MemberI see/hear so many instances of brides or wives who don’t get along with their ILs at all. I’m always curious what the major issue is – I get along very well with my ILs. We’ve had a great relationship from day 1 and they do so much for us.
So, if you have IL drama, what are the issues? Personality clash? Power struggles? Something else?
MemberOh do we ever have in law drama. My Fiance was married for 13 years to a woman who decided she was a lesbian and didnt want him or their kids anymore. He is army so she was off partying alot and he never told his parents about what she was doing. They couldnt figure out why they couldnt make their marriage work. You cant make it work if one party doesnt even want to give it a go. Well fast forward. Fiance had been dating for about 5 months when I met his parents. His father liked me but his mother just couldnt stand me. I went out of my way to be nice and polite and not overly affectionate to Fiance in their presence. Nothing I did was ever good enough. Turns out she was still hoping and praying that FI’s ex would want to work it out even though the divorce was long done and final.
So finally after alot of bad behavior, Fiance showed his mom the note that his ex left him. She basically told him that she only married him to get out of her parents house, that she never wanted children, he could have the girls because she couldnt stand them, and she was leaving.
Now FI’s mom has decided im the good one because I have been there for FI’s kids and that I really do care about them.
Also her other issue was that is he is from a good affluent family and I was just some country girl that wasnt good enough for her son. Except that I have two degrees. I have a fantastic job and I was a soldier in the army as well.
As soon as Fiance showed her that letter she changed her tune, Now Im her favorite person and she actually tells me she loves me.
MemberThe only in-law issues I have is with my Future Brother-In-Law and his insane wife for a variety of lovely reasons. 1) Bc my FI’s brother is older than him (by 16 months), and we’re all Asian, he expects that we should worship the ground he walks on. Even if he’s wrong, he “right” bc he is older. His wife is no better. 2) According to them, my Fiance and I are stuck up bc we don’t hang out with them. Gee, maybe if you guys stop having massive meltdowns/fights in public places or stop drunk driving, it wouldn’t be such an issue with us to hang out with you guys. 3) They always try to give us unwanted marital advice despite the fact they admittedly rushed into getting married bc her student visa lapsed, and there was the huge possibility she would have to go back to the Old Country. Fiance and I have been together for 7 years. I think we’re good. 4) Then there comes the constant snarky comments bc our wedding budget is higher than theirs was. 5) The kicker: they deliberately tried timing the birth of their first kid (first grandchild) around my Fiance and I’s wedding. Clearly they’re idiots bc they undershot it and blessedly probably won’t be able to come bc she will be in her last trimester. If she does come she won’t be able to participate in anything. I’m so over them! Thank God they live two states away.
MemberWe’re mostly okay because everyone is super nice but we’re an “interfaith” couple and picking a wedding date around Jewish holidays and Hindu “auspicious dates” is getting to be a huge pain. But we live across the world from both sides which keeps everything nice and easy!
MemberI get along with my IL great!! Except that my Fiance is major mama’s boy and she still pays for haircuts and buys him his favorite snacks everytime she goes to the grocery store…it gets annoying at times but I’m sure I’ll be the same way with all my babies!
Member
MemberPersonality clash and power struggle. My fiancé is a people pleaser so he tends to do things for others and say yes even when he wants to say no. I am not. I say no and that is what I mean.
For example, before our son was born, my Future Sister-In-Law called me and told me that she would be baby sitting him while I go to work. I told her no, I found a nice daycare literally across the street from my job and he would be going to that so I could stop in on my breaks and see him. She responded with “Babies in my family don’t go to daycare” and literally caused my then SO and I to fight over the daycare decision.
Next was the flower girl issue. I picked my flower girl and Future Sister-In-Law had a cow over my choice because she thought I was suppose to pick her daughter. There was literally 2 big fights over my choice of the flower girl because she couldn’t accept “No”.
I thought we were in the clear as we haven’t had any problems for a few months until she got upset with me for telling my fiancé that she was smoking weed right in front of me. He told his mom and I guess her mom reamed her out? Then she became super pissed. She is getting married next month (another source of tension between us) and just turned into a bridezilla. So much so that her mother LEFT to another state less than 30 days before her wedding. Her mother still hasn’t returned.
So after the whole weed incident, she has been really mean to me. So I decided that I wasn’t going to go to her bachelorette party. There were no plans when her party was but I guess they finally booked them and she made plans on my birthday, which gave me an easy out. I called her Maid/Matron of Honor to decline and then texted my Future Sister-In-Law to let her know I was sorry I couldn’t make it because that day was my birthday and she never responded.
I can not wait until her wedding is over.
MemberI guess I’m not totally IL drama free. I’ve only met my Future Mother-In-Law once since she lives in Tennessee and we are in Louisiana. She only comes down once a year and she expects to have Fiance all to herself for that visit. Her visit was right in the middle of Dirty Delete and I moving in his house, so I had been scrubbing and cleaning from top to bottom (he was the typical bachelor when it comes to housekeeping). I gave them a day or two to themselves, then took Dirty Delete over so we could both meet her. She was pleasant enough for the first hour or so, but she’s very much an introvert. I have no problems holding a conversation, but it was like pulling teeth with her. Pretty soon she started pouting and basically shut down. Dirty Delete and I went back to the apartment shortly after.
Fiance told me later that she can be really childish when she doesn’t get all of his attention. She said she didn’t feel like “entertaining” us that night. Umm, we were halfway moved in by that point, no need to entertain me in my own home! He said he told her that she was being childish and she needed to put more effort into getting to know me and Dirty Delete, since we were part of his life now and his family. My parents came to town that weekend and we were all supposed to go to lunch, but I put a stop to that since she whined to him about having to go. I didn’t want to put up with resentment. He told me she would act better once she got to know me – well how is she supposed to get to know me if we see her once a year and she doesn’t even want me around then?
Luckily it’s his dad and stepmom that live here and that I’m close to. His stepmom and I go have spa days together and all that stuff. They’re crazy about Dirty Delete and spoil her rotten. We’re their only chance for grandkids since neither FI’s sister or stepsister wants kisd.
MemberThe majoirty of my ILs are just wonderful. The problem is with FBIL’s gf. She.is.a.jerk. She is rude and obnoxious to me. She makes everything a competition between us and really it doesn’t need to be. I have tried my darndest not to talk about anything wedding related in front of her, but enevitable it always comes up. and she has an oppinion on everything. All I ever here is ‘If I was getting married I would do ……” she calls everything and every idea that I have stupid. Future Brother-In-Law is fairly okay, as long as he is away from her he is really nice to me, when she is around, he tunrs into an ass.
Memberwe havent had any drama…yet. i know its coming though and for us it is generational/religious. Fiance is the youngest of many many kids. his parents are the same age as my grandparents AND they are very very devout catholics. that is great for them, but we are not. a few mini talks about us not getting married in the church havent been very well received, so whenever we do get to making the official decree, i am sure there will be drama galore.
on the whole, my ILs are all wonderful people, if different from me and my family. i like seeing them and they treat me well. i am just fully prepared for that to change whenever we announce our plans for a “hippie ceremony”….
MemberI hate my FBIL’s gf. She has never been warming and basically all i know after 4 years is her name. She is super high maintenance and i cant stand it. FInally, Fiance is also starting to see the issue with her snobby ways. Lets just say she was less than warming when she found out we were engaged, because she has been dying to get engaged and i guess we “beat her to it”.
MemberMoney.. my Future Mother-In-Law always comes to us first when she needs money or help with something, but she takes no interest in our lives at all. My fiance tells her about his new job and she just says, “you think your better than us” to him. No happiness what so ever. And she favors his older brother over all of her kids. If we buy anything nice she says we waste our money and that we could have given her some to help her out. Also, you cant talk to her. She doesnt let you get a word in, she just talks about herself and is ALWAYS trying to throw a pity party for herself. Ugh sorry this turned out to be so long. lol.
MemberOh boy. I love my ILs for the mostpart. They do drive me nuts, but that’s what family does, right? No really, I love them…except Future Brother-In-Law and his wife.
FBIL’s wife has always come across as really fake to me. Nothing she ever says sounds sincere. They live in another state, so we don’t see them a lot, but before she got pregnant, they visited frequently. I liked Future Brother-In-Law just fine, and it destroyed Fiance when his brother would leave. Then she got pregnant. That was okay, although her crazy started showing a bit more. The baby was born and we started Skyping with them every Sunday, and Fiance would chat with his brother online almost daily. FBIL’s wife randomly sends me weird Facebook messages (from her fake account–she has that one and a real one that she’s friends with FI’s ex on, but I’m not “allowed” to be on that one) that make no sense/are riddled with poor grammar, sentence fragments, and awful spelling–to the point where I can’t read them. She’s a teacher (well, she was when they moved down there and then she got laid off within months)! It’s usually something frivolous, like asking me where to buy jeans and stuff, although she did invite us to come to Ohio for her birthday because her parents were paying to bring them up (why not here, I don’t know).
They have a SEVERE time management issue. I’m the opposite–I’m always early for things–so this really, really bothers me. I think it’s incredibly rude and selfish to be chronically late to things, because it says to me, “My time is more valuable than yours.” She came up for a few months to help out with her parents’ daycare after her dad had surgery. She knows that we eat lunch with Future Mother-In-Law the same time every Sunday, but was consistently late, IF she showed up at all (and god forbid she call or answer her phone when we’d call). She’d make excuses about how it took her forever to get her and the kid ready, when she’d show up unshowered in pajamas, and bring the baby (in the wrong carseat) in from the car IN THE WINTER in just whatever pants and shirt he had on. No hat, no coat, no shoes. She’s in her mid-30s, by the way.
Future Brother-In-Law broke his phone while she was here, and refuses to buy a new one (it was a $10 tracfone!). So then he came up, and they were late for everything, and we barely saw them because they spent probably 90% of their time at her parents’. We tried to go to lunch with them once, and they were almost an HOUR late, with a full day’s notice of the time. They had no excuse except that she didn’t get in the shower until 15 minutes BEFORE they were supposed to meet us, and neither of them dressed the baby while the other was in the shower.
Now that they’re back home, we haven’t heard from them in about two months. Fiance says it hasn’t been that long, but I know we haven’t Skyped with them in over 2 months and he hasn’t talked to his brother online in almost as long. I had to search the online papers for their city to make sure that they aren’t freaking dead. We try to call the wife’s phone and it always rings to voicemail. She’s a Stay-At-Home Mom, so it’s not like she’s at work when we call. I know Future Father-In-Law emailed Future Brother-In-Law not to long ago, a pretty long, involved email, and the response he got was simply, “Hi.”
Oh, did I mention that they don’t let anyone hold the baby? Like, the baby is never out of arm’s reach of FBIL’s wife (and usually in her arms)? He’ll be 2 in December. She swatted FI’s grandmother’s hand away from the baby (and had the audacity to giggle and admonish an 82 year old great grandmother for wanting to touch the baby like she was some child); thankfully they were leaving because I almost punched her and almost everyone there was in tears after that. I ended up in FFIL’s upstairs bathroom sobbing because I was so angry with them and had a long talk with FSMIL when she came to check on me.
The best part is, Future Brother-In-Law is our Best Man. I am SO afraid that he’s not going to come though or let Fiance down.
MemberMy Future Mother-In-Law and FGMIL are very nice to my face, however they have been urging my boyfriend to break up with me behind my back for the last 4 years. His grandmother even wrote him a letter telling him that he should break up with me and find a nice, local, Christain girl. My boyfriend and I have been together since we were 16, as in I’m the only girl he’s ever dated. We decided to go to college 400 miles apart which was difficult, and made more so because that is when they started urging him to break up with me. I graduated and decided to stay near my college because of grad school prospects and a better chance of finding a job with my degree up here. He decided to move 400 miles away from home to be with me. His mother pitched a fit and actually refused to help him move in any way and refused to come visit us(his father helped him move(they are still married)). Included in her rant was the gem that “we would be living in sin”. Meanwhile she has spent at least three weeks of vacation to visit his sister who recently moved to another state. The sister who got knocked up at 17 and had the baby before the shotgun wedding at the courthouse. While she was pregnant the Future In-Laws paid for her to live with the baby’s father is a rent-free trailer they purchased specifically for the purpose. Double standard much?
Apparently being child-free college graduates who plan to get engaged as soon as we can afford things makes my boyfriend the bad child. In all honesty I think the heart of the matter is religion. Future Mother-In-Law and FGMIL are very devout born again Christians and I am an atheist. My boyfriend is only slightly religious and prefers to practice alone. Their main argument against me is that “one day he is going to find God” and apparently that will make him regret me.
All I know is that both of them are so wrapped up in his sister and their faith that they can’t see the most important thing: I make him happy just as he makes me happy.
MemberMy fiance has a pretty strained relationship with his parents, so in a lot of ways, I get along with his parents better than he does and sometimes act as a bridge between them when things are stressful. My Future In-Laws love me (even though his grandparents can’t speak english and don’t know my name – they refer to me as “the girl.”) and Future Mother-In-Law often refers to me as her daughter and Future Father-In-Law is always super-excited to see me and chat about what’s been going on in my life.
However, while we get along great, they have been driving me batty lately with wedding planning. They’re an Italian family, so can be a little overbearing and try to stay very involved in their son’s life (even though he really can’t stand them, which is a whole other story). Fiance and I have been talking about setting boundaries with them because, much as I love them, I don’t want my life to end up like an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond!
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