Have any of you ever had to set boundaries with overly affectionate in-laws who have practically moved into your home after you and your wife have children and are constantly around to the point where it’s kind of annoying but you can’t ask them to leave because they are your in-laws? If you’ve ever had a conversation about this with your other half family, please let me know how you did it and whether it caused a problem.
13 comments
Sounds awful. No way could / would I put up with that.
You and your wife take advantage of the free childcare while you have it to rekindle the post-baby romance.
We lived with the in-laws for a while but that was because we were not stable at the time. When we got financially secured, the in-laws moved out and bought their own place. Our talk was open and honest when it was time to discuss boundaries. I don’t particularly think it is rude to state your position to your spouse and the in-laws, so long as you are polite about it. Just explain that you want to live separately and your custom expects a certain level of boundaries that are currently not being respected.
JAV code?
When we moved back to Japan from a brief 7 year stint in America, we lived with my in-laws for a few months as we got settled in. About a week after we moved into the new apartment my mother-in-law used her key (left with her for emergencies) to come in while we were both out, and she fed our dog… without telling me that she visited… So, when I came home I fed the dog again. When wife told me, I was pretty angry. You don’t just use your emergency key to go into someone’s house and start fucking with their shit, at least not without checking/asking first. I kinda blew up about it to my wife, and she handled it from there. It doesn’t seem to have caused any rifts or trouble, and she hasn’t done anything similar since, but my in-laws are pretty cool in general.
Yeah I did early on but my wife doesn’t want them coming around all the time either so it’s easy. I used to work Saturdays so I said I don’t want to spend all my time off doing family stuff. I got quite good at saying no to people over the years.
If they come around for longer than I expected I’ll go and read or something in another room. I like having a break from being a parent and they enjoy looking after the baby. It’s easy to think of something to do. Say you want to go buy something, start making dinner, go for a walk, say you wanna message your parents.
But yeah just go ahead and talk about it, I’d say. You might get some kickback but it should be understandable. Just make sure you don’t sound too blunt when you say it.
Also, when all else fails:cabbage farts. Get this right and you can clear a.reasonably large room full of unwanted guests.
You need to have this discussion with your wife. Find ground rules you both can agree on, and then it should be her job to communicate that to her own parents.
Definitely. Different cultures be different.
My wife’s aunt has an apartment with an adjoining balcony (family owned, small ‘mansion’) and she’d come in via that balcony all the damn time. Much as I like her, the barrier between the two balconies went back up. I just told my wife to blame it on the Gaijin. That’s usually sufficient explanation.
I wish my parents or my wife’s would help out for more than 30 seconds a year.
Had the same problem, even to the point that the nurse coming over for the baby’s health checkup stepped in and told my MIL to back off and let the parents handle the baby.
I can assure you that that was not an easy conversation to have, and resulted in my wife being utterly pissed with me and calling me ungrateful for a long, long time. I’m a rather direct guy, something Japanese don’t really tend to appreciate, which may have made the whole thing even worse.
In the end, I still think it was the right thing to do. It’s your life, your house, and having a newborn is already rough enough on your relationship and your mental well-being as it is. We’ve all reconciled, and after a while my wife sort of saw where I was coming from. They still help out from time to time, but they’re not constantly hanging around anymore, butting in to everything we say or do.
MIL tried to come over do the dishes.
I told her very directly that dishes are my job and she can’t do that. She can come over for tea as a guest and then I offered to make some.
I just nipped it in the bud, having anticipated that. There were other similar episodes, with varying levels of determined polite hostility from me. They learned it after couple times. The longer change in mindset, MIL coming to accept that a male can look after a baby/child took took couple of years. These days she no longer …けど大丈夫？
Sorry but I don’t have any advice for your situation where your home has already been annexed. I’ve seen it get pretty bad. Wish you the best of luck!
My in laws set themselves to once a week which is perfect. Perhaps discuss that with your wife.
Talk to your wife to talk to her parents. If she’s on the same page as you, and you’re worried about unintentionally offending them, she should know best how to talk to them.
The problem will be if your wife has no problem with having her parents over all the time to help with the kids.
My husband has always supported me in communicating with his mom when I needed space but wasn’t sure how to approach the subject/was scared of offending her.