Am I being unreasonable about my in-laws?

[spiralBells]

Partly I think I need a rant but I genuinely think I need to hear if I have got this all wrong. Am I being a dick?

Context - my in-laws are nice people. My mother in law is very momsy and mainly likes to clean and cook - which she does a lot. In a lot of ways she is the mum I'd like to have had. They live in Italy we live in the UK. I am English. However, the down side is that they don't have any friends, and want to spend all their time with the family, where they eat and watch TV. Noone has any hobbies in the family, and they don't read, so for me conversation feels very limited. (besides my terrible italian which makes wider family gatherings a 12 hour marathon of not really knowing what's going on)

I am staying with my mother in law for Christmas, which we do every year. I am staying with her for 10 days as I tend to get anxiety after a few days and had agreed with my partner that we wouldn't do more than a week. Now they have invited us to my brother in law's wife's mother's for the 6th Jan (a festive day in Italy) I thought we were leaving on the 5th.Am I being unreasonable to say no?

One of the reasons I get anxiety when I am here is because I find my in-laws a terrible struggle. They are nice people, but I would go as far as saying I don't like them - maybe it is just that I hate spending time with them. To see them for a day would be fine, but they want us to spend weeks at a time living in their house. They invite us on their holidays where they have chosen the location and all the activities (which isn't many). They don't have any conversation, and I worry all the time about offending them as they have a very small view of the world.

The expectation is that we spend a lot of our Christmas time at my brother in-law's apartment because they have a toddler (our nephew). We have no children, and our chances of ever having children are small. If my first miscarriage had carried through to term, our baby would be the same age as our nephew. This is obviously upsetting for me but it is very important to my husband and my mother in law that we spend a lot of time with our nephew. My husband says he understands why I would find this difficult, but he tends to minimise the similarities (for example, his brother's baby was due more than a month after ours and he tends to correct me with this fact to ensure I am not exaggerating the situation.) His family generally don't like to talk about bad things, and the feeling is to think optimistically and then everything will be alright. I have been given this advice actually by my mother in-law.

I thought this week had gone well. I didn't have any panic attacks from awkward encounters, Italian drink driving expeditions or faking smiles for baby photos. But for me, extending the holiday by a single day has pushed me over the edge. Another 12 hours of sitting in a distant family member's apartment for another marathon of smiling at the baby and staring at Italian day time TV.

I told my husband I don't want to go. He has stormed out. I also know that he really misses his parents, and if we hadn't gotten married he would have moved back to be 5 minutes from his parents, and be at their house almost every day. I know I am going to agree to go on the 6th, but I know each time I do this I feel like I am making my life a tiny bit more unbearable. But then I think I am being melodramatic and should just grin and bear it.

Am I being unreasonable?

Hi OP. Have you tried going to therapy? It sounds like the trauma from your difficult relationship with your mother is affecting your relationships with others, including your in-laws. It might be really helpful to talk about this with a professional.

OP I get on really well with my in-laws and we speak the same language, but 5 days is the max for me (and them!), and we plan separate activities as well as joint ones during that period. Plus we have kids to distract everyone! So I think your DH really is asking too much. I would go home as planned (he can stay until the 6th if he wants!) and then a BIG discussion when you get home.

He needs to agree: Never longer than 7 days, twice a year, and he goes twice a year more without you. Do whatever you want with your own family, that has absolutely nothing to do with them. DH doesn't need to join you on those trips.

If he won't agree to this then sadly I don't see how the marriage can last.

I voted YANBU. Is it possible to be clearer with your husband? Tell him that you fully support him going to see his family as often as he wishes, but also that he should be able to see how much more stressful those occasions naturally are for you. They're not your family, and there are other griefs tangled up in it. Tell him from now on you will stay however many days and then leave, and he can return to the UK later or go earlier or both.

I would also insist on some day trips or lunches or something away from the in-laws while you're there. Remind him you married him, not his family, and that he and his family have as much obligation to try to accept cultural differences as you do. Otherwise, as you say, you'll get to the point where you refuse to go at all. I know I would!

12th night is a very important date in many European countries and it is only one extra day so sorry but yes I think you are being unreasonable. I am very sorry for your loss but I can understand why your husband's nephew is important to him. Southern European families are very close and your husband is living in your country. I can understand why it is hard but I think you need to grin and bear it for his sake. And perhaps you can try and understand if nit exactly embrace but accept the difference in cultures

I think a lot of us have this disagreement in marriage about my family vs his family, even without cultural differences to complicate matters. So while Blahblah's advice may be good for your own sake, I don't think it's actually relevant to this particular problem.

about your infertility and miscarriages, too. We went through nearly a decade of that crap and it nearly killed me, I swear. But we did end up with two children, after IVF, eventually. I hope it happens for you.

I was a bit appalled that your husband won't visit his family without you. You end up being the gateway to family contact.

Then I remembered I had to tell my husband to visit his folks on his own occasionally. Not because I don't like them but because they wanted more time than I had to give AND I think it was nice for them to get a bit of time alone to chat.

You don't have to do everything together.

Please do look into counselling to help you reassess/reframe your relationship with your mother - she's damaged your sense of self worth and left you making uncomfortable compromises to fit in.

Oh you poor thing! I spent a long time in Italy and that kind of family sounds so familiar! They mean well but....
I do get it. And in the nicest sense of the word your DH sounds like a "Mammone". He needs to stick to your agreed boundaries.
Forza! 💐

Actually my sil is from a different culture and does this going in to another room thing. Also spends a lot of time in her bedroom. Sometimes they rent separate accommodation. We were a bit confused (and hurt tbh) but now realise she needs to do it for her own sanity!

I am not into big families hence why I’d never have considered an Italian. You must have known.

I don't think you\re unreasonable at all. 10 days would be far too long for me too.

Next year, go with your husband and then come back alone after 5-6 days. If normal for him to want to spend more time with hois family that you do!

This.

Give and take- that’s what marriage is about! It is his family so suck it up and get on with it. They are not bad people and are trying to include you. You really don’t want to come between your husband and his family when they have done nothing wrong. He will resent you for it. Get your own back on him and get him to spend 10 days with your family!!

Suck it up for another 24 hours. Don't cause a family rift over one day. But then when you go home re-assess your relationship and what you want. Your DH is very unreasonable for 1) backtracking on your agreement and 2) not seeing his family on his own. I would feel completely suffocated if I were you.

Do not be afraid to ask for what you want. Most of us would loathe 10 days with our perfectly nice in laws because it's just too much. If your DH won't respect that, the marriage may not be right for you. Especially if there are no kids between you, you have the freedom to really consider your needs and wants. You have one life OP. Just the one. You will never get this time back. Is Christmas 2024 going to be the same? Is this what you want?

@Notmetoo @RedHelenB I think the issue is that our nephew is important to my mother in law. It's important to my husband that his mum is happy, and that means that all the women in the family should adore her grandson as much as she does. I fake it, as it's important to her. Having one day where I don't choose to fake it shouldn't get between him and his mother.

12th night is important - if that's the case why in 7 years hasn't that been the case? Why have I never seen a family gathering with his family on 12th night? And why did they only make plans 4 days beforehand? I'm not convinced. I get that they want to spend us much time together as possible, and I am totally up for facilitating that for them as much as possible, but I absolutely think it's fine for my hubby to pick up some of it. The fact that he emigrated to England before we met, shouldn't be a get out clause for putting in his own effort with his family, independently of me.

Why is everyone saying the op is unreasonable?

HE married an English woman in Britain where they agreed to live, he should have had expectations about what is acceptable to her too.

Really though, they are both unreasonable because they should have thoroughly discussed things before getting married.

Let your DH go without you.
Just tell him you are going for a week, and that’s it, and you want to take a holiday somewhere else.
You don’t have any children, so there really isn’t a reason why you need to go every time.

I've seen those comment a few times - that it's unreasonable because we apparently didn't discuss things before we got married. Which is odd I think.

Firstly, we live in the 21st century so we obviously lived together and shared families long before our wedding. And secondly, that these sorts of issues, could only occur because of a lack of up front agreement seems like a very strange assumption to me. Partly because that is the issue - we are not doing what we had agreed previously. But also, in my experience, things often don't turn out quite as expected, and no amount of up-front planning changes that. The important thing is to discuss and adapt when things change.

Say to him
I'm overwhelmed
I've tried really hard to be part of everything
You said a week with time for me alone after that
You've stripped out when I remind you of what you agreed
So who is unreasonable?

So either we both go home when we agreed
Or I go home and you join your faintly and come home after.
Which would you like.

If mil asks why you're going. I'm sorry a work/house/friend thing came up and I need to catch the flight we booked. Dh can stay with you.

I can really relate to that one day tipping you over the edge. I feel like that with one houseguest. Some of us aren’t cut out for that much social contact.

Looking at this from the outside, you have no children yet so you’re free to walk away from all of this and start again with better logistics. You’re not trapped and you had a life before you knew any of these people, as lovely as they are.