and top of all that the knives cannot go in the dish washer because they have sodding mother of pearl handles!

rookiemere · 05/01/2016 15:47

Oh gawd. I'd forgotten the dishwasher stacking.
It is apparently very important that the dishwasher is stacked correctly.
Only DF knows how to do this ( it is in fact the only domestic chore he has).

All dishes must be left lying in kitchen until he is equipped for this task, then he moans and groans about it and makes imitation slave voices ( see unpleasant political views upthread).

It's all such a production and we'd be happy to do it if we could just chuck the stuff in like we do at home - it's not as if they have expensive crockery.