I’ve been married for about 2 1/2 years now, and I have this tiny problem with my in-laws. I have no idea how to address them.
Soon after I proposed to my wife I made the earth-shattering mistake of calling her dad by his first name. Evidently, this is a major no-no. Her mom completely freaked out and said that I was never to address them by their first names, and how rude it was, and other such things. I was taken aback by how extreme her reaction was. She told me that I had to call them Mom and Dad (which is how they both addressed their in-laws).
The problem with that is that I already have a Mom and Dad. I really don’t feel comfortable calling my in-laws Mom and Dad too. When I told her this, she freaked out again and told me that since we were family, I had better get comfortable with it. She also thought my compromise of Mr. and Mrs. [Last Name] was rude.
Now, this was about 4 years ago, and I still don’t feel comfortable calling them Mom and Dad. In fact, as far as I can remember, I’ve never directly addressed either one of them. I’ve gotten around it by using “you,” “him/her,” “your mom/dad,” “my wife’s mother/father,” and other workarounds.
My preferred option is still to call them by their first names (which seems to be the normal way of referring to one’s in-laws), but I’ve been too chicken-shit to bring it up again. Recently it’s been bothering me quite a bit.
I was thinking that since we’re going to try for kids soon, I could just hold off and use Grandma and Grandpa. However, this seems like a cop-out and would probably still bother me.
My wife is no help because her usual method of dealing with a freak out by her parents is to permanently avoid the topic that brought it about. My parents aren’t any help either. I figured the SD might be able to help. So, after all that rambling, here’s my questions:
What do/did/would you call your in-laws (or reasonable facsimiles thereof)?
Any suggestions how to talk to them about this (hopefully with exponentially less freaking out)?