Why do so many of us have issues with our ILs?

[Anonymous]

I also think it’s a numbers game.. DH and I both come from very large families where it is expected that you hang out with all your extended family. We have so many uncles, aunts, first and second cousins that we have grown up with because of this. That said, there are some people in both my family and my in laws that I absolutely adore and would choose in a heartbeat and then there are the toxic and dysfunctional ones we keep at arms length and avoid for the most part. It’s a crap shoot but when you have a larger pool, it becomes obvious that the more options you have, the more chances you have of people to click and connect with.

[Anonymous]

Because they have unrealistic expectations of a working family with young children. My MIL was horrified that I didn’t take a few years off when my children were born because “I could just go back to work later.” I’m a lawyer. Taking a few years off 4 years into my career would have been disastrous for my career prospects. Not to mention I was the primary earner at the time but that has never registered with them, because spouse, man, bring home bacon!

The oddest part of the whole relationship is that they did not spend all their time/money/vacation days visiting their parents/ILs. And they also had a set that was long distance. My husband said they only visited the long distance grandparents every 3-4 years. Yet, god forbid we even hint that we might go on a vacation that doesn’t involve traveling to them. The world ends, there is gnashing of teeth, histrionics about how we need to spend our vacation time with them, they stop speaking to us for weeks if we don’t comply. My husband only gets 12 vacation days a year. The days are use or lose and they accumulate one per month. Between school days off and sick days for kids, we often don’t end up taking a family vacation because the days are just used up or take so long to accumulate that it’s just not feasible since for example, by the time spring break comes around he will only have 3 days of leave. Yet they are retired and have been for most of our marriage, they travel all over the world, have plenty of money, but will not come to us. It is our duty to come to them and bring the children to them. I have long distance parents too and they don’t expect any of this from me. They come to us because they understand that it is not the easiest to coordinate all these things and they want to see us and make it as easy as possible so that we say yes to them instead of making it so difficult that we say no all the time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because they have unrealistic expectations of a working family with young children. My MIL was horrified that I didn’t take a few years off when my children were born because “I could just go back to work later.” I’m a lawyer. Taking a few years off 4 years into my career would have been disastrous for my career prospects. Not to mention I was the primary earner at the time but that has never registered with them, because spouse, man, bring home bacon!

The oddest part of the whole relationship is that they did not spend all their time/money/vacation days visiting their parents/ILs. And they also had a set that was long distance. My husband said they only visited the long distance grandparents every 3-4 years. Yet, god forbid we even hint that we might go on a vacation that doesn’t involve traveling to them. The world ends, there is gnashing of teeth, histrionics about how we need to spend our vacation time with them, they stop speaking to us for weeks if we don’t comply. My husband only gets 12 vacation days a year. The days are use or lose and they accumulate one per month. Between school days off and sick days for kids, we often don’t end up taking a family vacation because the days are just used up or take so long to accumulate that it’s just not feasible since for example, by the time spring break comes around he will only have 3 days of leave. Yet they are retired and have been for most of our marriage, they travel all over the world, have plenty of money, but will not come to us. It is our duty to come to them and bring the children to them. I have long distance parents too and they don’t expect any of this from me. They come to us because they understand that it is not the easiest to coordinate all these things and they want to see us and make it as easy as possible so that we say yes to them instead of making it so difficult that we say no all the time.

Omg your husband's vacation policy sucks!!! Can be get another job? Sorry about your ILs!

[Anonymous]

Because I didn’t meet them before marriage and never realized how bad of a fit this family would be for me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Forced relationships with people we would never be interested in knowing or hanging out with. Luck of the draw.

This is accurate!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because they have unrealistic expectations of a working family with young children. My MIL was horrified that I didn’t take a few years off when my children were born because “I could just go back to work later.” I’m a lawyer. Taking a few years off 4 years into my career would have been disastrous for my career prospects. Not to mention I was the primary earner at the time but that has never registered with them, because spouse, man, bring home bacon!

The oddest part of the whole relationship is that they did not spend all their time/money/vacation days visiting their parents/ILs. And they also had a set that was long distance. My husband said they only visited the long distance grandparents every 3-4 years. Yet, god forbid we even hint that we might go on a vacation that doesn’t involve traveling to them. The world ends, there is gnashing of teeth, histrionics about how we need to spend our vacation time with them, they stop speaking to us for weeks if we don’t comply. My husband only gets 12 vacation days a year. The days are use or lose and they accumulate one per month. Between school days off and sick days for kids, we often don’t end up taking a family vacation because the days are just used up or take so long to accumulate that it’s just not feasible since for example, by the time spring break comes around he will only have 3 days of leave. Yet they are retired and have been for most of our marriage, they travel all over the world, have plenty of money, but will not come to us. It is our duty to come to them and bring the children to them. I have long distance parents too and they don’t expect any of this from me. They come to us because they understand that it is not the easiest to coordinate all these things and they want to see us and make it as easy as possible so that we say yes to them instead of making it so difficult that we say no all the time.

It's amazing how common this is. Both my parents and ILs are like this -- retired, travel plenty, refuse to visit us but demand we visit them as often as possible. And yes, this is a total 180 from how things were when we were kids -- neither my DH nor I almost ever spent holidays anywhere but our own house. I don't know where they get these ideas. It's like the Boomers all sent around a memo that unless you host all your children and grandchildren for Thanksgiving and Christmas in your house, you're a loser and failed at life. It is so weird. I do blame a lot of these geisers on Facebook who do nothing but brag about how often their kids visit and how much they see their grandkids and it's no different than the impact on teens, in terms of making them feel bad if their own life doesn't match this projected image of other people on social media.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Forced relationships with people we would never be interested in knowing or hanging out with. Luck of the draw.

This is accurate!

OP here. I agree with this. But I feel like that is only a partial answer. It is a crapshoot who you end up with as inlaws, but why does it seem that we get "bad" one much more than half the time? And our spouses were produced by these people, so unless you think who you are and how you parent has nothing to do with how your children turn out, it seems that we *should* get along with these people?

There has to be some underlying resentment or competition or something at play! Again, speaking in the aggregate, not about individual situations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Forced relationships with people we would never be interested in knowing or hanging out with. Luck of the draw.

This is accurate!

OP here. I agree with this. But I feel like that is only a partial answer. It is a crapshoot who you end up with as inlaws, but why does it seem that we get "bad" one much more than half the time? And our spouses were produced by these people, so unless you think who you are and how you parent has nothing to do with how your children turn out, it seems that we *should* get along with these people?

There has to be some underlying resentment or competition or something at play! Again, speaking in the aggregate, not about individual situations.

I mean, my spouse left for boarding school at a young age so didn’t spend much of any time at home past the age of 12. So how much influence the ILs had on him is up for debate. The older we get the more intolerant he is of their antics and can’t understand why they act the way they do.

[Anonymous]

My FIL is a really nasty misogynist who called me a butcher cause I am from the Balkans. He is also a racist.
Snippet of any of his conversations with me have something nasty about women or other races.
So, yeah, shoot me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because I didn’t meet them before marriage and never realized how bad of a fit this family would be for me.

Why didn’t you meet them?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Forced relationships with people we would never be interested in knowing or hanging out with. Luck of the draw.

This is accurate!

You don’t pick your family of origin or all of your coworkers. Why does only one get under your skin?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Forced relationships with people we would never be interested in knowing or hanging out with. Luck of the draw.

But isn't this true of blood family? And coworkers? And parents of kids' friends?

I agree that the forced closeness of it contributes. But it still seems like we are very much predisposed to let our ILs bother us more than most other people in our lives..

Its different and a bit the same.

Blood family: you grow up with them so who they are shapes and merges with who you are -- you adapt to their quirks naturally and without realizing it. Nonetheless, plenty of people complain just as much if not more about their blood families.

Co-workers: you choose your place of employment and can quit (or fire them!). That changes how you feel about the annoying people. Plus you can ignore most of them most of the time and often have others who can run interference. Nonetheless, plenty of people complain just as much about coworkers.

Parents of kids' friends: You can completely and wholly limit these relationships to polite nods and waves from the car, if you want to. At most, you will have to endure a party or two were you can avoid the most annoying ones; and those kid friendships will change, and you will never see those people again, if you don't want to. Nonetheless, plenty of people complain just as much about other parents.

[Anonymous]

Because it's multiple generations of people not being taught to be direct. So it's at least two (if not more) generations of people being martyrs to get compliments and praise and being passive-aggressive, etc. Look how many people here post about being incapable of saying no or setting boundaries.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Forced relationships with people we would never be interested in knowing or hanging out with. Luck of the draw.

This is accurate!

OP here. I agree with this. But I feel like that is only a partial answer. It is a crapshoot who you end up with as inlaws, but why does it seem that we get "bad" one much more than half the time? And our spouses were produced by these people, so unless you think who you are and how you parent has nothing to do with how your children turn out, it seems that we *should* get along with these people?

There has to be some underlying resentment or competition or something at play! Again, speaking in the aggregate, not about individual situations.

I really think a lot of it is generational. A lot of the problems people have with ILs are the same as the problems they have with their own parents. It's just that because they are ILs there is more distance and maybe less understanding or effort to understand. Tho I actually find it easier to deal with my ILs than my own parents because of that distance, so YMMV.

I also think a lot of this has to do with the way we live now. People have kids later, so their parents are older, and I think that changes dynamics and expectations. It's not like it was 100 years ago where your 50 yr old MIL would live with you and help out with your kids. Now your ILs are likely to be in their 60s or 70s by the time you have kids (especially in the DCUM set because so many people on here pursue advanced degrees and get married later). Lots of Boomers now expect to be able to travel and be more independent in their retirement years, and are less interested in helping with babies or designing their lives around their kids. And the same on the other side -- plenty of parents now don't want to spend every holiday with family, they work a lot and have limited vacation and they want to spend it other ways.

Everyone is a little more selfish and that obviously leads to more conflict. Plus I really believe in generational trauma and I think a lot of Boomers have tons of unprocessed trauma that essentially stems from WWII and the Great Depression (raised by people with alcohol problems, PTSD from the war, etc.) and they passed that onto their kids who now (as Gen X and millennials) are going to therapy and dealing with it. It's good in many ways but it does lead to resentment and conflict because many people today don't just accept how they were raised as correct and are retrospectively seeing the ways their parents harmed them as children and trying to do different as parents. And I think many Boomers are starting to realize a lot of this too, but too late to change how they parented in the 70s and 80s. It's leading to a lot of families where the generations are not really aligned on priorities, parenting styles, etc. and that leads to conflict.

[Anonymous]

It is so interesting to me to hear about these older women who are very demanding of their children and in-laws. The biggest issue with my in laws (and my parents) is that my MIL (and mother) were raised to never express an opinion. They certainly HAVE opinions but they were both raised to believe that they should be seen and not heard. Our biggest family issues happen when the in laws (or my parents) expect us to know what they want, even though they never actually came out and told us what they think.

Example:
MIL: Are you coming up for Easter? You DEFINITELY don't have to. I know its so hard travelling with the kids. Actually, really, just don't worry about it. We have a lot going on and are just so busy.
Me: Ok, we were probably going to stay home.

Two days later my husband gets a text from a second cousin that MIL is very upset that we aren't coming.