Need positive stories about initially tense in-law relationships, please!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

This actually isn’t about me and my inlaws - it’s about my folks and their relationship with my brother’s fiancee, Bix (not her real nickname).

Basically she and my mom can’t get along AT ALL. Part of that is the fact that my mother is really overprotective of my brother, and tends to treat him like he’s 14 when in reality he’s 20. (To be fair, he still acts like he’s 14 most of the time.) Part of it is that Bix is 19 and, quite frankly, spoiled rotten - her parents have never set any limits on her behavior and she’s quite convinced that the world revolves around her.

Our family is physically affectionate (lots of hugging, kisses, etc - not uncommon for parent and child to hold hands while walking along, or to rest a head on a shoulder while watching TV together) and very emotionally intertwined as well. We keep in telephone and electronic conversation almost daily, and are equally quick to say “I love you,” “I’m really bummed out about this thing that happened today,” “Wow, that’s horrible, I bet that really sucked - here’s an idea to help it not happen again,” and “What the fuck are you doing? That’s really a stupid decision.”

Bix, OTOH, doesn’t like to be touched, is visibly bored by any conversation that is primarily about anyone other than herself or her friends or her favorite band, is furious that my Mom expects my brother to return their phone calls when they call, and flies into a fit when my folks suggest that they do things a different way than she wants them done. She doesn’t like my brother to be away from her for even a few hours - if he’s planning on coming over to visit the folks, she’ll come too, though she’ll be Visibly Bored and do her best to drag him away from the folks and spend time with her, even at their house. She’s also bipolar, which adds a whole nother level of fun.

There are class issues as well - my folks are fairly solidly middle class (my dad is a family therapist; my mom was a real estate agent, though she hasn’t been able to work the last year because she’s been in cancer treatment), and Bix’s family is dirt poor, with her folks having been blue collar (dad ex-military, ex-cop, mom I dunno what) but now both are on disability. Neither Bix nor her folks have a car, and they live in one of the nastier parts of Long Beach. My brother is living with her family, so that’s 4 unemployed people in a one-bedroom apartment (as well as 2 dogs, 6 cats, and a bird or two.) My parents are worried that my brother (never the most motivated person) is becoming even more slothful due to their influence.

Oh, and did I mention that Bix is pregnant? So whether we like it or not, whether she likes it or not, she’s part of our family now. My niece is due in late June.

Gods. I sometimes want to sit them all down and just slap them silly.

Anyway - having vented, I’d love to hear some stories about people who initially didn’t get along with their spouses’ families/family’s spouses, but then grew to totally adore them and eventually they just fit right in. At least to give me a little hope…

2

When we told my future inlaws (who up to that point were very nice and relieved that their son found a nice girl) that we were cohabitating, they freaked out. I was cussed out and my family insulted, his Mom burst into tears and we left the restaurant in dead silence and were dropped off their radar for literally six months.

Fast forward 20 years, my MIL brought up that shameful (for them) episode and apologized to us for acting like a maroon.

so yes maintain hope!:wink:

3

Hell, I didn’t even MEET my in-laws until after dating my wife for over a year, my mom-in-law is so agoraphobic.

4

wow. I just realized how amazingly long the OP is. Note to self: don’t post when it’s late and you’re brooding and hot and can’t sleep, or you’ll write a novel!

Tl;dr version : my mom and future sister in law hate each other. Give me hope there’ll be some peace someday.

5

There can be. 20 & 19 is extremely young to be getting married (yes, I know there are 1000x people who made it work, but it IS young) and both your brother and Bix sound fairly immature.

The only way this can work is if Bix and Brother both grow up and mature over the next several years. But for that to happen, one of them will have to be a little more understanding and mature, and the other has to really love the first, and be willing to change.

And it will take a while. And it may never happen…personally I would recommend they wait a few years to get married, but kids these days! Always in a rush. :slight_smile:

6

I had quite tense relations with my in-laws. They were Ukranian Catholic and VERY religious; I’m Jewish by ethnicity, and not a believer in the literal existence any sort of god … frankly, I found their version of folk-Catholicism off-puttingly wierd, and they were initially less than happy about having a Jew about the place - back in the old country, Jews and Ukranian Catholic nationalist types did not get along, I gather.

To give some examples … the very first time I was over to their house to dinner, I was sitting in their living room alone for a bit (they were making dinner and my future wife was on the phone). On the table were some religious type pamphlets, obviously put there for visitors. I picked one up, and it was a sort of meditation-book - you were supposed to think about a different thing every day of the week for 45 minutes. However, these were not happy uplifting things, but rather cruel tortures inflicted on Jesus by the Jews. These were not the standard stuff like whippings of the stations of the cross, but innovative new things I’d never heard before - the one I remember was that you were supposed to meditate on Tuesdays to the thought of Jews gleefully shoving turds down Jesus’ throat.

I must say that gave me a bit of pause, first because it is so very bizzare an image, and second considering that of course I am a Jew, and I wondered if they had put out these pamplets for me to find (they had not).

However, in spite of it all they were not bad people. Her mom had survived WW2 in Ukraine as a child, made her way after heroic adventures to Canada without two cents in her pocket and speaking not a word of English, and raised a family - all the kids went to university. In spite of their … odd ways, and ingrained old-world prejudices, they never treated me unkindly, other than continual attempts at conversion.

My wife had equal problems with my parents, who are very well-educated middle class sort of people (my father is a professor). The problem is one of attitude - they look down on her family, a lot. For example, my mom in-law has a brother who is an architect, and a well-read man - my dad, after speaking to him, came to me and said “he can read!” in a tone of genuine astonishment - as if he expected that anyone from her family is likely to be illiterate. My wide is not unperceptive and this attitute offends her a lot.

7

Best thing would be for Bix and Bro to get their own place, away from the mess and chaos that you described. Frankly, it sounds like hell.

You can’t fix or change Bix–but getting her out of her mieleu may help the situation.

Mom needs lots of patience. And perhaps you could tone down the hand holding etc–your family is unusual in this regard. No doubt Bix is feeling not only uncomfortable, but also threatened by it. He is also probably being teased about it by the family he is now living with. Bro is in a difficult position here (of his own making, I’m not forgetting that).

I know I wouldn’t want that kind of thing-the physical closeness and constant calling-- as a newcomer into a family. Is there a way to get to know her on her own? See her as her own person, not just as a vessel for your coming niece?

IMO, I have learned all the things NOT to do as a MIL from my MIL. She treated me very badly for many years, has never apologized and now wants me to wait on her (she’s independent; she just likes the attention). I am not without blame myself, but IMO, the tone of the relationship is set by the MIL. Tread carefully… I feel sorry for Bro, caught in the middle, but he needs to decide his priorities and keep to them (it should be as an advocate for Bix, if it’s not, you have bigger issues than a message board can help you with!)