CF in laws

[Picturesonthewall]

This is more of a wwyd. We live close to SIL and MIL is coming down soon to stay with her. That not the problem as she stays with us too at which point we always invite SIL and family here as anything else seems stupid. The problem is that if she does stay with the SIL, SIL never returns the favour. If we see them it will always because we host but I am totally sick of it. We get on well. That’s not the problem. It’s that our house is bigger and of course when we host they bring nothing tho will obviously get food/drink/any courtesy a guest would want.

So all of this seems stupid. Dh’s mother will be a couple of miles away, no more but we won’t see her, or them, unless we host. Regarding us not hosting, it’s nothing to do with the money or that we are being tight. It’s the principle. It seems so one sided with a dash of cheeky . So wwyd?

Don’t invite them and wait.
If you have a good relationship, they will start asking why they haven’t seen you for a while.
Tell them you can’t afford to have everyone over all the time, with no input at all.
Then wait and see what they propose.

It's horrible knowing that they don't treat you well

There’s always one that says it must be because the OP ‘doesn’t like them’

Next time they bring it up say it’s their turn

If they say they can’t afford it say you can’t either and leave it - wait until they come up with suggestions to meet and only agree to ones that suit you

I think maybe, if you can't be straightforward with them and neither can your DH, then you could try the "oh but the X room is in the process of being decorated, we can't possibly have people over at the moment." option.
Of course, then you might have to actually decorate X room to back it up, but technically that's a win win (unless the rooms have all recently been done)

Just find ways that it is inconvenient to host more than just your MIL at your house. If your SIL suggests coming over, say "no that doesn't work for us, we could meet at the park/pub/restaurant/coffee place - and work out what we can do then". At no point invite them to any of those places, just say "we could meet".

Your nature is working against you here so you're either going to have to go against your nature as it has been so far, or you're going to end up resenting that they just keep taking advantage of you. Also your DH needs to work with you on this.