I dropped the hosting rope and now ILs think I’m ‘mad’ at them

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was with you until the end. If they asked about coffee, it would have been polite to brew some for them. And it was a pretty small request, so it seems a bit petty to refuse.

Nope. The parents could ask THEIR OWN SON for coffee once in a blue moon at least. Why ask the woman for everything?

They asked her for coffee. DH got the pizza, rotisserie chicken, made the bed, etc. It's not like he did nothing. It wasn't up to OPs standards, or something, but what does that really matter? It doesn't sound like the OPs complained to her at all during the visit. They asked about coffee one time and apparently that's it. There was a text asking if she was mad after the visit but I'm not seeing where she was asked for "everything" at all.

So why did MIL think OP might be mad just because she didn't serve them a delicious meal, prepare their coffee and stay up later to talk? I also spent many hours having lunch with my MIL, filling her in on all the stuff DH couldn't be bothered telling her about. Less attention and entertainment means you're mad? How about you are tired of doing it and want your DH to take responsibility for HIS parents' needs.

I don’t think that’s why MIL thinks OP is mad. I think there was probably a lot of simmering tension between OP and her husband and the guests picked up on it. Remember, the in laws had no idea what conversations the two spouses had had. They were just coming for a happy Easter and walked into all this.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:This is so stupid. I would still want my kids to have a nice Easter dinner so I would have figured that part out. Maybe left your husband to put the sheets on the bed and whatever but I wouldn't put my kids in the middle of this marital dysfunction. What would you have done if the in-laws weren't coming for the day would you really have done nothing anyway?

Hello, she bought the Easter candy and Easter outfits. Candy for dinner one night of the year is fine, particularly when dressed in pastel finery.

Hi there! It isn't really that hard to make a reservation for Easter brunch somewhere. Nobody needs to cook, clean or host. It really isn't that hard. But to slap some dinner together is pretty lame when it was avoidable to prove some larger point to the husband. Kids notice these things especially if it deviates from the norm. Keep the kids out of it.

Right. So then all the work falls back on OP. And it’s now her fault if the kids are brought into it. No thanks.

OP is showing her children that it isn’t entirely up to the woman in the house to do all of the cooking and cleaning and hosting when people come to visit. I think that’s an important lesson.

I personally don’t think the kids learned a good lesson here although I think OP and her husband can use this going forward.

The kids should be seeing their parents work as a team.

Now that OP’s husband flopped, *hopefully* he will recognize the amount of work that goes into it and do his share next time. He can handle the meals (apparently rotisserie chicken), OP will prep the bedding/sheets, in laws can handle their own coffee. That’s the healthy dynamic for the kids to see - husband and wife coming together and sharing responsibilities fairly while making guests feel welcomed into their home.

Kids, especially DDs, should see their mother set and maintain healthy boundaries. They should see there be consequences to actions and that not being a partner or respected breeds resentment.

Neither the kids nor the in laws needed to see this squabbling in action.

It’s not squabbling to ask your husband to do something around the house. And there are more important things than keeping up appearances. Working towards a genuinely happy, healthy, and equitable relationship is more important than asking nothing of DH for fear people with discover you’re unhappy.

That’s not what we are referring to. These kids didn’t see their parents discuss how to host and witness a healthy follow through. OP and her husband didn’t create an equitable partnership in hosting, and their guests got the idea that they had done something wrong. This isn’t OP’s fault, but what the kids witnessed here wasn’t the best case scenario.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was with you until the end. If they asked about coffee, it would have been polite to brew some for them. And it was a pretty small request, so it seems a bit petty to refuse.

Nope. The parents could ask THEIR OWN SON for coffee once in a blue moon at least. Why ask the woman for everything?

They asked her for coffee. DH got the pizza, rotisserie chicken, made the bed, etc. It's not like he did nothing. It wasn't up to OPs standards, or something, but what does that really matter? It doesn't sound like the OPs complained to her at all during the visit. They asked about coffee one time and apparently that's it. There was a text asking if she was mad after the visit but I'm not seeing where she was asked for "everything" at all.

So why did MIL think OP might be mad just because she didn't serve them a delicious meal, prepare their coffee and stay up later to talk? I also spent many hours having lunch with my MIL, filling her in on all the stuff DH couldn't be bothered telling her about. Less attention and entertainment means you're mad? How about you are tired of doing it and want your DH to take responsibility for HIS parents' needs.

I don’t think that’s why MIL thinks OP is mad. I think there was probably a lot of simmering tension between OP and her husband and the guests picked up on it. Remember, the in laws had no idea what conversations the two spouses had had. They were just coming for a happy Easter and walked into all this.

And they thought something was off, so they bypassed the son they raised and called his wife? Why is that again?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was with you until you told us how you didn't chat with them in the evening, you just went up to bed, that's just rude.

I thought she said she did talk to them, just not as long? That sounds like a reasonable compromise to me.

+1. I like my ILs a lot but I’m not one for sitting around talking for hours in the evening. Fortunately, neither is MIL so we excuse ourselves to our own rooms to relax and read a book and whoever wants to stay up is welcome to

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:This is so stupid. I would still want my kids to have a nice Easter dinner so I would have figured that part out. Maybe left your husband to put the sheets on the bed and whatever but I wouldn't put my kids in the middle of this marital dysfunction. What would you have done if the in-laws weren't coming for the day would you really have done nothing anyway?

Hello, she bought the Easter candy and Easter outfits. Candy for dinner one night of the year is fine, particularly when dressed in pastel finery.

Hi there! It isn't really that hard to make a reservation for Easter brunch somewhere. Nobody needs to cook, clean or host. It really isn't that hard. But to slap some dinner together is pretty lame when it was avoidable to prove some larger point to the husband. Kids notice these things especially if it deviates from the norm. Keep the kids out of it.

Right. So then all the work falls back on OP. And it’s now her fault if the kids are brought into it. No thanks.

OP is showing her children that it isn’t entirely up to the woman in the house to do all of the cooking and cleaning and hosting when people come to visit. I think that’s an important lesson.

I personally don’t think the kids learned a good lesson here although I think OP and her husband can use this going forward.

The kids should be seeing their parents work as a team.

Now that OP’s husband flopped, *hopefully* he will recognize the amount of work that goes into it and do his share next time. He can handle the meals (apparently rotisserie chicken), OP will prep the bedding/sheets, in laws can handle their own coffee. That’s the healthy dynamic for the kids to see - husband and wife coming together and sharing responsibilities fairly while making guests feel welcomed into their home.

Kids, especially DDs, should see their mother set and maintain healthy boundaries. They should see there be consequences to actions and that not being a partner or respected breeds resentment.

Neither the kids nor the in laws needed to see this squabbling in action.

What squabbling? Please point to the part in the original post where OP said there was a fight. They asked her for coffee and she said they were free to help themselves. OOOOHHHHH, DRAMA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was with you until you told us how you didn't chat with them in the evening, you just went up to bed, that's just rude.

She said she did chat a bit, just not as long as usual. And DH was where, exactly?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is so stupid. I would still want my kids to have a nice Easter dinner so I would have figured that part out. Maybe left your husband to put the sheets on the bed and whatever but I wouldn't put my kids in the middle of this marital dysfunction. What would you have done if the in-laws weren't coming for the day would you really have done nothing anyway?

Hello, she bought the Easter candy and Easter outfits. Candy for dinner one night of the year is fine, particularly when dressed in pastel finery.

Hi there! It isn't really that hard to make a reservation for Easter brunch somewhere. Nobody needs to cook, clean or host. It really isn't that hard. But to slap some dinner together is pretty lame when it was avoidable to prove some larger point to the husband. Kids notice these things especially if it deviates from the norm. Keep the kids out of it.

Right. So then all the work falls back on OP. And it’s now her fault if the kids are brought into it. No thanks.

OP is showing her children that it isn’t entirely up to the woman in the house to do all of the cooking and cleaning and hosting when people come to visit. I think that’s an important lesson.

I personally don’t think the kids learned a good lesson here although I think OP and her husband can use this going forward.

The kids should be seeing their parents work as a team.

Now that OP’s husband flopped, *hopefully* he will recognize the amount of work that goes into it and do his share next time. He can handle the meals (apparently rotisserie chicken), OP will prep the bedding/sheets, in laws can handle their own coffee. That’s the healthy dynamic for the kids to see - husband and wife coming together and sharing responsibilities fairly while making guests feel welcomed into their home.

Kids, especially DDs, should see their mother set and maintain healthy boundaries. They should see there be consequences to actions and that not being a partner or respected breeds resentment.

Neither the kids nor the in laws needed to see this squabbling in action.

What squabbling? Please point to the part in the original post where OP said there was a fight. They asked her for coffee and she said they were free to help themselves. OOOOHHHHH, DRAMA.

PP has imagined squabbling based on her assumption that it was a tense and angry environment. There is not a comment by OP that supports this belief but pp appears to feel strongly that the events she imagined likely occurred.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was with you until you told us how you didn't chat with them in the evening, you just went up to bed, that's just rude.

I thought she said she did talk to them, just not as long? That sounds like a reasonable compromise to me.

+1. I like my ILs a lot but I’m not one for sitting around talking for hours in the evening. Fortunately, neither is MIL so we excuse ourselves to our own rooms to relax and read a book and whoever wants to stay up is welcome to

You may not do this, but if you had a history of doing so and then suddenly stopped, don't you think it might be confusing to the guests? They might have had the impression you liked them and now you don't. OP says it herself: "I didn’t spend every minute “chatting” with them like I normally do." The ILs are just picking up on the obvious and wanted to know what was wrong. I'm not sure how that makes them so terrible.

[Anonymous]

[mastodon]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:If you were upset about how your husband was handling everything during the visit (or lack thereof), your in laws may have picked up on the tension and assumed either there were marital problems or that you were angry with them. She might have been trying to test the waters a bit when she reached out to you, not knowing which one was going on, if that makes sense.

Why didn't OP just say no to the visit in the first place? That would have been better than this awkward AF tension filled visit. I would never visit people again if someone actively avoided me in their home and made the visit as uncomfortable as possible. Maybe that's what OP really wanted but why not just be up front about it and put the foot down? Even if her husband became Martha Stewart cooking, prepping and decorating, OP was still hiding in her room avoiding the guests as much as possible. That certainly sends a message.

Are you kidding me? The husband gets to dip out and do his own thing (leading to the grandparents going to bed earlier than normal) and you have a problem with how OP acted? OP was totally fine/within her boundaries. She said she didn't want to host, husband pushed the issue and said he would take care of it, and now it's OP's problem that she stuck to her word? Maybe next time the husband will say, "OK, I hear you, I don't like hosting either so let's skip Easter this year".

I'd rather not have house guests witness my family dysfunction. Instead they let it all hang out with this Easter visit. I wouldn't exactly call that well played.

NP. It is not “family dysfunction” when—after years of doing the heavy lifting of hosting her husband’s family—OP clearly communicates that she needs a break. She clearly communicates that if he chooses to host his parents for Easter, he’s going to need to do just that: host. She clearly communicated, ahead of time, that the extent of her Easter-celebrating would be kid clothes and candy. He agreed. He said he would host. Then he didn’t. If there’s any dysfunction, it is on a man who says he understands and will host, and then doesn’t.

If it were this simple, MIL wouldn’t be thinking she had done something wrong. Something went off about this visit to make the guests feel unwelcome, and that’s not a good thing, full stop.

The only thing MIL noticed was that she wasn’t being given the red-carpet royal treatment. Apparently the son she raised is incapable of making dinner reservations, or a pot of coffee, and putting sheets on a bed. Once MIL got the lay of the land that OP was daring to relax for a change, she decided to make her passive-aggressive move. In classic manipulative style, “Are you mad at me?”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was with you until you told us how you didn't chat with them in the evening, you just went up to bed, that's just rude.

I thought she said she did talk to them, just not as long? That sounds like a reasonable compromise to me.

+1. I like my ILs a lot but I’m not one for sitting around talking for hours in the evening. Fortunately, neither is MIL so we excuse ourselves to our own rooms to relax and read a book and whoever wants to stay up is welcome to

You may not do this, but if you had a history of doing so and then suddenly stopped, don't you think it might be confusing to the guests? They might have had the impression you liked them and now you don't. OP says it herself: "I didn’t spend every minute “chatting” with them like I normally do." The ILs are just picking up on the obvious and wanted to know what was wrong. I'm not sure how that makes them so terrible.

If they “needed” to be entertained more after a full day with the family, why didn’t they go find the son they raised? Why is OP going to bed earlier than normal so dreadful? You know what my parents do during visits when I’m tired and don’t feel like staying up late to talk? They read a book, talk to each other, watch Netflix, or get some extra sleep.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was with you until you told us how you didn't chat with them in the evening, you just went up to bed, that's just rude.

I thought she said she did talk to them, just not as long? That sounds like a reasonable compromise to me.

+1. I like my ILs a lot but I’m not one for sitting around talking for hours in the evening. Fortunately, neither is MIL so we excuse ourselves to our own rooms to relax and read a book and whoever wants to stay up is welcome to

You may not do this, but if you had a history of doing so and then suddenly stopped, don't you think it might be confusing to the guests? They might have had the impression you liked them and now you don't. OP says it herself: "I didn’t spend every minute “chatting” with them like I normally do." The ILs are just picking up on the obvious and wanted to know what was wrong. I'm not sure how that makes them so terrible.

If they “needed” to be entertained more after a full day with the family, why didn’t they go find the son they raised? Why is OP going to bed earlier than normal so dreadful? You know what my parents do during visits when I’m tired and don’t feel like staying up late to talk? They read a book, talk to each other, watch Netflix, or get some extra sleep.

It's not about needing to be entertained. It's about noticing a difference in behavior. You've never asked if someone is having a bad day?

[Anonymous]

I do think you were rude.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is so stupid. I would still want my kids to have a nice Easter dinner so I would have figured that part out. Maybe left your husband to put the sheets on the bed and whatever but I wouldn't put my kids in the middle of this marital dysfunction. What would you have done if the in-laws weren't coming for the day would you really have done nothing anyway?

Hello, she bought the Easter candy and Easter outfits. Candy for dinner one night of the year is fine, particularly when dressed in pastel finery.

Hi there! It isn't really that hard to make a reservation for Easter brunch somewhere. Nobody needs to cook, clean or host. It really isn't that hard. But to slap some dinner together is pretty lame when it was avoidable to prove some larger point to the husband. Kids notice these things especially if it deviates from the norm. Keep the kids out of it.

Right. So then all the work falls back on OP. And it’s now her fault if the kids are brought into it. No thanks.

OP is showing her children that it isn’t entirely up to the woman in the house to do all of the cooking and cleaning and hosting when people come to visit. I think that’s an important lesson.

I personally don’t think the kids learned a good lesson here although I think OP and her husband can use this going forward.

The kids should be seeing their parents work as a team.

Now that OP’s husband flopped, *hopefully* he will recognize the amount of work that goes into it and do his share next time. He can handle the meals (apparently rotisserie chicken), OP will prep the bedding/sheets, in laws can handle their own coffee. That’s the healthy dynamic for the kids to see - husband and wife coming together and sharing responsibilities fairly while making guests feel welcomed into their home.

Kids, especially DDs, should see their mother set and maintain healthy boundaries. They should see there be consequences to actions and that not being a partner or respected breeds resentment.

Neither the kids nor the in laws needed to see this squabbling in action.

Who was squabbling? The voices in your head?

[Anonymous]

OP, I have 3 sister-in-laws, all different. All handle their in-laws differently (my parents) They are all loved. But they act very differently. And that's ok. One SIL has my brother handle everything that has to do with his family. So, here's the thing: at first we were a little confused, and we asked each other about it occasionally but quickly the family learned this is how it was going to be. No more discussion. it's just the way it is. No judgement. Even IF a person or two didn't understand it, they like her. It is not a big deal. It took a little getting use to, that's all. In a very short period of time, I was using SIL as the example I hoped my DD would follow, some day when married. But people have to live it, have the new behavior repeat itself a few times to "get" that this is how it's going to be going forward.

[Anonymous]

I understand why ILs were confused, they're accustomed to visits going a certain way every time. They were not prepared for this radically different dynamic. They picked up on the tension, fine. So why didn't they pull DH aside and ask him if everything was OK?

When MIL texted OP later, is that because OP and MIL had always texted regularly before so it wasn't unusual? Makes sense to me.

So the first outing was rough? So what. Everyone got through it.

But here's the thing, OP, for this to stick you should work out with DH what visit planning looks like going forward and then he should relay that to his parents. My MIL was flabbergasted when we said DH was now taking the lead for their visits and I would for my parents'. She assumed our marriage was on the rocks! It wasn't. But I have to say it made a WORLD of difference in bringing down stress in our marriage around visits. DH has to work out messy details with his parents now, but having an adult relationship with them is fundamental even if it's uncomfortable for all of them sometimes. Same with me and my parents.

Now my ILs and DH suggest plan options with each other, DH and I talk logistics on our end, he and ILs finalize and everyone is on the same page. It was messy at first, but it works for us.