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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Forced relationships with people we would never be interested in knowing or hanging out with. Luck of the draw.[/quote]

This is accurate! [/quote]

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. [/quote]

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.[/quote]

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