At dinners where the same people never help pay the bill (retirement, money)
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I think the MIL with the boyfriend (she called her C in the OP) is her MIL. I think the one she calls S's MIL is S's wife's mom.
Maybe. To me this makes a big difference.
If it's her MIL, her husband's mom, then it's just a case of mom and her two sons playing out the family dynamic over the decades.
If it's the BIL's MIL (you know...the mom of the lady who warrants a $10,000 birthday party) with virtually no relationship to her husband, then I think I might poke the husband more to change his ways.
Yup i seem to be in an anomaly situation all around. We've all heard of PITA in law situations and mine seem to take the cake.
Not really.
We have always paid for everything for my in-laws. My MIL did some crazy stuff during her visits here. Never so much as made us a sandwich during our visits there (cost us airfare, rental car, hotel, all meals, their restaurant meals, etc). In fairness, we are much better off financially.
We paid for my in-laws to visit us in London. My husband dropped them off at the airport. He came back with a set of keys. He asked around the airport for lost and found and got the run-around. He asked me to mail them to the airport's lost and found. The keys were mine!! My MIL secretly took them and dropped them at the airport. Thank God my husband saw them and picked them up. My house key was centuries old and I would have hated to have lost it.
My MIL held my BIL's funeral without us. My husband was out of the country on a business trip. He offered to fly out, but she said to come after his trip. She was too stressed to have the funeral immediately and suggested waiting a month. Well, she told his other brother some untrue lame story and they scheduled the funeral on my daughter's birthday a week later. They made up crap about us not caring .... even though we had spent several thousand dollars to fly out and visit BIL after his emergency surgery a few weeks earlier.
After that incident, I quietly withdrew and let my husband deal with the issues. A couple of years later, after several strokes, she ended up in a nursing home (partially paralyzed). My husband calls and visits occasionally.
December 2015 (on my birthday) she called and told him she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. The doctors refused to operate because of her health. She was very distraught. I visited Christmas 2015 because he said she wanted to see me. I went for him. We talked a lot about her childhood, marriage, etc. She talked about how her old nursing home roommate hated her. I asked "why?" and she replied "because I always flirted with her husband." She was very pleased with herself.
Overall, it was a good visit. The CNA chided us for not visiting more often. She tattled on his brother for not visiting (he lives a couple of miles away). I think she should have minded her own business.
I can't go back and change the past. But I did say to my husband "I wish you stuck up for me more and I wish I let it go more." I wish my MIL no ill-will and have a great amount of sympathy for her. I believe my MIL loves me. It took a while to establish a relationship because of her behaviors. It was going okay for a while. Then she really hurt it with BIL's death. I wish I could go back and let it go. I was so upset about it.
I expect to get the phone call any day that she has passed away. I feel sad for her, my husband, my daughter, and myself. It didn't have to be that way. I really do love her, despite all the aggravation. She gave me my husband. The best thing that has ever happened to me.
I look at it like the scorpion and the frog. She is what she is. I guess she just didn't know any other way or how to try. She always caused drama and hurt. Probably because she was deeply hurting inside.
You seem bitter and hurt. I hope you find a way to resolve it, for your sake.
If it's her MIL, her husband's mom, then it's just a case of mom and her two sons playing out the family dynamic over the decades.
If it's the BIL's MIL (you know...the mom of the lady who warrants a $10,000 birthday party) with virtually no relationship to her husband, then I think I might poke the husband more to change his ways.
I think her MIL comes with the boyfriend and stays for a month at Christmas and in April.
I think her SIL's mom goes to dinner with them and doesn't pay or offer to pitch in and she is the one that was buying them presents and then stopped.
I think her MIL comes with the boyfriend and stays for a month at Christmas and in April.
I think her SIL's mom goes to dinner with them and doesn't pay or offer to pitch in and she is the one that was buying them presents and then stopped.
Yes this. SILs mom stopped getting us xmas gifts last year in addition to never helping with dinner bills yet my husband bought her a xmas gift this year and last year. Even after he paid for two dinners this visit and got her a gift she still didnt have the decency to think, you know i should do something. So IMO that's a straight up b*tch.
I have been having issues with my husband's family when it comes to gift giving at holidays/birthdays and paying the bill at dinner. I am at my wit's end but my husband and my own mother think i'm wrong. My husband has 2 brothers, one is married with 2 kids, ages 7 and 2 and the other is 35, single and lazy. My DH and i have 2 kids ages 9 months and 2. Prior to getting married we'd often go out DHs family and when the bill came, regardless of who was there my dh and his brother who is married would split the bill. The brother, we will call him S's mother in law would often be at these dinners and she never would offer to pay or even thank us after the bill had been paid.
DHs mom lives across the country with her boyfriend. They come to stay for christmas and they stay with S and his wife for a month. I have no idea why they need to stay a month but this has been happening since 2014 (we got married in 2013) and i find them to be a bit much. They also stay for a month in april then again in the summer. Even though they dont stay with us we constantly have to be involved in what theyre doing, usually driving to S's house which is 45 min away, S's kids always seem to have a cold, then our kids get a cold, my mother in law, we can call her C always ends up getting sick it seems when she comes out. Last year she had pneumonia, then it was a stomach bug. I dont even want to see them because they are always sick!
Anyways that is one issue but the dinners and lunches bill is really what gets under my skin. Why should it only be us and S's family to split the bill? Why cant the 35 year old brother, S's mother in law or the boyfriend ever help pay!?? There was one dinner i didnt even go to recently and DH still paid half the bill for all these people and it was just he and my 2 year old son! Also S's mother in law at one point would give us a xmas gift and we'd get her one also but last year she got us nothing even though we got her one. This year DH still got her something and she got us nothing. It's interesting to us both that she stopped getting us something all of a sudden even though we get her something. In my mind im thinking oh yeah and we always pick up the tab for you at dinner too!! Double wham.
DH and i have had some fights about this. Ive said this is no longer fair or sustainable. We have kids, bills, and why has this just become a 'tradition' that the only people who pay the bill are DH and S. The other thing about S is that he is a VP of finance at a fortune 500 company and his wife is a finance director with an mba. They have a verry nice income, more than dh and i make by far and this gets under my skin also. S is perfectly content to have us foot the bill for HIS mother in law yet he's never paid for my parents for a thing. DH is too proud to say anything...but im starting to hate these people. I find it incredibly rude and obnoxious that they just think they dont have to be responsible for a meal they ate.
My mom tells me to be the bigger person and dh thinks im awful and that I am the one who is cheap. I am so annoyed everytime we have to even see these people because it always involves a bill. Tonight it was a $300 dinner bill.
I feel like theres nothing i can do. DH is not on my side and i feel resentful towards him. I liked his family at first but now i find them to be cheap, inconsiderate and a few of them are just lazy.
Am i completely off base? In my family it doenst work this way. We split the bill amongst all the adults when we do dinners. Theres no one who just sits there with alligator arms expecting that someone else will take care of them. I actually hate S's mother in law now because she is always going on these exotic trips. She has the money..but poor DH and i pay for her and give her xmas gifts and get nothing back! I just dont feel like giving to these people!
This has gotten long but the other issue is that DH alwaaays spends more money on S's family for gifts than they spend on us. Again maddening considering they make more than us. I am starting to wish DH was a lot less generous. Generosity is a wonderful quality but i really feel like a chump here. DH would probably divorce me if i ever dared say anything when the bill comes...there are times id like to say, oh ok so how are we splitting the bill tonight but that would just be awkward...i mean hello i know who ends up paying.
Is this normal? Do other families operate this way? I told some people at work about it and a few friends and they think it's ridiculous. I feel like the bad guy with dh and my mom though.
I think this: it's his family, let him do it his way. This is the only way to have peace in your marriage.
I think this: it's his family, let him do it his way. This is the only way to have peace in your marriage.
I agree, think of it as his hobby. Many couples have different hobbies, & they spend time & money on those hobbies away from the other spouse. That is OK. I still think you need to implement a no gift policy. But let him go to those dinners, he seems to enjoy them. If you stay home, you will be reducing the bill so his half will be less. Pick your battles wisely.
Yes this. SILs mom stopped getting us xmas gifts last year in addition to never helping with dinner bills yet my husband bought her a xmas gift this year and last year. Even after he paid for two dinners this visit and got her a gift she still didnt have the decency to think, you know i should do something. So IMO that's a straight up b*tch.
OP, if you continue with type of tit-for-tat score keeping, you're going to end up divorced. Yes, your in-laws sound like free-loaders, but your husband puts up with it for whatever reason. If you can't make peace with the situation, or convince him to spend less, this will cause more fights as time goes on.
I agree, think of it as his hobby. Many couples have different hobbies, & they spend time & money on those hobbies away from the other spouse. That is OK. I still think you need to implement a no gift policy. But let him go to those dinners, he seems to enjoy them. If you stay home, you will be reducing the bill so his half will be less. Pick your battles wisely.
Yes. Picking battles over someone's family never ends well. My ex was always cheap with us to give money to his family and I never said a word about it. I helped him shop for presents for the females and such and never one time mentioned anything about any of it.
Because FAMILY. He never said a word when I needed to leave him to care for my mother, he encouraged it because family.
None of us can ever know the complexities of another family built from childhood. Sometimes the spouse cannot even explain themselves why certain things are the way they are.
OP, if you continue with type of tit-for-tat score keeping, you're going to end up divorced. Yes, your in-laws sound like free-loaders, but your husband puts up with it for whatever reason. If you can't make peace with the situation, or convince him to spend less, this will cause more fights as time goes on.
She's already tried convincing, now it's time to let it go and have a happy marriage.
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