In-Laws

MIL fighting the terriers
My father died way back in 1990 (apparently he was telling a joke at the breakfast table) and my mother died in 2002 (probably after having a sneaky fag on the fire escape of her nursing home)  Relationships with them, I must admit were somewhat tempestuous throughout my late teens and early adult life, but before they died, I was lucky enough to resolve many of those cracked and knotty issues laid down during my salad days.
Of course I have inherited a couple of parent in-laws since then. 
And I am lucky enough to be blessed with having good relationships with both 
They are nice people. 
FIL "pointing"
If you really think about it,getting to know your partner's parents is a totally artificial experience.
Initially they aren't friends, they are perfect strangers,  and are ageing adults that  only have one other person in common with you. Your relationships with them could be fraught with history issues, conflict of attitudes , competitive urges and insecurities, or you could be lucky enough to become friends with two people who are actually responsible with the hairy-arsed despot that you have ended up sharing your life with.
I am lucky enough to be in the "hairy-arse" camp.

Having in-laws, in my experience is an easy and enjoyable sort of job. Neither camp possess any of the normal psychological baggage that is a child and parent relationship, so we can buffer and bookend our mutual loved one in the middle,so to speak
We are something separate. 
Thank the Lord that we get on.....

off to bed for an hour....working tonight!

45 comments:

  1. Why do I think you may have stirred the hornets nest with this one? In laws? Don't get me started...

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  2. My current in-laws are great, my last past one's didn't speak to me for years, but now we are fine....

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  3. EARL Did your "salad days" include radishes and wet lettuce?

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  4. How nice you get on with the in-laws, John. I truly miss my MIL, as we really had much in common.

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  5. You've been very fortunate. We both had the same good fortune with our respective in-laws. Not always the case.

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  6. Lovely to have a nice relationship with the in-laws. I enjoy mine too and miss Gregg's mother whom I considered a very good friend.

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  7. You are lucky John. Rudy's mother was very protective of him until the day she died...for some reason I was a threat to her. She always thought of love as a pie...the more of his love I got, the less there was for her...we never did get that sorted...shame.
    "buffer and bookend our mutual loved one" - love that phrase.

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    1. perhaps its a mother and son thing when there is another woman on the scene?

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    2. My experience is the same as Jacqueline's. My MIL even started to dress like me....weird.
      Jane x

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  8. 23 years on, I still don't know how to deal with my MIL...

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  9. In-Laws are a lottery; luckily I won!

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  10. Mine thought I was a relative to the Queen, and in being so, was always treated special :)
    Gawd love 'em.
    ~Jo

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  11. First set of In-laws, great. My mother hated them and made things awkward.

    Second set, FIL spoke to me only once to ask me who the hell I was. Didn't even turn up for the wedding. MIL an absolute bloody dragon.

    Third set, FIL an absolute hoot! I would never dream of going out on the piss with him even though he is equivalent to a chief constable and I could get away with murder. When he first met me he took me into the bush with some other armed policeman and proceeded to shoot a load of cans at extreme range, all the time friendly as anything. I got the message. MIL keeps herself to herself and thinks I am a nice man because I do not beat or cuckold her daughter.

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  12. right now im the other equation (cheek?) of the hairy arse dept - im staying overnight at my daughter and son in laws apt for doctor appts early in the morning...they seem to like me ;)being here, but then so do their cats...lol

    And now we know why you choose Christopher as yours - look at the terrific parents he came from!

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  13. Is anybody lucky to be hairy arsed?

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  14. I am fast friends with my daughter's in-laws. Lost my own years ago, along with my parents. No matter where they come from hold fast to family.

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  15. I love my mother in law! She treats me like her own daughter, especially after this past year (my husband was battling cancer and I took good care of her "baby"). We get along great! Unfortunately my father in law passed away before I was in the picture. My MIL is remarried, and I like her husband well enough, although I am sorry I never got to meet Gregg's dad.

    Life is much easier with good in-laws!

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  16. No complaints here. My MIL is a darling. She has a heart like a bucket and does not interfere. She is a strong willed, opinionated lady, but I have learned how to handle it.
    She also lives a plane ride away, which all adds up to make her the perfect MIL in my book.

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  17. I used to say that only one good thing came out of my mother in law (her lemon and ginger pie). But Other Half objected, so now I have to say it's two things.

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  18. My first MIL hated my guts until I divorced her son, then we got along fine. I loved DH's Mom and still miss her.

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  19. Nothing like a good hairy-ass...

    Family is ah-mazing!

    Nitty Gritty Momma

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  20. Hope your day is going well, John. :o)

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  21. back in my married days I hated my in laws and they me....you are blessed to have good ones :)

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  22. MIL was a complete hoot, life was full of laughter even on a grim day.

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  23. That's very true about your in-laws not having all the psychological baggage of your parents. My brother in law and mother in law are both very easy to get on with for that reason. Trying to get on with my father however was an uphill struggle.

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  24. My MIL hated me before she even met me.She had a go at me in the vestry just after I signed the register at my wedding, and then sin of all sins I gave birth to 2 daughters rather than the grandson she was so desperate for. She now has 7 grand-daughters and a great grand-daughter, something which has amused me no end over the years as each of us had girls rather than boys. I gave up trying to get along with her very early on -over 31 years have passed and I never see her which suits me fine.

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  25. I'm sure they are happy for you as well John. I have only one daughter and her first hubbie, my first son-in-law was so beyond the word LOSER...after 10 years she finally dumped him. Looking forward to the next BETTER SIL. I can hope can't I?

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  26. You are lucky that you get along with them John. They look 'young at heart' types in the photos!

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  27. thanks to everyone who commented
    I do enjoy a good MIL/FIL/SIL/DIL Story!
    keep em coming

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  28. I salute you. You have conquered an area I could never breech. I always kept trying and I never repeated what comments were made just out of Hubby's hearing.

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  29. My MIL gave me her spinning wheel...it is her fault (and her kind and loving son's) that we are in full fiber mode...I named the spinning wheel after Josie of course! She is a sweet 87 year old darlin. Oh, by the way John; we now have ducks......Gods help us.

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  30. There's nothing so real and heart-warming as a real relationship with unrelated people. Family we are duty-bound to love - even if we instinctively dislike them. All others are loved by choice.

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  31. I am glad that things worked out John. I have a gay grand-daughter and I am pleased to say that her parents have both accepted it with great understanding and have helped her through a very difficult year. She is now aa happy young lady thanks to their understanding.

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  32. Like you I rather lucked in! Dementia got hold of my dear MIL several years before she actually left this life, so I mourn for and miss her in two ways IYKWIM.

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  33. Indeed, you opened a can of worms with this one .... My MIL does not get along with any of her four in-laws. She basically positions us in bitch-slot one through four. Your ranking depends on who has offended her the most at any given time. I am currently in the 'pole position'.

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  34. MIL never really warmed to me, FIL and i got along great. He made the mistake of telling me several times how delicious a roast was that i made for them soon after Himself and i were married, and we invited them for supper. He said this in front of MIL, and i saw her stiffen a little more after each time he praised my cooking. The nail in the coffin was when he asked MIL why she never fixed this for supper when i know she had at least 1000 times since their marriage. Difference being, i didn't cook all meat to shoe leather. They rarely came by for a meal after that, and when they did, i always made sure to cook something MIL didn't usually fix.

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  35. It was one of the best days in my life when my MIL said aloud and in a public place that I was a member of her family! And we sailed through the rest of her life....

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  36. never got on with my mother-in-law.......enough said!!

    Gill in Canada

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  37. Ah that's lovely. I wish it was always so .... !

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  38. I'm still waiting to find my very own hairy-arse. If you find one going spare please point him in this direction.

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  39. Rather like you I think I only got to make friends with my parents a few years before they assumed room temperature and put on a new pine overcoat. I'm lucky to have done so! All of my in-laws have always hated my guts though, for all of the usual reasons ...

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  40. I love that you were able to resolve your difficulties with your parents. Ww suspended hostilities when we knew my father was dying but if he had lived the war would have resumed. And, perhaps worse, the last words my mother and I shared were angry - on both sides.
    Cherish those in-laws.

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  41. I never knew my In-Laws, though Elwin was sure they would have liked me. Me? I (think) I get on with anyone. By the time Elwin died his MiL, ie my mother, thought the sun shone out of his HA, but after I first took him home to meet the parents, my mother said "I'll kill him if he marries my daughter." That was due to the twenty year age difference - as knotty for some families as homosexuality.

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