To ask do you enjoy spending time with your inlaws

[ILikePandas15]

Almost Christmas so it's likely most of you have to spend some time with your inlaws. Do you enjoy this? I hate spending time with my inlaws, mostly my Mil and it actually ruins Christmas a bit for me especially since we are guilted into staying a few nights.
Also how often do you see your inlaws during the year and how much time do you spend with them at Christmas?

They weren’t technically my in-laws as ex and I weren’t married but I really liked his parents. I miss them and not the ex

MIL - yes! I love spending time with her. Infact we spent a couple of hours together today. I see her twice a week for a few hours and many cups of tea.

FIL and step-MIL - no! I have never enjoyed spending time with them. Fortunately we are currently no contact because SMIL decided that slagging off my 7 year old to me was a good idea.
(DH is happy about this because the relationship has always been tough)

Christmas just a couple of hours because they have their dinners elsewhere.

Yes, I'm very lucky, they're lovely!

I love going to stay with my in laws. My own family drive me absolutely mad.

FIL passed away before I met DH. MIL is lovely, kind and has always been very respectful to me. She's also been a huge help paying for DC's uni costs, so we are always happy to see her.

I can deal with the in laws better at their house than I can when they come to mine. MIL is really bossy, and tries to take over when they come to my house, they bring their own food (even if I've invited them for a meal) and bedding, she starts cleaning and reorganising things that don't require reorganising "pottering". She can't sit still or chat with DC, and is constantly on the look out for chores that I might not have done, or has to wash up every time someone has a cup of tea. If she wants to faff about for hours for no apparent reason in her own house, I'm happy to let her get on with it. I enjoy spending time with most of the extended family so that dilutes it a bit.

Little and not often suits me

...however since my own mum passed away I have become closer to MIL but she is easier to get on with in her own space or a neutral space (like SILs house... although she interferes there as well but not my problem!!😂)

Yes my PIL are lovely. They can't do enough for us but never overstep the mark. We see them a few times a month and spend Christmas Day with them, always stay the night before spending Boxing Day with my side of the family.

They are also utterly besotted with my DS, it's adorable seeing their relationship with him

Mil. Deffo not. She's a racist idiot. She abandoned her kids the minute they turned 16 and doesn't think she's ever done anything wrong, even though 2 sobs refuse to talk to her. We see her to keep the peace

Fil. Much nicer. He's very quiet but very sweet.

I love spending time with my DP’s grandparents, his grandmother in particular, they’re really lovely to be around and they’ve been very welcoming to me. His grandad can be a bit of a knob but fundamentally is alright, and his grandma is just wonderful.

I like his parents but they live in another country (military) and can be quite tricky. They’re usually much better when it’s just us and them, but when we add the grandparents into the mix the dynamic is complicated. I feel very protective of my DP when we’re with or speaking to his parents as I often feel like no matter what he does he can’t win, which can be frustrating for us both. But they’ve again both been very welcoming to me and kind.

Sadly my in laws don’t like me and never have done. I usually get on with anyone so it’s always been a mystery to me. They have made it pretty obvious over the years but I still go and spend every other Christmas Day with them. I don’t enjoy time there though as I just feel uncomfortable.

We have absolutely nothing in common apart from my husband. Mil and fil are incredibly old fashioned, narrow minded, primitive and racist. I have been pretty good to maintain boundaries over the years but still visit once a fortnight for a couple of hours to keep hubby happy. I dread these dinners and always come away feeling pretty depressed. Think I should probably stop them.. hubby suffers from FOG and his parents are like a massive chain around his neck pulling him down. I feel sorry for him. We don't have to spend Christmas with them because hubby's family are from a different religion, but we are expected to spend every holiday from their religion with them. In recent years I've started organising other things during these times, like a trip back to my country for the 2 of us or a retreat away on my own. Much better than spending time with them which is incredibly depressing.

MIL is a tricky one as half the time she acts lovely and the other half she's a bully. She times it well too and it's taken a while for my husband to see it. When she's nice she's great but I never know when the other shoe will drop. Her family is just ok, her mother also can be passive aggressive so I try to limit our time there--this is easy though because gpil's house is full of cigarette smoke and it makes my asthma worse.

Fil and stepmil are lovely, as is fil's family. We love seeing them.

Bil and his family are great, his wife and I also have similar experiences of the in laws so it's nice having an ally in the family!

PIL - No. Not that they are bad people, but they have zero interest in their sons life, and also in their grandsons (they don't care about me either and though I was miffed that it took 15 years for them to have any idea about what I did, its not a big deal) and so it makes talking to them very difficult.

BIL1/SIL1 - BIL1 is insufferable and treats 47 yr old DH as if he's 7. For reasons not known by anyone, SIL1 hates me and SIL2

BIL2/SIL2 - lovely and we enjoy time with them

My MIL lives abroad so luckily don’t have to see her more than twice per year. She’s not awful but we have nothing in common and she’s very formal - not the sort of person you could have a laugh with or be silly around.
My FIL is fine but again he’s quite formal and also has very right wing views on everything (opposite to me). He can also be quite sexist too.
My parents are both lovely and really warm and friendly but my DP finds it a bit boring to spend time with them too regularly. He thinks they are really nice people but just doesn’t have similar interests.

Nope hated spending every christmas with them for the last 30 years. Now FIL has died and MIL has gone in a care home where BIL lives so now we just see her for an hour twice a year and we stay in a hotel (as it's 5 hours away from us!) and get Christmas in our own home.

They're hard work and not natural conversationalists plus we live very different lives so we don't have a lot in common but they're not bad people. The two or three times a year we see them is the right amount and DP feels the same way. He prefers my parents apparently!

No. MiL is a joy sponge and a horrible house guest. I do enjoy the company of my BiLs though and the rest of the family are good fun.

FiL died some years ago but he was amazing. I miss him very much.

MIL is a lovely lady, I don’t really have much to talk to her about though. I see her every couple of weeks which will probably have to increase as she gets older.

My MIL is dead and I never met her but I get along really well with the rest of the ILs (FIL,SIL & BIL) and always enjoy spending time with them

Not particularly, bit I don't particularly like some of my family!

MIL has been divorced for almost 40 years and stills plays the poor victim. This is worse now she has dementia. She's a pleasant enough lady, she adores DD so it goes without saying that I am nothing but warm and welcoming to her as she is my DHs mother but I don't enjoy her company because we are very different people.

FIL and his wife - don't particularly like him, he's quite pompous but his wife is lovely. We usually leave the men to make the food and go get slowly sloshed on good white wine and gin.

SIL, also has a big victim mentality and is very entitled. She's 45 but everything wrong in her life is her father's fault because he left.

Aunts and uncles and cousins. Nice enough people but quite snobby (they were shocked I'm from a council estate, my dad was a factory worker and I still went to university 🤔).

As a group they are quite overbearing but luckily very generous with drinks and cake!!!

I do feel bad saying it, would never ever even hint that I dislike spending time with them and always make sure they get equal time as my family but it wouldn't be my first choice to be honest.

FIL works away a lot so we don’t get to see him as often, but we try to see MIL at least once a fortnight now that we have a baby. She’s lovely, very helpful and thoughtful, and absolutely dotes on our little girl. As does FIL, when he does get to see her.

MIL yes, I adore her! She's a talker and her language is my second language so I can get a bit tired after more than a couple of days in a row of incessant conversation in my second language but I love her to bits. She's thoughtful, lovely, giving, just a delight.

FIL somewhat less so. He tends to lie on the sofa all day in a ratty dressing gown and not much else. He'll have the tv on incredibly loud (I hate background noise, misophonia ftw) and he'll often just fall asleep and then start snoring (trigger for sure). Having said that, he's much improved from a decade ago and will at least smile at me now and then. Hunting season is the best because then he's usually out!