Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In my experience in my family as well as with friends, men seem to like their inlaws a lot more than women. Have you all found this to be true?

When DH has an issue with my parents, I bring it up with them immediately and tell them to knock it off (such as my mom buying DH boxers...). Any issues I have with my inlaws are never, ever addressed by DH.

I'm confused. Your post doesn't seem to match your subject line. This has to do with the issues you each handle with your own parents. Yes, the issues are brought up by the spouse but you're describing how you each handle your relationship with your folks, no?

Op can bring up issues with her parents that make her dh have an good relationship with her parents. Dh doesn't bring up issues so she has a hard relationship with inlaws. It's like that with most couples. Men can't communicate.

In many families, male asses are kissed. My mom kisses my dad's ass, her son's ass, my husband's ass. Why? Because she has never worked and doesn't ever want to, and the key to that is keeping the men happy so they keep a roof over your head and food in your stomach. So yeah, she loves my husband. In her mind, she is doing me a favor by being nice to him so he will keep me fed. (Nevermind that I work and make most of the income). I mean, it's great that she's nice to him, but I don't think this is a rare story.

FWIW, my dh didn't get along all that well with my mom - for good reasons. I got along better with his mom than he did. You know what they say about your parents - they know how to push your buttons because they installed them. Well my MIL didn't install my buttons so she couldn't push them. Dh, on the other hand, was always annoyed by her. It was stressful to be around them.

She was an anxious person who dealt with it by having a very orderly life and not trying anything new. I knew she probably didn't approve of some of the things we did but she never said a word to me about it and for that I was grateful. True, she hid her anxiety and didn't get help for it but unlike my mom (who had similar problems and who did install my buttons) I felt like she wasn't radiating it and interfering while all the time pretending that she wasn't anxious.

I was very grateful for her leaving us alone to raise our daughter as we saw fit. And I think she was grateful that her son married me and not the crazy drunk he had been with before. God, you guys are making me miss her today!

Anonymous wrote:In my experience in my family as well as with friends, men seem to like their inlaws a lot more than women. Have you all found this to be true?

When DH has an issue with my parents, I bring it up with them immediately and tell them to knock it off (such as my mom buying DH boxers...). Any issues I have with my inlaws are never, ever addressed by DH.

I'm confused. Your post doesn't seem to match your subject line. This has to do with the issues you each handle with your own parents. Yes, the issues are brought up by the spouse but you're describing how you each handle your relationship with your folks, no?

Mothers of Daughters don't feel replaced by her marrying a man so she doesn't go crazy. The dad's usually are more laid back and don't feel threatened by the husband either. The mom's of sons, however, tend to feel the need to claim their turf and validate their role in the son's life and they do that by demeaning and marginalizing the wife. Are there exceptions? Yes.

My dad doesn't give a rat's ass if my DH likes sports or not. My dad LOVES LOVES sports and lives for them. He will talk to DH about teams he knows DH watches (like his Alma mater) but doesn't press the issue or make him feel bad for not liking my Dad's teams or knowing random sports stats like my Dad does.
My MIL, however, has taken personal offense to me not shopping at Khols and JC Penney. This came out when she asked if i saw they were having a going out of business sale (about 6 years ago; right after we got engaged) and i said "No, i don't really shop at either. She took that as i was judging that she shopped there and then proceeded to give many examples of great items she had had bought for my DH there over the years. Again, i never said either store was bad. Since then she has picked apart my cooking (why are you using THAT brand? Is the store brand not good enough?). If you are a good cook you can use store brand and still make them taste good. She constantly asks DH where a certain item of clothing is from and then give a long monologue about all the great buys he could find and save money at stores she shops at.
I could give 10,000 more examples of this.
Seriously lady. Give it up.

In our house, my parents arrive and have a beer, help cook dinner, play with our kids, etc. They integrate right into our life and make no special demands on us. My ILs come (as they did last night) and say things (when rifling through our kids' Halloween candy last night) like they are the guests and can do what they want. (In response to my daughter asking them not to take her last bag of Skittles.)

How you treat the family you are visiting (and both sets visit from afar and stay in our house) makes a huge difference in the IL relationship.