Fed up with DP's family - and we live 10000 miles away

[smupcakes]

So - I recently posted another threat about PIL's coming to stay with us shortly...

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/a1565536-To-not-want-to-give-my-in-laws-our-bed

We live in AUS now, and they are coming for 3 weeks to stay. All fine, we invited them DP is very pleased.

Now I've read via facebook that MIL has invited SIL (24, unemployed, still living at home) to come too. No one asked / mentioned anything to us, just saw SIL's status 'tossing up' whether to come or not. Of course it would be a free holiday for her - she has no means of paying her costs anyhow.

There are a few reasons why she wasn't invited by DP in the first place:
She has been very rude to me in the past after an incident with our other SIL; to the extent that when DP visited his parents in the UK last year and I phoned and asked politely to speak to him, she would not even answer me when I spoke and simply pass DP the phone.

So obviously that would be enough reason not to invite her to stay in our home - but I'm sure MIL isn't aware of the animosity between us so I can't really hold that against her but I'm really angry she didn't even think to ask us before extending the invitation to SIL. But secondly, she has no money of her own to every time we'd go out for dinner - I'd feel really resentful that I had to subsides her costs (i.e. I expect DP's parents and we would go halves). Not to mention the costs of hosting her at our home (and we'd need to get another bed as we only have 1 spare). Finally I wouldn't really want to host her for an extended period of time as she has behaved very strangely when with DP and I in the past - she seems to want reassurance that DP would side with her / do what she'd like to do (rather than what I ask him - e.g. last time we were both in the UK I had a headache and asked DP to come home with me from a family event we were at and she tried to tell me that he would be staying at the party with her). He would never do that clearly but it's grating that she behaves that way in the first place.

I am just so angry. DP says he will ring MIL and say we'd seen it and there just isn't room for her to come too. I have no idea why SIL would consider coming to stay with us anyhow - considering she hasn't spoken to me in over 2 years! I just think it is beyond ridiculous and I'm worried I'm going to feel so resentful of MIL's behaviour and attitude and it will ruin their time here.

"She asked how he knew?"-because that´s really the issue, isn´t it?

So if you hadn´t found out, the three of them would just have landed on your doorstep??

"'my mrsmupcakes' "-surely implying that he´s under your thumb?

Well he´s certainly under his mum´s!

Sounds like an insult tbh.

Is he aware of how little respect they have & that giving in to them will only make them respct him less?

Sounds to me as if he´s got nothing to lose by standing up to them.

Afterall, if they want free visits to Oz, to se their GC & be invited to your wedding...

I agree that your DP is the problem here. 'How do you know?' in answer to the question 'Why the fuck have you invited SIL?' is spectacularly missing the point and I suspect your MIL knows it. He ought to have nipped it firmly in the bud there and then.

'DP will be upset if I speak assertively'. Poor diddums DP.

As for being 'super-polite' with family, I don't understand how it's super-polite to accept an invitation but refrain from inviting along an extra person of your choice. I would have thought that was just obvious.

Fair enough OP on your MIL not listening about the wedding stuff. It can be annoying. I think there are probably lots of irritating things going on that have build up to make you really pissed off.

clarice No, I accept that actually it IS polite to ask to invite other people to someone else's house. Not unless everyone is cool with that. I think my family and in-laws are just ultra casual about visiting and don't consider this kind of thing would cause offence. So I was just putting that forward as a different view.

I also thought calling someone "my mrsmupcakes" meant they call your DP "my George" or "my Henry" rather than anything more sinister digging at you. I wouldn't personally take that as a possessive thing - just a turn of phrase.

But perhaps I am totally clueless as my family and DH's family are often irritating but it all washes over me a bit. Perhaps I am spectacularly dense!!! That's possible.

Hope the visit does turn out to be really nice in the end though OP.