Hello everyone Me (30M) and my wife (28F) have been married for about two years now. Over the course of our marriage we have, on average, seen her family about 1-3 times weekly. Sometimes it’s only for about 2-3 hours to have a meal together, and at other times its more like 6-8 hours. Usually we see them AT LEAST one day a weekend.
For example, we just saw her family (her Mom, Dad, Sister, nephew, and Aunts and Uncles) yesterday. It started around 9am when she left to go shopping with her family. Then at about 12:30 I joined them and we all ate lunch for about an hour and a half. After lunch my wife and I came back to our house, gathered a few things, then left to go to her parents house. We arrived there around 3:30PM and her family and uncles were there, and we stayed there until about 8:30 or 9:00PM. The thing is most of her family speaks a different first language than I do, and some of them speak my language as a second language. Usually what ends up happening at the gatherings is they speak their primary languages amongst themselves, and occasionally talk to me. Usually I end up sitting there on my phone for however long we are there since there is a slight language barrier and I don’t expect them to cater to me and speak to me in a language they’re not comfortable with.
Admittedly, I am not on the best terms with her family but I wouldn’t go as far to say I’m on bad terms with them. I don’t fight or argue with them, but we’re not all on amazing terms either. I believe part of the problem is my language is not the first language of her parents so sometimes things are misunderstood or lost in translation.
To give further background information, we typically see my family no more than once a month, maybe twice a month. My wife fluently speaks the language that my family and I speak. Typically when we are with my family we spend maybe 2-4 hours and no more.
This has been causing arguments and fights between my wife and I. The problem is that I personally think we spend way to much time with her family. I don’t want to spend both of my only days off primarily with her family. Sometimes we see her family Fri-Sun so every single day off is spent with her family.
As mentioned above we spent about 7-8 hours with her family yesterday and got invited over again today for lunch, and I asked my wife how long we’d spend there and she told me she didn’t know but probably around 3-4 hours. I didn’t want to go since we just saw them for 7-8 hours yesterday. That caused my wife to get upset with me and storm out of the house without talking to me to go to her parents house. I don’t every stop her from going without me and tell her that I don’t mind if she sees them without me, but she gets upset if I don’t go with her.
I’ve tried talking to her but every time it pretty much comes down to that her family is incredibly important to her and that’s why she wants to spend so much time with them, but she also wants me there.
So I have a couple questions.
1)If you live close to your inlaws, how often do you see them?
2) Am I being unreasonable in not wanting to spend as much time with her family?
TL;DR: We spend anywhere from 3-8 hours with my wife’s family one day a weekend, and sometimes 2 days a weekend. I didn’t want to go today and see them since we just saw them 8 hours yesterday, am I being unreasonable in thinking seeing her family every weekend and sometimes both days is too often?
9 comments
I feel I could have written this.
I live far too close to my in laws and if you give an inch they take a mile. Say to your wife that you want to see your parents for the same amount of time and she will soon see that it’s far too much.
I explained to my husband that I can’t see his family that much and the language issue was making me feel lonely there. We had a few arguments but I think the boundaries are there now
Why do you need to come along? Its not a special occasion, you see them multiple times a week.
You should be able to cutback to once a week or less. I’m assuming meeting up that often is a cultural thing for then, but that disregards your comfort levels entirely.
I think you have a wife problem and not an in law problem. I like to see my family a lot but I know my husband would prefer to have more time alone to relax on weekends, so even though my mom always insists on my husband coming along for “family unity,” I push back and say that he’s at home relaxing and I’d rather spend time with them without him. She needs to recognize that they are her parents and her spouse wouldn’t have the same attachment to her parents as she does.
I live 10 minutes from my inlaws, and we only see them a handful of times a year. We get along fine.
I would be firm with your wife. She can go as much as she wants, but you’re limiting your visits to (insert whatever is reasonable to you here). Full stop.
Unless she’s willing to abduct you, she cannot force you to go. Don’t go. Her family doesn’t care about including you, why go?
Why are you going? Why do you have to go every single time? You seem to be ignoring this question or I don’t see the comment anywhere where you respond to this.
Couldn’t you hang out with your friends or your family at the same time?
The best thing that we did for our marriage is to move 1500 miles away. 40 years later we moved back by family and they all respect our limits on gatherings.
I live close to my mom and I see her quite frequently. She’s newly retired and I’m on maternity leave with my third child (one year leave here in canada). We may hang out a few times in the same week doing activities and sometimes share a meal once a week with my husband and children MAYBE two times a week if I’m alone with the children. But some weeks I won’t see her because we’re doing other things as well. In your situation this seems like a lot…. I wouldn’t be able to see my family as much even if I like them haha. I hope you can make her compromise a little because it sounds exhausting and frustrating.
You’re wife isn’t taking your feelings into consideration and she’s getting huffy when you don’t want to go. She’s being completely unreasonable. Did this come up when you were dating? It’s time to set some basic ground rules, or tell her you want to start spending equal time with your family and see how she handles that.