How to like my in laws more

[kittycat84]

Help me finds ways to enjoy spending time with my pil?
I've tried! Honesty! It's just hard, I'm never rude or impolite to then, but I just find it all so draining, I use to have more energy in the beginning and could "fake" it but this last year I'm worn out, and think nope! The only way I can describe them is very sober!
There's not much fun, no laugher, energy! There not nasty or spiteful , mean well , but .. sorry to say it, soo boring, mil loves to worry, and then loves to put that worry on you, tries to tell me things on the sly that my hubby wouldn't like somthing, ( we've been married 10 years) , like if I want to plan a day out, or a trip)
I don't want to not like his parents, but I've not energy for a conversation! In the last 12 years! We've never just watched a film! The tv even gets turned off at Christmas, they don't want to play any games and just want to drink water! I just want to relax! We work so hard! and I just want to be able to have abit of fun, where just about to have a baby, and i wonder how it will be with them, they do live local, help me! I don't want my hubby to think I don't want to spend time with his folks, he knows what there like but he's just use to it xx

My autocorrect keeps putting ‘s when I don’t want it. Babies.

www.reddit.com/r/JUSTNOMIL/comments/3dxxo2/its_time_for_motherinlaw_bingo/

It isn't just PIL though is it. The OP said her DH is nothing like his parents, it is his parents that he too doesn't enjoy spending time with.

My parents are the same, we sit...and sit...and sit. Ailments, neighbors we haven't met, family who never do anything right...is it just an age thing.

It has made me so much more cautious about my children visiting, trying to make an effort to 'do'; planning to play a game, watch a film, even a jigsaw. I HATE sitting making conversation, so tiring for everyone.

How often do you spend with them and how long each time? i am just trying to get a sense of the full horror.....

it sounds very draining indeed and I recall it well.

Haha I love the bingo game! She defo needs to know where we are and what we're doing, she likes to have my shifts for the month, they do have a habit of just turning up at our house when we have literally just walked in, I had to put a stop to that! As I was finding myself dreading coming home, I wish they would be involved and do things for us, our house was a complete renovation and they would just sit there!! They are both mobile and capable, in there 60's but act about 80!

Only on MN is the advice to go low contact because the ILs are 'boring', not abusive, or undermining, or 'narcs', or alcoholics but plain and simple steady, reliable and boring.

Don't ask them to baby sit any time soon will you OP ?

Smith - you deserve to die? If anyone ever said that to me they'd never darken my door again!

Your in laws could be mine! If it helps, it became a bit better when my daughter was born. The only real shared thing we were so invested in! There are times I bite my tongue SO hard though, especially when we go round, and it's just not relaxed and there is always some barbed comment about me working full time. I am getting much better at letting things wash over me, and having a bit of a shared debrief with my sister-in-law after any major family events!

I agree that the baby may well help - hopefully a shared interest. Other than that try not to see them too often, then you'll be more tolerant when you do. You could also suggest that they accompany you to the park etc rather than sitting in trying to mske conversation.

I wish I could give you some tips but I've tried, really tried, to enjoy spending time with mine and after more years than I care to remember I realise now that it's just never going to happen.
Thankfully my sister in law and family live away so I rarely have to see them now but while my mother in law moved to live near to them, she now comes to stay with us (not especially to see us but as a halfway stop to and from visiting family in another part of the country) and her stays are getting longer. It's just so draining. She never wants to do anything, just sits in a chair in the window. She's bloody hard work! To be fair to my husband he will usually book holiday for when she's here so I'm not having to deal with her all of the time as he knows how difficult she is but he has no holiday left for this year thanks to a hair brained scheme his boss had about all holiday being taken during a quiet month (January) so when she visits next week and the week after, it's all down to me.

NewYearNewMe18

Of course go low contact if you find someone boring! Why on earth wouldn't you? You only have one life, don't spend it with people who bore you to tears.

Her husband can always spend time with them but op is NOT obliged to if she doesn't want to. Low contact is fine for people you don't get on with.

Not much 'fun' at my PIL either. Their holidays consist either of trailing round gravestones in Wales investigating the family tree, or visiting very extended family. They go nowhere else, ever, so topics of conversation are rather stilted and interspersed with FIL berating the DC for being 'silly' and shouting about elbows on the table. They also drink warm Vimto at Christmas.

Crikey they sound like my parents - and so YANBU!! DParents came to us for Christmas: arrived an hour and a half earyly, refused alcohol (stuck to water and tea), refused to join in the DC's games (only wanted to play I Spy), put the TV on when we were trying to get a game going, and went upstairs to bed at 8:30pm - although by that time it was a relief! I had some stuff planned for the next day, but they were up, dressed and out of the door before 9am ... haven't told them yet, but I'm done. No more Christmas invites - they can come for an hour in the morning, then bugger off and drink all the water they want.

She wants to know your shifts?! Op you need to reduce the info she receives about your lives!!

She defo needs to know where we are and what we're doing, You can't have it both ways. If you tell her about your lives she'll talk to you about things you're doing. If you don't tell her about your lives, she'll have to talk about hers, which you find boring.

Piffle11 It sounds like they were only too glad to get away - they're probably already working out how to refuse any future Christmas invites.

Why is refusing to drink alcohol a bad thing, @Piffle11 ? It doesn't affect you in any way. My DM and MIL both drink very little alcohol, and my BIL and SIL are teetotal. It doesn't bother me, I enjoy my own glass of Pinot and let them enjoy drinking tea or water. So what?

I don't have great relationships with either my DM or my MIL but that's not connected to their attitudes to alcohol.

My exes parents were hard work too. Too nice in the you know they’re thinking bitchy thoughts and not saying them way. Everything was ‘jolly good wholesome family fun’, the Mum cried over everything (even her son going on holiday for a week). She couldn’t deal with the thought of her 50yr old brother moving a 3 hour drive away because she must have her whole family living super close to her

One of the main reasons I dumped him was I couldn’t deal with the family! Felt like I couldn’t breathe let alone ever relax. I feel your pain!! No advice unfortunately, just like a rant

@Lizzie48 I really don't care if people drink or not, but my DM is noted among family members for noticing exactly how much each person drinks, and not in a good way. She makes an issue about the fact that we are drinking and she isn't ... She recently went on and on about my cousin being 'absolutely hammered' and drinking far too much at a get together at my DSis's, and yet my DSis told me that they had drank 2 bottles of wine between 4 of them. So hardly OTT. I didn't go into such detail as it's not my post.
@MereDintofPandiculation I guess you're right - bit of a shame for the DC, though, who are under 10 ... and if they don't want to come they really shouldn't start dropping hints from September onwards!

They're just different that's all. They might think you're overly chatty and exhausting OP.

If you really can't stand them just send DH and the baby when it arrives?

My FIL is lovely, an absolute gent. I have absoluely no time for any of the rest of them. MIL in particular is very hard going. Attention seeking drama queen.

The tv even gets turned off at Christmas,

I have the opposite problem with my MiL - she won't turn the bloody thing off, even when we sit down to dinner! It's surely a problem of people who are set in their ways having to cohabit in each other's houses. Are they actually nice people, OP? My inlaws are lovely, which helps me when they are driving me nuts. I find it helps to think about where they're coming from and why certain little things are important to them, but not to me. Makes it less irritating.

She does sound very annoying, Piffle11 but that means the issue about her drinking only tea or water isn't the point. That's only her preference. But I agree that if she's worrying about how much the rest of you have drunk then that's not on at all.

As I've said, my DM and MIL are both hard work and I try to avoid too much contact with either of them.

Kitty you put that so well.

Ruined the exciting energy. That's exactly what my in laws did, they put a fire hose over everything.

Everybody's different. I understand what people are saying here about boring people but some of the comments are a bit harsh. This is a lot to do with different generations when a lot of people stayed where they were born and families lived closer. The world was a smaller place in terms of travelling and internet as well.

I know lots of people who are stuck in a rut and lead small armchair lives who only go out once a week to 'visit the GP and go shopping afterwards'. It's either 'beer and rugby' or 'watching soaps, ailments, what's for tea, family, people they went to school with 30 years ago, Fred down the road and a long list of complaints about lots of people they don't get on with'. The limited conversation does dry up and becomes monotonous and I'm polite and visit but don't stay more than an hour or two to stop the rot setting in.

I'm a vegetarian who doesn't drink or smoke and I don't finish work and go bungee jumping but do voluntary work, courses, read, watch films, travel, days out and keep in touch with friends. It's just our lives are so different.

There is nothing wrong with being teetotal. It's better to be boring and predictable than be an alcoholic, drug user, abusive, reckless person. There's plenty of threads on here about that so it seems unfair to cut people off who do the opposite. Like I said, it's best to keep visits to now and then.

I also find the comments about having the TV off unfair. I turned off the TV when visitors called as it's rude and I'd rather spend time with them. Fair enough if people stay for a few days and everybody wants to watch a film and relax or spend a bit of time on their phones or computer but doing it all the time when people visit is rude and they'll feel unwelcome.

I was once invited to visit acquaintances and we sat there in silence while they watched back to back soaps. I tried to make conversation a few times asking " how did Christmas go?" and " any plans for the weekend?" but the TV ruled. I felt really unwelcome and could have done that in the house. What was the point? I never went there again.

Ditto for travelling for a few hours and stayed overnight in a B&B to meet up with friends at their invitation who seemed disinterested, clearly didn't want to be there and spent most of the time we were in a pub looking at their phones and giving me one word answers. I couldn't wait to leave. Perhaps I'm the boring person.