Why I Can’t Stand My Father-In-Law
An Essay
My father-in-law (FIL or he from now on) was a bad parent to my husband, a bad husband to my mother-in-law (just ask her, she left him), and now an over-bearing grandparent to my children. He called our house last night, to let us know that he wants to visit. We ask “when?” getting ready to give out the normal excuses that we usually use to stop him from visiting. “Oh” he says “we already booked the tickets, just now, and we’ll be there on Sunday, and we’re staying for a week.” MOTHERF’ER. ARE YOU SERIOUS???? WHO DOES THAT? You decided to visit, didn’t ask us first if you could come, or what our schedules looked like, you just went ahead and booked the trip for you and your obnoxious girlfriend. He’s emotionally a 6 year old in a 60 year old’s body. Everything is done the way he wants it to be done, even when he’s not at home. Last time he visited, which was about 3 years ago, thank god, I was almost homicidal. Frank is lucky, because he’ll be working the entire time. I’ll be the one stuck entertaining them. Because god forbid they actually have a plan before they come out here. They expect you to have an itinerary set up for them, dance hoops around their dietary issues (he doesn’t eat beans, or Mexican, or anything with sauce, she picks at everything and complains about EVERYTHING) and drop everything to cater to them.
My house won’t be clean enough for the girlfriend, so F her. He’s supposedly shipping crates of god knows what out on the train to Maricopa so that he can go pick it up when he gets here. Shit that I’ll have to throw away as soon as he leaves. We're currently in a mad scramble to hide or ditch the stuff that we've just tossed in the garage from him, because he pretty much buys dollar store crap or ugly clothes.
In addition to that, I've been hiding the Christmas presents in the guest room, which is where they'll be staying. If we instruct them to keep the kids out, and especially out of the closet, he will go out of his way to show the kids the closet, because he's that big of an asshole. It's his way one-upping us. Wrecking our Christmas so that he can come in and save the day with a "new Christmas." So I have to find a new place to hide the presents.
We told them that they need to rent a car, because they can’t be at the house all the time. Frank is working on a list of things for them to do. This is challenging, because he's not into culture and she doesn't like to do anything that involves walking or not spending money. Thank god there's a casino two miles from my house.
He’s totally critical of my parenting skills, even though he could easily qualify for worst parent of the year, and Frank’s got the scars to prove it. His biggest complaint is that my kids are too scheduled and sleep too much. You know what? My kids go to bed between 7:00 and 7:30. I don’t care that Terri and Phil let their kids stay up all night long, my kids know that they need to be in their rooms at least 10 hours a night, and I do not want to hear from them at all during that time. So I know that he’s going to bitch that he doesn’t see the kids enough, seeing as how I’ll be taking them to school/daycare at 7:15 AM before he gets up (because he already told us that they won’t be watching the kids while we’re not home and to keep them in daycare for the week), and picking them up when I get out of work, usually not walking in the door until 6:00 PM or so. This pretty much means as soon as I get in the door, I start dinner, feed them, and in an hour it’s bedtime. And that’s when he’ll start to complain that he’s not getting enough time with the kids.
Oh yeah, and the girlfriend is a chain smoker who's going to complain about having to smoke outside, and even at that, I'm going to lay down the law and tell her that if she needs to smoke, she can't do it in the backyard either, it has to be in the front yard, which she'll hate, because she's one of those people who doesn't like to leave the house without a facefull of makeup. I'll probably have to get the house fumigated after she leaves though because the reek of smoke will follow her everywhere.
ARRGH!!!!!!!!
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3 comments:
I'd be grateful that they won't watch the kids while you're at work- at least you don't have to worry about the kids' safety. You could always use one of my mother' tactics with unwanted house guests- let the kids play with pots and pans first thing in the morning. When the unwanted guests complain, suggest they'd be happier at a hotel.
In any case, you have my sympathy...
I can relate on so many levels. My FIL is also a pain in the ass. Your description of a 6 year old in a 60 year old body hits the nail on the head for me too - only mine is a 6 year old in a 70 year old body. And he pulls that crap all the time - buying his plane ticket and then announcing to us that he's coming out for a visit. I know - who does that?
I've laid down a couple of ground rules that has helped the situation somewhat: firstly, he no longer gets to stay at our house when he visits. It's just too much, and I don't think it's unreasonable for me (or you) to not want to take on a houseguest on top of all that we already have filling our plates. Second, my husband is required to take time off work when his dad is out here for a visit. It's his dad. Why should I get stuck trying to entertain him on my own, especially when I didn't invite him and he makes me so damned uncomfortable?
Good luck hon.
wow, that sounds like a reverse" national lampoons vacation: inlaws variety" what a nightmare. i will say a prayer for you. now i don't believe there is anyone to answer it, but i feel like you are gonna need all the help you can get.
good luck.
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