# Balancing divorced parents and overbearing MIL



## deebee21 (Jan 7, 2014)

Most of the time, I love having so many family members and loved ones around who are caring and supportive. But lately I feel they are more "in the way" than helpful.
Background: I am happily married with two young kids. My parents are divorced and my husbands parents are divorced. This alone causes a lot of tugging, being that there are 4 separate households of grandparents alone. On top of that, my hubby is 1 of 3 siblings and the other 2 have moved away from home for work. Did i mention we live within 8 miles of BOTH my in-laws as well as my parents? So the pressure is on my hubby and I when it comes to my in-laws. Especially because we have two kids, they want to see us ALL THE TIME. My FIL has never placed any sort of expectations on us to visit a certain amount of times a week or be around for every holiday or spend every vacation with him. He's more of a "i'll see you when i see you" type. OF course he'd be upset if he went a month without a visit, and that's happened, but it's never been an issue for him. My MIL is the opposite of that. She has a lot more expectation of us to do things with her. She needs constant contact and it gets exhausting. Generally I enjoy her company when we are all together, she's not necessarily a "monster in law". Just a needy mother. We often put everyone else who is important to us on the backburner because MIL wants to do this, take a vacation here, have christmas dinner, have random sleep overs, visit at least once a week, etc. ANd once a week visits with grandparents, especially when living so close may seem reasonable to most. I know a lot of people who manage that just fine. It's just so hard when my Hubby and i work FT, have 2 young kids, have friends we would like to do things with, do quality things with just the 4 of us, maybe just do nothing once in awhile. I understand, we are not responsible to make sure everyone is happy, and we cant change our life and plans around because we "feel bad" we are leaving someone out all the time. Usually, my parents get the "leftovers" of quality time, because MIL wants everything with us (birthday dinner, family vacation, holidays, whatever major event). But it makes me resentful of her because we see her all the time regularly. Week after week we are over her place, she's at ours, go shopping with her, have sleepovers, she takes the kids out to the movies, etc. And then, for something big like Summer vacation, she wants that time to be spent with her as well! And shes always under the impression she isnt getting enough time and keeps count of days in between when we see her and lets us know "i havent heard from you guys in so long, wanted to make sure everything is ok". And she'll say that when it's only been 4 days. Seriously. My parents and FIL NEVER ever complain about what they "get from us". We do what we can do. BUt, they also have jobs and family and friends and, well, a life outside of us so it doesnt bother them. BUt it bothers me!!! I want to do more special things with them and not have to feel so guilty about it because MIL with act like a 12 year old brat who doesnt get her way. I'm just wondering how other people handle unreasonable, overbearing in-laws (or their own parents). I know it's rough, and you just have to put your foot down sometimes, but i'm so sick of every holiday/birthday/vacation/anniversary/etc being ruined because of one person who is too selfish to realize we want to spend time with everyone. or no one at this point. Ahh!!
We are seriously contemplating transferring to a new city with my hubby's job to rid the anxiety of it all. I know living far has it's own set of hurdles, but I'd rather have QUALITY time when i see family instead of quantity.


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## frusdil (Sep 5, 2013)

We have the same problem with my MIL. The good thing is that my husband knows what his mum is like, lol.

I am also good at standing firm in our belief that we are the mum and the dad, and that we have two families to consider (can't even imagine how stressful it must be to have to consider 4 households!!).

My hubby and I never commit to anything for Christmas, Easter or other big events with either family, without discussing it with each other first.

My family is easy...my mum will go with the flow (dad passed away). I won't have my family be the one to compromise all the time because they're easy, and won't throw a tantrum if they don't get their own way.

Just last Christmas, we had issues with MIL throwing tantrums and carrying on because we were spending Christmas Day with my family (we spent Christmas the year before with hubby's family). We stuck to our guns (I had to assert with hubby several times that we weren't going to be bullied into changing our plans...his mum is VERY pushy). She had no choice but to accept the way it was going to be and guess what? They sky didn't fall in! Lol!

You and your hubby need to discuss this together, and make a plan together. Then the trick is to enforce it together.

Good luck


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