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[quote=Anonymous]Actually I think of it differently.  Each family has traditions, styles and manners that they live with and are accustomed to.  When two people marry, they have to blend family styles.  Some things you learn to accept, some things you compromise on and some things you stand firm to hold because they are important to you.  You become proprietary about your house rules, your preferences and the lifestyle that you and your spouse have set.

Your in-laws consider your spouse to be their family and that in his/her house, they will continue their family traditions, styles, manners.  It is often harder for older people to adapt as well as your spouse may have.  Additionally, what may have taken you and your spouse months or years to work out, they have hours or days to learn how you do things and often for shorter visits (under a week) it is often harder to adapt on short notice.  So they do things the way they always have, which may or may not mesh well with your household rules.

Some spouses come from very similar backgrounds, and those families often can survive in-laws visits with a lot less friction.  Others come from very different cultures and/or styles and those visits can often be very difficult.  We come from not only different styles, but completely different cultures (my parents came to the States in the 1950's but are still very much Asian in culture and my inlaws are from an old Methodist family that traces some of its roots back to the Mayflower).  There are many, many style and background frictions.  What makes our visits more tolerable is that all of the family really try hard to be respectful and to adapt to the household rules.  It doesn't always work, they often forget and revert, but they all try very hard.  But we still have a limit of one week after which the tensions get high.
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