AIBU starting to dread the end of lockdown and the beginning of tense in-law visits and family gatherings?

[Catslife123]

Disclaimer - I have hated lockdown. I’m desperate to get back to the shops, soft play, trips to the beach, museums, library and generally existing with less anxiety about germs. I do not want lockdown to continue and recognise that it’s caused horrible damage to so many people and their livelihoods.

BUT I am starting to dread seeing the in-laws again and driving 4 hours across the country, staying in Premier Inns and spending too much money to attend those really ‘fun’ family gatherings for a distant cousins 30th birthday. I’m dreading seeing the in-laws and having no excuse to keep some physical distance when I find them completely overbearing and intense. I’m dreading saying goodbye to them and at the same time making plans for the next visit. The pressure to go on holidays abroad with them, pressure for overnights stays at their house which is a very long drive away and pressure to include BIL (who makes MIL behave 10x worse). I sound horrible, I know, because they’re just people who have also found lockdown hard and they’ll be so excited about seeing their GC again. But I can’t fight the feeling of dread. Anyone else willing to admit to being evil and that they’re going to miss that tiny sliver of lockdown when it goes?

@AmaryllisNightAndDay

I do hope some of you with in laws that you refuse to see don't become the in laws who are not visited or not included in the future

Her husband can do the visiting and including of his own family since he enjoys it. She doesn't enjoy their company and there is no reason to make her own life a misery, nor for to expect her future daughter/son-in-laws to make themselves miserable when her own children will be perfectly capable of visiting her.

And what if it was the older generation who did not enjoy their DIL's company (hypothetical maybe, although may also be true in op's story) and they only invited the son and grand children to visit and expected the dil to stay home alone. Would that be grand too?

I don't doubt for one second that there are horrible, toxic families out there but this isn't what op has described. Just some Inlaws who are in her opinion overbearing and who expect too many visits per year.

All that needs to happen here really is to negotiate fewer visits and maybe some visits without op. Not fucking cutting them off forever. It's too selfish. Too drastic.

@Laiste that sounds really familiar to me and both sides of my family are like this. I do find it too much sometimes. But what I will say is that my DC absolutely love these gatherings and love tearing around with their cousins as I did when I was their age so in a way I’m happy to suck it up as I know they’re creating memories and friends for life in their cousins

@mammmamia oh i wouldn't refuse to go. Or keep DD from going. And thankfully because we all have busy lives it's usually not more than 2 or 3 times per year max (the big gathering thing. we see inlaws alone much more often).

I was simply responding to the basic call out of the OP - who's starting to dread some aspects of normality when they return

Almost more than the gatherings themselves actually, it's the build up which i find a bit draining tbh. She does really get worked up with excitement about these events and i try hard to pretend to be equally excited (to be nice, y'know) and i feel i fail a lot. It's every face time, phone call, or meet up.

MIL begins phone call: 6 WEEKS TO GOOOOOOOOOO!

Me: yaaay ....

lol

@Catslife123

They’d like to see us monthly (4.5 hour drive). Pre lockdown we’d managed to delay it to every 2-3 months but that was with DH feeling very guilty about refusing them to visit sooner etc.

You have a truly miserable life ahead of you if you don't get a grip.

Guilt seems to be a huge issue.

Find a counsellor to talk to you both about that.

You are parents.

You both need to grow up.

You shouldn't have had a child together if you are both so scared of yere own shadows.

Get some help to support you both.

I mean this kindly, but ye shouldn't be having children if ye feel so weak and dominated by people living hours away from you.

Ye both need to speak honestly together.
Get some support for managing this guilt, because you have such a long hard, miserable road ahead of you if you don't.

Take this pandemic as a great opportunity not to get sucked into guilt again.

You can do this.

I see what you are saying OP. I feel exactly the same except it’s not with family but his friend’s partner who is toxic in the extreme. I didn’t realise how awful it made me seeing them until we had lockdown. I really don’t want to see her ever again. DH and I have had a great time this past year in lockdown as a result. He agrees that if she wasn’t his friend’s partner then he would have no wish to see her either. We are stuck just like you.
They’re always announcing they will come over, usually when we have a quiet day planned for the two of us, they want to go on weekends away with us 😬 etc. So.....stand your ground, make a list of what you’re prepared to do and what you’re not. Show your DH that you’re willing to compromise but that you’re not prepared to go along with everything that his family suggest. We’ve been on holidays abroad with the couple I mentioned and they maybe thought it was ok but we thought it was a nightmare due to the woman. My DH pretends to like he for his friend. 😳 ........I feel your pain.

I get it OP.

I'm definitely going to be a lot fussier about which invitations I accept post lockdown (and will have to tell DH, who is much more sociable than I am, to rein it in too).

He’s instead dropping hints that we’ll be seeing more of them/trying for a fresh start/seeing them equally with my family.

We had this with my parents. One family jist wasn't good enough foe the other, they are different, some would say just common. So it's noisy, grandma never filtered what was coming out of her mouth etc. So we saw them 2x a year. However, they were also the family which was there for us when one of my parents died and other needed somewhere to live.
I hate that one parent for declaring that they don't have nerves for inlaws and that's it. They are different and annoying a bit bit the loveliest people. I wish they never stopped us having same relationship like with their family because now after the shitstorm they left, there is barely any relationship with either for us kids🤷🏻
Unfortunately when we were old enough to stand up to the bullying and wven realised what's happened, it was too late to build that nice family relations.

Just how some of the kids may feel.

It's obviously a different matter if the inlaws are genuinely bad, bad people.

Apologies for typos

You have a small child, even more reason to restrict long journeys. Even more not to travel abroad for a while.
You have thought about the impact of your personal carbon footprint, yet another reason to reduce the number.
This year hotels are going to be more expensive, or in limited supply, whilst people catch up on the journeys they have missed.

You need to have an honest conversation with your DH first, and also I think that you need to think that about being equal with your own family which may mean fewer trips to them as well.

Covid 19 for all the awful things it has brought has given you an opportunity.

@UntamedWisteria

I get it OP.

I'm definitely going to be a lot fussier about which invitations I accept post lockdown (and will have to tell DH, who is much more sociable than I am, to rein it in too).

Yep this is me too. Really don't want to go back to doing stuff I don't really want to do but I just know we will just go back to the old ways. My DH will never turn down a social invite even when it is really hugely inconvenient/expensive/not close friends. He just has this annoying sense of 'doing the right thing' even when I know in some cases the people involved wouldn't bat an eyelid if we didn't go. Funnily enough that is usually more the case for his own family and friends - different story when it comes to mine

Funnily enough that is usually more the case for his own family and friends - different story when it comes to mine

Which is presumably how OP's DH feels. His wife is available to see her own parents but doesn't want to visit his for the same amount of time.

I wasn’t suggesting I go NC with them. I want my children to know their GPs on both sides and, like I say, I don’t think they’re evil people. I was just having a whinge I’m fairly confident they don’t like me as the woman their son chose to be with. There were several things that gave that away when my first child was born. So I think the feeling is quite mutual.

I can think in my mind of 100 kinds of MILs I would enjoy the company of and look forward to seeing. Unfortunately my MIL is the one type of person that I can’t tolerate spending time with. She is intense - locks you into conversations for hours, psychoanalyses, questions, judges, has no interests (apart from psychoanalysing people) so nothing to talk about or for her to share with GC (eg. Gardening, cooking etc). So any visit feels like she’s watching our family dynamic and how my children behave and drawing conclusions on all of our psychology. Needed to get that off my chest. But that’s the specifics to why I find it so awful being with them. I don’t think I’m being petty about a personality difference and I’d bet that a majority of posters on here might find her difficult company.

I totally get you OP, I had similar issues with my in laws. In particular, my MIL. She just wasn't a very nice person (racist, homophobic etc), was extremely hard work and not really interested in anyone but herself.

However it took me a long time to realise that I didn't have an in law problem, I had a husband problem. He didn't enjoy visiting his parents either so he used to prefer that I came with him to keep him company. I went along with this for years but the visits got steadily more unbearable. So I 'grew a backbone' 😁 and told him that I would only be going with him on every other visit. I often visit my own family on my own so I think that's fair enough.

I also understand your comment about not seeing them equally. Personally I think it's fair enough to decide how often you see people based on the relationship rather than a point scoring type system. I've said this to my husband for years but it was only within the last couple of years he's started to come round to it. He's terrible for agreeing to do things out of duty or to be polite without considering if it's something he actually wants to do. (And then moaning to be about it!)

DH has always vaguely suggested that we host the extended family get together

^^

I'm starting to get the feeling that this is in the works for me too. There's NO fucking way I'm 'hosting' aka doing ALL the work the post lockdown get together. Not a chance. There'll be a thousand reasons why we should host, but believe me, I have a fucking 1001 reasons why we shouldn't.

MIL begins phone call: 6 WEEKS TO GOOOOOOOOOO!

^

Omfg

My mother in law is already dropping dates into Facetime conversations that I’m overhearing for when she can come and stay and when we can go to her.

I’m introverted and find it all too much. When we go to stay there’s always a large family get together with my husband’s extroverted family all trying to make themselves heard over each other.

When she comes to stay here she spends most of her time moaning about the family she lives near, she’s very judgemental and a gossip and I feel very wary and can’t relax in my own home.

It sounds like some of you never want to see your in laws again.

Do you have children @MadisonAvenue?

@RampantIvy

Do you have children *@MadisonAvenue*?

Adult children who can take themselves to see their family should they wish, although their grandmother showed no interest in them when they were younger. And both have lovely girlfriends who I adore and get on very well with but give a lot of space to, I’d never put pressure on them to spend time with us.

Why direct the question just at me and no one else commenting?

Because you said you found it difficult to visit your in laws due to being an introvert. As they are grown up my question is academic anyway.

What I take away from this thread is that many posters simply don't seem to be able to understand that their inlaws love their offspring, their grandchildren, and maybe even their DILs/SILs. They've missed them over the last year and are excited to see them again.

I honestly don't know why there's so little empathy. Everyone here with children is going to be them one day. Your kids will be adults, you'll have grandchildren you adore. Family time will be important. If you're kept apart for a year from reasons outside your control, you will probably be craving that time together again too. Posters with sons should particularly think about how they would feel in their inlaws' situation. And hope that their sons don't marry someone with a different personality to them.

What I take away from this thread is that many posters simply don't seem to be able to understand that their inlaws love their offspring, their grandchildren, and maybe even their DILs/SILs. They've missed them over the last year and are excited to see them again.

But not excited enough to make the effort to make their young in-laws feel comfortable. They want to see their grandchildren (and maybe their young in-laws) but only on their own terms.

Posters with sons should particularly think about how they would feel in their inlaws' situation.

I will do my best not to make my DiL dread visiting. And if I can't do that I'll try not guilt trip her about it.

He’s instead dropping hints that we’ll be seeing more of them/trying for a fresh start/seeing them equally with my family

Ah this again. You see more of your family than his. Why am I not surprised.

@AmaryllisNightAndDay

What I take away from this thread is that many posters simply don't seem to be able to understand that their inlaws love their offspring, their grandchildren, and maybe even their DILs/SILs. They've missed them over the last year and are excited to see them again.

But not excited enough to make the effort to make their young in-laws feel comfortable. They want to see their grandchildren (and maybe their young in-laws) but only on their own terms.

Posters with sons should particularly think about how they would feel in their inlaws' situation.

I will do my best not to make my DiL dread visiting. And if I can't do that I'll try not guilt trip her about it.

OP has said that it's basically that she and the inlaws are very different characters. How much is MIL supposed to change for her DIL? If their family house is an extravert place that they like to fill with people, are they supposed to not have wider family round? Learn to speak in hushed tones when DIL visits? When you're a MIL, will you be happy with a DIL who wants you to change for her?

I came from a very small, very quiet family. I married into a huge one, and my FIL was the most hospitable man who loved to fill his house with people. Most days when we stayed with them, I'd need breaks and would take myself off to our bedroom to read for a little while. Initially he was a bit bemused, but he understood in the end.

I can't imagine saying to my DH that we shouldn't go as often as he'd like (and as often as we saw my parents) over what is basically just a personality clash.

It's interesting that on another recent thread about why women see more of their families and less of the inlaws, it was never those wives' fault. It was about men not being interested in keeping in touch with their families.

Since I joined MN I've become incredibly grateful to have daughters (who are considerate of their inlaws and recognise that their DH's love them)