in law irritation

[truncated]

I have to admit something...

 

I don't like my inlaws. My husband's mother has this weird fixation with the fact that he married me and moved away instead of staying at home.

 

 

If they come to visit us, we have to be careful because they act is a passive aggressive way. If we have something nice, they will "accidentally" break it, so we have to hide things from them.

 

They also have a way of "planting seeds". They get in little barbs and digs all with this innocent looks on their faces. It bugs my husband, and me as well.

 

They are also a couple of bigots who use horrible terms for people of other races, which is something that really bothers me. They're older, but they know better.

 

My mother in law is really manipulative. She picked up a habit of crying when she isn't getting her own way, and uses guilt to get what she wants. When that doesn't work, she pouts.

 

I think the worst thing is the way she uses little innuendos to hurt. One of the worst things is when she said "it's too bad (our daughter's name) hadn't been to the doctor sooner that she was. Things might have been different".

 

I know my husband feels pulled between his parents feelings and mine, and I do try to make thinsg easier for him, but sometimes it's hard. He's been through so much in his life, and I don;t like to add to the pile.

 

Is anyone else in a similar position with their in laws? How do you handle it?

[Winterina]

You don't fix anything. It is your husband's job. He needs to make sure his mum knows she is no longer the most important woman in his life and that her antics are not welcome.

[Timshel]

Yes, have been, two sets actually. The first are Fox News Republicans and racist. That MIL also treated waitstaff horribly which is a pet peeve of mine. The second set, again racist. The day after my husband passed I said to my brother in law, who was leaving (states away) that he was welcome to take anything he cherished. My lovely MIL without skipping a beat laughed evilly and said "she's already giving all his stuff away." Still bites. I have found the MIL's to be slightly more aggressive.

How did I deal for a total of 17 yrs.? Bite my tongue as much as possible, take walks (get air), be extra nice. I would remind myself that they brought my husband into the world and was raised to respect my elders. Once in awhile I would speak up when it was too wrong and over time I gained their respect.

It can be really tough, no doubt about it. I agree with Winterina, the big foot downs are your husbands place but you are family and should be able to have a voice.

Best wishes.

[georgia girl]

My in-laws are not bad and I actually really enjoy them. However, my husband's prior girlfriends felt they were bad and I know from my in-laws that they didn't get along with at least two of them (and my husband only had three serious girlfriends before me).

 

 

My hubby thinks it's because I practice "mom judo." I do know that growing up in a big family as the youngest, I was able to naturally divert attention away from me very easily. Plus, growing up in a family, you also learn to let a lot of stuff just roll off your back and "consider the source" so most of it genuinely doesn't bother me anyway. The final thing is that I'm half-deaf so it's easy to not hear whatever I don't want to hear. However, I do have three of my most effective judo tricks:

 

 

1) Change the subject. They must think I have ADHD but when I see them going into dangerous territory, I simply change the topic.

 

 

2) Disengage. When particularly my mother-in-law wants to get into a controversial topic or is about to criticize, I abruptly stop the conversation. If it's on the phone, I say, "Oops, I gotta go and say goodbye." No excuses, just "gotta go," because I do. If they're here or we're there, I say something like, "Yeah, I really don't want to get into that," and then I physically leave the space. It only takes a few times until they learn that if they're going there, I'm simply going to disengage and walk away. No response is so much more effective than any response any day of the week.

 

 

3) I take a break. If they start ticking me off and number 1 and 2 don't work, then I become unavailable for a little while. I either take off to see my family, go into work, go for a walk, go shopping, whatever.

 

 

When I first started this, I really wasn't consciously doing it. Now, I recognize the patterns and what I'm really doing is gradually escalating the level of dis-engagement. At first, I'll just change the topic but continue to talk to you; then, I'll walk away but just for a very short period of time; then, I'll walk away for a longer period of time and make sure that its enough time to get me back into a happy space.

 

 

After a few years, I've noticed that I don't have to engage #3 all that often anymore. My husband does, but he's a very calm personality and crazy noise gets to him. We just spent a week with them and I never even had to use #2. I still use #1, and I imagine that I probably always will. But, I do think they've learned that I simply don't respond to controversial stuff.

 

 

Now conversely, the other thing I've done is made sure that they know they are absolutely ALWAYS welcome in our home at any time. We also live fairly far apart and I make sure I split holidays and we have now arranged to take a trip every year where my husband and I rent the accommodations and they're welcome to come and stay for free. Therefore, we really still engage them and have built up a cache of good memories built on mutually desirable behaviors.

 

 

Hope that helps!

[spanz1]

stop inviting them over to your house. if they want to act like horses asses, treat them accordingly