it would be better to see the inlaws for an afternoon, but they are coming for 10 days.....

[halfdozenandtwothrees]

how to survive? we would get on far better if we lived a short drive away and could all go back and sleep in our own beds, but we are abroad and hence cannot. DH will not be around that much - working in the day then flying off for the last 3 days.

i find father in law very stressful, not all his fault, i take my share of the blame. mother in law said on the telephone - " you go off and do things you need to do" what does that mean? they want to be with the kids on their own or i will be (behind my back) thought a lazy so and so who dumped the kids.

nothing ever gets said openly and hence i never know what to do, take them all out places or leave them to decide what they do? youngest has a drs appt one day and i have a voluntary thing to do for a couple of hours another day. father in law is insured to drive my car.

any thoughts, advice appreciated.

We´ve sometimes got them a separate holiday flat nearby. Then everyone has got their own space.

Ha. I could have written this post myself. I have exactly 200% the same issues with my in laws. My mIL may in fact have used the very phrase about going off and doing what I want. And my mother in law is leaving us today after 10 days. I am still glad she is going but it's been good. So I share my new strategy!

I used to get so stressed about in law visits then my sister stepped in and told me the vital piece of advice. Chill out, it's only a few days. I used to care what they did, that they wanted to hang out on their own with the kids, that my MiL colonises the kitchen and makes my kids say prayers. That my FIL is a racist who takes up residence on the couch and spills forth views I find rude. Now I let them do exactly what they like. And it's soooooo much easier. I make a cake for their arrival, ask them sacharrine sweetly what they want to do and I do my own thing around them. So they collect kids from school, eat meals they want, go where they want. I just smile, breathe deeply and tell myself it will be over soon. I do think of a couple of ideas of visits we can do and put the ideas out there for them and they tend to give signals of what they feel like. But otherwise I just zen out and don't consult them on what I am doing and don't interfere with what they do.

Since employing this strategy rather than making any effort we have all got on much better. Takes a bit of tongue biting at the start though.

Good luck.

thank you quince and rushing. the holiday apt would be super idea but we do not live in a holiday area - i wonder how you first approached it and whether they felt upset?
rushing how exactly do you do your thing? are you not accused of dumping the kids them? do they have a separate car they can use or do you negotiate who uses yours when?
i also have the feeling of not been wanted around, father in law and i clash as i think we both have issooos - i am addressing mine but he will not at his age change i think. some of his behaviour in the past has been way out if order (14 degrees room for a baby his house and becoming angry that mother in law turned the heating on on christmas day when he went out) and he is racist - some done for effect and other times very embarassing ( had a black cleaner and she ate lunch with us and he went outside to eat saying you do not eat with the servants - had see been white and good looking, he would have sat with us). but he is good with the children and he used to be more jolly than he his now - becoming a sour old man who complains about the state of the nation, immigration etc, all very tiresome.

i need to detach but maybe need some more details as to how you organise your days with the children - mine are off school next week so we are all in the house together all day unless someone organises something and i do not know whether they want to do what i suggest and they will not openly say want they want.

We are in the US so have people over for a while. The in laws came this summer for three weeks. DC2 is due in two weeks and they will not be coming for Xmas. Their visit nearly broke me mentally and caused huge arguments between DH and I. Good luck and you have my sympathy.

thank you wibbly. i know where you are coming from, our relationship has deteriorated drastically since the children were born, typical stuff i guess of me being seen as overfussy, overprotective with babies, stairgates etc and "it was not done like that in my day". but even now 5 yr old has been driven in the car without a seat belt (so my son told me).

it is not all him, i have not been easy to live with/ be with, PND and lots of issues from my own background - one of the reasons i find father in law so hard is that he reminds me of my very very angry father and his controlling behaviour. i no longer have any contact with my family and

And i made a cheap shot by highlighting a couple of his worst behaviours in my previous post.

my DH and I have also argued terribly in the past about his mom an dad. things are a lot better than they were but i think there is a nastiness to me on his part that i find very hard to deal with even though at any level i know he is/ can be nasty to other people and even my husband thinks his father can be a pain now.

i no longer have contact with my family and since having children that has stirred up a whirlwind of emotions in me.

In future maybe dh should take a couple of days off work when they come and take them out and about . He shouldn't be flying off and leaving you with them for 3 days either.

I would just have a lot of appointments. How are they to know whether you genuinely have appointments with physio-therapists, doctors and dentists? Just get out of the house for the afternoon as much as possible. Also you can just have to nip out and get something - time to go out and go for a nice walk with your ipod.

Get a guide-book in English and a map and let them do their own thing during the day when dh is at work and the dc are at school. Just ask if there is anything special they'd like to eat and leave them to look after themselves. At the weekend, you can all go out together and do a couple of sight-seeing trips.

Where are you?

children are off school so that makes it more complicated - do i go out with them all, do they go with the children on their own, who uses my car?
i feel like whatever i do will not be right. do i just assume i should take the children with me or does that get seen as depriving them of time with their grandchildren and that is mainly what they are here for.

i hated that nothing ever gets said openly and i am left to second guess what they want. they cannot even talk to one another so when my husbnd forgot his mothers birthday, it gets said to me that she is upset but not to him and i am meant to pass it into him.

having grown up in a dysfunctional home, i find it very stressful to not know what is acceptable behaviour but maybe i should not hold them up to be all that normal.......

sorry, judging from the posts on here they are very normal and i must say it is really father in law who is the problem. i like my mother in law much much more

Best advise I can suggest is stop overthinking things and trying to second guess what they want. What would you be doing with the children if they were not there? Plan some things for the kids/you. Invite them along, if they want to come, great, if they want to do something else, even better!

Use the car as you need to use it for you and the kids telling them to just let you know if they want it for anything. Arrange a couple of things for you, have backup childcare so that you can offer that they watch the children but you have an alternative if they do not want to do that.

Smile sweetly and ignore the horrid remarks, just keep reminding yourself it is only a few days! I find sometimes putting on a really OTT display of super niceness makes me feel better and will really make it hard for them to be churlish about things.
The thing with the living away and the long visits is you really have to carry on life as normal, otherwise you will all go a bit mad. They will probably be quite happy pottering while you guys do your own thing.

I really like my Inlaws but a long visit can be trying even then.

We have figured out over the years that when the inlaws say they want to do nothing, that they actually like freedom. Time to potter about on their own. They don't want to spend the whole time with us either!

They like to take the kids out to dinner on their own without us parents. They like to take them to get icecream or candy. They like to go for a walk on their own without us or the kids. I usually think of two trips to offer and ask if they'd like to do them - some times they will, sometimes they won't. They like to eat together but otherwise they enjoy some freedom too. I have some menu plans for the week so we're not scrambling at 5pm, plus a couple of restaurant choices to go to.

Tell them you have your volunteer plans and would they like to take them somewhere or should you get a sitter if they planned a trip that day. That way they don't feel pressured to babysit.

Good luck.

Mine are coming for a month. Straight after (as in four days) my due date with DC2.

They DO want to spend the whole time with us. They will never ever take the initiative to go out and do stuff on their own (even when we lived in a major UK city they wouldn't and now we live in a developing country with little tourism). They will happily sit in the house all day.

I will now go back and read this thread for advice...