When your out-of-town in-laws come for a visit, do they.........?

[Finella]

Hi!

Just wondering where your out-of-town in-laws stay when they come for a visit? Why do they stay where they stay? How does it work for everyone involved?

Do you plan for every moment and “entertain” them? Or do they do “their own thing”?

Please share your stories (good and bad, lol)

Finella

 

[ridesawhitehors]

AHHHHHH!!! Your post sent a shudder up my spine!
The in-laws stay in either their motor home, or in our bunk house when they come.
I try to plan lots of time BY MYSELF when my in laws come.
My mother in law takes over my house when she visits. Especially my kitchen. We’ve never come to an argument - but that is because I try to be gone.
We plan short bits of time together and lately they don’t stay too long when them come.
Hubby and his dad have a great time together though.

 

[CathyD]

Unfortunately my mother and father in law passed away. When the did come, there was usually a purpose to their visit. They stayed with us and there was a combination of downtime/hanging out at the house and doing whatever it was they came to do. Now my sisters and brother in law visit with their families and it is much the same. They stay with us. They are usually coming for some event with our kids (a soccer game, baptism, first communion) or a show since we are in a larger venue. There’s some hanging out and some going and doing. Since it is almost always a weekend or Christmas visit, Mass is always a part of the visit. It’s usually very relaxed. No one takes over my kitchen. We usually cook, but everyone knows they can help themselves to whatever snacks and soda we have in stock.

I guess we have a different perspective. My mother and father in law both passed away fairly young. My husband and his brother and sisters place great importance on being together because their parents are gone.

Cathy

 

[Finella]

ridesawhitehors:

AHHHHHH!!! Your post sent a shudder up my spine!
The in-laws stay in either their motor home, or in our bunk house when they come.
I try to plan lots of time BY MYSELF when my in laws come.
My mother in law takes over my house when she visits. Especially my kitchen. We’ve never come to an argument - but that is because I try to be gone.
We plan short bits of time together and lately they don’t stay too long when them come.
Hubby and his dad have a great time together though.

LOL… a shudder down your spine? I have no idea what you are talking about .

How long do they usually stay with you? a weekend? a week? longer? How many times a year?

Finella

 

[Finella]

CathyD:

I guess we have a different perspective. My mother and father in law both passed away fairly young. My husband and his brother and sisters place great importance on being together because their parents are gone.

Cathy

Thanks for sharing that. It sounds like you all get along great… you are very lucky. I am sorry that your husband lost his parents so early though.

Finella

 

[Finella]

just to clarify, I mean all types of in-laws, not just parents.

If they stay with you, do you have bedrooms for them? Or do they stay on the sofa? the floor?

Finella

 

[sparkle]

Mine have always stayed with us till the kids got older, and stuff was everywhere, etc. This they can’t take any longer, too much stress.

Always offer though, unless your folks are negative and NOT family friendly or supportive. Got to protect your family FIRST!

 

[Almeria]

We live in the middle of nowhere right now, so the in-laws don’t come here to visit–we go see them. When we move soon, though, we hope they will come visit. They would probably stay with us, and I can’t really see them staying more than a week. We are hoping that my sister-in-law moves in with us at our new place–it would do her good to get out of her parents home and live in a big city (she’s 21).

My family, though, is another story. We don’t get along very well. My parents are the work-work-work variety, and never sit down and talk. If I had the option of having them stay in a hotel when they were visiting, I’d do that. That’s never been something that was done in my family, so it’s not going to be an option until we have a house full of kids and no place for them to sleep.

 

[puzzleannie]

you didn’t have a choice for “kick us out of our bedroom and take over the house, our car, and our lives”

 

[SeekerJen]

My parents live 5 minutes away from us, so that’s not an issue. My parents-in-law live two hours away, are afraid of city driving, and visit us maybe once a year for an afternoon (so they don’t have to drive in the dark). Otherwise we have to make the trek to them, and we do stay at their house if we’re there for an extended visit. I think my MIL would be offended if we didn’t.

My sister-in-law has stayed with us a few times, for a couple of days each time. Now we have a spare bedroom with a real bed, but before we bought our house she got the air mattress in our apartment living room.

 

[cove]

My in-laws always stayed at my house up until recently. Last spring when they came to visit they stayed at a hotel. I think they prefer this arrangement. They like the opportunity to have quiet time and have their own space. I can’t blame them. I get along with my in-laws but I think I grate my mother-in-laws nerves after a while. I am the one person she cannot manipulate. My husband and his brothers grew up being very manipulated by her. All she has to do is give a look and they snap to it. She has a passive/aggressive personality. She does not have that power over me. She was the queen of her castle for so long. I am sure it can be very frustrating. After all these years I have come to feel sorry for her perdicament not bitter.

I live in Florida and most of our family lives in the NE. I have had nieces and nephews on spring break stay with me to save money. They mostly just sleep here. I enjoy seeing them. I tell everyone my home is open to them and they are always welcome. But, my brothers and sisters don’t like “intruding”. They don’t want to seem like they are taking advantage. So, they stay at a hotel near my house. They spend most of their time with me but don’t want me to fuss over them.

One time my brother-in-law came to visit with his live in girlfriend. I did not accomodate their usual “sleeping arrangements”. They never came back to stay with us. Go figure.

 

[juanh]

we like to have all our relatives stay with us…we have the room and we enjoy spending time together…I suppose there’s been times when it was inconvienient, but the good times have FAR outweighed the bad.

 

[Almeria]

puzzleannie:

you didn’t have a choice for “kick us out of our bedroom and take over the house, our car, and our lives”

Was this to me?

In the 8 years we’ve been married, I think my parents together have visited us once, and my dad has visted separately (business trips) maybe two additional times. No one else in my family has ever visited. I don’t think anyone in my family has ever visited another family member for more than a week. I hate when we have to visit my parents–they always try to put us to work (my idea of visiting family is not chopping down a tree, or mowing the yard, or painting a room). If I could stay at a hotel instead of with them, I would. The time in the hotel room would give dh and me an opportunity to build up reserves to deal with them the next day.

I grew up with the master bedroom being a very private place–if I was giving a friend a tour of the house, I’d point at the closed door and say “that’s my parent’s room”. I’m always uncomfortable going into someone else’s master bedroom–that’s their room. Probably due to that, I can’t imagine ever giving up our bed to a visitor. If we didn’t have a room for them to stay in, we would just not invite them–we’d go visit them instead. I’ve just never imagined inviting someone to come visit and have them stay in a hotel. I can see that it would greatly simplfy things. I just don’t know if I’d be able to get away with it, though.

 

[kage_ar]

We have many flavors of family/friends from out of town visit. While we do have a spare room, it has a futon and is used for visiting kids.

Raised in the old fashioned way, where you give the best to houseguests, so - the adults get the master bedroom. Hubby and I camp on the sofas. We also have an air mattress- used when guests are bigger in number (last weekend, my best friend and her husband, their 3 kids all came from out of town for the weekend, on Friday my son also had 2 sleep over friends). If we run out of beds and sofas, we just camp on the floor! For real overflow, we’d get a cabin at the state park just up the road…

We don’t plan many things, just do whatever - visit at home, or going around town - whatever the guests want to do!

When my parents have out of town guests, they have very little spare room - so, they rent the guests a room at a hotel close by.

It all depends on what works…

 

[kmktexas]

My in-laws always stay with us. This includes mother-in-law, sisters-in-law, cousins of my husband and even other people more distantly related to him (like the neice of his cousins husband). His family lives in Colombia so when they visit, it is for a long time. His mother stays for a few months at a time. She takes over everything. I joke that it takes me months to find all the stuff in my cabinets after she had been in my kitchen. (not really a joke). One sister-in-law used to stay with us for six months at a time. It was supposed to be a trade. She would help watch the kids so they didn’t have to go to after school care and we paid for her English lessons. The last time she came, she quit the classes after a few weeks. Every day she went straight to her room (where she demanded we put a color TV) and watched Spanish TV all night - coming out only for dinner. That was her last extended visit.

When my sisters-in-law visit, we arrange for them to have access to a car and they mostly take care of themselves. My MIL doesn’t drive, though, so we spend a lot of time taking her places. They are all big shoppers!

Our house is arranged so that we can sleep 14 people (we are a family of 4) since they stay so long. This includes trundle beds, sofa beds and air mattresses.

Now my husband’s in-laws (my family) are different. My parents always insist on staying in a hotel. They are in their 70s and the bustle of a house with 2 boys makes them nuts. We generally do the same when we visit there (although sometimes they insist we stay one night). My siblings are usually visiting at the same time as my parents and so they stay in the same hotel as a kind of mini-family vacation. We are working through the grandkids’ First Communions so we all do this. My youngest’s 1st C is next year and he is the baby so we will need a new “excuse” for these family reunions.

 

[kaygee]

Before my mom-in-law died, my inlaws stayed with us. Now that my father-in-law is living with a woman not his wife,:tsktsk: they stay in a hotel nearby. Kind of the “as long as you’re under MY roof, you’ll behave yourself” in reverse.

 

[Finella]

Let’s say the in-laws are coming for a visit…not specifically invited. Would it then be up to them to make their own arrangements for accomadation?

I have nothing against my inlaws…I actually barely know them. But due to many circumstances, I would prefer that they don’t stay here, lol.

By the way, this is a purely hypothetical situation…

I was just wondering.

Finella

 

[Lorik]

It’s basically understood that my in-laws have an open invitation to visit. Sometimes it’s been great sometimes a nightmare. When we visit we are expected to stay in their home. They are offended at the idea of us getting a hotel.

 

[Melissa]

I answered more as to what my own parents (who live out of town) do, rather than my MIL (FIL died almost six years ago), as my MIL lives about 15-20 minutes driving time from us (not that she has ever come to visit, nor do we visit her since FIL died, though we will go to family events even if she’s invited, too–but that’s a whole 'nother can of worms).

We don’t have a spare bedroom in our house, and my parents have just always assumed that they would be getting a hotel and then coming over to visit us from there.

My parents’ house, however, now has a large basement room which has been turned into a guest room (there’s a queen size bed, and also when we visit, an inflatable mattress for the kids), my old bedroom is also a guest room (last time we were there, my oldest slept up there–my kid brother’s room turned into a computer room). I suppose if we had the extra space like they do, it’d be different, but we don’t (and admittedly, I think they enjoy having the time to themselves at night, since all beds other than the one my husband and I share are twin or smaller).

 

[Princess_Abby]

Finella,

My husband and I would honestly probably never have his in-laws over to stay with us, but because we live 1200 miles from my friends and family, we often have visitors.

We live in an apartment and have one extra bedroom. My single friends usually just stay with us. My married friends, however, usually stay in a hotel closeby.

I think it just depends on what space you have available to “share” with inlaws. If you have extra space and are comfortable with it, it’s perfectly appropriate. If you don’t, and they want to come visit, I would just be very subtle yet straightforward during the first phone call about it and say, “Should I email you a list of nearby hotels or do you want to take care of that yourself?”

If you feel like that might step on their toes, I would just talk to my husband and ask him to step forward and tell his parents that they would be much more comfortable in a nearby hotel.

You are chronically ill and you do not need to feel like you have to entertain your inlaws at every moment. It’s very “wearying” just to have some of my single friends here sometimes. Last week I had one of my best guy friends to visit and he just about drove us crazy!!!

Anyway, once accomodations are taken care of, usually I ask our visitor (over the phone or email, before they arrive) what kind of things they’re wanting to do and what might be fun for them. We live in a big city and there are tons of cultural opportunities around us, as well as mueseums, restaurants, theatres, etc. We also live only and hour or so from the shore, so that is sometimes an option to visit as well… I get a feel about what they would like to do and then I speak to my husband about what WE can afford to do between the two of us, as we don’t want to go broke hosting anyone I’ve noticed that some people seem to have different ideas of what is expected when they visit and/or host. My husband and I cannot afford to pay for everyone else’s mueseum admission, restaurant meal, train ticket, beach pass, theatre admission, cover charge, etc. Believe me, there’s been a few times we felt slightly taken aback by expectations. However, if my parents or siblings come to visit, we like to treat them.

Anyway after I generally know what they’re hoping to do and see while they’re here, I make those suggestions day by day as they are here (and have a mental agenda). But usually there is a still down time and I rent movies and plan to make dinner in a couple nights. And I’ve been reminded several times that people come to see my husband and I, not the city. So that is always nice to know. Your in-laws might love to just be treated to a nice meal and dinnertime chat with you and your husband.