Somehow I just got roped into an early Thanksgiving thing that some friends of ours are doing with family they don't really get along with. In dreading this but on the bright side I may see fireworks. Big shout out to my bff who agreed to this without consulting me.
Getting married Monday. My entire family and my fiancées mother are all here. Stories to come. Aunt arrives tomorrow as do my fiancées friends.
This far: Mrs Delta and her mother arrived Wednesday. Future MIL is the stereotypical British lady in her 70s; quiet, hard to read, agreeable but rarely happy, plus she’s half deaf. My family arrived Thurs/Fri. Y’all know them by now, minus maybe my brother, who is like a wigger libertarian. My brother has been a prick since he got off the plane, telling stories about getting wasted in Korea but then pouting whenever we go into breweries (only wanted to go to Blue Moon), which was closed Friday. Today aaaaaalllllllllll 7 of us spent the entire day in one minivan doing Denver tourist stuff. Which started off ok since it was mostly looking at wildlife and mountains and shit. Then we get to Nederland, a small mountain town near Boulder. And aaallll the stuff the various parties don’t like start coming out. Future MIL subtle British racism (well, the thing about the Asians is...), my mother’s dislike for not-white-people food (I veto the Nepalese and Thai places that have 4+ stars, no wait, and are both 30feet away, despite the fact I’m the one saying I’m hungry), my dads hatred of marijuana, and my brothers hatred of anyone’s even vaguely hipsterish (basically anyone who has ever listened to Emo music in the last 20 years and currently has a beard) and anyone wearing a suit. Get done in Nederland, I’m stressed and I can tell Mrs Delta is stressed (her tell is she bites her nails when she’s upset, and she’s basically eating her hand at this point). Both of us are introverted by nature and being stuck in a car with these people is mentally exhausting us both. Then my dad decides we need to divert course and go find his old house from 1962, which is conveniently located near the parking lot called I-70. Adds and hour to the trip. Fine. As soon as we get home Mrs Delta disappears and I find her in tears in our bedroom from being trapped in the car and worried that her mother is having a terrible time, since she’s unreadable either way. Takes me about 5 minutes just to get her calmed down and I’m at this point trying my best not to snap at 1/3 just because I’m frustrated as shit with everything else. Then we try to get dinner sorted. Which is fun since the 7 things my dad will eat coincide pretty exactly with the things my F MIL won’t. Finally decide on a compromise of reheating a bunch of stuff I had left over in the freezer, supplementing with some stuff from the kebab place down the street (which I have to call gyro so dad will eat it, and also get him his own sandwich because god forbid he has kebab meat on rice like everyone else. ) Get the food home and starting heating up the stuff from my freezer. Everyone else is either helping or waiting for food to be ready for everyone. Except dad, who takes his sandwich to the table and eats it on his own because he’s hungry and doesn’t want to wait ten fucking minutes for everyone else to be done. Finally get food ready, get people eating, and disappear into my room for 5 minutes because...I can’t anymore. 1/3 by the way has been a trooper this whole time, and I feel bad for getting snippy at her with her occasionally self-centered 9 year old requests when I’m dealing with these asshole adults. Tomorrow we’re all going to the zoo with the new arrivals so more bitching to come I’m sure.
Knowing those people ahead of time, why would you bring them to the heaven on Earth that is Colorado in the first place? Go meet them in Indianapolis or something, that sounds more their speed. Invite me to CO instead.
I just got stationed in CO, and after the shitload of money we spent on getting Mrs Deltas visa plus international flights for her and her mother, we didnt want to fly both of them and me somewhere else just to get married there.
Do you get help to pay for these things when you get relocated? Dumb question maybe, just curious. I hope they pay for all the extra shit you have to pay when they relocate you
That's fair. Colorado, especially this time of year is a national treasure. I'd kill to live there. Anyone who couldn't appreciate it should fuck right off. Sorry you have to deal with it. Shoulda taken them skiing, at least you'd have an excuse to disappear
If they don’t pay everything plus an inconvenience fee for moving your family they are not generous at all.
somewhat related (comes up around watching games over holidays): female family members who constantly complain about the football commentators "not saying nice things about us" or being "partial to [opponent's name here]"
They move your stuff for you and/or pay for you to move your stuff, pay mileage and hotels, and then lodging while you look for a place, plus money for "miscellaneous moving expenses" every time they move you, so it's not too bad. If you do it right you can make some money doing it.
i am close with my parents and sister, the rest of the family is not that weird but we just do not get along very well so it’s once a year for my grandmother, other than that it’s just common courtesy but nothing more and it’s better that way. We get along a lot better when we are not forced to interact with each other.
My parents are good people the vast majority of the time, you guys just get the worst of it and the older I get the less tolerant of their bullshiti am
Have you ever moved with a company? Military does all the regular shit and even gives people a chance to pocket some good cash if they cheat the system a bit. It also gives extra money for days off work the spouse misses — it’s like $60 a day I think but more than nothing. Like I said, it’s more generous than most places but reimbursing for the travel and visa costs of a non-dependent is far beyond what they should be expected to do. WD’s fiancée is not family in the military’s eyes.
Also an inconvenience fee lol. That’s what private companies do to incentivize volunteers to relocate. Just hope you aren’t stationed in bum fuck Ohio
I really liked the part where he called one family member a wigger while lamenting the subtle racism of another
We're going to the Thanksgiving Day parade. Pray for me. I just wanted to go watch PSU lose to Ole Miss in Brooklyn on Wednesday night.
....fair point. I've come a long way but there's still a fair amount of "white guy born in the 80s in the south" to purge from my vocab
I’d love to see a study done on Why?Pokes in-laws. One kid likes to dress cats and the other wears layers to the beach.
I'm in for a doozy over the next week. Saturday, my mother-in-law is coming to my house to load up with my wife (coming off of 12 straight days of work) and our 3 kids to go to our nieces' 1st birthday party, at my brother-in-law's house 2 hours away. The five of them -- wife, MIL, three kids, will then load up with our 4-year-old nephew, who is on some sort of ADHD/autism spectrum only his parents won't acknowledge it, and then spend Saturday night at our house... after spending 4 hours in the car to attend a 1-year-old's birthday party. They'll then load up Sunday morning where MIL will take all 4 kids to her house for 2 days. My three at grandma's house are great, they know how to play together and leave each other alone. But my MIL has some sort of disease where she has to chronically take on more than she can handle in order to please people, to the point where her desire to please people makes everyone around her miserable. So, she brought it on herself to bring my undiagnosed ADHD nephew with, which is like taking a nice, calm campfire and throwing a stick of dynamite into it. My Father-in-law -- he of the imported bees fame -- adores my two sons but my nephew drives him up the wall. On Tuesday, my in-laws, the four grandkids and their two dogs -- one of whom is a straight up sociopath -- will then drive 2 hours to my house, where brother-in-law, sister-in-law and 1-year old niece will join us for Thanksgiving. FIL has a short temper and his blood pressure spikes whenever he gets in civilization, so I'm fully expecting a nice day of turkey, casserole, my FIL being on edge, my MIL being exhausted, and the grandkids being sick of each other, my wife being triply on edge from all those things, with some dessert of their sociopathic Australian shepherd fighting my cocker spaniel thrown in for dessert. Oh, and after we eat on Tuesday we're all supposed to look our best and happiest for family pictures, which my wife and I are paying for. Should be great.
Goddam I hate posing for family photos. Always takes way longer than it should and there's always someone who thinks they're way funnier than they actually are.
On this note, my mother in law insists on literally dozens of photos every single time we get together with my wife's side. It doesn't matter that 80% of the people involved actively despise them, including her husband, father, and father in law - she has to have them. It's only gotten worse for us because we had their first grandkid 6 months ago. It's infuriating and she knows it is and plays it off as some running joke which, shockingly, only she finds funny.
We live 10 minutes from my in-laws and 40 minutes from my parents. We’ve been married for 8 years, and this is the first time I was able to convince my wife to stand up to my MIL (FIL doesn’t care either way) and begin swapping Thanksgiving and Christmas at each house. We go to her parents for Thanksgiving so I’m expecting a good bit of complaining from my MIL when Christmas rolls around because that’s her favorite pastime. tl;dr My MIL is the worst and will definitely drive my wife crazy for us only coming to their house on the 24th and 26th of December.
the worst better get a picture of us eating these donuts or else we won’t remember the time we ate these donuts everyone hold up your donut!
I want to post this somewhere but I don't know where and this thread seems like the most appropriate for family interactions
Conversation currently ongoing with not immediate family who are sort of having money concerns. "Hey let's just not do gifts. Or one big gift. Or go somewhere or do something together." "One big gift is what they want. What do we want? A trampoline?" "Hell no. Let's do something together instead." "Well the kids want a trampoline. Wait, they want a trampoline. What if we just exchanged trampolines. That makes sense."
This year is going to be an interesting one. The Wife wants to attempt potty training our son this Thanksgiving Break. So he will be without pants for the entire 4 days as we attempt to potty train. I hate that we are doing it during Thanksgiving, but my wife's point that when else will we have a long weekend to do it is valid. So since we are not leaving the house we have invited everyone over with the warning of a naked toddler running around. My In-Laws are not coming bc my MIL is against the potty training. She thinks he is too young. My Parents are coming. My Dad is old and grumpy all the time. My Mother suffers from Severe Migraines currently. Had a bad one over the summer and we thought it was a stroke. Still amazed it wasn't, but she hasn't been the same since. So they will not be helpful other then maybe pointing out my son is peeing on the floor. My Brother, SIL and my 6 year old niece are also coming. Niece will go from being bored to demanding to be the center of attention like a normal 6 year old. My brother will remove himself from everything and sit outside and smoke. My SIL is always on a "Diet" and makes everything difficult. Went Vegan and Gluten Free this summer. Currently still Gluten Free but will eat chicken "Sometimes" and then post about being bad on Facebook. Told the wife I am not going out of my way to feed her and if she needs something else she can bring it herself. SIL said she will bring rolls...Jeeze thanks! Full expect her refuse to eat anything and then post about getting McDonald's on the way home bc she was starving. But none of it matters bc after my wife and I clean, prepare and cook everything next week. Someone will or everyone will get sick and cancel.
As someone that's never had a kid, why does a kid need to be running around naked as part of potty training?
If they're to a point of being able to tell you when they have to go to the bathroom they need to be able to go immediately or risk an accident because tiny children can't hold it at all.
Basically it takes away the security of the diaper and when he has to go he has 2 options. Go where he is standing or go to the bathroom. https://www.parenting.com/toddler/potty-training/how-3-day-potty-training-method-works/
It's more that they will know when they have an accident, like Bishop said it's the security of the diaper. Also how in the fuck are boomers so god damn sensitive that they will refuse to come over because of the potty training? Is it more that your MIL just thinks it's gross and doesn't want to deal with it or is she that sensitive that she has to be right?
She thinks it will be too stressful for him..... She loves to kid to pieces, but it very neurotic about some things.
I guess that makes more sense if she knows she's just going to cause a lot more trouble for y'all being there and possibly interfering.