Five irritating things about staying with my inlaws

[JustOneMoreBite]

Sigh. Am four days into a visit to the PILs and am at the point of maximum irritation. They are lovely people, and I realise I am very lucky not to have married into one of the toxic families I read about on here, but nonetheless every visit results in my inevitable descent into tetchy madness by about this point. So for the purposes of catharsis, here are just some of the minor annoyances which are currently elevating my blood pressure:

1. They live in a three-bedroom house, but due to a moderate-level hoarding tendency, only their bedroom actually contains a usable bed. Me and DH have to sleep on a sofa bed downstairs, which is completely open plan. No privacy, no space to put any stuff, and the hum of the fridge all night. Just this lack of a cave to retreat to when it all gets too much is enough to make me a bit stabby by day two.

1. MIL serves up exactly the same meal every night, just with different meat at varying levels of cremation. She started boiling the veg thirty minutes ago and it isn't done yet. I would offer to cook but the kitchen is a total nightmare due to the aforementioned hoarding.

1. The shower is lukewarm and dribbly.

1. No mirrors, anywhere. Probably for the best as I am in dire need of a proper hot shower.

1. I'm made to feel like some kind of weirdo for wanting a glass of water with my dinner (or indeed at any time - tea is offered at 20 minute intervals from breakfast until bedtime). I have to drink my water from a mug because they appear to have no tumblers, despite their kitchen cupboards being stuffed with every other conceivable object known to man.

Thank fuck we are going home tomorrow. Anyone else want to vent about the small things that make you want to murder your relatives?

1. The shower - yes! It is not only my ILs then. I have quite thick hair and cannot get the shampoo out when using their shower. It is like a dripping tap which varies between scorching and hypothermic-inducing extremes. It also makes a very loud screaming noise the whole time it is on.

2. PILs are unable to leave the house in time for anything. Even small trips out necessitate FIL running up and down the stairs neurotically while we all wait for him. He never seems to be getting anything either, so what he is actually doing remains a mystery.

3. Not allowing the conversation to flow naturally. We have a bit of a stilted relationship with them because of some past problems, which seem to have improved a lot thankfully. We are still quite anxious before seeing them though, in case there is a strained atmosphere. I'm always really pleased when the conversation is flowing and DH or I will start telling some anecdote or story. Then, "oh, wait til "dad" is here and tell us the whole thing then!" or "tell us that when we have coffee after lunch!" (while we are all sitting and eating together so could easily tell it then.) WHy not just listen to it now?! It always then results in strange silences while everyone wonders about the untold anecdote.

4. Sharing one bottle of wine between 4 adults for a whole weekend.

5. Unless you are eating, having a cup of tea, or telling an anecdote at a pre-arranged time, everyone must whisper. Speaking at a normal volume is seen as rude.

Of course, I'm sure they'd have just as many about me, not least that I married their DS!

WOnder what my In laws will have to say about me when its my turn to be a MIL... my kids are still small but i will be terribly curious when the time comes

OP - sounds like my in-laws house. Mine are lovely people too, and I'm very grateful that they like having us to stay, but things do annoy me:

1. Although we do get a bedroom, all the furniture in it is already full (hoarding) so we have to live out of a suitcase.

2. The fridge is full of stuff going off. Nothing gets wrapped, just put in the fridge. E.g. cook chicken, put chicken remains on a plate, put in the fridge, throw out 1 week later. This means if we buy anything there is no room for it, and you have to be a bit careful about accepting food.

3. The TV is always on in the front room, and the radio is always on in the kitchen. At certain points in the house you can hear them both at the same time.

4. The dithering is at epic levels. We don't wait for them now if we are going out somewhere together, we meet them there. Like a PP said, they have to have tea first. Then FIL will go for a poo.

5. If MIL cooks, she has forgotten how to cater for more than two people, so there are never enough potatoes, or gravy. FIL is greedy and will take most of what there is. We try to cook as much as we can (point number 2 aside).

I'd rather stay there than with my mum though, as you always feel as if you are cluttering up the place in some way, or making dust or something - plates are whisked away after meals before the last mouthful has even got into your mouth and she is always wearing a pinny, wiping surfaces and sighing.

perhaps it is a requirement of being a PIL that you have a shit shower? Perhaps when they welcome a new person into their family they lose their right to a decent shower.

I have been with my DH for 20 years. My IL's have had the same minging long handled back brush (can you even get them anymore?) sitting on the side of the bath all that time!!

FIL also collects rainwater and measures the amount daily. He has records going back several years and at any mention of weather the book is produced and discussed in great detail.

"FIL also collects rainwater and measures the amount daily. He has records going back several years and at any mention of weather the book is produced and discussed in great detail."

My FIL has a temperature gauge in the garden, it's broken (because it's about 35 years old) but he won't accept that. This summer he was on the phone to all the relatives saying "it's 39 in the shade here!" It wasn't. Not even close.

The UglyFuckling, yes! That's exactly it. We are soft and spoilt because we have a decent shower. It's nothing special, but it does actually work - water comes out at reasonable pressure and constant temperature. Imagine! As a result, mil calls it a 'power shower' (accompanied by little sneer as she says it). She has no idea what a power shower actually is, it's just her way of saying we live in dangerous and illegitimate luxury.

OMG when I got to Uni and my grotty, tiny shower in my claustrophobic bathroom got hot in 20 seconds and (I think due to being on the ground floor) had amazing pressure. I guess my parents are the ILs with a grotty shower... but it was heaven. My brother concurred when he visited (I actually made him try it!)

Since I've not stayed with ILs I don't know the condition of their shower but if all the Talc is anything to go by, it's pretty clogged and probably shit...

You lot are making me LOL at work.

I'm single and unmarried so no PIL.

I stay with my brother's PIL's sometimes though... they're great. Only, they relish trips into Bath and wander FOR HOURS round the shops. I don't mind but the MIL is obsessive and SLOW about shopping. In M&S last minute Xmas food shopping last year. The joy. They never fixed their guest bathroom shower cubicle so everyone takes baths (why?!) but I force their shower in the bath to work.

All the blinds are either light coloured or white (I prefer dark) - they're not far from very busy main road either - so I have eye mask and ear plugs in.

but apart from that they're angels and my BIL loves them.

The other amazing thing to me about this thread, apart from the fact that 90% of the irritations are about tea-making and the other 10% are about showers, is that there appears to be no one like these sets of PILs in the next generation.

I mean, none of us are posting and saying:

• They always give me waaaay too many potatoes
• They don't understand that I like meat and two veg and none of this forrin muck like curry
• They always undercook the veg so it's tender but crunchy
• Their water pressure is so strong and their shower so powerful that my hair falls out / skin sloughs off

I wonder if in 20 years there will be no threads like this on MN at all because we will all be the PILs

But this is why I think I must be an inlaw (despite the fact I have no married children or stephchildren). First shower when we moved in was a pathetic dribbler whose temperature couldn't be controlled. Second was a bit better but never really got hotter than warm. The third one is the best yet... but obviously not up to the torrential standards required by a proper visiting married daughter-in-law. Spouse and I like baths and aren't terribly bothered as a shower is just used now and then for quick hairwashes or when there isn't time for a proper bath. Our children are too defeated to complain.

Ahh you see, my inlaws have a state of the art power shower. It has never been used. They paid an obscene amount pf money for it and will not allow it to be turned on. Ever. In case it gets scaled up and breaks. A bath is permitted as is a shower using the rubber hose on the taps jobby. Woe betide anyone who uses the new shower though...

My inlaws don't even have a shower!

My in-laws have three fully-functioning showers, and do provide clean towels. I am now thinking myself very lucky. (Still wish my MiL wouldn't and watch me eat my muesli, though - it makes me self-conscious about every crunch and swallow.)

Last weekend at my parents, my dad shouted at me upon his discovery of my having eaten a slice of ham from a packet....without "announcing it"

" who has opened the packet of ham?"
"Oh, yes, that was me, I had a sandwich yesterday evening"
" OH MY GOD! You had ham without ANNOUNCING it to everyone?Why? Now we don't know WHEN it was opened, or when it has to be eaten BY. We will have to throw it out, it may have been open for weeks, OH MY GOD!" He walked out and slammed the kitchen door.i

To my shame, I got quite cross, and during the next conversation when they discussed why they did no longer like to meet friends for dinner, I said they really should see these friends as they needed to get out more.

Am such a bitch.

When people get older they get more set in their ways, they lose flexibility, I need to remember that.

I get stabby or tearful more like when my BIL and SIL who live in NZ tell me to make myself at home - they cant emphasise this enough. Then when l start to muck in with loading the dishwasher / cleaning/clearing up in the kitchen whatever my BIL has a go at me - and not in a jokey way - he gets a really impatient and bolshie tone with me and ''ffs sit down - what you effing doing ,you're on holiday' etc. Or if l peg out their washing so l can put some of ours in (which they always say is fine, help yourself) he gets shouty when they come in from work or whatever.
Thing is this is making myself at home to me - helping with the pots/mess l have helped to make and as for pegging out their washing when they are out all day some days - that is just logical to me and l would feel rude just taking theirs out the machine and leaving it damp in a basket and just peg ours out.
Last time we went l didn't touch their washing at all and only put ours in when machine was empty to avoid a repeat rant of previous visit and to respect his wishes obv. But one night they had cooked us a lovely meal and l just started clearing the plates and he shouted at me again. I shouted back at him this time though and said l am just making myself at home as you said and it's not in my nature to have people waiting hand and foot.
I just think people get in a routine and find people 'helping' quite intrusive or something - l don't know. But have told DH am not staying there again even though SIL is lovely (she had a go at him last time he did this). DBIL is lovely too usually but does rant at me occasionally in an adult to child kind of way which l hate.
What makes me laugh is they came to the UK last year and stayed at friends in Spain en route in their empty house and re-decorated their lounge for them (apparently wallpaper torn etc by home owners DCs) to 'thank' them for letting them stay. Then they came to UK and stayed at DMILs and wallpapered her kitchen for her because as they said 'you lot do a lot of odd jobs for her etc - we don't get chance living so far away'. Neither MIL or their Spanish friends had any say in choice of décor.

No shower
No TV
No internet
Nowhere to put stuff as DM is a hoarder and has filled every cupboard and wardrobe with crap
DM's obsession need to use up left over food leads to some distinctly odd combinations at mealtimes
DM digging out thirty year old hoarded toys and clothes to foist on us

So interesting to see how annoying different IL's can be!
Mine actually seem quite minor gripes, and actually they have become less bothersome over the many years I have known them.

1. The TV is on ALL the time. FIL hogs the flicker and changes channels to whatever he wants (and frequently then goes out of the room) which is usually awful and sometimes unsuitable.
2. MIL used to be very defensive. She is still fairly defensive.
3. MIL tells you the same story, which goes on and on, again and again.
4. MIL likes bargains and cheapness. This frequently applies to food.
5. They are a bit non-PC, FIL in particular, who is a bit of a geezer.

Oh and btw - when l say l muck in with household stuff l don't mean pulling out furniture or scrubbing the oven or whatever which obviously would be overstepping the mark (not that l'd want to do that stuff anyway) l only mean general clearing away pots when DH and I have eaten/loading them into dishwasher with any other pots nearby and very basic stuff.

In fact l have just thought of a wonderful retort to BIL (though too late as usual) when he started on one of his 'territorial' rants. l should've said 'At least I'm not decorating the place'