In-laws

I love my in-laws dearly, but my FMIL made pandemic wedding planning a nightmare. She didn't want us to scale our wedding down from 300+ people and put up such a fight over it that it drove a huge wedge between FH and I that took couples therapy to overcome. She and I get along, so I got over this quickly, but honestly she nearly sunk the whole wedding over wanting to invite her extended family during a national health emergency.

My FH's parents haven't really been a problem. They're not my favorite people but, there haven't been direct issues. His grandma, however, pushed me over my limit. It was our first Christmas together (11 months of dating, 2 years of friendship). He got me this fluffy sweater. She told him he should have gotten a size up since it looked tight on me (his grandmother is larger than me not that it matters). I was trying not to cry and went to the bathroom. When I got out she tried to act like the victim and that she was just being honest. I told her to just give me a bit of space then it was the end of the world that I would "attack her" in her own house. We went home after that. After that was about 1 year of her telling him to break up with me or how he will realize one day how bad of a person I am. She hasn't said anything from our engagement but, we keep our distance (luckily we moved 6 hours away, which was all my fault). She blames me for him not visiting but, her actions make him not want to be around.

From my DH's point of view:

My mother ignored my plea for family addresses/names/etc for over a month (and I mean *ignored me, too*), as well as the request for my *FATHER'S* mother's jewelry (my parents are divorced), so I could wear that for the wedding.

She didn't ask a thing about wedding planning until we'd been engaged for over 4 months, had already sent out STDs, and were close to being done planning. At this point, she wanted to force herself into planning the shower.

When rebuffed from planning the shower, she tried to weasel my clothing size out of me. When told, FIRMLY, that I wanted *no clothing of any kind*, she still bought me lingerie ...without knowing my size ... for a co-ed shower which was in no way, shape, or form, remotely hinted at being a lingerie shower. She also wouldn't let me speak to my in-laws for more than one sentence without butting into the conversation. They were leaving on an extended out-of-country trip that night.

Her only real "effort" to support us during wedding planning was offering to find a bakery in her area, 60 miles away, and drive a cake up, day of wedding, in August, in East Coast summer heat.

She then took offense to the invitations not including her name, turned the majority of her family against me, declined to come to the wedding, and hasn't spoken to either of us since. (The very last part is actually wonderful.)

Makes my communication issues with my FIL look WONDERFUL.

I've mostly had issues with FBIL. He is 45, works as a cashier in retail and has a child who he does not raise nor live with. He also has never lived on his own and lives with several roommates. He left his child to be raised by the grandparents (my future parents in law). One day, my future MIL were discussing my relative who is a single parent. Mind u this was her choice! She got pregnant by a man who we all warned her to stay away from and the man already had two kids from previous relationships who je did not raise. I made a comment saying "I learned so much from her and realize that I wouldn't want to be a single parent."


Apparently, after I left, my FBIL was upset and said he didn't like how I talked negatively about single parents and that he's a single parent himself.

Um WAIT! One, I didn't speak negatively about single parents. 2. How can he be a single parent when he never lived with his child?!
Oh and the cherry on top is when I have spent THOUSANDS of $$$$ and time on the child he abandoned and he has never thanked me not once. Nor apologized. After that, I was done. I told him never to try to hug me nor have physical contact with me and that boundaries had to ne in place bc he has disrespected me repeatedly. I was super hurt bc I have done SO MUCH for my in laws.

If you have reddit, there's a whole community called r/JUSTNOMIL that you might enjoy

For the most part I love my in-laws but one incident that will always stand out to me is that I paid for (not cheap) hotel rooms the night of my bachelorette. I stressed to everyone that I did not care if people preferred to stay with their sig others or at a different hotel or anything—zero pressure, just let me know if you’d like me to book you a room. My husband’s cousin and his other cousin’s girlfriend both requested rooms. Then they left my party 5 hours early and stayed at a different hotel that they apparently had booked all along, leaving me with an $800 hotel bill for unused rooms.

If my FMIL asks me when I'm getting my engagement pictures back one more time my head may implode. I keep telling her May 2nd, but every other day she asks, and when I give her the date she complains how long that is. While yes it is a long time, as we got the pictures done on Feb 27, I won a contests and these pictures are absolutely free to me, so I don't really care how long the take. my FMIL also keeps telling my I have to tell my mom to include her in all the things she's planning aka, a small engagement party with FH's and my immediate family only and my Bridal Shower that she is planning with my MOH, I keep telling FMIL to reach out to my mom herself, she says she will and then doesn't and then tells me again to tell my mom to include her. My mom is a grown woman, I don't tell her what to do.

Also, both my FMIL and FFIL keep complaining that we're not including them in planning, and we need to keep them in the loop cause "they're helping us pay" when 1) we haven't seen a dime from them, and haven't gotten a figure of this money they are going to be gifting us, and 2) we're over a year out from our wedding, we already have the venue, DJ and Officiant booked, and we're also probably gonna hire the photographer who is did our engagement shoot, there's really nothing we're planning right now, but they demand us to include them in things that aren't currently happening. We're more focused on purchasing a house right now than wedding planning, but every time we bring up our house search FMIL catches an attitude cause we want to move 45 minutes away from her.

For the wedding, my mother in law was pretty dang annoying.

i love her and have a great relationship with her but she just wanted so many things during my wedding planning!!! it was so annoying!

for instance our families are christian and so are we. but the amount of our guests that were christian wasn't actually as large as you may think? maybe 1/3 of them were christians. but see my MIL is a staunch christian and she was like why are we not praying before the reception? not that it would have been bad to but i just felt like it would be better not to just cause 3/2 of my guests aren't christian. but in her eyes she felt "but if 1/3 of your guests are, then why not?"

ugh in my culture we have what you call welcome photos or entrance photos. essentially what this is is after you sign in at the guest sign in table, you take a photo with the bride and groom. it's actually kind of nice because they get a moment with the bride and groom and a memento later on because the photo gets printed and put in thank you folders! but i wasn't initially wanting to do it because legit you stand there for an hour or more doing that, but my mother in law felt like that was a crime if i didn't do it!

Mine are so mean to me. Last week at their other sons wedding rehearsal dinner. I got called potential future family, mind you I have been with their son over 3 years and we have been engaged for half of a year. The girl their other son just married hasn’t even been around a full year.

My in laws have taken every happy event in my life & made me wish it never happened. From starting arguments at my gender reveal, trying to steal the spotlight at my baby shower, complains that our actual wedding wasn’t good enough for their brother & now with three months to our vow renewal refusing to RSVP and being just nasty. Is it appropriate to throw hands at your own wedding?