Reply to disliking in-laws who aren't all that dislike-able

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[quote=Anonymous]I'm sympathetic, OP; I've got similarly benign ILs for the most part but I want to lose it at times…it's hard to have people in your "nest" and you find yourself unable to stay run the nest without being rude.

My kids are older now (9 and 11) and I've found I'm more easy going.  Don't know how old your kids are but when my kids were younger, there is so much hands-on going on that it's hard when the routine or the house is spinning out of control.

One thing that used to drive me insane…ok it's going to sound so anal when said in a vacuum….is that they read the paper, and every single surface of the common areas of the house had sections of the paper on it.  Sometimes on the floor, too.  And every day, they'd get another paper, and there were more sections.  No one would clean it up; no one would throw it out, and if I said, "are you done with this section/can I throw out last Wednesday's paper?" "oh no, leave it there for X, she hasn't read it yet"  OMG  I felt like they were dogs pissing on my territory.

ok that's a tangent but had to share, LOL

I try to remember that they are only in my house for x amount of time, and sort of do a mental countdown, and list to myself things I will do the moment they leave.

I try to remember that how I treat my parents and ILs will teach my kids how to treat me.  I also try to learn from it; to make a mental note to "not do X behavior" with my own kids and their spouses one day.

On the flip side, there are a couple of behaviors that are not totally benign and when my kids got older, I let them know--because I want to limit the amount of their influence (modeling) on my kids.

One is my MIL is sedentary and spends ALL DAY watching the news. And eating really unhealthy food.  Her physical state is bad and with my kids I've linked it to her diet and lack of exercise.

On a more serious note, my FIL is probably a high-functioning alcoholic and I've had to totally throw him under the bus to the kids (behind his back) so as to keep them from spontaneously hopping in the car with him.  This strategy worked:   6 months ago our kids and a subset of our extended family were going to drive to a local attraction, and someone else was going to drive, but right before they left, my kid came running in to me to whisper that in fact my FIL was behind the wheel.  It was awkward but I took care of it, and that would have never happened had I not started talking honestly with my kids a while before.[/quote]

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