Need to tell parents to leave us alone but so awkward and horrible

[SallyHandsom]

NC but long-time MN users.

Me and DH moved back to the city where we grew up last year after nearly 10 years living far away. We didn't know each other growing up and our parents didn't know each other. Massive co-incidence when we met at university.

Over the last 10 years me and DH have developed a lovely life together. We're very insular and we've both distanced ourselves from our parents and been much happier for it. We haven't fallen out but we called less often and would call them out if they were being out of order when we did speak.

Anyway, me and DH both got new jobs in/near the city we grew up. So we moved back. But parents have been gradually increasing contact and sort of piercing the lovely bubble that me and DH have built around us for the last 10 years. We're arguing much more because there are other people involved in the relationship.

But, parents coming over more regularly isn't the problem per se. The issue is that we're now finding ourselves much more involved in wider family things. In 2017, we've lost loads of weekends to family stuff we've not wanted to do but have gone along with to be polite.

Basically, we want to distance ourselves, get our old life back but it's awkward and we're not sure how. I don't want to lie ("we're busy this weekend") because that isn't addressing the issue but it's rude to just tell people we don't want to hang out with them. But, we're in this area for the long-haul and we want to establish the sort of life we want to live here for the next 20 years.

So, how can we establish a bit of distance without coming across like rude buggers?

shove
But rather than being prepared to be rude, I'd say being prepared to be firm.
I laughed as soon as I saw this bit. You've got me bang to rights! OK say it like this: she needs to be assertive, but she needs to prepare herself for them reacting as though she was being rude

sally sorry my post sounded a bit confrontational! It wasn't meant that way.

toomuch - I only know because I'm like it myself! For AGES what held me back was the feeling that any kind of firmness was seeking confrontation and 'rude'. Often because I would allow things to go to a ridiculous point without setting boundaries, then burst into tears and feel put-upon because they'd gone too far. If I'm honest, I still have that reflex and there are points in conversations where I have to take a deep breath, hoik up my big girl knickers, smile and put forward a different point of view. I am not sure it will ever feel like I'm used to it and not just 'practicing being a grown-up'!!

8 think op you're going to have to bite the bullet and be out straight.Theres no point in waiting and having a huge fight and don't talk for 20 years.Maybe a nice lunch with your mum and explain.He can do the same with his parents.

SALLY, this cannot go on, and you know it.
Either you confront your family, and put your case forward, and DH confronts his family, and does the same, or you do it together.
If anyone is offended by you're gentle honesty, let them get on with it. You cannot live your lives, for other people.
You could do this this over a couple of weekends. Invite one family over for a nice lunch, and a good time, then the others, the following week.
There is no need for any animosity, on either part.
As they leave, tell them that it won't be too long until you have them over again. Simple. No fallouts, happy bunnies, hopefully.
Failing that, tell them that you have booked them all in, for a rock climbing class, as you also want them to join in with you ! 😂

I didn't literally mean the recycling centre.

But if it becomes known that Jim and Jane always go to church on a Sunday, then no one is going to invite them to a gathering on a Sunday morning.

I think if you are to stay there long term in the short term you have to risk upsetting people. Your extended families coped without you when you lived away and they will cope if you say no now.
Tell anyone who invites you to stuff thanks but no thanks. Maybe tell your mum that you need quiet relaxation time on a weekend and don't like the way she wants you to justify not wanting to go to stuff. I hate having the whole of my weekend planned in advance so you could say you just don't want as many activities pre planned. It's Ok to say you just want a quiet weekend at home.
You could tell them you have both found the weekend family activities since you moved back too much and are giving yourselves more free time. If they don't like it tough. You need to set boundaries and a social life you can cope with and enjoy long term

shove I do think though that even if you learn to establish boundaries and communicate them healthily, that skill often won't get you far when you go back and try to use it with the family of origin who taught you to be unassertive in the first place.

I found with my mother that I could often be communicating a boundary in a way that nobody else would react to, and she'd create drama in one of two ways: either react as though I'd been incredibly rude, or insist on getting her way until I had to be - let's say emphatic - enough that we were definitely outside of polite conversation. And then she would be offended. Basically, any establishment of a boundary with my mother led to her being offended one way or the other.

My favourite example of the direct offence taking was actually DH -
she gave us the silent treatment for 2 days once when we were out at a cafe and DH asked her not to take toddler DD1's sachet of tomato ketchup.

With the sort of "engineer a fight" thing, one example was when we got married, and we didn't want a cake, and I was clear, I don't want a wedding cake, I don't want cheesy photos of us cutting the cake together, there's like 8 people coming to our wedding including us, it will end up going in the bin. She just ordered it to go the hotel anyway without telling us. So then I had to choose between cancelling the order and her losing the money, or accepting a cake she knew I didn't want. I think in that situation I was always going to either end up looking rude and ungrateful, or I was getting a cake.

I think it's absolutely correct to say that holding your boundaries in situations like this is not rude. And I agree that people like us will often feel rude even when we're establishing perfectly reasonable boundaries with normal people who are fine with that. But I think with our families of origin, they do have these ways of creating drama to make us appear rude, and that's not just our own faulty perception. Does that make sense?

From RandomMess
I think you need to be truthful and when your DM accuses you of being selfish agree with her! "You're being selfish!""Yes, I am; I'm looking after my need for downtime at the weekend I find all these gathering utterly exhausting and I just can't do them"

This. I completely get where you're coming from and I think you've had a hard time for no reason on this thread. I get she is treating you like a child, it is not normal for a mother to come and rearrange her adult child's kitchen because she is not doing it right.

But don't fall into the trap of responding like a child, avoiding and evading and sealing yourself off in the hopes that they will just get it, and growing more resentful. I think maybe have a look at some assertiveness books. You have every right to stand up for yourself but it will involve a struggle. You can do it. I am in a similar childless arrangement myself with DH. I have been in a bubble with other people in other relationships, because it was easier to do that than stand up for my rights. I realised I don't want a bubble, I just don't want my choices taken away, I want freedom of movement and not to have every little thing examined. Nurture your friends if you can't get what you need from your family, don't isolate yourself too much.

Op You have this the wrong way round..You don't turn down invitations on an event by event basis..You say.
" Sorry I don't have a free day untill Sunday the 28th" ..
And you also go through your callender and highlight the dates you are " free " so you don't clash with dhs ..
That way you are not telling anyone repeatedly they are less important than w and meeting about in your pants and watching box sets, but positivly that you are available on that one day and will do whatever lucky dip event turns up.

W and meeting = wandering. Ffs!

I got accused of tantrumming and being a brat when I stood up to my parents at the beginning of 2016. What had had happened was that NOT taking their advice started world war 111. Then I snapped at my father, hung up on him, he came round to my house and I closed the door in his face while he was talking. Then my parents were both martyred and sulking with me and giving me the ''we are a unit, upset one of us and we stand together'' talk which infuriated me more as I wasn't trying to advise, control, cajole, dictate to one of them!

So. After a big explosion where I was cast in the role of a tantrumming brat I matched their huffy silence for huffy silence.

Eventually my mum texted me to say that perhaps it was 'a bit' unreasonable of them to expect me to always take their advice.

That 10 days of us not speaking felt incredibly awkward to me. The old me would have gone back, either defending my right to do what I wanted which was perceived by them as me being a brat, being argumentitive! I won't tell you what age I am!

Taht's why threads to go NC with toxic parents don't suit me. A lot of parents are in that middle ground between loving caring normal parents and toxic fuckwits. My parents' parents were all dead by the time they were 25 ish so they have no clue how to act around adult daughters in their 40s

Reacting differently DID change things a bit.

Not saying things are perfect.

toomuch - your mother is a nightmare! You poor thing, it sounds unbelievably draining.

I guess part of what I think I've learned (emphasis on think!!) is that there is no 'rude' with someone who doesn't listen until you're beyond the boundaries of politeness. 'Rude' only makes sense as a concept in relation to some standard of politeness, which - while socially agreed, open to interpretation, and generally vague - is still definitely there in the majority of social interactions. What people like this do is to ignore the boundary when it comes to other peoples' feelings, but to retain it when it comes to their own. So you end up with a combination of insensitive in an outwards direction, and sensitive in an inwards one. And IT'S REALLY UNFAIR - it's the very definition of a double standard. (My in laws are exactly like this).

The only way of dealing with it is to ignore the definition of "rude" altogether as meaningless, and to work on a lack of ambiguity. But, as you say, this is not a technique that will ever stop the person pushing those limits. It's merely a way of being able to be "firm" (which, to anyone behaving normally would be "rude") without guilt, and not to be steamrollered.

The cake thing you describe boils my piss. It's the same thing, but the other way - deliberate disrespect and overruling, disguised as kindness.

shove
you end up with a combination of insensitive in an outwards direction, and sensitive in an inwards one. And IT'S REALLY UNFAIR - it's the very definition of a double standard

This is it exactly. And I think if for whatever reason you're a bit lacking in assertiveness, and you do start learning to put down boundaries, it can really mess with your nascent skills when you try them out on difficult people like this - particularly if it's your family of origin - and the messages that you get back are totally different to what you'll get with healthy people. Although saying that it was never a problem with my mother because her responses were so off the chart that as an adult I'd just be watching it and going "wow".

Say you have been diagnosed with social anxiety and the only treatment is to severely limit the amount of interaction you have with people outside of work.

Close enough to the truth, surely?

Thanks for all your comments, some of your are so helpful.

Just saying "no" and dealing with the fallout is the only way to go.

Big girl pants on

Attagirl!

Yes, expect the aftermath of the no to be deeply uncomfortable and if you can expect that and ride it out........ like an illness, then the next time you say no it will be slightly less uncomfortable.

You sound like me and my husband OP.

what if you need them one day!!!

Definitely Big Girls Pants needed ....deal with the fall out, dont keep jstifying, stick to your guns ....

Isn't it funny how people think it's OK to hurt other people.......

Giving my auntie a reason to bitch about me (or anyone) is a gift from heaven for her. So, really, I'm doing her a favour by saying no quite bluntly.

Giving my DM a reason to complain about being a victim makes her happy. If I give her a reason right up front in a conversation, like by saying no, it makes things easier for her because she doesn't have to spend ages digging for a reason I'm bad.

I'm very giving.

Giving my auntie a reason to bitch about me (or anyone) is a gift from heaven for her

Have rellies like this too!

BertrandRussell I dont think that stating ones needs is saying it is ok to hurt people.....??