To ask how you deal with inlaws that you have absolutely nothing in common with?!

[Lovingtheisland]

As title.

I have tried for the last 6.5 years, I really have but I’ve come to the conclusion that I just don’t enjoy their company. They are completely different from me and my friends, from my own family. They don’t like doing anything, other than sitting around watching tv, they claim to be a really close family yet none of them really seem to have anything in common or anything to speak to one another about. It’s a lot of just sitting about making stifled conversation, with MIL giving me a look if I dare have more than 1 glass of wine etc.

Spending time with them is becoming increasingly difficult as I just find it mentally draining. It doesn’t help that we live 3 hours away so whenever we see them it’s either them staying with us for 3-4 days or us staying with them for 3-4 days. I feel like I can’t escape- MIL gets a face on her if I disappear off upstairs for 15 mins just to get a bit of breathing space etc.

Anyway, I digress, how do you deal with inlaws that you just don’t really have anything in common with etc? How do you manage to spend large quantities of time with them without it being obvious that you’re bored out of your mind?!

My IL’s aren’t bad people, for some reason Im just getting more intolerant of them.

Do you have DCs? They must need to go out, be entertained, burn off energy.

If no DCs then you need to have firm words with your DH. I did this with mine and made it clear that seeing his parents was for his benefit not mine and he needed to sort it out - shorter visits, staying at hotel, going on his own, announcing that we had a day trip planned, I didn't care but it needed sorting.

He stepped up. Visits got more bearable. I completely ignore any 'looks'. At some point MIL and I reached a point of understanding and we like each other now.

However - we live 3 hours away, don't think we have done more than 2 nights in a row. I also think my SIL smuggles alcohol in her suitcase when she stays. You could try that?

This hasn’t changed for me for 20 years. I have cut down on visits over the last few - DH has taken them alone once (but I had a genuine excuse of work). I’ve put my foot down over the two week holidays we used to spend ANNUALLY with them, and that is now only once every two years for a week.

We’re 5+ hours away so the visits tend to be LONG. However, much better when we meet with BIL and SIL. And I’ve learned to organise stuff for DH and I, and DC, to do without them, or we ask if they want to come along to xyz, but without them having the pressure to arrange it.

Can you fake an illness / condition for next time you go? It gives you a get out when you need time out. Or maybe something that you need to do? If say you had some sort of leg cramps and you 'need' to go out and walk for 30 mins to ease the pain. This would be my approach and they can't really blame you if you have a 'medical condition'. Also, I know it's not easy but try to stop being worried about what they think, it's not rude to go and do something for an hour without them if you're there the whole weekend, but make it something they can't make you feel guilty about.

My only advice is to go less.

I had 25 years of this. Sitting for days in silence in front of the TV. PIL never wanted to go anywhere.

We also slept in the front room so there was nowhere to hide.

MIL would pull faces if I went out on my own at all. I was expected to sit in at all times. Or go to BILs which was just the same.

I started going less. It got harder with work, we started going away a lot so I had no holiday left. DD was born and the trip was too much all the time - luckily PIL wouldn’t come here much as ‘it was boring’.

Worst bit was by far was MIL telling me how lucky I was staying with them and how amazing it was and she didn’t know why I didn’t know why I didn’t come for my summer hols . Would rather have jumped off a cliff.

You need a hobby, or DC with a class every Saturday!

Same here.

My PILs are SLOOOOOW and find it rude if you get up before then/help yourself to breakfast/try to escape their fortress house to take DCs to park so that they don't smash the house up

We've stopped visiting. We meet for the afternoon at a halfway point and do a picnic in a location where the DCs are free to run around. It works a treat.

I also think your DH should be more adept at handling them. His priority is YOU. You need to sit him down and tell him all this, and hatch a plan that works for both of you.

Don’t go every time (or at all). They are your dhs parents not yours. When they co,e to yours have something planned that takes you out of the house (or pretend to and just go out on your own). Like a friend’s birthday or hospital visit...

Or take up jogging or running (or pretend to) and go to a cafe.

You have just described my in laws. I come from a big loud family who use get togethers as a chance to have a few drinks, eat nice food and let off steam. My in laws couldn’t be more opposite. They rarely go out to do anything so don’t really have anything to talk about. I have just accepted it though, as like you say they are nice people so can’t you just accept a few days of boredom to keep the peace? I accept it as I know that these are the people that raised my husband so he has just as much of a culture shock when he spends time with my family as they are as opposite to what he is used to as his family are to me.

I think families come as part of the package when you marry someone so if they are nice inoffensive people then you just have to take them as they are. I really wouldn’t take the advice to stay in a hotel, I would imagine they would find that quite offensive. You have travelled to spend time with them not pop in occasionally.

Ooh the 'leg cramps need a walk' idea is really good!

What do you do when you are there? Could you take some kind of craft project (knitting, adult colouring) to do while you half listen to the conversation.

I think you need a few attacks of what my friend calls "diplomatic flu". That'll get you off the hook for a few visits.

My MIL and 2/3 of DPs siblings are lovely, but the 3rd one is not only boring as fuck, she is snipey, has some utterly repellent views and 2 very noisy, badly behaved children (the oldest is completely different, and incredibly quiet). I avoid going if I know they're going to be there, using various excuses ranging from illness, ill dog, pressing engagement elsewhere, dog sitting someone else's dog, workman coming to fix something etc.

It's only ever a day long event though, no overnight stays required. And they're always very late, so we arrive and leave early, and we leave the dog at home (she can't bear the noise either!) so we have a cast-iron reason for leaving early too.

I feel your pain. My ex-ILs were pig-ignorant and really infuriating, but dull with it. I stopped going to see them. The fact that I didn't like them was actually in the "unreasonable behaviour" cited in my ex's divorce petition.

I was half-minded to defend the divorce, just so that I could give evidence to show that disliking them was utterly reasonable.

I think families come as part of the package when you marry someone

I disagree with this. Some people just aren't your type. Marrying someone doesn't mean marrying their family and if they're hard work or miserable or just downright not your type, it's fine not to spend a great deal of time with them.

DH's Mum and Sister aren't my type at all; they're quite bitter and judgy. We spend the bare minimum of time together, never alone, and I don't consider them friends. DH's cousins and a few Aunts are absolutely brilliant people. I consider them friends and have forged friendships with them separate to my relationship with DH.

It's alright to admit you don't like someone. DH used to complain that he'd hoped MIL and I would be friends who spent time together the way MIL and SIL do. I pointed out that he's never considered my Mum his friend and never spent time with her as a friend and I think (hope) it clicked that marrying someone doesn't mean their parents have to become your parents.

I'm polite and civil to all of his family. But I won't pretend to be mates with them or spend excess time with them. Our free time is so limited with the DC's sports clubs, my work and the gym that I can easily find an excuse not to be around.

Do you have children? It is a real fact that once your children start school there isn’t enough annual leave left (after covering school holidays) for 3-4 day visits. Up on the Saturday morning, back on the Sunday afternoon. Or earlier if there’s a children’s party. //knowing look

Just plan the outings. Say you’re training for c25k/want to do 10000 steps a year/have taken up NT membership and want to make your money’s worth. Go without your family if you need to.

Time off is precious. Time with family is precious. Use both wisely...

No, no children. I do try and organise one thing to do by myself (go see friends/ do my hobby or something) whilst they are down but MIL gets snipey and says things like ‘You missed out on X as you chose to go and do Y’ with a pissed off look on her face, making it clear that she disapproves of me going off and doing something whilst they’re down. We have 2 dogs which I always jump up and say ‘Oh I must walk X & Z’ and she then ALWAYS says ‘Brilliant, we’ll all go as a family’ (as that’s the only thing they WILL bloody do!) I want to scream NO, I just want an hours walk by myself with my bloody dogs to get some space, but I can’t as that would be rude.

Whenever we go up or they come down we have SIL and her 3 DC and BIL etc too there. The two youngest are a nightmare, my house gets absolutely trashed and the ONLY topic of convo for the entire weekend is the ‘DC’ or ‘DGC’ they will literally sit there and talk about nothing else for 48 hours straight, except you to sit there watching cartoons on your TV for 48 hours straight and I feel like I’m going to spontaneously combust with tedium/ boredom :(

The reason for the post is they are ALL coming down August bank holiday weekend for 3 days and I am just completely dreading it.

Honestly, I could just about cope with sitting around the house for a whole weekend if the conversation was fun, interesting and stimulating. But all it is is talking constantly about SIL’s DC and the price of a joint of beef nowadays etc etc. Arghhh!

They are completely different from me and my friends, from my own family.

How does he feel about your family and how often do you see them?

Go and see you r family thr BH weekend.

Sympathise - although I'm 30 years on! Our big win was from the point we had DC, we never stayed with them - always in a local hotel. So they would come and have breakfast with us, we'd go somewhere, then they'd disappear home and we'd go swimming/shopping whatever with the DC.

Although we were usually there for 2/3 nights, we never really saw them for more than 5 - 6 hours a day.

I used to feel guilty as we didn't visit often, DS didn't really seem too bothered, and the more I've found out about his childhood, I'm amazed he bothered at all!

*DH

My inlaws are the same, but we limit visits! Unlike yours they won't even go for a walk. They only leave the house to go to Sainsburys. They have very little in the way of conversation and being there is a real chore.

Luckily they live in a large city and we have children - there's always something happening in a local museum/gallery/park which the kids would simply LOVE and that we MUST go to.

Two days is still my limit though.

MIL gets snipey and says things like ‘You missed out on X as you chose to go and do Y’ with a pissed off look on her face, making it clear that she disapproves of me going off and doing something whilst they’re down

Do you actually care if she disapproves though? What is she going to do about it, write you out of the will? Flounce off home?

my SIL is nice enough but she does not do family time with my family. I think she feels similar to you. At first I was offended but I came to realize that she was doing us all a favour, we see the best of her (as the time spent is limited we can all be on best behavior), she gets time by herself, we get a bit of time just with my brother, everybody’s happy. I respect her for standing up for herself and we have a good relationship all around.

Many people think their families are awesome but it looks different from the outside.

We are currently TTC and I I think once (hopefully) we have children it will be different thank god.

Our house is a fair size but with DC of our own, we simply won’t have the room to accommodate DH’s whole family when they come to stay. There just wouldn’t be room for us, 4 children and another 4 adults.

And when we go to visit them, tbh I would actually just put my foot down and say to MIL that I wanted to stay in a hotel, once we have DC she wouldn’t risk getting annoyed with us, she wouldn’t want to jeopardise seeing her DGC.

So, with any luck I’ve only got another year or so left of this but even that, when I’ve already somehow done 6.5 years just seems like too long.

I feel so sad, I got on so well with all of my previous partners families. They were all really fun and I don’t know, just ‘normal’ DH’s parents aren’t sociable, they don’t have any friends and are just obsessed with ‘faaaamily’ and their family unit. They don’t have any hobbies or interests (none of them, including SIL) so there really is nothing to talk about, other than SIL’s DC, which, after 24 hours gets tedious let alone 48. And in all honesty, when we have DC, I can’t say I’m going to particularly want to sit and talk about them all the time either, though I guess it does give me a conversation topic.

OK I could have written your post, mine are exactly the same. Three hours away, going to stay with them for the whole bank holiday weekend. I've suggested loads of times that three nights is too long but MIL thinks any less than that and it's hardly worth us bothering and gives us a guilt trip because I see my parents more often because they live round the corner.

We have DCs now too which I thought would make it easier but they don't actually show that much interest in them either. They want to see them but they don't want to play with them or do things the kids like doing so the kids get bored too.

It's difficult isn't it, they're nice enough people so I couldn't refuse to see them, I have to be polite and make the effort. But it's exhausting. They don't watch telly or listen to music either so in the evenings once the kids are in bed we sit in silence. I think I'm quite a shy person and find it exhausting being polite and thinking of things to say while never feeling properly relaxed.

Maybe we should set up a support group to get us through next weekend.

OP not OK!

You haven't said how your dh feels about the visits. Does he hate it too? Does he want to stay for three nights??

My family live 3 hours away.

We leave at 9am, get there for lunch at midday. Stay til 6 and then home by 9 with still time for a hot bath.

op. I have just read that you have no kids so why are you putting yourself through this?!? Thankfully they don't sound nasty just a bit dull and set in their ways. You say they enjoy walking the dogs, could you not meet somewhere halfway, both stay at a hotel for a weekend and go walking together? Or do more regular visits but just drive and not stay? What does your dh say about it all?
I wouldn't be putting myself through that if it was just me and dh as the expectations when you have kids will be tremendous!

I struggle with my PIL. They are very different to me and have very set ways (DH is a bit older so they are older). I struggle when we go to see them, even briefly, because their home is not set up for visitors (think two chairs at the dining table so if we do try to eat at the same time, two people are balancing on higher stools, things like that). We never go out either, as they're always "too busy" (they rarely leave their house).

If they come to us (never overnight), my MIL will clean everything (which sounds like a dream but makes me feel inadequate because DH doesn't have a job yet she says "oh, SoozC is too busy with her job to clean so I'll do it" so I feel bad for not cleaning more even though DH is the one with all the time!) and they never eat our food, they always bring tupperware boxes full (again, I feel inadequate that I can't prepare food they'll eat).

I am expecting our first this year and am not relishing the thought of visiting them or having them to us. I can just hear all the advice already, despite the fact it's been 50 years since she had a newborn. She just think she knows everything. sigh

Sorry, OP, absolutely no help to you, but very much feeling your pain!!!