I am in the post breakup reflection stage. For those who are married / in long term relationships…I’d be be very curious to hear what your in-laws are like. Are they fairly reserved or are they quite high maintenance / “crazy”. I have been lucky to have been born into a fairly relaxed family. The people I have dated generally have had very intense families (two of which having people committing illegal violent / drug induced activity). I am wondering if I should be relaxing my acceptance of the influences I have in my life. I am finding it difficult to not have apprehension with in-laws based on my previous experiences. What are your experiences like?
My inlaws are great. A very normal all-American type family. Their household is a little more formal and their gender roles a lot stricter than I am used to, but they are all-around good people, fun to be around, and very helpful to us.
Good in-laws are a very, very, very big plus if they live nearby and you plan to have kids.
decomposed.
My inlaws are very sweet people who will do anything for family. They welcomed me into the family from the very first. They’ll gladly give advice and assistance when asked, but they don’t volunteer, which is wonderful. They’re also in their 80s and beginning to have LOTS of health issues, and it’s very difficult on my husband.
One of his brothers, however, is a royal pain in the ass. He can’t hold a job, he has delusions of grandeur, he’s in his middle 50s and still hasn’t figured out what he wants to be when he grows up. Everything that doesn’t go his way is someone else’s fault. And he angers me because he takes advantage of his parents, knowing they’d never turn him down. He’s the reason I hate family events with that side of the family.
Dead.
Next question.
My mother in-law is dead, but she was not accepting of me at all. Not good enough for her son because I wasn’t a christian and I wouldn’t kiss her ass.
Dead now, but they were sweet and accepting, and would bend over backwards to help.
They’re mentally, physically, and financially unstable. My wife and I have been supporting them for years and soon they will move in with us because they can’t manage their money or lives. They’re a damn mess. Thirteen years ago, they tried to talk my wife out of marrying me. I was the wrong social class, the wrong profession, and the wrong race. Well, we’re still together and now supporting their sorry asses. All these years later, when I look at my father in law, I just see the guy who made my wife cry when she told him I’d just proposed to her. Fuck him.
My MIL is close to the stereotype of the “bad” MIL. My husband is Latino. I’m not. She is divorced from my FIL. She has hit me with gems like I’m not good for my husband’s soul because I say “thank you” when he helps around the house. She believes my husband is the living image of the man she divorced, so she’ll bitch about him all day long - as if he were his father - if I don’t shut her down. She regularly says things like “no one in my family does that” about me or something one of the kids has done. If she disagrees with something I have done, she might ask me to change it. If I don’t, she’ll go to my husband, in Spanish, without explaining that she and I have already discussed it, and try and get him to over-rule me. Just like a kid trying to get mom and dad to give different answers about dessert. As if I don’t understand Spanish after 24 years. She’ll show up without notice, from out of state, and stay until we have to ask her to leave. Or she’ll leave right when the kids are counting on her for something.
I’m as civil as I can be for sake of my children.
Why does The Dope want me to be single again?
My husband’s mother and stepfather? Salt of the earth. Wonderful, wonderful people - kind, loving, helpful when asked, non-intruding when not asked, and very accepting of me. I adore them.
My brother-in-law? One of the sweetest people I’ve ever met. My only complaint about him is that he lives too far away and I don’t get to see him as often as I’d like.
My husband’s father and stepmother? Ignorant, backwards, bigoted rednecks. Father drinks like a fish, stepmother tries to overdose on prescription drugs about twice a year. Irresponsible, want us to do all of the traveling to visit, and whine and moan that we don’t visit enough. They were almost entirely uninvolved in Tony’s life until he had his first child, at age 41, but now they want to play Grandma and Grandpa. I hope their ends are painless and quick, but soon.
Not nice people.
On our wedding day, my new MIL informed my mother and grandmother that she was sorry for them and for me because her daughter, my new wife, was really a rather horrible person who would be sure to make my life miserable (and by extension, theirs as well).
When they came to our daughter’s high school graduation, my MIL snarked about the entire event, from soup to nuts, and made several hostile comments about our daughter and her intelligence.
My FIL is not a bad guy but is completely under her thumb, and she treats him miserably.
While they are capable of bursts of kindness and generosity, and while both can be extremely charming, that is, shall we say, not the norm.
My wife and I married when we were both 37 (my first, her second, but the first one “doesn’t count” as she married him and within 2 months he was rotated overseas (the Army) - no real contact since then, and her divorce was one of those “put a notice in the paper and wait 30 days” things). Both her parents passed before we were married. My mother had a heart transplant the year before we married, and passed just a little over 10 years ago now (we got 8 more years with her). My stepfather, who’s really the man I consider my dad and who gave me his name since before I started school passed about 19 months ago. For the most part, my wife’s parents-in-law were pleased with her, very accepting and welcoming, that type of thing.
My brother’s wife is, however, my very definition of a harridan. I’ve been mentally ill all of my life, have been on medications and in therapy for more than 10 years, even been hospitalized once. This woman needs more care than I’m getting, but will never get it as she doesn’t recognize there’s anything wrong with her. Her mother was one of the truest bitches it’s ever been my displeasure to meet, and I heard her poisonous tongue often enough when I was around that I knew she was bitter and nasty all the time. Her daughter, my sister-in-law, thus is a damaged person. Thinks nothing of screaming in anger at the drop of a hat, for the slightest of reasons, wildly and inappropriately overreacting to any given situation. My wife and she never got along, but as long as Mom was alive, peace was kept at family gatherings.
Once Mom passed, well, the entire network of families kinda just…came apart. I don’t have any contact now with any of my cousins - that’s been my fault. But I quite deliberately instituted a policy of my family keeping away from my brother’s family. The 3rd brother of we three witnessed me on more than one occasion bend over backwards in an effort to mend fences, but it never took. I finally decided keeping our distance resulted in peace - at least on our side; I doubt there’s peace in my brother’s house, since the last contact I had with him - 2 years ago now - he related that his wife will still blow her stack, get into a screaming fit, and even throw things just because he’d bring me up in conversation.
I have a whole library of personal defects and flaws, but one thing I decided I didn’t need was her presence in our lives, thus the plan to stay away after all peace overtures failed again and again. I’ve missed my niece and nephew growing from grade-school age to post-high-school. I’m quite sure that I’ll miss their weddings, the birth of their kids, etc.
For the longest time, too, I blamed all of it on her that I didn’t blame myself for. I’ve now come to see that it’s my brother who has no interest in keeping up any contact whatsoever with me. She’s been an obvious scapegoat, and my motivation to keep us separate, but it’s really him. Me and him. Both of us made some kind of decision to have no contact.
What was I talkin’ about? I was really goin’ somewhere with this…
MIL is a nightmare. Narcissistic control freak, compulsive liar, hypocrite. The rest of the family say things like “It’s not worth standing up to her, she’ll just make you pay for it” and “Try not to take it personally. She’s like that with everyone”. She’s shacked up with her ex husband, my partner’s father, and he’s a complete doormat. He only cares about keeping the peace, and he’ll throw his kids to the wolves just to keep her quiet.
Meanwhile she’s still bragging about how awesome it was to cheat on him and run off with another man because he was too busy working to pay her enough attention, while simultaneously giving herself airs because she has money: his money. The money he earned while she was screwing around on him because he was working too much. Gah.
She’s just a horrible person. To be fair, I was warned from the start. The first thing my partner ever told me about her was “She’s an awful woman. I emigrated to get away from her.” He was exaggerating about the last part, but it certainly wasn’t a disincentive to emigrate… He didn’t expect that she’d move here too.
MIL/FIL deceased, really cool BIL who cheerfully lets my sister manage him (they love each other), SIL absent from family, SIL/her husband who have two great kids but with whom we have minimal contact. My husband seriously disliked his parents and still rants about them; I got along with them fine because they didn’t raise me/repress me. Two of the kids moved to the other side of the country and one went to Taiwan (as far away as she could get ;))
I’m enormously flattered my children live 15-25 minutes away and my sons-on-law are always over helping out.
My in laws are dead, but my MIL was a very pleasant and nice woman, FIL kind of an asshole and absentee father.
I don’t have any issues with my BIL, aside from the fact my one BIL tends to date very young and mentally unstable women prone to acting out. More distant relations no issues.
I am divorced so I technically don’t have any in-laws anymore but I still consider them my family. They are extremely wealthy and always took good care of me since the day I first met them when I was barely 18 years old. I still spend lots of time with them including yesterday - Christmas. I always have full access to all of their houses from Boston, New Hampshire to the US Virgin Islands just by asking.
I think they understand why their daughter and I didn’t get along well enough because she does the same thing to them. I am the father of their grandchildren and always will be so we make it work. My ex-MIL is almost exactly like a prettier and classier version of Martha Stewart. My ex-FIL is like a more stereotypical version of the Godfather. He is extremely Italian-American and very intimidating if you don’t know him well. I never got into an argument with him directly because that wouldn’t work out well. They have been really good to me in general over the years though even independent of their daughter. I don’t have any family within 1000 miles except for my daughters so we stay close and work things out.
Wonderful folks. I’m afraid that my FIL is no longer with us though, but I loved that guy. My MIL is great too. Sure, we all have our flaws, but I actually enjoy visiting with her. Even though it’s usually just on the phone.
My Mom and my Wife get along great too. Actually, my mom will drive me a little crazy (sometimes treats me like a little kid, I’m 54), and my wife’s mom drives her a little crazy. I think that’s pretty normal.
My BIL is a racist misanthropic asshole. My wife has two sisters: one is a miserable bitch to whom she doesn’t speak. The other one is bipolar, so while she calls her on occasion, we don’t dare invite her to come visit. Her parents are long gone.
Mine were fantastic; almost second parents. They could end up on “her side” or mine depending on the viewpoint almost from the beginning - at least the beginning of when we got “serious” about each other.