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Original poster

MIL wants us to sleep in separate beds in her house

358 replies

aurynne · 20/09/2009 11:17

Hi there, here goes another MIL thread ;)

My partner's mom is actually a lovely person and she and I get along very well. But there always had to be a "but", doesn't it? When we go to stay with them in their house, my partner and I have to sleep in separate beds! My partner and I are in out thirties and have been together just for 7 months, but for goodness sake, we sleep together every day!

I know that in your house, you set your own rules, however absurd they are. So, last weekend we stayed there I suggested my partner that we could sleep in a hotel instead, and go see his parents in the morning. He replied that "his parents would be very hurt if we did that" (!!!).

So, apparently the rule is not only that when we sleep at their house we do it in separate beds, but actually that we MUST sleep in their house! Is this common behaviour in MILs?

It doesn't bother me that much when it is only a weekend, but we are planning to spend Christmas there and I definitely don't want to sleep in separate beds from my partner for two weeks. And I am not 16, ffs!!!

Any of you has this same problem? Has anybody fund a magic solution that will not offend anyone? Is my MIL's behaviour reasonable?

Thanks in advance for your replies!

Aurynne

OP posts:
Original poster
aurynne · 22/09/2009 09:42

diddl, I am posting to strangers for the same reason everyone else in this forum: to share a bit of information, get some opinions, and interact with people in similar situations. I am actually enjoying reading all these posts. And I particularly enjoy taking the pi$$ out of some of the posters, who are so stuck in their own self-righteousness that they do not realize some of my posts are written in a humorous way... or that I call my mom's partner "MIL" just because I crack up every time they write "she is not your MIL!!!!"

OP posts:
Rindercella · 22/09/2009 09:49

aurynne, I wish you the best of luck. You sound deeply in love with your boyfriend, which is great. Have a lovely Christmas at his family's place

Original poster
aurynne · 22/09/2009 09:53

Thanks Rindercella! And if I end up sleeping on my own for the whole two weeks... I will get my revenge! I will keep all of them up at night singing Christmas carols! And out of key!!! MOHAHAHHAW

OP posts:
Morloth · 22/09/2009 10:08

Well I am pretty chilled about etiquette matters and if I received an email from my son's new girlfriend asking that I reconsider my house rules so that they suit her I would:

  1. Show the email to my DP.
  2. Laugh hysterically at the silly girl.
  3. Call my DS and let him know that he is welcome in our home any time he wants, but not to bring the girlfriend (this time at least).
  4. Leave it up to him what he wants to do.
  5. Look at the email again and laugh some more.
  6. Have a lovely Christmas with my family, hopefully with my DS, but definitely without his girlfriend.

Don't make this a competition, I think it is is waaay too early in your relationship for you to have any chance of winning.

Why bother asking if you are going to ignore all the answers?

OrmIrian · 22/09/2009 10:15

Well I hope it works out as you wish aurynne. I was one of those with the faces when you told us you'd e-mailed your DP's mum but maybe that was because I was thinking about my mum and MIl and I know how'd they'd react to it! Funnily enough though I have never slept in my MILs house I have slept in both my step-MILs houses and it was just assumed I'd be in the same room as DH even before he was H. But to have brought the subject up would have been totally taboo and highly embarrassing. But people are all different.

Hope you have a good christmas wherever you end up sleeping

Original poster
aurynne · 22/09/2009 10:39

Morloth, your advice does not even apply to me, as you insist in the wrong assumption that I have tried to make my MIL reconsider her rules, which I haven't.

But your answer actually brings me to give you some advice... be careful how you treat your DS's "girlfriends", and how much you laugh at them and show them "who's in charge"... because one of them may in the future be the mother of your grandchildren, and then she may remember about the laughing-MIL... and you may find yourself, old and decrepit, begging her to let you see your grandchildren. And then you can laugh as much as you want... sad and lonely, and with no teeth left.

I have learned long time ago that a competition within the family always means both parts lose.

Hugs,

Aurynne

OP posts:
Leeka · 22/09/2009 10:43

Great responses Aurynne, to some extremely rude posters on this thread, who seem to be being rude for the sake of it not to in any way be helpful or constructive.

You sound lovely and I wish you all the best with your Christmas plans, however they work out.

Morloth · 22/09/2009 11:32

LOL, I have a HUGE family (at our last Christmas there were over 70 people to be catered for - we worked on shifts for the most part, with multiple layers of inlaws/generations/kids etc), one put out girlfriend is not going to make much difference.

Have managed to get on very well with my inlaws for the last 13 years, never had any sort of need to complain about their house rules and yes if I had been presumptuous enough to think that what I want was more important in my MIL's home than what SHE wanted then I would fully expect her to laugh at me.

OrangeFish · 22/09/2009 11:37

so... would you also expect them to sleep in separate bedrooms?

hullygully · 22/09/2009 11:41

This is hugely ridiculous. Just explain to you MIL that you are a grown woman, you have sex with your partner and you want to sleep in the same bed. If she can't accommodate that, stay elsewhere. Or tell her you had a pagan ceremony and jumped over a broomstick and are married in the eyes of Wicca.

hullygully · 22/09/2009 11:42

Whoops, just noticed mention of an email - apologies if you already did that.

Morloth · 22/09/2009 11:51

Me OrangeFish? I wouldn't mind if my DS slept with his girlfriend at my place. My PILs are Christians and they had a no sleeping over at all rule, we didn't even make out at their house when DH was living there before we got married. My SIL at 26 who lives with her parents still abides by this rule.

The actual rule isn't the issue - it is having respect for other people's homes, especially as a newcomer to the family.

If I was in the OPs DPs situation, I would be asking them not to come at Christmas, because I would not have been happy with a boyfriend contacting my mother directly in that situation.

hullygully · 22/09/2009 11:53

I REALLY want to see the email.

clam · 22/09/2009 11:58

She doesn't want to show us. We're internet strangers, after all.

But her BF and some mates have read it and think it's charming.

(But I'm nosey too and want to read it as well)

hullygully · 22/09/2009 12:00

Hello Clam. I think it BEHOVES her to show it in the interests of dispassionate judgment.

clam · 22/09/2009 12:08

Have you managed to get angry about this thread yet? Trouble is, the OP is just too laid back to care about the wave of YABUs she's received.

I'm off to look for a contentious post for you.....

clam · 22/09/2009 12:09

Or maybe I should get back to work...

Scotia · 22/09/2009 12:14

Lol at 'charming'. OP, you're behaving like a spoilt brat, and your RL friends are too dishonest to tell you so

expatinscotland · 22/09/2009 12:32

This is a wind up.

Hugs
expatinscotland

mrsboogie · 22/09/2009 12:46

gawd, this thread is bizarre.

The OP is not acting like a spilt brat - she has behaved in an adult manner in approaching her MiL and putting a perfectly sensible and reasonable prosposition to her, in, I have no doubt, a highly sensitive and polite manner.

She is not insisting or demanding anything merely suggesting that they stay in a hotel if the woman doesn't want them sleeping together in her house.

This is meant to be a special time and a precious 2 weeks together and why the hell should she let someone else's personal prejudices spoil it for her? No one ever suggested that the MiL's wishes for what happens under her roof shouldn't be catered to, but the OP's wish to be with her partner bears equal weight.

MaggieBeauLeo · 22/09/2009 12:47

has anybody checked the daily mail yet?!

every time i smelll journalist [sniff] [sniff] on a thread, then lo and behold there is a McArticle-ette in the DM about a very similar subject within a few days.

purplepeony · 22/09/2009 12:54

mrsB- once and for all, the person is not her MIL_ the poor woman already has a DIL- her son's wife.

This is the girlfriend of her son, whom she has known for 7 months- or rather who has known her son for 7 months.

If it WAS her MIL then the issue would not arise.

mollyroger · 22/09/2009 13:01

wow.there are a whole lot of MIL issues surfacing here - and I'm not talking about the poor OP! Transference, anyone....?

mrsboogie · 22/09/2009 13:03

yeah, technically I know BUT I cannot be ars*d writing her DP's DM over and over. People say MiL all the time when referring to unmarried cohabiting couples.

Oh and we don't actually know that the problem wouldn't arise if she was her MiL in the true sense - what if the MiL decided that a second marriage wasn't a valid one as most religions would have it?

MaggieBeauLeo · 22/09/2009 13:09

The op sounds completely bonkers. Credit where credit's due, she hasn't fired insults back at people who call her a twat etc,
but whilst it's a positvie attribute not to dwell on what people might be thinking of you when it's out of your control.. this is not what's happening here and OP thinks it is, she is giving herself a pat on the back for that, as though it were maturity of some sort... when in fact, she's totally incapable of seeing things from her boyfriend's mother's pov. It is very immature to refuse to acknowledge the fact that his mother considers him married to somebody else (which he is). HOW her dil behaved is necessarily relevant.

Even if not married, you can't describe a boyfriend as a partner.

If you've been with him 7 months, and you're serious about eachother by the sounds of it, but 7 months is not a 'partner'.