My [M35] wife [F31] is a elementary school teacher, and she comes from a family of now retired teachers.
For the past 3 years, both her parents have come from out of town before or near the beginning of the school year to help her set up and organize her classroom.
Year 1-Shortly before they arrived, she ended up accepting a remote teaching job, so instead of setting up her classroom they ended up re-organizing our home instead. I was with my parents in a different city for a few days bc my family dog had died. Came home to a bunch of my stuff gone, things moved around where I couldn’t find it and a $700 bill. I was mad. We’ve been to therapy for this already, but I’m still having a hard time letting this go.
Year 2-In August I helped my wife buy supplies, organize, clean and set up her classroom. Three weeks after the school year started her parents arrived, which at the time was suppose to be a vacation. My wife was sick when they arrived, but we ended up going into her classroom around 7pm to prep for the Substitute teacher (she was calling in sick). The usual 30min prep turned into 4 hrs of Sunday cleaning, organizing and other teacher things. I was getting restless by 10:00pm, wife was sick, I worked the next day and we picked them up at 2am the same day from the airport. I asked when we would be done, and no one could tell me, “we’ll be done when it’s done, here cut this if you’re bored (hands scissors) ” . It was chaos from my vantage pt, there was no discernable plan, no communication, just a frenzy of moving things around and cutting. After the third time asking what there was left to do and when we would leave, I said I would go home and come back to get them. Wife and I were both annoyed with each other at this pt. I picked them up round 11:30pm.
I’m told after I left that she and her parents said I was being unsupportive and a crappy partner.
Year 3 (Present)-This year her parents are driving across the country and staying with us for a month. The last 5 days of this visit is intended for classroom prep. Remembering how stressful last year was, the history with her parents, upon reaching an agreement that they wouldn’t touch the house again, and considering how long they were staying with us in August, wife said it would be okay for me to be conveniently out of town for the pre-school year set up period.
As expected, it was a horrific stressful mess and wife and her mom got into a fight about the classroom.
Her mom said I was a crappy partner for not being there. I feel we (or mostly me?) would be allot less stressed if they weren’t here in the first place. She is unlikely to talk to her parents about this as to not hurt their feelings.
I’ll be back in town this week, and I can either let it go or bring it up as topic. I don’t know if I can stomach this every single year for the rest of my wife’s career and it’s affecting our relationship. At the same time, it’s just a few shitty days out of the year. They are mostly pretty decent humans that love their daughter and mean well.
Should I (we ideally) talk to her parents? Should I have not bailed out this year?
How do we break this annual cycle of suffering where all parties leave satisfied?
TDLR; Wife is a teacher and her overly helpful teacher parents visit us every year for classroom set up. They have a history of steam rolling out of a desire to help their daughter and think I’m not being supportive enough. This year I bailed on the annual cycle of suffering and they reminded me that I suck at supporting my wife’s career. What do I do?
11 comments
Their criticisms don’t sound like a fair assessment, but I guess we’d all have to see before and after pictures to decide if the trips and whirlwind organizing sessions are ‘worth it.’ They do, in fact, sound like a nightmare.
If you and your wife have a good relationship otherwise, I would just let it go. Who cares what the in-laws think of you! You’re the one who supports your wife the rest of the year, and it sounds like you’ve been more than generous helping her get geared up with supplies. I assume that you also are supportive of her career.
If you are forced to join in, you could ask for a timeline and some metrics of what ‘done’ would look like and also put your foot down if the whole process involves overworking a sick person. A good topic for marriage counseling！
In a side note, I think calling your wife “Wifey” is sort of off-putting. That’s probably because I read that adult novel of the same title by Judy Blume, and ever since the word grates on me. Spoiler alert- it’s about a woman who gets frustrated by her dreadfully predictable marriage to a belittling husband. The dullard of a husband, who calls the woman ‘Wifey’ always asks how much the dog pooped when he comes home from work and wants her to write it down on a chart. The sex is also bad. She has a salacious affair with an undeserving dirtbag who is good at oral sex, The whole story is just sad and cringeworthy. I had nearly banished this unfortunate piece of pulp fiction from my brain, but then there ya go….
Sounds like the parents might be a bit too much and overbearing. They mean well, but it may do more harm than good in the long run. Maybe communicate your concerns openly with them during their visits to see if there’s something else that you can all freely agree upon?
I’m a teacher. I’ve never decorated my room. If they want to pay me to do interior design, they can do so. It’s certainly not a task that requires intercity travel and four adults.
Hard to say. Living with in-laws who help every year and put down your contribution can be difficult. If it’s stressful situation, better not hesitate to speak up and suggest changes that benefit both parties – you have a right too! Taking different weekends could be the way forward? Being honest here might create tension but ultimately should lead to stabler future – at least all know expectations moving on from thereon out.
>She is unlikely to talk to her parents about this as to not hurt their feelings.
Well, there’s the problem, and it will never get fixed if your wife doesn’t draw some boundaries with her parents
>I’m told after I left that she and her parents said I was being unsupportive and a crappy partner.
So let me get this straight – your WIFE had complained that you were a shitty partner?
Which I kinda expected, because the issue here isn’t your in laws. It’s your spouse. she is fully capable of telling her parents ‘no, I don’t need you to come down and help’, she is fully capable of doing all of this by herself. She is fully capable of expressing to you exactly what she needs. She is fully capable of telling them ‘I told him to go, stop shitting on my husband’.
But she isn’t. she is choosing not to do these things.
YOU saying boo to your in laws won’t do shit. It needs to be your wife, and your wife needs to understand the strain this has put on your relationship.
You need to talk to your wife about your boundaries, and then you need to enforce them. You will not tolerate her parents talking shit about you. She can talk to them and go visit them, but you will no longer have them in your life.
But again, I really don’t think her parents are the issue here.
It’s your wife.
> How do we break this annual cycle of suffering ~~where all parties leave satisfied~~?
Your wife stops inviting her parents to come around at the beginning of the school year. If they invite themselves, she says “no thank you, I’ve got it handled.” Keep repeating the word No as often as necessary.
Your in-laws are adults. They can handle disappointment. They’ve had their own decades of classroom decoration days. You and your wife don’t have to worry about whether they are “satisfied”. If they do desperately want to decorate a classroom, they can volunteer at their local school, library, scout hall, church hall, whatever.
But obviously, this only works if your wife is on board. If she would rather see you (and your home and your month) disrupted than her parents disappointed, that’s a problem.
> it’s just a few shitty days out of the year
Yeah, but it’s poisoning your marriage. Kind of how you not partaking in “dress the classroom week” apparently erases all the support you offer your wife the rest of the year.
Don’t confront your in-laws. This is between you and your wife. For the sake of your marriage, *she* needs to stand up to her parents.
Does your wife really want and feel like she needs this help? Does she enjoy doing this much work to set up her classroom each year? Or is she just going along to please her parents?
Does she move rooms every year? What is there to do for multiple days?
Every teacher should have sub notes and nobody else knows what to put in them.
Perhaps it’s different where I live but I work in education and it’s rare to see someone else helping with set up except if a husband is helping carry things in.
There’s some enmeshment going on and you’re being pushed aside
Your wife needs healthy boundaries with her parents…and if you have to step in to make that happen, then you need to do what you need to do
Her parents staying with yall for a month? Nope. Not gonna happen. Be the bad guy if you have to be the bad guy
Protect your wife…even if it means protecting her from her own family.
What was the $700 bill for?