Reply to Nonstop fighting at Thanksgiving, how do I make it stop?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]We started saying in a nearby AirBnB when we visit my hoarder, difficult ILs. It has made these visits so much more enjoyable and created some easy boundaries to revert to. Having our own space means that we can make food for our kids when meals with the ILs are inevitably late and not child-appropriate. It also means that we can retreat there at the end of the night for some time away from them. In the morning, sometimes we head over to their house early but sometimes we take our time or go in shifts, with my DH taking the kids over early while I shower and and get some work done, then I join later and DH takes a break at our house.

Initially there as a lot of resistance to us doing this but we were able to put our foot down when our kids were big enough that we could express frustration that the room they are supposed to sleep in at the ILs is full of stacks of boxes and random items they might get into. There isn't even a bed in that room, just a little space cleared in the middle for sleeping bags on the floor. We used it a couple times when DD was young enough to sleep in a pack and play and we could place it far enough from any items to pose a danger, but once she outgrew that we announced that we'd stay somewhere else until that room was made safe. It never happened. MIL will still sometimes express sadness that we don't stay with her, but then will say she can't seem to organize that room so oh well.

Once MIL asked if I might be able to help sort out that room and I said I'd be happy to but, full warning, the answer to that room is to take about 80% of it to goodwill because it's just a lot of old junk (I did not use the word junk) that no one uses anymore. MIL refuses to get rid of things and thinks the answer is just more shelving units and more boxes. They have magazine issues going back 20 years in their house. Anyway, she turned down my offered help and there has been little pushback to us staying elsewhere since then. Sometimes they even give us money towards our AirBnB, I guess out of guilt, though we don't ask for it.[/quote]

Yes, although I am closer to OP's parents style than hers, visits to my in-laws was also stressful.  I also found that renting an airBnB nearby was the perfect solution.  I was able to take care of my family the way I needed to without trying to change the in-laws and the way they do things.  I was able to stop the airBnB with foods that we liked and to feed our family on our schedule instead of trying to change our family's eating times and making the kids eat foods they didn't like.  It meant that when we needed the kids to go to bed, we didn't have to spend an hour shushing the family that was being loud and enjoying their family stay so that the kids could actually fall asleep.  When the kids needed to sleep, we bundled them in the car and went back to the airBnb and they got their own bedroom in a quiet house.  The adults in the family stayed and had a grand time.  The only criticism was that we should have put the kids to bed and come back (leaving minors sleeping in a house by themselves while we went and partied ?!?!?!?) because we missed "all the fun".  But we were quite happy to put the kids to bed and wind down with our own streamed TV series just like we do at home.

I also make sure that I always have a rental car when visiting.  My MIL was always hurt.  She wanted to drive to pick us up and the airport and drive us to stay at her house.  She always said that we could borrow her car for anything we need, but the guilt trips about when we wanted to do something that was different than her schedule, her style, her control were not worth it.  When I needed a break, I could make up an excuse and run off to run my errand and get a break from them.  If the kids needed to eat, but they were not ready to serve food and we were told to just make the kids wait, then I'd go run and errand and take the kids with me and get them something to eat before we had a low sugar meltdown.  The number of times that I needed to make a quick trip to the grocery store or Starbucks to pick up a hot tea or run to the drug store because we were out of something, was a lifesaver.  So, our entire family (including my wife, who is rather different from the rest of her family) always appreciated having our own rental place and our own rental car available.

These two things have made the world of difference in our enjoyment of family visits and also keeping us from fighting nearly as much.  When I need a break, I take a break.  When the kids need something, we leave and get it.  We no longer fight about things and we do things our way and the in-laws do things their way, in their house.  It took a few years for the side comments and criticism of how we do things to stop, but eventually they realized that the side comments made little impact on us (we didn't really care if they didn't like the way we did things, we just politely excused ourselves and did what we needed for our family) and they stopped.[/quote]

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