in-law relationships/advice

ElephantBoy57

pureshores said:    Things in my relationship have been difficult for some time.

You are asking for comments about this situation, but really there is a lot to discuss. You don't speak about any closeness or love.

You are thinking about children, or leaving the relationship. I guess some relationships are far from perfect, is your worth saving?

[Deleted User]

pureshores said:

Lover_of_Lycra said:

If you've been brought up to pay your way why are you so upset that the in-laws didn't contribute towards the deposit and furnishing your home? Why did you need to take money off your parents instead of paying for these things yourself? 

Where does your partner stay when he visits his parents? Have you ever gone with him when he returns to his home country? 

You say your mother is your only family and then go on to talk about your parents living near by so is your father also around? 

To be honest I think you were unreasonable when his parents visited. As irritating as you might have found his mother you could have just sucked it up for a couple of weeks given he hardly gets to see her. Meanwhile he's expected to put up with your mum visiting all the time. 

first of all it's not MY home but OUR home. second I'm not upset that they didn't contribute what i'm annoyed about is the fact they then have the audacity to treat it as a holiday home. If they wanted nothing to do with it at the time, they should continue that now, not pick & choose when it suits. Third by contributing they would not have been help ME out but would have in fact been helping their own child out. 

Re why I didn't pay the deposit & furniture myself since I've been brought up to pay my own way was because my savings were running low due to paying both my share & OH share of rent on our previous tenancy due to OH being out of work at the time & my parents wanted to help out, I did not ask them too. But it is typical for parents to want to help their children, no? Had OH not been out of work, we would have been able to split the cost of the deposit no problem & probably got the bulk of our own furniture too. OH parents didn't care about any of that as long as they had a place to stay for their holiday. MIL helping her own child out is NOT helping ME out. There is a difference.

Yes I have both my parents. I see my mother approx. once/week & father approx. once/month. My relationship with my father is strained. 

Re my mum visiting "all the time". She normally visits for less than an hour once a week so I wouldn't really call that all the time. There are occasions I she doesn't visit for 2 weeks. Given OH hardly gets to see their mother, wouldn't it have been appropriate for MIL to perhaps tried to make their time together enjoyable instead of instigating the situation. At the end of the day she was a guest here thus should have been respectful not shouted at me & told me to shut up, which is rude. I would never speak to someone like that, never mind in their own home. 

We visited their home country together on one occasion prior to this event. We did not stay with OH parents & were actually told by another family member we could not stay with them as we would be upset by their routine. 

also don't assume gender roles. 

with your opinion in mind, are you saying that OH treatment of my mother is acceptable due to what happened? I would welcome a suggestion of how to then move forward with the relationship? Do I just accept OH treatment of my mother forever into the future now?

I don't think either you or your OH are behaving particularly well to be honest.  Look at the diatribe I got for asking a few simple questions so I can only imagine what it was like during the in-laws visit.  Maybe if you tried building some bridges with your partner's family your partner might be more welcoming to yours.

Savvy_Sue

pureshores said:

with your opinion in mind, are you saying that OH treatment of my mother is acceptable due to what happened? I would welcome a suggestion of how to then move forward with the relationship? Do I just accept OH treatment of my mother forever into the future now?

You talk to your partner, you say that you are upset that neither of you has any kind of relationship with the other's mother, and you would like that to change. You suggest relationship counselling together, so that the childish tit for tat attitude can be addressed with someone else in the room to prevent it descending into the farce of "you were nasty to my mum so I'll be nasty to yours". You make it clear that you want a child, but not in THIS relationship as it stands. And that you love them, but that this toxicity around parents is causing you to consider your future with them. 

Sea_Shell

Do you think this could be a cultural thing?    
I'm sure I've seen that in some cultures the Senior Female of the family is held in VERY high esteem, and should be treated like a Queen at all times.
If you've not adhered to this, is that where you've fallen foul of your partners expectations.

As for your partners continued behaviour, 2 years on from the incident, it's childish.    How you make him "grow up", I don't know.

Flugelhorn

Sea_Shell said:

Do you think this could be a cultural thing?    
I'm sure I've seen that in some cultures the Senior Female of the family is held in VERY high esteem, and should be treated like a Queen at all times.
If you've not adhered to this, is that where you've fallen foul of your partners expectations.

As for your partners continued behaviour, 2 years on from the incident, it's childish.    How you make him "grow up", I don't know.

Suspect it is very much this - your MIL/ FIL may feel they have done their bit in bringing up OH and now, when required, his home is their home. 
Your OH having been brought up in a structured system like this won't be able to cope with things not going "as they should" - hence the childish behaviour. he is not really committed to you and it will only get worse as other issues appear. beware MIL taking over any children you have.

silvercar

His parents are not coming for a holiday, they are coming to see their son. If their son didn't live in your area they wouldn't be visiting.

As for them coming for 2 weeks and your mother only visiting for a couple of hours more often, that is because of where they live. Really when you have a relationship with someone whose parents live overseas, you need to accept that they will visit for a week or two because of the cost and logistics of travelling. It really is a positive that his family relationships mean that his parents want to visit. You should be more welcoming; at worst count down the days to when they go home and you won't see them for a year! I'm sure in reverse, if/when you visit their country they will provide accommodation.

As for your parents helping you out financially and they didn't. You don't know their finances. If your parents were able and willing to help you out, you should be grateful full stop. I don't see how that puts an obligation on his parents at all.

pureshores

@Lover_of_Lycra I tried to address the questions you asked as best i could answer, apologies you feel they are "diatribe". 
I have tried to rebuild bridges as mentioned in the op perhaps you can give me more direct ideas as to how this can be done? 

@pickledonionspaceraider I agree it is very tit for tat & does make us sound young/childish & i suppose that is in part what is so infuriating, we are not young, we should not be behaving like this. 

Re the comments about me being selfish for allowing my parents to help out. They offered to & wanted to. It would have been more hurtful to them had i turned town their help. I'm not sure why this makes me a bad person? I also don't think it's unreasonable for me to expect OH parents to have helped out financially, they are significantly more affluent than my parents & have helped out OH siblings, it very much appears to be a case of "out of sight out of mind". 

If i could go back in time knowing how it all panned out I would probably not have said anything to MIL & tolerated it. I did not want  a confrontation. However I also think MIL needs to take some responsibility as well. She too is a fully functioning adult & I feel her reaction to the situation was a bit over the top. If i was a guest in someones home & they had made the same request I may have commented to OH about it being rude but I would have moved myself out over it. 

do i love my partner? Yes i do. But it increasingly hard to love someone who repeatedly states that there actions & attitude is "revenge" for what happened. I feel I have tried to make amends & offered solutions to attempt to do so, but if OH or MIL is unwilling then how can we move forward? What happened is in the past & cannot be changed, we can only find a way to make amends, but OH's purposefully continues to choose to be nasty to my mother. That is a choice. 

[Deleted User]

"Apologies you feel they are 'diatribe'," well that's a classic passive aggressive response if ever there was one.  You started ranting about it being OUR property straight off the bat when I hadn't suggested it wasn't.  You're also totally missing the point about accepting money from your parents.  You made a big thing of being self sufficient and then got annoyed because your partner's parent didn't whip out their wallets.  It's not about you accepting money from your parents it's about you being annoyed at not been given money by people who never had any obligation to give you the money, it comes across as being very entitled. I'm not sure you understand the meaning of irony.  Your in-laws not gifting you money and then wanting to stay with their child when visiting is not ironic.

What exactly have you tried in order to make amends with the in-laws?  You mention about having them round for a meal next time they visit, is that the extent of your olive branch or have you done more?

Gavin83

I’m also wondering if the parents/OH come from a culture where the parents opinions are to be considered gospel and they should never be challenged. Are they Indian or a similar culture? It might not be so much what you said or how you said it but the fact you brought it up at all. In some cultures the mothers needs would trump yours, regardless of you going to work or it being your house.

I do think you were unreasonable not wanting them to stay because they didn’t contribute to your finances. You weren’t unreasonable in wanting the shower at a certain time but I can understand why the mother got upset about this, along with your OH. 

Ultimately you need to decide if you actually want to save this relationship. I expect the difference in cultures is more of a barrier than you expected and probably too much for you to accept and you need to end the relationship and move on. If you do. have kids the in laws will have a massive say in how they’re raised and they’ll feel their opinion trumps that of you two as the parents and your OH is likely to agree and I can’t see you accepting this.

If you really want to save the relationship you need to write a letter to your MIL apologising for your behaviour, making it clear you were completely in the wrong and you hope they’ll come and stay with you again in the future. However I’m not sure you’ll be willing to do this.

onwards&upwards

Have you actually stated that you are female and your partner male?  If not why are people assuming?

Sounds to me like it’s time to move on.  You say you don’t want to ‘throw away’ 6 years, but is it better to throw away 10, 20, 30 years of even the rest of your life than to accept this isn’t the keeper and move on?