Anyone else have awful in-laws?

[brotherbloat]

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On a completely unrelated theme to my other posts 🙂 I am wondering if anyone else has problem in-laws like I do. I truly have the worst in-laws known to humankind. I can't wait to see the movie Monster-in-Law, because I'll be able to totally relate.

The problem with my in-laws isn't that they're actively mean to me/us. Quite the opposite--they just don't care. They're totally and completely disinterested in us. I've been with my hubby for 6 years now, and not once have any of them said, "welcome to the family" or anything remotely of that nature. None of his family members have had any interest in getting to know me at all, or him even. In fact, most of his relatives did not even acknowledge our marriage last year with a card, gift, phone conversation, or anything.

Just wondered if anyone else has a similar problem/ what they did about it. I always envisioned a warm, fuzzy relationship with my in-laws, esp. my mother in law. However, warm and fuzzy are not two words that could ever describe Doreen (my mother in law). He has two sisters, neither of whom I've spoken with for more than maybe 15 minutes total in our 6 years of being together. We never see his family, b/c they live on the West Coast, far away from where we are, but I am starting to wonder if it's always going to be like this.

I've tried to make the effort to be nice to them and show interest. I used to try and send cards and letters to Doreen, until I realized she just didn't give a crap and never reciprocated.

In contrast, my family loves my husband and has always been warm and welcoming.

Thanks,

Bloat

 

[GeneGoddess]

Take my word for it: I win. My family LOVES my husband, and my husband's parents basically disowned both of us. His mom (my MIL) never really forgave him for "leaving her" to go to grad school (you can't do much with a MS in science...the PhD is all but required). He "quit a perfectly good job" and "left her". Umm, he's an ADULT! Anyway, we met in grad school and she called a grand total of TWICE after we moved in together. Husband called multiple times and always got her machine. She no-showed the wedding. Last time he heard from her was early summer 2003. For all we know, she could be dead (she's the only "family" on that side: her brother is estranged and her parents are dead). His dad is almost as bad. He's INCREDIBLY anal and is incapable of NOT being the center of attention. (Picture a 4yo bouncing up and down and screaming "look at me!!!"). It's bizarre. Anyway, he got a hair up his butt and sent a horrid letter to husband (his ONLY child - he and husband's mom have been divorced for 30yrs) and a scathing message on our answering machine calling me a materialistic, money grubbing, imbecilic *****. And that husband needed to choose between his wife and his FAMILY. That was easy...he didn't speak to his father for 18mo (until he finally relented and sent a graduation announcement last week). The relationship is still strained. FIL's wife (who is an angel for putting up with him - she's fantastic) has two daughters who are each complete messes. The younger one got married, got pregnant, and THEN her husband left her (this is two months after the wedding). She's on welfare and FIL and step-MIL take care of her daughter. The older daughter is currently either in prison or a mental hospital (she may be schizophrenic, but is a psychopath and herion addict at minimum - seriously). She has an 8yo son that lives with FIL and s-MIL and JUST had another son (15mo?) that was born premature and no one knows who the father is (conceived in a state facility for drug addiction and mental issues). And FIL and s-MIL have custody of him also. So, they basically take care of THREE kids.

At least husband's grandmother (only living grandparent), only uncle, and only cousin are nice. "Cause his parents are a mess!

 

[brotherbloat]

Gosh, yours does sound bad! Yikes!

 

[drmanyee999]

On a completely unrelated theme to my other posts 🙂 I am wondering if anyone else has problem in-laws like I do. I truly have the worst in-laws known to humankind. I can't wait to see the movie Monster-in-Law, because I'll be able to totally relate.

The problem with my in-laws isn't that they're actively mean to me/us. Quite the opposite--they just don't care. They're totally and completely disinterested in us. I've been with my hubby for 6 years now, and not once have any of them said, "welcome to the family" or anything remotely of that nature. None of his family members have had any interest in getting to know me at all, or him even. In fact, most of his relatives did not even acknowledge our marriage last year with a card, gift, phone conversation, or anything.

Just wondered if anyone else has a similar problem/ what they did about it. I always envisioned a warm, fuzzy relationship with my in-laws, esp. my mother in law. However, warm and fuzzy are not two words that could ever describe Doreen (my mother in law). He has two sisters, neither of whom I've spoken with for more than maybe 15 minutes total in our 6 years of being together. We never see his family, b/c they live on the West Coast, far away from where we are, but I am starting to wonder if it's always going to be like this.

I've tried to make the effort to be nice to them and show interest. I used to try and send cards and letters to Doreen, until I realized she just didn't give a crap and never reciprocated.

In contrast, my family loves my husband and has always been warm and welcoming.

Thanks,

Bloat

I have practically the exact same situation. Except only my father-in-law lives on the West coast and my husband has two brothers not two sisters. It pisses me off royally, but fortunately I don't have to deal with them much because my husband doesn't particularly like his family either.

I also gave up with my mother-in-law, what's the point in trying when she's never going to reciprocate? The only headway that has been made was she sent me a birthday card for the first time since my husband and I started dating - 1 in 3 years!!! But, the only reason she did that was because he gave her hell about it. Actually, she didn't even know when my birthday was until my bridal shower in May of 2004. It was a question in a game that my maid of honor was doing. I'm not sure who it was more embarrasing for when she asked me, "when's your birthday?"

Sorry, I shall stop venting. Save to say that you're not alone - unfortunately.

 

[GeneGoddess]

My sister has similar problems to you (hmm, maybe WE are the weird ones). Her IL's are incredibly superficial and status oriented. They actually asked my BIL (how such a sweet guy was raised in that family I will never know - he's also an only) if my sister was "smart enough" for him. Umm, my sis is disgustingly brilliant (graduated third in her bioengineering class with a 3.98GPA).

Basically, some people have great in-laws, some have awful ones. Neither I, nor my sis, will ever have a warm/fuzzy relationship with either of our MILs. But our spouses have great relationships with their ILs (my dad thinks my husband rocks - because he loves fishing and knows his way around a toolshed). Count yourself lucky that at least ONE set of IL's is happy. I know people who don't speak to either side of their family. Also, give it time. It took a decade for my mom to finally understand and get along with my dad's parents. At the end, they loved her (warm fuzzies all around), but it took a decade. Don't give up hope, but don't let it ruin your life. My mom's parents eventually liked my dad, but not for a LONG time.

Besides, it can always been one of those great stories later in life. My parents still laugh at the fact that my mom's parents sent off a copy of a love letter my dad wrote my mom to have the handwriting analyzed. The results were that he was shifty, not to be trusted, and would leave her within a year. They've been married 35... 🙂

 

[brotherbloat]

My husband's parents are divorced--for 20 years. We have no relationship with his mother anymore (before we had a strained and pretty pathetic relationship with her), and don't have much of a relationship with his father, who only calls sporadically, and we maybe see him once every 2-3 years. His father decided not to attend our wedding because it was inconvenient for him.

As for his mother, she had to be cajoled into attending our wedding (and I wish she hadn't), and hasn't called us or had any interest in us since our wedding. So it's been almost a year since she's spoken to us, she obviously doesn't give a crap about us or care about how our newlywedhood is going.

My husband knows his family is truly psycho and he doesn't want to deal with them, either, which is nice. He often wonders how he escaped their clutches "unscathed" by their psycho-ness.

I totally relate to the above poster who shared the story of the mother in law who didn't know her birthday. Neither my father or mother in law knows anything about me--nothing at all. If I asked them where I was born, or any other basic detail, they'd have no idea. My mother in law also started sending me birthday cards after my husband complained. But that's the only gesture she has presented. Father in law never has.

I remember clearly one particular incident, when we got engaged, we called Doreen, my mother in law, and told her. She said, "well I guess I should call your parents to introduce myself. What are their names?" This was after 4 years of dating and visiting her three times. When I told that to my parents, they were horrified and offended!!!!!

My whole family, which is normal, is always saying, "your in-laws are the most dysfunctional people we've ever heard of." And it's true, well maybe except for yours, genegoddess. I think it's sad that people can ignore/ not give a crap about their own children.

 

[adventurer]

Gotta love in laws!

My sisters in laws are pretty bad. The father got fired from his job as a police officer-school liason for some kind of "innappropriate relationship" with a student. The mother is a medical wreck in her own mind-she suffers from every disease she has ever heard of.

Last christmas they sent a box of gifts to the family, but with no gift to my sister! Hows that for crystal clear!

 

[od2b77]

About weird in-laws, on our wedding day my FIL comes up to us and says: "Remember, only the primitive people procreate" Would be really funny if it wasn't so sad. 🙄

 

[OrthoFixation]

I've got just the opposite problem. My mom's a nutcase, paranoid-schiz, refuses treatment b/c everyone is out to get her! When I first got married, she tried to break us up by telling my wife that I was cheating on her. I could fill a few pages on her decades of ridiculous behavior.

My in-laws are fantastic, ten times more normal than my mom. I'm blessed to have great, caring family that's really embraced me. Funny though, prior to our marriage I asked her father for permission to marry her and he never answered me. They warmed up pretty quickly though. We laugh about it now. Twelve years married and counting 👍. Finding the right spouse makes all the difference.

 

[f_w]

This thread reminds me of driving by a real bad car-wreck. You are glad you're not in it and hope that the people attended to by EMS will do allright.

 

[johndoe2k5]

In laws BLOW! People in this country really need to love people for who they're rather than what you'd like them to be.

 

[jamie]

On a completely unrelated theme to my other posts 🙂 I am wondering if anyone else has problem in-laws like I do. I truly have the worst in-laws known to humankind. I can't wait to see the movie Monster-in-Law, because I'll be able to totally relate.

The problem with my in-laws isn't that they're actively mean to me/us. Quite the opposite--they just don't care. They're totally and completely disinterested in us. I've been with my hubby for 6 years now, and not once have any of them said, "welcome to the family" or anything remotely of that nature. None of his family members have had any interest in getting to know me at all, or him even. In fact, most of his relatives did not even acknowledge our marriage last year with a card, gift, phone conversation, or anything.

Just wondered if anyone else has a similar problem/ what they did about it. I always envisioned a warm, fuzzy relationship with my in-laws, esp. my mother in law. However, warm and fuzzy are not two words that could ever describe Doreen (my mother in law). He has two sisters, neither of whom I've spoken with for more than maybe 15 minutes total in our 6 years of being together. We never see his family, b/c they live on the West Coast, far away from where we are, but I am starting to wonder if it's always going to be like this.

I've tried to make the effort to be nice to them and show interest. I used to try and send cards and letters to Doreen, until I realized she just didn't give a crap and never reciprocated.

In contrast, my family loves my husband and has always been warm and welcoming.

Thanks,

Bloat

At least it's easy for you to decide whose side you'll spend holidays with.