To feel sad that they will spoil every family occasion for me.

[Chickoletta]

It's another ILs post I'm afraid.

My ILs are bloody annoying; this is not just my opinion but the opinion of their own 4 children too, including DH. MIL in particular is one of those people who has to fill a silence with inane shit and is always on transmit rather than receive. Even though they live close by and see my 3 DCs fairly regularly, I don't feel that they know them at all as they never actually listen to them. All DCs are very sensible, well-behaved kids but their behaviour is unrecognisable around ILs as the only way they know how to interact with them is to wind them up - teasing, tickling, chasing etc no matter what the occasion.

On a day to day basis I can cope with this and with MIL's many other very annoying traits such as re-folding my laundry, bringing shittyfood parcels for DH, re-arranging the kitchen cupboards etc, but what I find really hard to cope with is the fact that they will be there for every major landmark in my family's life. These people, with whom I have nothing in common, who irritate the life out of me and make me feel tense to be around, will be there for every special moment.

Even though DH also finds them difficult he insists that they have to be involved if my (sane) parents are going to be.

It's DD's birthday in a couple of weeks and I'm already dreading their visit as they will bring sackloads of unnecessary and OTT presents and make it all about them.

I suspect that I am being U and am prepared to be told that I am, but it's actually getting me down. Has anyone got any practical advice on surviving this?

They are your husbands parents and your children's grandparents so 'annoying' is not a justification enough to shut them out of 'family' events.

The fact you would consider this suggest you are very self absorbed actually and unable to see, or understand, or care about, the pain it would cause your Dh and them if you shut them out.

I often think on these threads that these DIL who are totally intolerant of others being 'annoying' are going to be the nightare MILs of the future themselves.

If you don't have the capacity to occasionally, for the sake of others, tolerate and make allowances, then you are actually probably the nightmare yourself, or you will be soon.

they may annoy your children, old people often do annoy children and vice versa, but creating families where the solution is keep children and older people separate as no one must have to deal with mild irritation in a civil manner, is not a world I'd want to live in or a family I'd want to bring my children up in.

Think about reasonable and gentle ways to deal with specific annoy behaviours, discuss this with your Dh, ask him to guide them, then put your own self aborption aside for a bit for the sake of your Dh, children, and your family. They are your family.

Another vote for that being the line of the week.

"Always on transmit rather than receive"

Brilliant. I get it all the fecking time. I just don't have 40 years of practise in tuning it out like my DH does....

i agree with baby they're your family - work on the boundary crosses that aren't acceptable and leave it at that. You don't sound as though you like them - is there a class/education level difference going on?

Remember they're your DCs' gp and not your friends, and they are important people to your GC.

to your DC i mean. Whatever I think about the non existent efforts we get from our collection of GP, my DC love them.

I feel sad for your PIL they clearly love the children and want to have fun and play with them, what’s wrong with that? At least they are showing an interest! Your MIL sounds like she means well and just needs some boundaries. Maybe you don’t have much in common and maybe you irritate the shit out of them too just bear that in mind

Loving someone does not allow you to tickle them when they don't want to be tickled.

So teach the kids to say 'grandma I don't like that, in an assertive way. Good life skill.

And tell Dh to be vgiliant and firmly say 'dad leave him, he doesn't like that.'

They would seem the type of discussions and boundaries occuring naturally in all families between generations and ILs in my experience.

equally, with likely to kids at times being told things like 'leave grandad to watch the news' when they're annoying him.

Other people are annoying, it's a life skill to manage this, and necessary for a family life, particuarly when you marry and you become part of a family which probably do things differently from you.

The MN advice of, no one should have tolerate anything they don't like ever, is really really bad advice for resilience and life skills. And a bad message for children.

You are annoying as other people remember, you just don't see it.

I understand your frustration, but I think its nice for young DC to have grandparents make a fuss about them and give them lots of presents and attention on their birthdays. Better than at gift voucher, accompanied by disinterest or criticism. If nothing else it will make your DC's feel like they are special and give them a bit of confidence. I agree with the earlier suggestion of having seperate celebrations where you can do things the way you want to do them. If you don't like the toys you can gift them to charity afterwards, the main fun is unwrapping with a lot of these things anyway. Or make some advance suggestions of things you know the DC will like. As to the chasing and tickeling, haven't seen enough details Do you think its inappropriate or just annoying OP?

TBF they sound like they are in the camp of "irritating people who I would rather not spend time with" than anything worse...and sometimes you really do need to suck it up when it's family. Sorry.

How old are the dc? Can't they just tell their gps to stop if they don't like the tickling and chasing? Mine have always been very vocal about things they don't like.
I don't think they sound awful tbh. And I think that maybe finding something which you do have in common would perhaps help ease the situation a bit - even if it's something insignificant.
Some people don't listen though, and you can either accept that that's how they are and learn to not let it bother you (ie gin) or just ignore it and tell them stuff anyway. Sort of breezily talk at them with loads of information. Might work.

Sometimes dc do like that ott wind up shit though don't they, but it's still fucking annoying to witness. My ds's paternal family are like this and it winds my ds up too, I couldn't say he doesn't like it that wouldn't be true, but it's still annoying and un necessary for a child to have to be happy and excited every mitute they're with someone, it's ok to be happy and content.

I could easily say too that as a result they don't know him very well, they only see him showing off for their attention and now think that's his normal personality but it's really not. He's not an annoying hyped up dick when they are not there. I also limit the hours I spend with them as I don't particularly even like my own child all that much when he is with them, no one is allowed to relax and he has to be thrust at the center of the noise and fuss, as a platform to showcase how fun they are.

It's so difficult, my x PILS were like this. Never happy unless one of their GC were so excited they were sick. Their idea of heaven was my idea of hell - all the family bounding all over each other, loud, noisy, shrieking.

I used to dread family occasions.

I moved 250 miles away from them - it's just a suggestion

the problem with moving further away is that the visits are longer, it is a lot worse. If you don't like sugared up over excited children for an afternoon, 3 or 4 days of it are not better.

You need to separate your celebrations so that you have one for annoying disappointing relatives and another one which ticks your boxes. The children will just see it as an extra celebration.

Love your description of your MIL. Both my PILs are like that but I could never have described it as succinctly as you!

the problem with moving further away is that the visits are longer

Yes to this. I've lived 300 miles away from
The ILs and it meant whole weekend visits all under one roof. And these would be arranged months in advance with alarming regularity. This was pre DC. Now we are a twenty minute drive. I still think it's preferable to living further away as we don't arrange big visits now (not as often anyway).

My friend's MIL demanded to have access to my friend and her dh (or ds in mil's case) calendar! She would then plug in their visits! My friend used to have to put fake stuff in to make their weekends look busy

Family can be really annoying but most occasions can be "managed" to minimise the aggro, As others have said you shouldn't be using them for babysitting. There will come a time when they are frail and then die. If you have made the effort to make the relationship manageable you will have done the right thing for your husbands family. They are not cruel or horrible people, just annoying. You will be an in law one day. It is a hard place to be, where you have to give help , love and patience and try not to be all the things people moan about. We want to be good mothers in law, just as you want to be a good mother. Have a heart. Nobody is perfect

@spontaneousgiventime - please don't feel 'saddened' by my post. My problem is with MY MIL not MILs in general. Unless you behave as mine does, nothing I have said or feel is a reflection on your grandparenting.

One of the things that makes me feel particularly sad about the situation is that I would love to have a MIL with whom I could have a close relationship. I have 2 friends who get on brilliantly with their MILs and my aunt is the most fantastic granny to my male cousin's children.

I think you need to start seeing the good in People rather than just picking up in all their bad points. I'm sure you can be pretty annoying too!

Thefishinthepot has got it spot on here:
Sometimes dc do like that ott wind up shit though don't they, but it's still fucking annoying to witness. My ds's paternal family are like this and it winds my ds up too, I couldn't say he doesn't like it that wouldn't be true, but it's still annoying and un necessary for a child to have to be happy and excited every mitute they're with someone, it's ok to be happy and content.
I could easily say too that as a result they don't know him very well, they only see him showing off for their attention and now think that's his normal personality but it's really not. He's not an annoying hyped up dick when they are not there. I also limit the hours I spend with them as I don't particularly even like my own child all that much when he is with them, no one is allowed to relax and he has to be thrust at the center of the noise and fuss, as a platform to showcase how fun they are.

It's not that the DCs particularly dislike the way their GCs interact with them, it's just that this is the ONLY way they interact with them and it's all about them showing off, not really bonding with them at all. They also do it at really inappropriate times and places - just before bedtime when we try to have a quiet, relaxed time before bed for example.

Recently, after a school play we were having tea and cake in the school dining hall - it was packed with people with hot drinks and they were trying to chase the kids around and play rough and tumble so that other parents were then tutting at the children. I did put a stop to this one. MIL also thought this was a good opportunity to strike up a conversation with DD's teacher and tell her all about their dog's diarrhoea, but that's another story.

They tell anyone who will listen that my wonderful DD (5) is 'so naughty', 'such a handful' when she is otherwise known for being impeccably kind, polite and well behaved and is only responding to the way they encourage her to behave. This makes me feel sad for her.

I've really enjoyed reading everybody's responses and agree that we won't be inviting them to birthday parties any more - the last time they came, MIL bustled her way into the kitchen where I was preparing food trying to take over and spilt a jug of squash all over the sandwiches, was very rude to my mum and made loud sarky comments about other people's children.

To those people who think that I sound 'awful' please understand that I am about as tolerant as it is possible to be with her in RL and have only posted about my frustration in an anonymous forum. I do not 'use' her for childcare or any other purpose and am really doing my best to cultivate relationships between her and my DCs in difficult circumstances. I asked for, and received, advice as to how I can make things better.

I kind of agree with @lethal. There’s an awful lot of nitpicking on here and not just from the op.

I don’t want to be That Guy, but my mum’s dead and my dad lives in another country. My ILs are rarely arsed to come and see us. I think it’s quite nice that yours want to spend time with your dcs.

If your dcs genuinely don’t like how they interact with them, then you or your dh need to have a discussion with your ILs. Just saying you don’t want them around at family occasions because you don’t like the way they are is quite mean if they haven’t done anything malicious.

DISCLAIMER: I may be projecting a bit here, as my ILs don’t like me. They aren’t horrible to me, they just don’t like me. Fair dos. I don’t like everyone I meet either 🤷‍♀️.

But I find I am on transmit rather than receive around them all the time as I feel like I have to prove I’m worthy of their regard, so find myself talking more than usual to prove I have a brain, life experience etc. I keep telling myself not to bother, as they will never like me. It’s hard to sit in stony silence with them though and when they do chat to me I’m so desperate to come across well that I chatter at them.

A recent meet up and a thread on here though, have made me realise that actually, some of them are just thoroughly unpleasant people who don’t empathise with me in any way. It’s strange, as I find most people fairly easy to get on with. Hey ho.

Ah x post. Your dcs do like it, but you don’t.

Well, beggars can’t be choosers I guess and we are decidedly low in the available grandparents department as I already explained. If I had my own parents around maybe I’d be a bit more discerning !

“They tell anyone who will listen that my wonderful DD (5) is 'so naughty', 'such a handful' when she is otherwise known for being impeccably kind, polite and well behaved and is only responding to the way they encourage her to behave. This makes me feel sad for her.”

I really sounds like you are embarrassed because you think your DD’s behaviour is a reflection on you. Your DD is wonderful, impeccably kind, polite and well behaved. And it’s not her fault when she lets loose a bit and might do something (dare I say) childish and even downright naughty. No, she’s only responding to someone’s encouragement and you feel sad for her.

Do you know, it sounds to me like she is just being a 5 year old who doesn’t have to behave perfectly and might even get in trouble being silly. Maybe she doesn’t get to be like that with her Mummy around and might actually like it. Maybe it’s only you who’s actually getting wound up by watching them?

Other people not having ILs or ILs who behave in worse ways is irrelevant. OP’s problem is that hers are a PITA.

DM does this at bedtime, not a problem for DD as she's so chilled, but DS2 is already suspected of having ADHD, he has to be forced to be calm and quiet after school, or he won't go to sleep. DM comes and I have a 6yo up at 10pm on a school night.