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 🤣

Rude when others don’t speak it.

My MIL is ok but so so negative.

My DS is 11 and is playing regional level with a view to going national in a particular sport which means we have to do some travelling for him to be able to play.

We love going to watch him and he absolutely loves it. But whenever we mention to MIL where he’s playing next, she complains it’s too far and we shouldn’t have to travel, it’s not like we ask her to travel and we love it. She never did anything like that for DH growing up, she did the bare minimum.

She complains that she lives too far away from us (about 40 miles) and wants to live nearer. So she put her house on the market, we took her to view a house locally, and lined a few other viewings up.. she didn’t like the first house she saw, went home and took her house off the market. 2 years on and she’s still complaining that she wants to move nearer.

She’s so negative that my DH just avoids ringing her as he can’t cope with the negativity.

hmmm ?

I couldn’t scroll past this inane question without commenting
as I found it so annoying.

Perhaps posters parents are annoying in which case the corresponding
in law will have their say on this specific thread.

why be ashamed, how upsetting for you
I do empathise I have had similar situations,
with inlaws, visitors, felt like I was running a small hotel
some of these posts are quite triggering, recalling
being gaslit by inlaws

what they did was not only disrespectful, but symptomatic
of a class of person who despoils - dirtying up your home

pleased they are ex as mine soon were, utter weirdos 💜

Don't get me started on MIL.... can't stand the woman. She stays at our house for a week at a time, meddles and interferes in ours lives and our relationship. She can be so rude, and she acts jealous. She comes on holiday with us. Everything is all about her. If she has a glass of wine her tongue becomes loose and she says horrible snobby things about people. Hate her.

a memory of being at inlaws house, she washed up in a bowl of water resembling minestrone soup, shudder, I said I would dry, picked up filthy tea towel, asked where the clean ones were kept, MiL closely inspected tea towel which passed muster as apparently it wasn’t dirty at all, just sticky with food- double shudder -
she would brush her hair in the kitchen then leave her hairbrush on the breadboard
when children were young she made us all corned beef sandwiches enriched with spots of blood as she had cut herself on the tin, we wouldn’t eat them obviously bit she really thought we would?

the argument that older parents and inlaws were/are this way as they had known deprivations during the war doesn’t wash when you know they were retired civil servants with hefty pensions, no mortgage etc., just mean as muck, shopped at
Netto and Kwiksave, bougnt cheap meat, never fresh fruit or vegetables, always tinned, revelling in their parsimony, setting their son‘s marriage up to dismal failure

eta - the front door! by BiL did this, after staying with us over a weekend uninvited!
ran out to his taxi on a dark cold windy wet night leaving the front door wide open, with toddler running after him, beyond thoughtless, apart from marauding toddler,
all our precious heat was lost.

you need to be over the other side for that, Gransnet

you have transposed the subject with the complainer though

Emotional incest (hopefully only one way), by any chance?

Is there absolutely no chance at all you can persuade your DP not to let her join you on holiday? All your memories of these supposedly happy and relaxing moments must be absolutely shit.

He digs his heels in if I try to set boundaries around her. I think the emotional incest is two-way, but there is a history of abusive behaviour in his family, so it comes from decades of trauma. It's a horrible situation really.

Do you invite her to stay at your house and to come on holiday with you? If you do, just stop inviting her. She sounds awful and nobody would enjoy the company of someone like that.

She invites herself and my husband agrees. He has a lot of FOG around her. It’s hard, but being raised in an abusive household messes you up for life unfortunately.

ETA it’s partly cultural as well.

Absolutely.
I was just going to ask if this thread includes daughter in laws! 🤔

Most of the issues with mils stem from the fact most mils can't cope with becoming 'extended family' and rather cling on to their position as matriarch. Sad really.

My mil is very snobby about designer bags etc. I have found the recent tiktoks from Chinese factories very assuming

Oof.. I'm sure you've heard it before, but your DP needs counselling. Perhaps you also need couple's counselling. It sounds like you and your relationship are really suffering because of all of those unaddressed and unresolved issues.

Last year, my husband had two consecutive heart attacks (out of the blue, despite being the healthiest he had in years) and subsequently a double bypass. MIL was as bloody awful, selfish and attention-seeking as you'd expect.

The only good outcome has been that he's been having hospital-funded psychological counselling. (Common practice in the country we live in.) He has therefore come to MANY realisations about the negative things in his life and behaviour, not least his relationship with his mother and her difficult and manipulative behaviour.

I'm not sure how easy it is to access such services where you live, but I wish you luck, you have only one life and hopefully an otherwise loving relationship with your other half, and it'd be a huge pity if your MIL ruins it. xx

Thank you so much for such a lovely and understanding message. It’s hard to understand unless you’ve been there, isn’t it? Like your husband, my husband really needs counselling and professional help to process all the terrible things that have happened in his family, as well as this undying loyalty that he has for his mother. I’m already in therapy, and my therapist really thinks he needs help with it all.
I’m glad to hear your husband ended up getting counselling and getting his eyes opened around all that. It seems as though a good thing came from something bad. I imagine it has helped your relationship, and I hope I can get this issue sorted in my relationship too!

Yup. This.

Last summer, after 6 years of her increasingly controlling and utterly unhinged behaviour, I literally wrote to her: "you are not the matriarch of mine and (husband's) family. I am. You are not (children's) mother. I am. Please, I am begging you, please respect me as (husband's) wife, (children's) mother, the wife of our home and as a fellow capable adult woman".

The above was in response to her sending me dictatorial and manipulative texts about, amongst other things, me supposedly keeping the children away from her (it was a Sunday, she'd seem them the previous Weds and Thurs) and demanding that I stop letting mine and my husband's friends come over, and stop going to visit them, because she was "unhappy with people outside of the family being around my grandchildren".

This was all a few days after she'd literally gate-kept my husband's health status from me after he'd gone to hospital with a then-not-confirmed heart attack. He'd called her to ask her to watch the kids to let me go to him and she'd instead gone to him, put the phone down on me rather than put me onto a doctor or nurse when, after an hour of waiting, I called him to ask how he was (he was being assessed, so she had his phone), put herself down as his emergency contact with the ward staff, then took more than an hour (when it's 15 mins away by foot/regular bus or 5 by taxi) to get to ours to watch the kids while I went to him - she wasn't upset, worried or panicky by then, she was calm, nonplussed as to why I was upset and almost hyperventilating (since I thought she'd been called back to hospital, and my husband was dying or dead), and felt the situation was fixed because she'd dealt with it. She had actually gone home first to pick up some mineral water (I kid you not) before coming to ours.

Rather than listen, take my heartfelt plea seriously, even consider anyone but herself, on the Monday she instead went to visit my husband and spent the entire hour (I was up next; he could only have visitors during a 2 hour period) ranting and railing about me. My husband had had had a double bypass 3 days earlier.
.

@SoOxon

The washing up bowl sounds awfully familiar 🤮

I also disagree about the war / post-war argument. Pretty much everything in their house is fromJohn Lewis or Waitrose. It's more a lack of motivation / poor standards issue

The front door thing is infuriating and doubly so during the winter. Just close the fucking door! It's really not that hard. They do it when going in or out

my dm definitely annoys me and my DH more than his parents annoy us. She comes to stay and “tidies” aka hides everything! If it’s out of sight, it’s tidy. No matter where or what and that you can’t find it for weeks afterwards. Everything from toiletries to kitchen utensils and clothes. Have told her not to but she “just wants to help” 🤯

Why let it be all about her? Personally l would decline to go on holiday, no need to put up with her shitty behaviour at home and away. Part of the reason my first marriage failed is my MIL being overbearing and invasive e.g. trying to come to stay for 3 weeks the day we got back from honeymoon

MIL never once acknowledged to my face that I had miscarried her first grandchild. Neither did she ever acknowledge to my face that my father had died. Or when both of my grandparents passed away. Just nothing from her.

When BIL was deep in an emotional crisis and contemplating suicide he visited her for some support, but she went and locked herself in her bedroom until he left.

She was surprisingly good at maths but only had the literacy levels of, maybe, a 12 year old? She would mock my English Literature degree and laugh at our DDs for reading books. She refused to let them watch any children's fantasy type films/TV in her presence because, in her words 'I don't like things that aren't real.'

And so, so many peculiar rituals that made absolutely no sense e.g. always, always cooking a full family roast on a Sunday even though no family were present and FIL spent all of Sunday in the pub. And she was only able to drive on 3 specific roads in her home town - she once got caught in a diversion and so just stopped the car and walked home in heavy rain instead.

Looking back, I now realise she most likely had undiagnosed ASD and couldn't cope with a lot of every day life.

Sending you virtual hugs xx

Constantly makes comparisons between my DC and golden SIL's DC (who frankly are no where near as awesome as mine).

FIL is really rude to waitressing staff. I hate going out for meals with them. He expects 5 star service in a Wetherspoons.

Makes snide comments about me working from home. Most recent one was linking my love of coffee to "constantly making myself a drink at home to avoid doing work".

always moans at me for being rude and not friend requesting her on Facebook….. I don’t have Facebook 😂😂😂