How Much Time Do You Spend with Your in Laws?

When we lived in the same town as my mother, we saw her at least twice a week. Now it's twice a year sadly. We see his parents twice a year as well and that's fine with both of us!

Sadly my in laws moved out of state a number of years ago. When they were local we saw them very often. Once a week or so we'd go over, have dinner and hang out. The kids would play or we'd go swimming or something. It was never set in stone, if we had other plans we didn't get together. We did get together every holiday. Now we only get to see them once or twice a year. We miss getting to see them more often! I love my in laws and spending time with them is always relaxing and enjoyable. They just confirmed dates for a visit and we're all very excited and can't wait for them to arrive!

I know lots of families that get together for brunch or dinner on Sundays. My brother (and his family) and my parents both live here, and we still don't see each other every week. We're all too busy.

If they live near you (maybe a 20 minute drive or less), it could be reasonable to try to have a meal together each weekend ... if it's not too hard to find the time. But any more than that and I'd say forget it. Lives are busy, and you have to make sure you have enough down time. It can be exhausting trying to do too much.

I don't think there's an easy answer. He might love spending time with his family, but he needs to consider the needs of his wife and children. It's important for both of you to make sure you both get to spend time with your families. But it's equally important for you to take care of each other's needs. If you and your kids need down time and family time with just the 4 of you and need alone time, that matters, too.

My in-laws are dead. My mom is dead.

My dad lives in California and we are in DC.

When my inlaws were alive? We saw them MAYBE once a year. They lived in Massachusetts - an 8 hour drive or 1.5 hour plane ride. My SIL who lived about 45 minutes from them? Saw them weekly - several times a week - but that's her mom and dad...

How often did we invite them down? Probably every three months. My husband's parents were "call when there's an emergency" - yeah - they were pretty much hands off. Would I have liked more? Yes. I wish my kids could have gotten to know their grandparents better.

Now my parents (before my mom died) talked to my boys weekly. The last summer my mom was alive - they spent the summer with them - and have wonderful memories of that time. She died a mere five weeks after we returned home.

You need to figure out what works for you and have a balance with that. There has to be a compromise. They ARE his family. Are they generally good people? Healthy? OR are they what?? crazy?? I would say "every other weekend" and every other holiday. Your family needs to be taken into consideration too.

I wish you luck and peace with this. I hope a compromise will be reached.

My parents come over most Sunday's. We have a meal, play a game, watch football, whatever. It is rarely more than 2-3 hours and it works. It forces us to keep the house kind of clean and doesn't normally stress anyone out. We do cancel sometimes, but we typically enjoy it.

I asked my husband the other day if he minded and he told me heck no, but if it ever did he would tell me.

So communication is key...and your husband shouldn't be upset if you want a break. That's insane to me.

Wow - I can't even imagine. Yes, your DH needs to cut the cord and figure out why this is so essential to him that it substitutes for all other social interactions. I think he's got a formula for total rejection and avoidance of his parents by your tween and teen kids. They will resent this for the rest of their days. They need to have a life. It's okay to invite the in-laws to the kids' games or concerts or performances, but I think this is beyond excessive and likely to backfire. It also doesn't set the kids up for truly healthy relationships with their own in-laws when they are adults. This is your husband's problem and that's where I'd start, including professional help if necessary.

Well my husband spends every weekend and holidays with his in laws and doesn't seem to mind at all. He misses his family who live out of town so he likes our family gatherings.

It may matter though that I am the "matriarch" of our family now since my mom died 5 years ago. Yeah, I hate the way that sounds too. Anyway the gatherings are at our home so my younger kids don't mind because they can go to their rooms.

My ex in laws we went there every week but it was only three or four hours and no one really minded that either.

Maybe it is because I come from a family oriented family. I mean they really refer to me is the matriarch of my family, ya know? It is part of our heritage that you want, even need, to spend time with the older generation. After all, how else do you learn things?

Do you also spend weekends and all holidays with your family? The only way his argument is valid is if he gives the same priority and attention to both sides of the family.
Personally it sounds strange to me. I barely have time for my own immediate life let alone the extended family. We speak and Facebook often but really only see each other for special milestone events and celebrations.

ETA-- Are you secretly married to my husband? The whole MIL choosing not to speak English thing is making me a little suspicious! ;)

I feel for you and wish I had some advice. My MIL and unmarried SIL live less than 5 minutes from us. Every Sunday we have brunch or dinner with them. Every summer we go on a week long vacation with them. Any time we do anything "special" my husband invites them to join us. If my husband isn't working, my MIL tags along to the kids' gymnastics classes, swimming lessons, whatever they are doing. If my husband takes the kids to school or picks them up he has to pick up his mom first. Or she berates him. My MIL's birthday is always right around Mothers Day so it always feels like it is just about her. I've never had a good relationship with my MIL or SIL. It is not fun to spend time with them. They did and said some very hurtful things in the past. I would rather not spend so much time with them. But, I think I'm stuck.

Once a month most the time( celebrating that months birthdays) And all major holidays. To me, I think that's quite a bit, my husband thinks that's quite a bit, but happy to do it. I notice during the holiday season like after Halloween we get together so much in such a short period of time we do get agitated and annoyed with eachother because were together so much. When my husband and I don't want to go we just tell them " hey, were going to have our time this time, no hard feelings." The family loves that! They totally understand! So if your annoyed just say hey, miss ya,but I need to relax. They should totally understand. The next time you get together you'll have more to talk about, the time goes by faster too. Your husband can go without you of he wants too. My husband does sometimes, and sometimes I go without him when the kids want to hang with their family. I don't think its healthy being together that much.

After reading your updates, you need to demand that she speak English in your presence. It is rude and exclusionary if she does not. You and your husband need to agree on this beforehand and from now on. He needs to stop his mom as soon as she does this and tell her to speak English or the conversation ends.

You also need to start to become fluent in their language otherwise you are just being a passive participant in this dynamic.

Also point out to your husband that the more he is rescuing and 'being there' for mom, the less likely she will move on in her grief and the less likely she will try to connect with others. Is there a neighborhood or center for their culture of origin? Please try to connect her. With her husband gone, she may feel a disconnect from her culture which causes her to lean on your son (and cook so much).

ORIGINAL
After reading your other posts, it makes me wonder if your husband has 'emotionally' become an adult with his mother.

I think there is nothing wrong with people spending lots of time with their Inlaws, but from reading your posts it sounds like it's causing problems in your marriage and your husband isn't picking up on this.

Is your MIL married? Is your husbands father still alive? Does your husband have siblings?

How do you and your husband communicate? It sounds like your needs are not being met, and you two have to talk about this (as well as his needs).
He may feel guilty that she is alone all the time. He may have never established boundaries with her in the first place.

I think you need to get your thought together and communicate with your husband (without arguing) so that together you can set a boundary with MIL.

Does he want to spend just as much time with YOUR parents/family or only his own? I can't really say what is "normal" but I know for sure it shouldn't all be one sided.
I always loved my in laws but we certainly didn't hang out every weekend, more like once a month or so, and (most) major holidays.

My FIL died unexpectedly a few years ago. We spend every Sunday with my MIL.

She's a wonderful woman and is trying very hard to move on after being married for over 50 years and losing her spouse with no warning. She has four boys and all live within 2 hours of her. The ones that don't live close, come maybe once a month. She prepares a large supper (mid afternoon meal) so her boys and their families can get home at a decent time. All of us help her maintain the house.

My parents live on the other side of the country. We don't see them but maybe 3 times a year. We plan on going out this summer. Since a family of 6 is expensive to fly? We will drive and take in sights along the way.

I'm sorry you have a horrible MIL. I am VERY fortunate. She's been wonderful to me the whole time. Have we had problems? Yes. Doesn't every relationship?

Why don't you try and learn her language? That will put the kibosh on her being able to "hide" from you and isolate you. Play her game. DO NOT be a snot. DO NOT be ungrateful. She made your husband, whom you love and have kids with. So she did something right....

None.
One is dead and the other we're not sure where she is.
My Mom we see once a year - she lives an 11 hr drive away.
Seeing family every so often is all good and well but we don't like living on each others door steps.
We all need our space.
When do you see your family?
In your place, I might divvy it up into 3 areas - in-laws time, your folks time, and no folks time (that's time for you, Hubby and kids to just hang out together or go someplace fun).
Oh, I suppose 4 ways might be in order since the kids will want time with their friends sometimes too.

This depends on so many things, not the least of which is this - how far away do they live?

Growing up, we had Sunday lunch with my Grandma every single Sunday. But, she lived right in the same town that we were in. We didn't spend all day, we just had lunch with her. We would often see her during the week as well.

We live 2 hours from my inlaws. My kids play sports year round, and MIL and FIL don't like to drive, so they rarely come to us. Thus, we see them about every 3 months. My parents live about the same distance, but love to get out of the house for day trips, so they come to us and join us for the kids' sports events about once a month.

So, in my experience, time with grandparents for kids is all over the board.

ETA: I'm having a hard time understanding why spending 2-3 hours early on a Sunday is so draining. I understand that she doesn't speak English while you are there, but it doesn't sound like she's actively being mean to you or the kids. Can you just have a conversation with your kids in English about their week while you eat? (she can listen in, or not, her choice). And after lunch, watch TV for an hour while your husband talks to his mom, then go home.

Sounds like you have assumed he's miffed. Sounds like you are unhappy with both ways of visiting. I urge that the two of you talk about how each of you feel and what you want. Then plan together how to manage visits. You are two different people. Each has the right to visit as often as they want. You cannot expect your husband to stop frequent visits because you want less. However, As partners you can work out a compromise satisfactory to both. This needs to be an ongoing conversation.

The norm depends on your family. When I was a kid, we frequently visited my paternal grands. These days, my inlaws aren't in good health so we might see them once a month, and for holidays. We see my family for Easter, his for Thanksgiving. My mother isn't local, so we see her every couple of months in between. Sometimes we each visit family alone or with DD. I actually like hanging out with just my sister and the kids. It's a different vibe.

My sister used to visit her ILs every weekend til she put a stop to it - they were losing time as a family. One day would be ILs and one day would be errands and that was it. No time to take the kids to the park or the zoo or visit her family.

If your DH wants to go every weekend, that is his choice, but he needs to then understand that you don't want to. For whatEVER reason. Not only are you and DH individual people who can do individual things, but that much time with anybody would get really old to me. I'm an introvert, too, so I have to be "on" around company, even my own mother. I like hosting her...and then I like when she goes home. The kids are also overwhelmed, yes? I think visiting grands is important, but so is balance. Presumably they'd like to spend time doing their own things, seeing their own friends, etc. some of the time. Is your DH an all or nothing person? I think you not going sometimes is reasonable.

We see my MIL maybe 4 times per year unless there is some special event. We see my mom a little more often, 6 or so times. She's closer and I have siblings so there is more cause for interactions. I only see my dad twice per year usually. I communicate with them all in other ways throughout the year. I don't need in-person-face-time to feel connected.

What I do doesn't matter though. Knowing it won't solve your problems.

You have three options: make your peace with it and arrange things a little more to your liking (you and the kids don't have to go with him); get into marriage counseling so the two of you can restart your marriage on a better foundation going forward; or you can divorce. I don't consider staying miserable and resentful to be an option.

Well, for the majority of our marriage, we didn't have ANY family close by (all were minimum of 4 hours or so away). So we definitely didn't see them every week/weekend. We did go visit more often once we had children. Husband has generous leave time, so we would go visit (overnight for long weekends on the front or rear end of a mini-vacation) a few times per year... maybe 3 or 4 with my parents (who lived near the mountains, so we'd stay with them 2 nights, then go off for a night alone and leave the kids, then come back for one night before heading home, or something), and maybe 2 with his. And both sets would also come stay with us for 2-3 days at a time often as well. Well, it was "often" to me, but it was maybe 2-3 times per year (both sides)... So, on average about one weekend a month was spent with in-laws.

As our kids got older and involved in more, that cut back to maybe twice per year with my parents, and once with his. Grandparents also age, and they cut down on some of their traveling as well, so his mom down to maybe 2 times per year, and mine down to maybe twice per year.

As they rolled into teen years (now)... it's even less. His mom lives a little over an hour away now, and we still only see her about 5 times a year. My own come here maybe twice, and we try to get up there once or twice, but it isn't for sure, and often depends on who is hosting a holiday (Thanksgiving/Christmas). Our eldest graduates soon and goes off to college in August. He works and can't leave for weekend trips until 7:00pm on Fridays, which makes long travel almost pointless... (my folks are 5 1/2 hours away now... used to be 6 1/2). Our youngest is involved with summer activities (dual enrollment, summer camp, band camps, etc), and so we won't be taking a long detour up to visit during the summer, either.
She is swamped during school with Friday night football (marching band) and now in the spring... parades!

I think I would lose my mind if we had to see either of our extended family EVERY weekend. Or even every OTHER weekend. That's pretty excessive, in my mind. I mean, to each his own, but I do NOT that that is normal, let alone "average"...

Every weekend?! That's ridiculous. I get that your MIL may be lonely because your FIL passed away, but still. You should help her find a new hobby/community activities/friends. Holidays, I understand because people just get more lonely around the holidays. But every weekend?!

As you said, your nuclear family need to spend quality time to reconnect without extended relatives. Talk to your husband and gradually reduce the time visiting your MIL. Maybe start with every other weekend then get to visiting once a month. And then maybe once every two months? And in between the visits, your husband can visit your MIL on his own.

I would rather spend the time with my in-laws than my own family. They're good honest people. I miss my mother in law every single day, in some way. I hardly think of my own mom other than I work really hard to not be like her.

I think it is rude for her to not speak english, if she can fluently speak it. I do think if "I" was married to a man that was of another ethnic background that I would work hard to learn his language so that I could speak fluently to/with his family. That goes both ways.

If she is in your town. He can go and spend time with her when he wants. You don't have to go.

If she lives in a nearby town and you guys pack up the car each friday evening and go stay at her house all weekend then I'd say you can talk to your husband about making it every other weekend for a while THEN moving it to every third weekend or something.

When I was a kid we'd pack up and go to the home town of my dad's family almost every weekend. He had 8-10 different relatives we'd stay with and then see everyone else and one of their houses for a HUGE family dinner on Sunday afternoon where all the relatives brought tons of food. Everyone stayed and cleaned up so it wasn't a hardship on anyone.

It was the BEST time ever for us kids. We loved being with family because my parents presented it to us in that way. Family is who we are, where we came from, what will influence us in many way. I loved going away for the weekend.

Yes, my mom complained about it sometimes. She would have rather stayed at home and us been home. But her family wasn't close. We'd stop by her siblings houses to visit for a few minutes almost every weekend on our way home. Sometimes we'd kidnap a kid to come hang out with me too. They'd have a blast. We didn't spend the night or eat meals with my mom's family. It was just a drop by to say hi since we were in town and didn't want to offend you by not even caring enough to do that sort of thing.

As an adult I wish I had family to do this with. I can't imagine how fun it would be to know I was going to see my relatives each weekend.

I do have options for you. Since you don't like your mother in law and it appears she doesn't like you I suggest you find activities your children want to do that involves Saturday afternoon and/or Sunday afternoon so that they need to be at home on the weekends.

Soccer
Baseball/softball
Basketball
Bowling leagues
Dance
BMX
Karate/martial arts meets
Gymnastics, competition teams

There are so many activities the kids can become interested in that require weekend activities. This way you have a legitimate reason for staying home.

I also think you need to stop being angry with your husband because he loves spending time with his family. It is his culture I bet. You married him knowing that he would have some different traditions and morays. He is only a product of his culture, his life, his history. He isn't going to change who he is for you. You need to accept him and his culture and, in my opinion, you need to join in a bit too. Start by learning his language, don't your children speak both languages? Aren't they able to speak his and grandma's language when they're with her? You need to too.

So when you say every weekend are you talking a couple hours for Sunday dinner, or all weekend? Because that makes a difference. I don't see anything wrong with spending a little time with family every weekend if they are close enough to do so easily, although I think if it was something like Sunday dinner I would take turns hosting at my place from time to time. But it also certainly does not have to be every weekend, and if most of the family would rather going down to every other weekend seems acceptable. The important thing to remember is that you are asking this about your inlaws, but they are not his inlaws, they are his parents. How would you feel if it was your parents and he did not want to spend time with them? A compromise may be in order, but I can understand him standing firm when it comes to potentially severely hurting his mother and father's feelings. He loves his parents just as much as you love your own.

holidays and birthdays. mil does watch dd every monday so i see her but only for a minute

If she won't speak English, you have a perfect excuse. No way would I spend more than 5 min a week dealing with that. It's unbelievably rude. Stand up for yourself and your kids and say no more. She must not even want to see you guys or she would speak English. But why is seeing her draining? If she's talking to your husband in their language, if you do go, I'd bring books and games and completely ignore the 2 of them. That's basically the situation they've created. Let your husband go. I tell mine I'm not stopping him from certain things but I am not going to participate if I don't want to.

When choosing to marry people from other cultures or races, people need to consider much more.....

I spend as little time as possible w/ my in-laws. They are not MY parents and in no way do I feel I would need to accommodate a visitation schedule like that. Yes, your husband still has the umbilical cord attached! A tad immature to say the least. Turn the tables on him and ask how he would feel if he were expected to visit your family (despite the relationship or if they are around) every single weekend. He is being extremely disrespectful to you by placing that expectation on you. However, you have set a precedent by allowing him to manipulate you to go each weekend. Now, it will be tougher to get out of it and I'm sure your husband will throw a temper tantrum. Good luck!

We live close to both sets of parents. One thing about grandparents is that I think it works 2 ways, they should come visit you too if they want to see you and the kids that much.

My in-laws help out with the kids once a week, so *I* see them weekly, if my husband does not. We often see them on the weekends, but it's usually because they come out to watch our kid's soccer games or something, or we are getting together as a whole with other family members. I would be annoyed if there was an expectation that we fit in a visit to them every weekend. For us, we go forward with our lives but invite them to what we are doing sometimes. And sometimes they drum up stuff for us to do if we haven't hung out in awhile.

I think it's different for everyone and depends on proximity, but it should be casual and low expectation. I also think there should be a purpose, activity, or event. It's a lot to expect someone to come over just to sit around and visit to fill an expectation of how much time "should" be spent together. people should be spending time together because they enjoy each others company and want to see each other, not because they "should".

Reading you ETAs, I think you've analyzed pretty well the dynamic you guys are in right now.