Serious Clingy inlaws

[Rydia]

More of a rant.

So my future mother in law. She is a nice woman and does wonderful things for people and I do like her. But she does have her flaws. One thing, she is very clingy to her children.

She wants to have her family over every Tuesday for dinner, which is cool and its nice to have a meal with the family. However, if there is a week where someone can't make it, she tends to act pouty and lays on guilt tactics such as saying "Well I'm disappointed."

Also, during holidays, she wants everyone to be at every party. John and I can always go because it does not conflict with any of my side of the families parties except sometimes Thanksgiving. However, her oldest son is a nurse and sometimes works on the holidays. She still wants his wife to attend all family functions even though she is not comfortable and has a baby. When the wife kindly declines she lays on the guilt tactics again and will call their house repeatedly during these events to ask if she is coming. It's gotten to the point that the daughter in law just does not answer the phone during the parties.

When she uses guilt tactics against me or John, we do our best to show that we are not at all affected so she knows that they will not work for us. She needs to learn that her kids are now grown up and can not be 100% devoted to her like they were as children. I think she is having trouble that her children are now grow up and leading their own lives. John brother and his wife, often give in to her which I do not think they should do because it kind of gives her power over them.

 

[Valvalis]

I think a lot of parents want their kids to stay young together, and sometimes they pride themselves on being able to organize family events really well so they try annoyingly hard to do so :/ Or they just to try to influence your lifestyle. My in-laws are fortunately pretty cool, but every once in a while my mother- and grandmother-in-law will try to sell us on moving up to SC with the rest of their family, telling us about how cool it is and one time sending us an article about how their town is on a "top ten list" of places to live It's delightfully cheap up there, yes, but we sure as hell don't want to live there--for one thing we have no job or master's degree potential up there, but also all the houses in the area where they live look the same, they're all huge with tiny yards and packed close together, and the area is so new that it will be filled with garbaceous urban sprawl by the time we can afford to move out of state anyway. So when you tell them no and they still do that anyway, it's kind of annoying. Also, it's a huge family where everyone expects you to have lots of children as soon as you're married, so we know his mom is going to be disappointed when she realizes that we're serious about not having children, but so far the pressure hasn't been too bad just yet

 

[Kandy-Sugar]

Yeah that really does sound horrible to me. =/

Steve and I would both hate it if either of our parents were clingy like that.

We can go for months at a time with no contact even though our parents live just around the corner.

I really don't like parents that just pop around to your house on their own accord either. A few of my friends have this problem. It's very rude and they see it as though they're doing nothing wrong. It doesn't matter who you are, you don't just come around when you feel like it without asking first.

Luckily when it comes to the family function party things, Steve's side of the family are all Jehovah's Witnesses so they never have parties for anything anyway, save for Steve's grandad's and grandma's anniversary they celebrate every year at a nice restuarant.

My side of the family aren't big on the whole family get togethers either. It's mainly Christmas and birthdays and that's pretty much it.

I like it because it means I can still stay in contact with them, without having to see them too much.

 

[blakstang98]

I hope my parents don't fall into this category. They do seem to intervene a little more than they should. I don't have a problem with my parents, but I wouldn't want them haunting me and pissing off my girlfriend.

I suppose it's a delicate topic though. I mean, you can't just say "leave me alone", but at the same time you have to get that message to them. In my case, I think worry is the overbearing issue. If they can get it through their head that I'll be fine, then we can move on with life with less interruptions. We visit them occassionally, but I think they're letting us maintain our time together, which is a good thing. Now if they'd just call less. !