Just wanted to ask if you have any good/bad/funny/sad stories about living with your Japanese in-laws.
My story isn’t too exciting, but here goes. After we got married and had our daughter, I was considering buying a house. My in-laws stopped me, and invited us to live with them. So their house was renovated to become a 二世帯住宅. It took a while due to the FIL being a bit stingy and we had to switch companies a few times. But I’m happy with our floor of the house.
FIL is a bit odd, to say the least. He’s an engineer and not very good at socializing. He sometimes starts/joins a conversation and everyone (including wife and MIL) does not know wtf he’s talking about. And he also has a very short temper. Starts shouting at anything small. But still, he’s not such a bad person and he’s very good at fixing everything around the house (electrical, paint work, gardening, etc.)
MIL is very nice. Takes care of our daughter whenever we’re busy and cooks for us every now and then, even though I refuse since I don’t want to make it a norm. She’s a bit overly concerned about our daughter. Is she too hot? Is she too cold? Is that piece of chicken too big? But I guess that’s what being a grandmother is all about.
We also have obaachan. FIL’s mother. She’s 92. She’s starting to get a bit slow and all she talks about is her childhood and what happened during the war, and she talks A LOT. Kind of like FIL where she joins a conversation with something totally unrelated to what others are talking about. Her will to live seems invigorated due to our daughter, which really makes me smile.
That’s me! Interested to hear other stories.
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Not yet but they’re in their 80s and having trouble getting around so they’ll be moving in with us eventually.
I’m praying hard to Jesus, all the pagan gods and whoever else with any divine influence that MIL will never move in with us because all I will hear all day is when will we have another child, snarky comments about how I raise the child we have, more intrusive questions and complaints about how she has to give her pension away to her other, gambling addicted son who takes it to the pachinko place.
we lived with inlaws and i have no stories apart from how impressively non-intrusive and chilled they were. we moved after several years before we had a kid. if anyone was annoying, it was us.
I have too many terrible stories, lol and I only used to live close by…
Enter the fact that they are always telling me that I’m fat, it doesn’t matter how many times I tell then how rude this is… they’ll always find some kind of sneaky way to wheel it into the conversation.
Lifting weights? Going to get fat!
Eating some yogurt? Going to get even fatter!
Going for a jog? Going to get even more chunky legs!!!
I can’t win! There’s also serious undertones of “women shouldn’t be doing exercise” etc which I flagrantly ignore because F that, it’s 2023 not 1923!
Yeah, the obaachan part was really wholesome, needed that shit right now. *Faith in humanity restored.*
Loved with my own grandmother and great aunt as a child. Living with my wife’s parents, you do get some odd conversations, some or here’d bits to consider (last minute requests to collect medicines as you are leaving for work).
But we gain a lot more. Mother still cooks at random and brings in little bits of shopping. My daughter has someone who will care for her and be home when she gets back from school.
More importantly, I have found from my own experience that multiple generations living together gives a child a solid sense of identity within the family. (Or I might just be lucky with the older generations in my life!)
Overall, it’s been a very good experience.
I live in the same apartment building on a different floor.
My daily life can be lived completely independently from them, but if they need help with some heavy boxes, changing a ceiling light, or a bit of DIY I can be there in a flash to help them. Also we get random MIL deliveries of tempura sashimi etc. The kids can go up anytime they want (more when they were younger) too.
We won’t even need to look after them when they get older, because that’s all been arranged with another sister.
It’s pretty good.
I live with my in-laws. Baby makes 6 of us in the house.
My BIL moved out awhile ago.
SIL stays home and I love her but she got away with murder until she started working. If I left a dish uncleaned? I was being a bad adult according to FIL but she would leave pots and pans scratched, dirty, used, not even with water inside and nothing was said. I think eventually my MIL said something a year ago cause FIL was starting to blame me for something SIL did and I pointed out it was her and there was an awkward silence and ever since then haven’t been blamed.
FIL despite our times butting heads is a decent father and the men of the house do more cooking and cleaning than the women (I love cooking, hate the cleaning).
My MIL is helpful. Sometimes a bit forceful about things having to be her way but she is very good at planning, admin stuff for the house, and my soon to be one year old adores her.
We do plan to move to the states eventually otherwise we’d move out, cause it is hard to get space for my own time that feels like *my space*, but compared to some of my ex’s moms, I did get very lucky
My MIL lived with us up till covid and honestly I liked it.
Right now she is 90 and is still mentally fresh, physically capable. She goes to the gym 2 times a week and lives with her brother.
My wife and I are both full time employees and MIL was instrumental in taking care of our kids.
She was my only Japanese language partner and was honestly so kind to me on many things.
She was pretty harsh on my wife and I learned why my wife is the way she is, lol, but I miss her being around.
The kids are bigger now, my wife WFH 100%, so she’s not “needed” like before, but I’m expecting when she needs care we will bring her into our home to take care of her.
I love my in-laws. I get along with them more than my real parents. I’m probably in the minority thinking this while living with them.