Things in-laws do to annoy you.

[Pinkjellyunicorn]

I could write a book I swear.

My in-laws have a different mother tounge. My husband understands all and speaks a little due to moving to UK age 10. My in-laws constantly talk in a different language in my house, whilst sat at my Christmas dinner table, sometimes screaming and shouting at each other in a forgein language. Husband doesn’t let us or DC go there as it’s filthy (and some other reasons but that’s a whole other post) so we are stuck with them here.

AIBU think this is damn right rude?

Please make me feel better with your woes 🤣

Way to miss OP's point.

The thread isn't about female in laws, it's about IN LAWS. No idea why you had to make it about women,

I have a list but i`ll keep it short ex mil years back.

1. lets cats eat and lick of plates and cups.
2. cats walking all over the kitchen sides.
3. Filth mess and clutter and the smell of cat shit.
4. Tried to control everything.
5. Never wrong even if proven wrong.
6. Cats again none stop talking about fucking cats.
7. Hate people if they had a penny more than them.
8. Her kids were never in the wrong never done wrong never the blame.
9. She loves to lie infact she believes her own lies. Oh and hated me. So pleased i walked away.

Because most posters on here are female so it's much more likely for a MIL than FIL to post. HTH.

Can it only be inlaws? What about our own families? Are inlaws a special breed?

Well, OP said in laws.

But I think most people forgive their own parents more as they love them and have a connection to them. While I am sure that many people do genuinely love their parents in law, it’s not the same as your own parents.

I certainly don’t feel the same way about my FIL as I do about my own dad, and that’s okay. I’d forgive my dad a hell of a lot more than FIL as I love my dad. I don’t love my FIL.

I would not expect my son’s fiancé to feel the same way about me as she does her own mother, ever.

Eat all food at room temperature. Whatever the season, whatever the weather, indoors or outdoors, soup or sandwhich, Chirstmas lunch or chopped watermelon in peak summer temps - everything is eaten at room temperature.

And I know I'm the one being utterly ridiculous here but MIL is diabetic and has high blood pressure, so none of her food has sugar or salt in it. Sugar is fine...except she bakes cakes with 25% of the sugar the recipe calls for and definitely expects oohing and aahing. Salt - like, NOTHING she cooks has any salt in it. They don't have salt and pepper shakers in their house.

They are far too profligate with single-use plastic and paper good. They'll use a ziploc bag once and throw it away even though it contained something already in a plastic wrapper and is basically untouched. They'll use paper plates and plastic cutlery to save on washing up. I think it's a generational thing. They understand and believe in climate change; they don't see that their habits are contributing to it (albeit infinitesimally). They'll drive somewhere they would enjoy the walk to; take planes like they're buses; consume STUFF like it's going out of fashion. They're just too stuck in their ways to make any changes.

My SIL expected me to pay for her horse vet bills. (Inherited horse off the mother in law when she passed.) Yet got arsey with me and threatened to punch me when I said no & questioned why her husband wasn’t helping her pay the bills.

Madness, I don’t speak to any of them anymore.

@saltwater1985Why on earth are you allowing them to then?!

OMG that is Olympic level disgusting. What on earth could have been going through his head that he thought it would be OK to put a toilet roll covered in shit in your sink?

They’re more than welcome to, I’m sure there’s difficult DILs somewhere.

Serious question: why are you 'triggered' by other people's animosity towards their ILs? Is it because:

a) you're a MIL* and have problems with your child or children's significant other(s), and as you see it you're utterly blameless?
b) you're not a MIL but your sibling's partner, or your partner, has issues with your mum, unfairly in your opinion.
c) you are a MIL and get along great with your DIL/Son IL, and you get along well with your MIL, and your partner gets on well with your mum.
d) you're not a MIL but still, you and your MIL, and everyone else for that matter, gets on well together (as above).
e) you're too young to have yet had a MIL and think your own parents get along fantastically with each others' families and can't possibly imagine others might experience things differently.

*Substitute MIL for FIL, SIL, BIL, all ILs etc as appropriate.

I'm so glad you clearly don't have a difficult or horrible MIL or FIL (or, assumedly, a difficult or horrible parent) who makes your and/or your partner's lives miserable. Millions on this planet do, including hundreds (thousands?) of those of us who use MN, so a little more sympathy and understanding from you towards those of us who're clearly at our wits' end with these negative people really wouldn't go amiss.

Ex fil and mil got on my nerves.
Expected to be waited on hand and foot, even when told it wasn’t convenient for him to turn up at meal times.
Would present DCs with chocolate Easter eggs just as their lunch was being served.
Would insist on buying crap DCs did not want or need. Never, ever asked what we or our DCs would like, yet mil would present us with a specific list of what fil wanted every single birthday and Christmas.
Fil telling us he didn’t like the gifts dcs had bought him from holiday, and where is my birthday present?
Telling us the Christmas presents his son and wife had bought him were rubbish, despite his son and wife on the brink of divorce.
Telling us (in front of my DCs) he was writing his son’s children out of his will once his son was divorced.
Mil always offering food to fil first- always. FIL taking exactly what he wanted with zero regard for anyone else. Eg 5 of us and 5 sandwiches, fil would take 2.
So glad I have nothing to do with them now. Mind you, neither does my ex.

The person who started the thread said "IN LAWS". Plus she is NOT either a FIL or a MIL. HTH. You ok because you sound a bit unhinged?

Why don't you start your own feed, positing that very question, then?

Plenty have awful parents. Plenty have awful ILs. Some of us are lucky enough to have awful parents AND ILs!

My mil will always reply to my instagram story commenting only on whichever child happens to be in the photo. She completely disregards me. She'll say 'oh Gorgeous Henry, so beautiful' etc instead of 'what a lovely photo of you both' etc
I wouldn't mind, but it's every single time.

Adding more credence to my feeling that she views me as just a womb.

Don't offer them a drink at your home, either. If they complain, feign innocence and respond "but I thought that, as you never offer us any drinks when we visit you, you're not really into the whole host and guest thing".

My in-laws can't say 'I love you'. My kids have told their grandparents they love them since they were able to, but my in-laws are too embarrassed to say it back. It makes me quite sad when my kids are left hanging with no proper response from them, it seems quite deliberate and cruel to let children think their love isn't reciprocated.

My FIL needs everything he does to be managed by MIL, or he injures himself or gets lost.

We live abroad and when they last visited we have started to seriously question whether he has dementia, it is that bad. Also the complaining about everything because guess what, abroad is not exactly the same as home. It drove DH up the wall.

I'm not sure how MIL copes.

Hello, fellow Vessel!

During my second pregnancy, my MIL only ever asked my husband (not even me directly) how the baby was doing. Never how I was doing. In fact, she didn't once congratulate me on the pregnancy. Neither did my lovely SIL, for that matter.

The only time she addressed me regarding the pregnancy was the day of my C-section, as she and FIL came over to watch my toddler, and she tried to give me a hug after I'd put my coat on. Please bear in mind she'd barely spoken to me for 9 months, nor even bothered to look directly at me (even in my own home), by that point. I froze as she wrapped her arms around me, wondering if this was what it was like to be embraced by a boa constrictor...

My family are a complete shit show that could be on the Jeremy Kyle show if it wasn't for a very thin veneer of respectability, I do feel sorry for DH that he married into this mess.

It is different when it's your own vs the in-laws, I know how to manage mine. Or at least I think I know...

Mine used to want to know the EXACT time we'd be arriving. To the minute. You could never say "we'll be there about two" and it drove ex DH mad because we were an hours drive away so you can't be that accurate what with traffic etc. So the more she insisted on knowing what time we'd be there, the more vague he'd become, on purpose. Then when you did get there, she'd be out waiting at the garden gate for us. It was a bit sad for her really, but it was stressful because it got DH's back up and he'd snap at her about it, so the visits usually started on a sour note then I'd feel like the one stuck in the middle trying to diffuse things.
She was also cloyingly over-attentive during the visits. Always prepared food even when told we wouldn't be needing lunch, as we'd eaten/would be going on somewhere else to eat/etc and then acting as if it was the end of the world when it was politely declined. Fussing if she offered you a drink and you said no because you just didn't feel like a drink. She was my MIL for 19 years and it never changed 😂
Mind you, she did have significant mental health problems and spent a lot of time in psychiatric units. Ex-DH was brought up by his gran because of this and I think his lack of patience with her came from some resentment at how his mum treated him sometimes when she was ill. Not abuse exactly, but weird behaviour. I just don't think as an adult he was ever able to just grit his teeth and make allowances for her oddities around us visiting.

Mine is the same. MIL has always said she would love to spend a long period of time abroad at a holiday home they own but FIL refused to be there more than 10 days.

I asked dh once when we were first together why she just didn’t go alone for a few weeks, he said she couldn’t as FIL can’t even make himself a cup of tea. Well, he can, can’t he. Eveyone can pour boiling water over a tea bag. The list of things she does for him is astonishing. It’s like she’s got an 18 month old child, not a 75 year old husband. He’s never as much as made himself a sandwich. She has to plan her days around making food for him.

Although, the one place he can make it to unaided without supervision is the pub. Funny that.

Oh god, how bloody horrible. Glad they're ex ILs now.

I never quite recovered after finding MIL defrosting a joint of pork on the radiator
in the hall!😮

Any leftover food re-appeared day after day til it was gone… any dry or mouldy bits were cut away and the rest of it was eaten. Turkey at Christmas frequently saw January, just re-heated and shovelled down!
Stomach issues were common, but blamed on anything except their scary food habits.