Anonymous wrote:Between my two adult children in their 40s one has had a spouse and both have had long term relationships. I have never expressed that I want to invite or go out with only my child and the spouse or BF or GF was not invited. I would not want to insult them that way, whether I loved them, liked them, didn't care either way or hated them. It's a path I would not go down.

If I did invite the couple(s) to something and the other couldn't make it for some reason I did then enjoy the time with just my adult child. But I did not request it. I would not have wanted that to happen to me so I didn't do it to them.

Anonymous wrote:I'm not at all surprised that the responses here, despite a few sane ones, are trending toward "You MUST include adult childrens' spouses in everything or you are excluding them and that is 'shrew' behavior" and is unforgiveable, etc. etc. That's exactly how DCUM tends to go on these things.

This hasn't come up for us because DH and I each recognize that the other is the adult child of our in-laws/parents and we feel it's appropriate and simply nice for adult children to spend time alone with their parents sometimes. So we volunteer to give each other that time. My mom and his mom don't need to ask to be left alone with us adult kids -- we volunteer that. I see that meals out seem to be what gets people her in such a frantic fear of "exclusion." And of course the idea of the MIL being the one to ask the SIL or DIL for time alone with the adult child just makes the anti-MIL brigade here have fits.

If those of you whose in-laws ask for time alone with your spouse were to OFFER that time and say to your spouse, hey, you should take your mom/dad out to dinner, just you and them--you wouldn't need to be in such a twist about it. I suspect that people who are so reflexively upset about this "exclusion" are actually people who don't care much for their in-laws, or whose in-laws are meddlesome in other ways, or who fear being "talked about behind their backs" etc.

I want to see my mom without my DH around sometimes. I want him to feel he can tell me he'd like some time with just his mom. It's natural, to us. And seems more mature than thinking we are welded together.

Anonymous wrote:I'm not at all surprised that the responses here, despite a few sane ones, are trending toward "You MUST include adult childrens' spouses in everything or you are excluding them and that is 'shrew' behavior" and is unforgiveable, etc. etc. That's exactly how DCUM tends to go on these things.

This hasn't come up for us because DH and I each recognize that the other is the adult child of our in-laws/parents and we feel it's appropriate and simply nice for adult children to spend time alone with their parents sometimes. So we volunteer to give each other that time. My mom and his mom don't need to ask to be left alone with us adult kids -- we volunteer that. I see that meals out seem to be what gets people her in such a frantic fear of "exclusion." And of course the idea of the MIL being the one to ask the SIL or DIL for time alone with the adult child just makes the anti-MIL brigade here have fits.

If those of you whose in-laws ask for time alone with your spouse were to OFFER that time and say to your spouse, hey, you should take your mom/dad out to dinner, just you and them--you wouldn't need to be in such a twist about it. I suspect that people who are so reflexively upset about this "exclusion" are actually people who don't care much for their in-laws, or whose in-laws are meddlesome in other ways, or who fear being "talked about behind their backs" etc.

I want to see my mom without my DH around sometimes. I want him to feel he can tell me he'd like some time with just his mom. It's natural, to us. And seems more mature than thinking we are welded together.

Anonymous wrote:When is it appropriate to have something with just the nuclear family? My kids are young but I can imagine one day wanting to go out to dinner with just them and not their spouses. DH and his siblings sometimes take their mom out to dinner without SOs involved (I imagine I could come if I wanted to but I don’t want to crash family time). Vacations, no, but do we feel like dinner or coffee or drinks is okay?

Anonymous wrote:Take advantage of any time your DIL is out of town.

Anonymous wrote:nu·cle·ar fam·i·ly
noun
a couple and their dependent children, regarded as a basic social unit.

Your children are part of your nuclear family, BUT their spouses and children are their nuclear family.

Keep being a shrew though and you won’t have to worry about your children’s spouses even wanting to spend time with you. That’ll play out extra hard at holidays.