Family Matters
Knottie99147459
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
In-Laws vent/rant
I thought me and my in-laws would be fine, I mean I'm quiet talk to me and I'll talk to you I won't start anything and I'll do my best to make anyone happy. I found out yesterday that during the wedding planning process my then future MIL went to my mom just about crying about how the holidays aren't fair. For my family the holidays have always been a huge deal, even the little ones we would make sure we did something together and celebrate, the bigger ones we go all out. For my husband's family they hardly do anything if anything at all. (Quick back ground on my relationship, my husband and I were best friends then ended up dating for a year, got engaged and planned for a year and then got married this past April). Our first Christmas together my husband's family did nothing for Christmas, our second it, still just dating, I went over for a small lunch they decided to do last minute, the year we were engaged they thought I knew we would be doing the same thing again so I didn't know till the day before. They had a Thanksgiving dinner with us these past two years and it was the same as with Christmas. My family has plans set months out yet I need to make sure my calendar can be clear or change at a moments notice for them. My FIL only says hi or bye to me otherwise he talks about me in third person or as if I'm not there, and most the time it isn't always nice -not necessarily about me but maybe about women in general or something I like. Anytime my wedding is brought up it is negative, even though things ended up being changed so they would be happy. They tell my husband things, even if we have made our minds up on something they make him second guess himself/us. My husband will drop anything for them even if we had something planed for a week. One time we took off and had a five day weekend (right now we are lucky to have a two day weekend off together), we had plans for the next day, my FIL calls and all of a sudden my husband is going to a shooting rage for the day and I'm staying home. Lucky we had plans that morning, the same time his dad and brother said they wanted to leave, to meet up with our wedding photographer. I can't do anything for my husband and myself if it involves his family, his parents make all our plans for us and most of the time we somehow end up riding in their car/truck. For instance we are all going to a family wedding this weekend, I can't look into hotels because they book ours for us, we can't take our car or our truck because (here's their logic) we are picking up a coffee table from my husbands aunt that belonged to his late grandfather. so logically the small car is out, fine we will take our truck. Nope. Can't do that. The truck doesn't have a great gas mileage compared to the truck. Ok, you're taking your half-ton truck and you live 8 minutes away, ya'll can bring it back and we will drive the 8 minutes in our truck and just take the car to the wedding. Nope that is just stupid we will all go in their truck. We will be getting to town around 1ish, then have to meet the family (that we will be seeing later that day) for lunch that could take a few hours, and still have to get back to the hotel do my hair, makeup, and get dressed before the wedding at 7, that we have to show up early for. My husband tells me that he doesn't think we'll get back with much time to get ready, this coming from a man that takes 10 minutes to get ready, I did want to curl my hair (my hair is so thick it can take me two hours just to curl it) and take time on my makeup, I normally take 20 minutes at most so I was going to let myself have more and contour my face and stuff. Well I guess that is out and I have to change my plans. Another thing... When I was younger (teen years, I'm early 20's) I found my peers to be stupid teens and I connected better with people older than me or with more life experiences and wiser. That said my parents and I have some friends in common, so if we hang out sometimes we could be with my parents, I see my parents just family maybe once every two weeks and for less than 3 hours at time. According to the in-laws this is fine and normal. But if we go to their house for whatever reason even if it is just because they called and need my husbands help it is for at least five house and this is about every week or so. We had to get this weekend off for the wedding, I wanted to have a nice dinner, get the house ready, pack, and relax tonight. We got a call Sunday, they want us over tonight at 5 to have a family dinner, so we can spend 6+ hours in a truck with 5 people then stay in a hotel room with rooms next to each other, eat lunch with each other, have to ride everywhere together, have another 6+ hour ride back, all while things are said about me, and conversations are had that I have no clue what they are talking about. They do that a lot too, I just sit there and they talk about things I wasn't there for, people I've never met, and things from their past and literally act like I'm not there.
Rant over.
Sorry for bad grammar, any misspellings or any thing of the like, part of this was written with tears in my eyes.
Re: In-Laws vent/rant
Stop blaming your ILs. Yes, they sound selfish and they are A problem, but your DH is THE problem. If he had a backbone and would say "no" to them,, a LOT of this wouldn't be an issue.
You've got to work on him. You have to get MAD at him when he ditches plans w/ you to run to them. You have to get mad at HIM for spending 5+ hours there for something that only needs an hour.
Seriously. They'll get mad, they won't stop demanding. But if the TWO OF YOU would be a team, then you could say "no" and you all could learn to live w/ them being upset.
WHich I will say - your DH needs to learn that he is not responsbile for his parents feelings.
The other PPs have said it well for your main issues. But, in regards to the holidays, since your family does it up big for Christmas...is it possible to invite the IL's to your family's celebrations? That way, they can be included without even having to go through any muss or fuss, since it sounds like planning a major event isn't their cup of tea anyway.
As for the wedding I couldn't change plans the night before, we were leaving at 6 in the morning, so we road with them. The whole time my DH was apologizing to me because of things said, being late everywhere, I ended up with less than an hour and thirty minutes to get "un-ready" from the drive and being out the whole time and getting ready. Why? Because his Dad HAD to go to Sam's Club to get cappuccino. CAPPUCCINO!! Have you ever shopped at a different Sam's than you are used to? My FIL was swearing it would be set up as the one in Dallas. We were there at lest an hour, walking in circles. When we had given up he refused to leave and started asking random workers till he worked his way up to someone who would know. They did end up having it but why the heck do you need four containers of bulk cappuccino mix 7 hours from home? We could have stopped on the way or he could have gone during the week. (He recently retired early, only has two sons, my DH who moved out a while back and my BIL who just moved 5 hours away for college and every time I see him he complains that he is bored and that my DH needs to come over more and help out and that I live to close to my mom). I was also late getting back because of him, lucky my plans changed while we were on our way back. So we just had to stay for a late lunch.
As far as the holidays go, you KNOW his family is last minute. Tell your DH that this is how things are going to work - you're going ot make plans w/ your family. Period. When his family, last minute, says "Hey- lets do X at Y time.", if you already have plans w/ your family, you (meaning DH) just tell his family "Oh, we'd love to get together but we can't at that time. we have __ to __ open. Would that work for you?". If it doesn't, you ( your DH) say "OH, that's too bad. Well, hopefully we can find another day or time to GTG. But X time just doesn't work for us.".
All gently, nicely. But stating the facts. you have plans.
As I assume a lot of this is your DH not wanting to say "no" to his parents, you REALLY need to push him on "Why is it fair to drop plans w/ MY family for your family? How would you feel if I consistently expected us to break plans w/ your family for mine? MY family is important too. Yours can't come first all.the.time.".
And it's also basic good manners. you don't break plans w/ people because something else ("better"???) comes along. It's rude.
He needs to really do some critical thinking about why he feels this is o.k. to do to EVERYONE around him except for his precious parents.
This type of behavior is not uncommon for him.
Yes, HIS parents may try to claim that it is, but it isn't. Saying "no" isn't being disrespectful. Being an adult isn't being disrespectful. making choices for yourself isn't being disrespectful.
Your FIL is disrespectful. To speak to you like that? THAT is disrespect. Through and through.
Saying "no, f-you, we're not riding in the same car as you. What, are you an idiot?" - That's being disrespectful.
Saying "Thanks for the offer but we're going to take our own car" is NOT being disrespectful.
In a situation like yours, I would recommend to always, always have your own ride, no matter what. My ex MIL used to pull that crap of insisting that we ride in the same car. The reason was that she wanted to control where we went and when, like children. If we had our own means of transportation we wouldn't be dependent on her, and she didn't like that. Always have the means to make an exit if necessary.
I've been married 21 years and every once in a while, when we just can't work it out to please all parties, my husband and I simply "divide and conquer." Face it, the in-laws don't really want to see you, they want to see their son. Every once in a while, I let MIL have him and it is awesome. He spends the night, they go out to lunch one day, he goes to her brother's house for a holiday or family reunion, whatever. I've got him 365 days a year. Holidays are just artificial constructs that have nothing to do with real life, so we just let 'em go by and try to make folks happy who do care about them.
My family is very low-key on the holiday front, but mom and dad do like to see us on a specific day for a gathering of our immediate family (my brother and I, our spouses and children). My brother deals with in-laws who try to turn EVERY Hallmark holiday into the Fourth of July and Christmas all rolled into one. I know my mom gets tired of never having her son with her for any holiday or having to fight for time with this person who passed through her birth canal because he is obligated to go to these family whing dings featuring 100s of their closest friends over on his wife's side of the family. And when he is with mom and dad, his wife is along for the ride and you just feel like she's glancing at the clock every five minutes until they can leave and go off to BIG PARTY at her family (which occurs for every birthday, Father's Day, Mother's Day, Flag Day, Labor Day, Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Thanksgiving (night before/day of/Black Friday b.s.), etc. etc. My parents are just that little annoyance they have to get through.
So, I'm sort of looking at this from a different perspective. There are really two kinds of people/families ... those that make big deals out of stuff and those that don't. They do not understand each other. You gotta figure out if this is something you two are willing to compromise on, or if this is going to turn into some big bone of contention for years to come.
(Sidebar: That whole "inviting both sides of the family" plan sounds like NOTHING I would ever want to be part of myself. Worlds colliding! I like living my life in a very compartmentalized fashion, as do all of us "low-key" holiday celebrants! LOL!)
You all are in your early 20s. Now is the time to set the ground rules and decide how you two are going to operate in these situations as a couple. The sooner you come up with your plan and start sticking to your guns, the sooner it just becomes how things are and everyone can move on from there ... inlaws, outlaws, and everyone in between.
And I just have to comment on the person who made the statement about "sacrificing" Thanksgiving for her husband's mother, well, let's just say that as the mother of an only child who happens to be a son, I am praying that he marries an orphan so that I won't be the person they are "sacrificing" their holiday to throw me a frakkin' bone! Send my son over and don't do me any favors, please!
That was me. I know it probably sounded harsh, but it is what it is. Neither H or I enjoy this gathering-actually, him less than me. MIL would never know, however. We smile, I help, I bring some food, etc. It's the right thing to do for her. We're hoping to transition in the next few years to hosting, but we floated it this year and were rebuffed. It's a tough gathering. We are the youngest there by far, and men and women hang out in different rooms like the 1800s. If H tries to come hang out with MIL and I, she'll bring up periods or something that forces him to leave out of awkwardness. Seriously.
I'm thinking once we have kids hosting will become less controversial. This will be the only grandkid on both sides, and our families get along well enough with each other to combine.
You'd HATE my mother's family gatherings. The women serve the children, then the men. After those two groups have eaten and are up and gone from the room, the women sit down to eat. We love it. Get those snotty kids and those men out of the way so the real party can start in the kitchen with the WOMEN around that table. Who wants to have to sit with the children and husbands during holiday dinners? Where's the holiday in THAT? LOL! We want to sit there and talk about our men freely. If they are there also, it just ruins the whole conversation. People are no fun to talk about if they are sitting right there beside you.