PDA in Front of Family?

[BlueEyedLady]

In this case, do you think that what your MIL really meant was that you and her son sharing a room might cause her embarrassment?

I doubt it. My MIL is a firecracker of a woman, and regardless of what any of her children did, I think that she would rip someone a new one if they told her she should be embarrassed of them. Actually, when we moved in together and later when we announced that our wedding would not be in the church, she didn’t like it, but she strongly defended us to other family members. I really do call her a firecracker with all the love in the world. My MIL and I are very close, and we get closer every year. Her personal strength and undying loyalty are a couple of the things that I love most about her. Despite the fact that he’s a grown man, she still takes excellent care of both her son and I, in a very non-intrusive, respectful way. Sorry to keep going on about her, but I really wish that everyone could have in-laws like mine.

I am actually very inclined to believe her when she said that the request was out of concern for other people’s comfort.

 

[EasterJoy]

I definitely think that people who expect unmarried or gay couples to refrain from PDA should do the same, and that there would be extreme conflict if they didn’t. But as someone who’s ok with any couple holding hands or pecking, that isn’t likely to come up with me.

I think that is consistent and reasonable. What is not reasonable is when people think that “if we have such-and-so situation in the family, then we’ll cut out the PDAs so that they’ll have to cut out the PDAs” or “we don’t want to act like that around someone who just lost her husband”. It doesn’t work like that. The absence of the usual spousal behavior would be jarring and very noticeable.

Without going into details (whose interpretation will be specific to each family), if your spousal PDAs at extended family functions are such that you would not have difficulty tolerating the same from a family member who brings a sexual partner with whom they are in an illicit relationship (that is, that wouldn’t make it worse than it already is that they are in an illicit relationship at all, of course), then I would call that a very toned-down sort of “display”. Your family member would come knowing what kind of boundaries *you *might fairly expect. You could ask them to tone down something that is beyond the pale without getting a well-deserved “oh, come off it!” in response. Likewise, following the Golden Rule, if these are the kind of things that you feel sure would not pose a difficulty for someone within your family who was widowed or abandoned, then within your family atmosphere, that seems reasonable. I could go along with that, yes.