In-laws rant

[Swiftier]

Please give me some advice on dealing with my in-laws!

They are quite friendly and we are very much civil to each other.

My husband isn’t close to them at all (he could go months without seeing them) so he’s not proactive in keeping in touch/planning anything.

Therefore they often end up contacting me or both of us.

Last week they messaged both of us to try and organise to meet up before Christmas. I replied saying that would be nice and that we would call them when we had a chance. My husband works shifts so we can go days without seeing each other to make plans. Before we had a chance to catch up, they informed us that they had booked to stay in the hotel about five minutes walk from us..... that weekend. So pretty much imposed themselves on us. I actually had plans already but ended up having to change things to fit in with them!

I do periodically feel bad that we don’t see them much so I do try and make an effort and organise something or suggest to my husband to. They live a few hours away so we do have to plan ahead a bit (and as husband works shifts there aren’t many weekends we are both free).

Then when we do see them we both regret it because they can be quite stressful to be around.

Example, they don’t ask any questions about us, or show any interest in us. So we were on holiday for a month travelling around and when we saw them a week after we got back they didn’t ask more than ‘how was it?’ When I said it was great they then just changed the subject.... His dad went on a long rant about the traffic at one particular junction on the motorway. No follow up questions or anything.

I got a new job/big promotion and they both said well done, they asked what I would be doing but before I’d finished the first sentence they had cut me off and were talking about themselves. His dad in particular goes on long monologues and can be quite patronising with it.

It’s obviously not terrible and I don’t think it’s really more than poor social skills but I don’t enjoy spending time with them - I wouldn’t hang out with a friend that behaved like this. For the record we ask them about their lives, when they’ve been away etc etc. It’s all just one sided.

Anyway I’m basically feeling stuck. My husband is happy not to see them much - but I feel guilty so I end up arranging to see them/they contact me directly and then I regret it when I spend a whole weekend with them 😂

So my question is do I just not actively plan to see them and leave it firmly up to my husband and them. Meaning that we probably wouldn’t see them as much. Or keep seeing them (which isn’t that regularly) to reduce my guilt and just put up with it?!

I think if someone announced they were coming to stay this weekend, without having agreed it with me, I wouldn't change my plans. I've got a packed weekend, and I would say 'Well, I'm sorry but I'm not available to spend any time with you this weekend due to already having committed to other things.'
That said, if I were trying to find a free day or two in the next couple of weeks and my dh were working away / at meetings / working when I was at home and at home when I was at work, then we'd message each other. I mean, we have a shared Google calendar to help with checking dates with each other, but we'd still manage a text or Whatsapp. So I think you (jointly 'you', dh + you) have both been a bit rude in not getting back to them.
Lots of people don't particularly enjoy spending lots of time with their parents or PiLs, but I feel you have to make the effort sometimes, and Christmas does seem like one of those times.

Bat it back to DH every time. So if they text you, say we're really busy but DH will contact you to sort it out. If they announce plans, then be busy.

Agree with PP, throw the ball firmly into your DH’s court.

Do you have kids? If so, are the kids old enough to meet them during the day for a few hours? If you have younger children, of course this would cause even more work for you but I would ask your DH to organise to spend some time with them himself as you already had plans made.

That said, given they have booked, sometimes we have to rearrange some of our plans to accommodate unexpected events.

I think it is easy to say that you will say you are busy but afterwards you might regret ending up in the role of the bad DIL. Seriously throw the ball to your DH!!!

I think you are married to my ex!😂

Next time, don’t rearrange your plans. Lay it on thick - you would love to spend time with them but have already made plans that you just can’t get out of. Such a shame, too bad. Perhaps you can pencil them in for a coffee between x and y? And they simply must check with you first next time because you are just so sorry to miss out on all the fun this time!

But then, leave it all up to your husband. ‘I’ll have to check with my husband’ may not sound very feminist but nobody ever argues with it and it will buy you some time. Plus, his parents, his problem!

I'm in A very similar position and recently I've been leaving all visiting arrangements to my husband which is why we barely see my in laws now which is definitely a good thing !

I use to feel bad if we didn't see them often until I realised it's not up to me to create a relationship between my husband and his parents

Thanks for the replies.

Backforgood, get what you’re saying but it’s not that we didn’t get back to them for ages. I did reply and said it would be great to see them and I said we would get back to them. My husband is a pilot so he can’t spend time on the phone texting me to make plans — apparently you're not meant to use your phone in flight 😝 Plus he’s often up v early/home late hence we don’t always get to sort things out on his work days. We would have had to move a couple of things around so probably easier to talk in person too. I think it would be rude to keep them waiting for ages but not for a couple of days.

Consensus seems to be to bat it back to him. I am going to try and do that and just talk to him and explain why. He doesn’t really feel bad if he doesn’t see his parents so I don’t think we would see them much. But maybe that’s normal for them? I guess I’m comparing them to my family too much, which is fairly close and gets on well. I’d feel terrible not seeing my parents for months on end. But his family aren’t really too interested in each other so maybe a token meet up once or twice a year is enough?! Will still have to manage the monologues though 😂

I can see why your H does not have much of a relationship with them; this is who they are and such people do not change.

You need higher boundaries yourself with regards to them; for one thing going forward you do not need to change your own plans to suit them. Sod feeling guilty here; do you think they feel guilty here?. No they do not, not a bit of it. They have not been at all mindful of your boundaries here (they did not wait for a reply but booked a hotel near you for that particular weekend) and you have stated yourself you would not tolerate this from a friend. His parents are no different.
You also need to put more mental distance between you and they; its not your task to facilitate a relationship that is really one sided with you having to listen to them. You can choose to not have to listen to FILs monologues either. Let your H facilitate a relationship if he wants to do so; bat this back to him. Do not yourself carry this can for him any longer.

My ILs try to dictate to us what we'll be doing on certain weekends and even the suggestion of the slightest compromise (let alone a "sorry we've already got plans") leads to tears, tantrums and attempts at guilt tripping. Unfortunately for them this has absolutely no effect on me (except leading to me wanting to spend less and less time with them). I think until I came along my H thought it was perfectly normal for parents to tell adult children what they would be doing at the weekends and for adult children to cancel existing plans. I'm now the devil incarnate for showing him a different perspective.

Thank you... I’m going to put anything to do with his parents firmly as his responsibility and redirect them to him if needed. And not move everything to work around them!

To be blunt they have no real interest in either of you!!
File them away unless dh chooses to get them out so to speak.

A shared google calendar might help you and your DH organise time together.

Leave his parents to him to sort out. If the send you a message just have a broken record approach of saying they will need to contact their son.

If the turned up like that I would have quickly made plans to be busy most of not all weekend.

My IL’s don’t see us as adults at all. For the record we are in our forties. They don’t have boundaries and have been known to make plans involving us and dictate where we should go. When we say we already have plans they have been known to say ‘your plans aren’t as important as ours’. DH’s siblings have also been known to make phone calls telling us how ‘upset’ their parents are that we aren’t attending x or y.

There is a complete lack of respect from them and I do not answer my phone or respond to them anymore but will be jovial when we meet although I find myself getting so wound up/bored/irritated it takes me days to get over a visit. MIL in particular is manipulative and it serves only to drive bigger distances between us.

Google calendar is a good idea.

I think it's clear why your DP doesn't like to see them very much. Refer everything back to him to deal with. If he doesn't want to see them, so be it.