No, I will not sit on your couch all week

[Anonymous]

I come from a family that does nothing but hang out together (usually at home) when we visit — people go on walks around the block, take the dog out, run errands but pretty much no one plans or goes out on big excursions or sightsees. We all like to chat and don’t get to see each other often so we mostly don’t want to spend time and money going off somewhere when we could just chat and visit at whoever’s hosting’s house. That being said, one of my BILs is an introvert (as is my sister) and they always stay at an airbnb and spend half days doing things just the two of them and no one’s offended at all. If someone announced they were taking their 3yo to the children’s museum or whatever, some folks would tag along others would curl up at home with a book and no one would be mad. As long as you don’t explicitly exclude the relatives your visiting from your plans, just go ahead and make and announce plans and enjoy your visit. I promise not all homebodies are upset that others like to go out more.

[Anonymous]

Love reading all these similar stories! My MIL lives in the Phoenix area. Last time we were there, we wanted to stay at a hotel and she threw an absolute fit. DH gave in and we ended up having to sleep on an old pull out sofa where you could feel every spring. She also kept the house at a “cool” 80 degrees in August in the AZ heat.

We were there for a week. She didn’t want us to go do anything except take her to dr appointments and grocery stores. She lives in a retirement community and threw a fit when I asked if I could workout in their gym. “No! No one under 60 is allowed in there!!!!” (When later I found out she allowed my 20 year old niece to use the gym). And she got mad that I got up at 5am to run outside. JFC!!!

We asked if she wanted to go to a baseball game. Nope. We instead had to watch how candy canes were made on the Food Network. This crap went on all week - every suggestion we made was turned down so we could sit on the couch and stare at the tv.

We haven’t been back and that was summer 2022.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My spouse's parents in flyover country never wanted to go anywhere when we visited them, so we just went out without them when it suited us and hung out with them when it didn't. They were always happy to watch the kids and my spouse always had a lot of friends who never left their home town and they were always fun and refreshing to get together with in a honky tonk bar or something.

Now my spouse's parents are both dead so we can't see them, and it's very sad. They were great people.

I will never for the life of me understand why so many DCUM women are so nasty and unwilling to sacrifice anything for their in laws. If the in laws are so often so terrible, how on earth did they manage to raise men that you all concluded were good marriage material?

Huh? The DIL is perfectly willing to go somewhere and visit the in laws. She’s trying not to be rude, but needs something to do during the day.