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?

[EndoplasmicReticulum]

My inlaws have a reasonable shower. Much less shit than ours.

They do need a plumber though, the kitchen tap only dribbles so it takes about 10 minutes to fill the kettle, and if you flush the downstairs loo it makes a high-pitched whine for ages afterwards.

[LazyFaire]

bahhh you have to go again just so you can say that

[Viewofthehills]

Mil does not wash bed linen. Doesn't matter how many different visitors sleep in it. She gets round this by occasionally buying new.

That's the only thing really.

[onetiredmummy]

I used to live a few hours away from home & come back to my own parents to stay:

1. I have the opposite shower problem. Their shower is in a separate cubicle all of its own, has a radio, a touch screen control panel, its own blue ceiling lights, has a ceiling nozzle, a normal showerhead & a long panel that has jets shooting all over your tummy & boobs. It is also a steamroom & I'm terrified of the thing. I pray for an electric stuck to the wall shower as at least I have an idea of how to use it & won't accidentally scald myself with steam or have needles of water surprising me in the privates.
   
   
2. My dad has Apple technology for everything, phone, music, ipad, PC & its different from Windows. So he says go & use the computer & I'm scared of that too, as Windows error messages I can deal with but I've never had an Apple computer so won't know what to do if I bugger it up.
   
   
3. When my mum was alive they used to go on very exotic/unusual holidays. When I was a teenager it was rainy Norfolk all the way but since me & sis moved out they have gone on tours of China, Nepal & Tibet, India, Egypt many times, Macchu Picchu & lots more. Its fab at the beginning as you learn about the places & its genuinely interesting, but they take LOADS of photos & after 3 hours of pics of the same holiday it gets a bit wearing. I dreaded the phrase, 'have we shown you the pics from so & so yet'. Cue the evening gone.
   
   
4. They drink weird smelly tea, never have normal teabags (called Grandma teabags) or instant coffee. You either have to fart around with grinding beans or drink horrible tea. I take my own instant coffee & its hidden in a cupboard as its an embarrassment I think.
   
   
5. They are avid naturalists & birdwatchers & at some point you always have to go & tramp around a cold & dripping bird reserve in unflattering borrowed waterproof trousers, shivering in the hides & feigning an interest in the lesser spotted fuckwit while they look it up in the book & make notes about the fecking thing in a notebook specially for this purpose.

[YoniAsOldAsYoFeel]

As far as showers go my PIL's is ok. However:

Dinner is served at 6.30. On the dot. If you arrive at 7 it will be on a plate in the microwave waiting for you to heat up.

Tea is the only day time drink. You get funny looks if you drink water or squash with your meal.

The dog is allowed to lick cups and plates (boak)

MIL is not allowed to drive the family car (that's a man's job)

They never have time to read or cook from scratch. But have plenty of time to watch all the soaps every evening.

I do love them though

[FrauMoose]

There are some in-laws here that I would quite like. Can I volunteer to be taken birdwatching? The smelly tea might be interesting too. (Only have very crumbly ancient father-in-law who is chauffeured over to our place for lunch, falls asleep, gets woken for a cup of tea and is then returned to sheltered flat.)

[furfoxsake]

I have 1) and 2) exactly the same at my SIL's. 5) also but for me it's milk - I love my milk and they never have any so I will always say I'm going to buy some and they will block my path and say "but we HAVE milk!" YES but you only have enough to make tea, not for me to drink pints of it! Let me go buy some goddamn milk ffs.

[Bahhhhhumbug]

Lazyfaire - yeah I think you're right - I so have to say that to him.
We only go every three or four years though so talk about 'revenge is a dish best served cold' - mine'll be positively glacial !!!

[exexpat]

Viewofthehills - ewwwww. Do you take sleeping bags?

[exexpat]

And I wouldn't mind staying at onetiredmummy's parents. I quite like travel photos and fancy teas.

[furfoxsake]

I want onetiredmummy's parents too.
Fight you for them.

[onetiredmummy]

I dare you. I fecking dare you! One entire night of Egyptian slideshows of sand & temples & you will never want to see a bloody statue again. You will want to drown yourself in smelly tea if you survive the shower

[furfoxsake]

UglyFuckling I bet she's playing candy crush on her ipad

[TheNaughtySausage]

House hotter than Satan's arse crack

Pathetic dribbling shower

Telly on but so quiet no-one but DF can hear it. Also will be muted during ad breaks so DF can deliver his rant about ad breaks.

Three bedrooms, one of which is smaller than an ant's airing cupboard (was my room before I left home!). Me and dh shared it one Christmas. He was in the short narrow bed which is a steel frame nailed to the wall. I was on the floor with the other luggage, on an air bed. DB and SIL were in the next room. On our old bunk beds. I was jealous until I slept on one. You know that bit in The Return of The King when Frodo, Sam and Gollum climb the Stair to Cirith Ungol, and they have to sleep on a tiny ledge of rock about a thousand feet up? It was like that. The mattress was so hard I thought I would wobble off it in my sleep.

Random loud sighs from DM.

No-one is allowed to have a discussion that isn't serious. Dh keeps making the mistake of talking about history to my mum, who has just done a history degree with the OU which is great but now means that she is always right and takes no prisoners. I spend half our visits trying to keep things from turning into an edition of Panorama. As a consequence of this my father thinks I am appallingly shallow, an opinion he first formed back in 1994 when I said I enjoyed watching Friends.

Trivial Pursuit in their house is anything but.

[MissBeehiving]

I think that I may be on the way to be onetiredmummys parents

[joanofarchitrave]

My PILs are so adorable (especially after reading this thread) that I can only do the list of annoying things they would say about me:

1. Sulks when that nice Mr Gove or that jolly Mr Farage is mentioned.
   

1. Used to breastfeed at the table, when anyone could see she didn't have enough milk.
   

1. Is quite grumpy and over strict to her child.
   

1. Has the housekeeping standards of Fungus the Bogeyman.
   

They are lovely- but I still quite fancy a PIL-swap next summer - we could do it like a key party...

[EndoplasmicReticulum]

Oh the soaps! Who knew there were so many of them? And Coronation Street is on twice some nights, just when you think you've sat through enough it comes on again!

[juniper81]

I only have a FIL. My DP is a scientist and my FIL is a scientist.
1 - droning on and on and on about fecking SCIENCE from the moment my DP gets up to the moment we go to bed. I am not a scientist and therefore not part of any conversation.
2 - banging on about his Humax box for at least the first ten minutes of any visit. I don't even know what a Humax box does.
3 - being obsessed with telly to the point he will drone on about how long it took him to get it up on his PC (before iPlayer) and yet...never watches it!
4 - spending one hour in the bathroom every morning...unclear why and apparently even MIL wondered wtf he was doing in there
5 - dribbly shower.

He's a nice man but so so so boring!

[jammiedonut]

1. no tv or radio allowed when on visits. We must converse, even if there is nothing to talk about.
   
2. without a doubt, mil will always ask probing questions about my life/ childhood prior to dh. This was fine the first time, but after 5 years, the answers haven't changed, yet she still asks the same questions!
   
3. we are told to lie in, as we are on holiday. We are then criticised for making everyone wait for breakfast, despite being washed and dressed by 8am ourselves, and no plans for big sit down meal inthe first place.
   
4. mil doesn't do tea. Unfortunately, it's pretty much the only thing I drink. When I visit, I always make my own, bring my own tea etc. She has taken to hiding the kettle as she doesn't like me making it, as it makes her out to be a poor host.
   
   She's not that bad really, these are mild annoyances, and lucky for me she has a lovely strong shower :-)

[Inneedoftea]

These are all very amusing! I feel your pain OP, I've had my PILs with us for a couple of months. They've returned home now. I'm going to preface my 5 points with they are actually very lovely. But still when we're with them...

1. rabid portion control at meal times. So if there's 4 eating we only need 4 teeny tiny potatoes, or 4 slices of carrots and not much meat. After all they aren't as active as they used to be. Starving at end of meal. Grrrr
   
   
2. they always put a sheet under a duvet, like having sheet and blankets. I get totally knotted up in this sodding arrangement, ffs. This really pisses me off. I have Scandinavian DM and this is sooooo just, wrong.
   
   
3. that I am always made to feel incredibly extravagant. I mean, I wantonly threw away a pair of DH's boxers as the button had come away and ripped the fabric. Clearly I should have repaired. Ditto using shop bought receptacles to keep tea/biscuits/packed lunches when empty coffee jars/ice cream tubs are perfectly acceptable. Ditto baby wipes. Flannels in tuppaware in her day, y'know. And wanton sluttery that is me I have a cleaner...
   
   
4. they eat the very same thing every every every lunchtime. Sandwich with naice ham, banana and mug of green tea. If there's no bananas in the fruit bowl then, quite frankly, the four horseman of the apocalypse will be arriving shortly and we will all die.
   
   
5. the constant bloody napping. Not my kids. Them. Even when I was a shattered jet lagged with two young kiddies in tow..they never ever ever offered to have them for an hour while I slept. Bastards.

[JustOneMoreBite]

Reading all these is making me feel so much cheerier, thanks! Of course the fact that I am home, (power)showered, and full of Chinese takeaway is probably also helping.

I am sure that MIL would have a few things to say about me too. Pickiness about her food, especially what she offers the DDs. Showing her up in church by not going up for communion (I am unchristened and an atheist - I only went because DD1 wanted to go with her cousins to Sunday school). Profligate use of lighting and heating. General moodiness and anti-social attitude by the end of every visit.

Sorry, MIL! I love you really

[LesserSpottedFuckwit]

The Naughty Sausage, you made me laugh til I cried.
And onetiredmummy has inspired a name change.