Car-obsessed in-laws — would you keep schtum?

penelopedee_2

If this was new behaviour I would be concerned as it might be that FIL was getting unconfident with driving and blaming it on the cars. But if he's always been doing it then I guess you just have to ignore it but try to stay out of any car discussions in future.

Really difficult, I know, my dad is amazing at DIY and fits kitchens, bathrooms etc without a second thought. But now, at a lot older age he has suddenly decided to refit the kitchen and bathroom by himself (which he genuinely has the skills to do) but my stepmum is having kittens over because of his age and the lifting etc etc.

It's really difficult to get it right. Dad really wants to do it because he gets a lot of job satisfaction from it but .... Maybe FIL wants one of you to tell him to stop now or perhaps getting him a lease car or something.

art_for_arts_sake

poet123 wrote: »

My parents loved to change their cars....at least once a year, I wish they were here to do that now. Seriously OP why does it annoy you so much?

It's severely frustrating because most of the time they are penny-pinching to the point that they have little pleasure in life. In the winter they'll quite happily sit shivering in from of a 2kW fire rather than put the heating on. My OH and I joke about visiting "Cold Comfort Farm" because it's so inhospitable. We're constantly telling them to put the heating on and to eat more, without going into details here their diet has had serious health implications for one of them and I'm genuinely surprised they don't develop hypothermia.

It's usually my FIL's decision to change the car, but as I've said earlier he buys on impulse, then gets buyers remorse after. At the risk of repeating myself he's constantly finding fault with them and has changed cars twice in the same week on at least two occasions, losing hundreds if not thousands of pounds in the process. So I fail to see that they are bringing him any pleasure, apart from a temporary high. He's actually phoned me up on several occasions and said he couldn't sleep because he didn't know if he was doing the right thing. None of this sounds very rational to me, and I genuinely don't think he's capable of thinking through his decisions.

Perhaps I'd have been better posting this in the Marriage, Couples and Family forum rather than the motoring section as all it's seemed to do is create a lot of anger towards me. I don't object to them changing their car, in moderation. As everyone keeps pointing out, it is their money, but when they do change their car it seems to give them (and me!) more anxiety than pleasure.