How much is appropriate to call the shots when you have family staying in your home?

[Anonymous]

Wait, they wait for you to come home to make dinner? They should be making you dinner.

[Anonymous]

We try to compromise when we have family staying with us. We are certainly not eating at my parents regularly scheduled dinner time, 4pm because we are not even home from work/school yet, but we also do not eat at our preferred time of 6:30/6:45. If I'm cooking I try to make sure we eat around 5:45/6 which is the absolute earliest we can do with our schedule and does involve me basically walking into the house, washing up and starting dinner immediately. If one of them cooks we might eat around 5:15.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If it’s a visit during “regular times” with work and school and activities, they can either fall in line or work around you.

If it’s during holidays and you don’t have work/school/tons of activities, you can adjust things like Christmas dinner or Thanksgiving dinner to a time that works better for them, or that is a compromise.

When you have flexibility, be flexible. When you don’t, make it clear that you’re doing X at Y o’clock and they are free to do something else if that works better for them.

This.

Plus communicate.

It’s your house, appliances and family schedule so you or your spouse should LEAD the basic communications and basic planning (meals, other nuclear family obligations).
They can tag along or other own thing.

[Anonymous]

Compromise. Or, if they can do things like help cook, eat earlier if you can. What is the big deal?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We try to compromise when we have family staying with us. We are certainly not eating at my parents regularly scheduled dinner time, 4pm because we are not even home from work/school yet, but we also do not eat at our preferred time of 6:30/6:45. If I'm cooking I try to make sure we eat around 5:45/6 which is the absolute earliest we can do with our schedule and does involve me basically walking into the house, washing up and starting dinner immediately. If one of them cooks we might eat around 5:15.

How is 4pm anyone’s dinner time? That’s insane. That’s a different time zone

[Anonymous]

If it's longer term, than you need to have a sit down and go over this stuff or you will continue to be miserable.

[Anonymous]

I agree with the person who said when you have flexibility and can stand it be flexible, when life is too hectic make your boundaries clear in a respectful and clear way. If the visit is 1 night, it's easier to bend then if it's a lot longer. I would not let resentment build. There needs to be a calm discussion about expectations.

This is why we stay in a hotel visiting relatives. We don't want to cause any stress. We also suggest meeting at restaurants and we pay or we offer to bring food to their home if they prefer. Be prepared that some people cannot accept boundaries even when presented respectfully. DH and his siblings stopped allowing MIL to stay at their home because she was entitled, refused to accept any boundaries and threw a fit whenever anyone set them. Reasonable people can respect boundaries and be polite guests.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I struggle often with the fact that when my ILs stay they have such different preferences than us. Eg the time they want to eat dinner vs us (we eat much later than them bc of what time we finish work and just our rhythm)

Do you all do what your ILs want to do because they are the guests or compromise and feel bad or how do you think about it? We typically compromise but i find that even the compromise makes me sort of have to twist myself into a pretzel.

would love to hear how others think about it.

Your house, your preference. I'm an inlaw/parent and can always eat a snack. Are they just visiting or also working during a visit?
We have 1 adult DC where the household has some unusual strict rules and procedures. Would stay in a hotel and another would stay at their house.

They're just visiting but they visit quite a bit and on weekends often (like 1 in 5 or 6 weekends they come to stay). I work crazy hard during the week, friday nights the kids have sports and saturday nights I look forward to being the one night where I get to kind of relax and have a nice dinner not at 5.30pm. I also grew up in spain where no one would ever eat dinner at 5.30pm so it feels especially jolting and makes me not want them to come.

Well, you’re not in Spain, Hilaria.

This is a stupid response. There’s no set time “Americans” eat dinner.

The real question is why isn’t your husband taking a lead in this and handling his parents? It sounds like that’s what needs to happen and he needs to cook for his family. OP can hang out with a glass of wine and eat when she wants.

[Anonymous]

If guests need to eat earlier than I can make work, they are welcome to cook for themselves. I get home from work around 5:30 and then am typically running kids around to activities. By the time I get dinner on the table it can be anywhere from 6:30-8 depending on the night, including weekends given the timing of various games. There’s not much I can do to be flexible about it short of pulling a kids out of their activities while we have guests, which isn’t something we do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I struggle often with the fact that when my ILs stay they have such different preferences than us. Eg the time they want to eat dinner vs us (we eat much later than them bc of what time we finish work and just our rhythm)

Do you all do what your ILs want to do because they are the guests or compromise and feel bad or how do you think about it? We typically compromise but i find that even the compromise makes me sort of have to twist myself into a pretzel.

would love to hear how others think about it.

Your house, your preference. I'm an inlaw/parent and can always eat a snack. Are they just visiting or also working during a visit?
We have 1 adult DC where the household has some unusual strict rules and procedures. Would stay in a hotel and another would stay at their house.

They're just visiting but they visit quite a bit and on weekends often (like 1 in 5 or 6 weekends they come to stay). I work crazy hard during the week, friday nights the kids have sports and saturday nights I look forward to being the one night where I get to kind of relax and have a nice dinner not at 5.30pm. I also grew up in spain where no one would ever eat dinner at 5.30pm so it feels especially jolting and makes me not want them to come.

Well, you’re not in Spain, Hilaria.

This is a stupid response. There’s no set time “Americans” eat dinner.

The real question is why isn’t your husband taking a lead in this and handling his parents? It sounds like that’s what needs to happen and he needs to cook for his family. OP can hang out with a glass of wine and eat when she wants.

That’s not how families work. OP is a part of his family and for the most part would be eating with them not off on her own grabbing wine, that’s rather bizarre. I’m all for passing off some things to the spouse when it comes to sensitive issues with his parent dynamics but this isn’t really that case, and if you have visitors in your home, you interact with them!

[Anonymous]

It sounds like they come visit a lot so I think they need to do things your way.

[Anonymous]

I’m not hosting anyone who “must” eat dinner at 5pm. Anyone that rigid can get a hotel.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If it’s a visit during “regular times” with work and school and activities, they can either fall in line or work around you.

If it’s during holidays and you don’t have work/school/tons of activities, you can adjust things like Christmas dinner or Thanksgiving dinner to a time that works better for them, or that is a compromise.

When you have flexibility, be flexible. When you don’t, make it clear that you’re doing X at Y o’clock and they are free to do something else if that works better for them.

This. It’s not rocket science, OP.