I know what you're going to say, and I'd say it to others if they posted this. I KNOW we need to see less of them but my MIL looks after my DS one afternoon a week while I am at work so I feel very ungrateful if we just use her as free childcare then ignore the family the rest of the time! We tend to visit one time over the weekend for a couple of hours and after yesterday even that is TOO MUCH.
I probably won't be able to explain it properly but it's just that since we've had our DS it's highlighted the differences between us. My SIL has always been a complete spoiled princess, embarrassingly so, but now we both have kids she is UNBEARABLE. She sits and 'holds court' about anything and everything, while everyone else runs about after her children btw, and we are so completely opposite on all our beliefs; she believes in smacking. Her kids have attended pre-school from the legal minimum age, 5 mornings a week. They are railroaded into 'activities' and have spent at least two days a week since they were born, staying out of the house with my MIL so SIL and BIL can go out. This is just a few of the things we are poles apart on but I find so impossible is their attitude to us as a family, which is obviously that they think we are as wrong as we think they are! Why does it matter to me what she and my MIL think?????? Why do I feel so utterly and genuinely depressed when we've seen them???? Am I mad????