Things your in-laws do that make you irrationally insane

[dorndawg]

Mine are overall really good folks, but uptight about recycling to the point they'll go through about 10 gallons of (natural gas-heated) hot water to get a peanut butter container completely clean for the outside bin. I don't have the heart to tell them probably 80% or more of "recyclable" plastics are put in landfills or incinerated, these days.

 

[GloryDawg]

My wife mother is dead, and her father is 90 years old. They had always been good to me.

 

[Drebin]

Mine are overall really good folks, but uptight about recycling to the point they'll go through about 10 gallons of (natural gas-heated) hot water to get a peanut butter container completely clean for the outside bin. I don't have the heart to tell them probably 80% or more of "recyclable" plastics are put in landfills or incinerated, these days.

My in-laws are good folks. My FIL passed away a couple of years ago. The MIL is a little more aloof.

They used to annoy me by just showing up at the house unannounced and hanging around when I had stuff to do. But as I get older I cut them some slack on that - they just wanted to spend time with their grandkids.

 

[hdogg]

Mine are overall really good folks, but uptight about recycling to the point they'll go through about 10 gallons of (natural gas-heated) hot water to get a peanut butter container completely clean for the outside bin. I don't have the heart to tell them probably 80% or more of "recyclable" plastics are put in landfills or incinerated, these days.

I have made it very clear to my wife that I will never ever, not ever, even think about recycling a peanut butter jar. It's impossible.

But on the inlaws question : Mine visit about once every 2 years, and stay for 10-12 days when they do. Yes, that's not a typo. And they won't watch the kids - they want to go out for an "adult dinner" with us and have us get a babysitter. I've never known anyone like them.

 

[8dog]

Access YouTube TV thru the YouTube app

 

[eckie1]

Mine are overall really good folks, but uptight about recycling to the point they'll go through about 10 gallons of (natural gas-heated) hot water to get a peanut butter container completely clean for the outside bin. I don't have the heart to tell them probably 80% or more of "recyclable" plastics are put in landfills or incinerated, these days.

Life hack: put it on the top rack of the dishwasher. Problem solved.

 

[jethreauxdawg]

Mine are pretty good people who like me now, but they refuse to allow the HVAC system to function to generally accepted American standards. They only eat at meal times. All glasses in their house are 8oz or less. No adult size plastic cups to be found.

 

[99jc]

nothing...have outlived all 3 sets.

 

[Drebin]

One time my FIL picked me up from the airport after a long trip and I was ready to be home. He said he needed to stop and get gas, and he wanted to stop by Sams because it was 5 cents less per gallon. Well, Sams was about 20 miles out of the way, so he basically burned a couple of bucks worth of gas to drive to Sams to save about a buck on gas.

 

[40 acres and a mule]

When I had them, they would show up on weekends. EVERY 17ing weekend. I finally told my wife, You put up with it. I'm going to do what I want to. And I did. She eventually had enough of their controlling BS. It was not pretty.

 

[stateu1]

Everything my MIL cooks is "the best, most delicious you've ever had!" And it's usually horrible.

 

[Drebin]

Mine are pretty good people who like me now, but they refuse to allow the HVAC system to function to generally accepted American standards. They only eat at meal times. All glasses in their house are 8oz or less. No adult size plastic cups to be found.

I keep my thermostat at 72 in the summer and when the MIL comes over, she brings sweaters to wear in the house because I keep it "too cold."

 

[HailStout]

Force politics into EVERY discussion. Outside of that? Near perfection.

 

[Colonel Angus.sixpack]

Nothing they do makes me irrationally insane but the few times a year I’m around them I find them generally annoying. They’re goobs.

 

[Lloyd Christmas.sixpack]

Diehard alabama (football)
Never stepped foot on the campus
Don’t know there are other Alabama sports
Get so pissed when they lose no one can be around them.
When they do lose, they talk about how proud they are of the team yet can’t name any of the players correctly
Etc

 

[maroonmadman]

My MIL is a drama queen. Right now she's kinda ticked off that my cancer is drawing attention from her and her cancer. She wants to be the center of attention all the time.

 

[OurPrideAndJoySnots]

MIL requests daily facetime calls and constantly mentions how she never gets to see her grandkids as we live out of state. Travels to see us and proceeds to doom scroll facebook for 80% of the trip.

 

[dorndawg]

MIL requests daily facetime calls and constantly mentions how she never gets to see her grandkids as we live out of state. Travels to see us and proceeds to doom scroll facebook for 80% of the trip.

These same folks the second they put their phone down "It's just so sad how everyone is glued to their phone!!"

 

[CaptainFalcon]

Mine are good folks and we’ve been in a good spot with them for years now. Early in our marriage there were some issues for sure though. We got married like 3 weeks after my wife graduated college at 21 so she was very much their dependent up until our wedding day. That transitionary period was REALLY rough for about 6 months. As in almost caused us to cut ties with them rough. Lies, empty promises, cowardice, I don’t want to delve into too many specifics but we definitely got taken advantage of as a young newlywed couple (I was 24 myself) and we had to learn some hard life lessons and had to deal with some financial ramifications we are still paying for. I thank God everyday we decided to live on the other side of the state from them or they may have caused us to get a divorce within a year.

It took some time but we moved past a lot of it. Now the biggest irritation is they let our toddler act like a total maniac and stay up until midnight and eat cookies and ice cream for all three meals and stuff like that, so the detox after those trips takes several days.

I liken it to if you ask someone to hold your bottle of soda while you go to the bathroom, then while you’re gone they shake it up for 5 minutes straight before they hand it back to you so that it explodes in your face. That is what it is like to get your toddler back from a visit to grandma’s house.

 

[Seinfeld]

MIL requests daily facetime calls and constantly mentions how she never gets to see her grandkids as we live out of state. Travels to see us and proceeds to doom scroll facebook for 80% of the trip.

Man, the FaceTime stuff drives me up the wall. There’s a time and a place for it, and 9PM every 17ing night when we’re trying to get ready for bed ain’t it.

I know she’s lonely, so I try to be as understanding as I can, but that crap pisses me off

 

[OG Goat Holder]

Nothing specifically, they just do the typical dumb insecure selfish boomer shlt like hoarding all the family's money, expecting their kids to take care of them, and generally being wrong about everything politically.

 

[Drebin]

Nothing specifically, they just do the typical dumb insecure selfish boomer shlt like hoarding all the family's money, expecting their kids to take care of them, and generally being wrong about everything politically.

By "hoarding all the family's money," do you mean hoarding their money?

 

[OG Goat Holder]

By "hoarding all the family's money," do you mean hoarding their money?

Technically, yes. The money they inherited that they have zero intentions of saving a portion for the next generations.

I mean George Carlin said it best. Their philosophy is, "Gimme it, it's mine!"

 

[dawgstudent]

She talks about football jerseys non-stop!!

 

[IBleedMaroonDawg]

They are both gone. My father-in-law died before we got married. My mother-in-law died a couple of years ago. It's a good thing, really, because she and my wife didn't have a good relationship.

 

[johnson86-1]

Mine are overall really good folks, but uptight about recycling to the point they'll go through about 10 gallons of (natural gas-heated) hot water to get a peanut butter container completely clean for the outside bin. I don't have the heart to tell them probably 80% or more of "recyclable" plastics are put in landfills or incinerated, these days.

The plastic recycling really has been a pretty harmful scam. Wasting time and energy sorting it and then using more fuel to have separate pickups and then in the past paying to barge it across an ocean so that a big percentage of it can be discarded in rivers to end up back in the ocean. I still have to deal with plastic garbage sitting on our countertop because it's being saved for the recycling bin.

 

[OG Goat Holder]

Mine are overall really good folks, but uptight about recycling to the point they'll go through about 10 gallons of (natural gas-heated) hot water to get a peanut butter container completely clean for the outside bin. I don't have the heart to tell them probably 80% or more of "recyclable" plastics are put in landfills or incinerated, these days.

The plastic recycling really has been a pretty harmful scam. Wasting time and energy sorting it and then using more fuel to have separate pickups and then in the past paying to barge it across an ocean so that a big percentage of it can be discarded in rivers to end up back in the ocean. I still have to deal with plastic garbage sitting on our countertop because it's being saved for the recycling bin.

I used to try and recycle. Until I went through the travel ball stage of life and observed a set of tournament fields on a Sunday afternoon. I quickly realized I was shooting a BB gun at a freight train.

I also used to criticize MS for not recycling. Nowadays, I just consider them honest.

 

[greenbean.sixpack]

Mine are overall really good folks, but uptight about recycling to the point they'll go through about 10 gallons of (natural gas-heated) hot water to get a peanut butter container completely clean for the outside bin. I don't have the heart to tell them probably 80% or more of "recyclable" plastics are put in landfills or incinerated, these days.

My in laws burn their trash.

 

[Beretta.sixpack]

My MIL is a retired Episcopal rector.....on her 4th marriage in life....the last one...she is the nicest and most caring human you will ever meet, but my lord in heaven she is the slowest human being on earth....like, she and her husband have only about a 50% success rate on making their flights anywhere....and super needy....my brother in law and myself joke about it and our wives get tickled that we are joking at her expense ....

but that's not it....I discovered Nest thermostats because of her....Back around 2008/09, when she came to stay with us over the summers, she would get up in the night and move the thermostat to 80.....i normally keep it on 70 at night....i would wake up thinking i had died and woke up in hell....so I invested in a Nest thermostat and would control it from my app...she lost that war for years until we moved....now I have 3 of them...and she just about only comes to visit in the winter these days

 

[DesotoCountyDawg]

My mother-in-law is a narcissist, passive aggressive bully that bosses her two daughters around and she lives with my sister-in-law and makes her life a living hell. She is not in good health and is basically bedridden, but she won’t go to a nursing home and she refuses to give my wife or sister-in-law power of attorney. She’s at the point where it’s very difficult for them to take care of her, but she refuses to go to a nursing home or other facility.

 

[dawgman42]

This is my MIL. To. A. "T."

 

[John Deaux VII]

It's hard for me to complain too much, but my mother-in-law can be opinonated and overly instructive. Fortunately for me, I don't have to deal with it directly very much, as most of it is directed at my wife. Even if it involves me personally, my wife gets the tounge-lashing. But it generally annoys my wife and causes resentment, so I hate that she has to deal with it. We are both fairly independent people, so I think it causes some resentment in my in-laws part that we are not easily controlled or we do not always take their unsolicted advice. I think most familes have issues like that. Its just part of bringing two families together with different backgrounds and up-bringings. Other than that, they are fantastic folks. They love me, our kid, and my family.

 

[Drebin]

Technically, yes. The money they inherited that they have zero intentions of saving a portion for the next generations.

I mean George Carlin said it best. Their philosophy is, "Gimme it, it's mine!"

My opinion on this is that I'm not entitled to anything that isn't mine. Maybe that's crazy.

 

[mstateglfr]

Incredible in-laws. My MIL passed in 2020 though.
She had a heart of gold and was infuriating with how she used it.

- She would volunteer others to help someone without getting the OK first. I was in their metro while dating my wife and during multiple college internships. She used to call me and tell me she had promised someone I would help with randomass things like tear down an above ground pool at a friend's house or pick up a new washer and drier from the store for an older neighbor.
Every couple weeks was some new random thing that I had been volunteered to do, and obviously I wasnt gonna say no. Half the time I did the things with my now brother-in-law who is a friend, so it wasnt bad...but it was still infuriating.


- She worked for an airline and one weekend she called us and said that she had put 2 blueberry bushes on a plane, and we needed to head over to the airport to pick them up. It was a Saturday morning and we were at a Target with our 3yo. We didnt ask for blueberry bushes and we didnt want blueberry bushes.
That was expressed to her and she justified it by saying our kid loves blueberries and this was a way to make it like she wasnt so far from her grandchild.
17ing hell, cant say no to that.
I drove to the airport, parked, and walked around baggage claim, lost baggage, and customer service asking random people where I could pick up 2 blueberry bushes. It was one of the dumbest things I have done as an adult. People literally laughed at me after giving me justifiably confused looks.
I never found the blueberry bushes, despite talking with all sorts of employees at the airline and them even calling people at the gates.






...hmm, I think those qualify as rationally insane.

 

[OG Goat Holder]

My opinion on this is that I'm not entitled to anything that isn't mine. Maybe that's crazy.

I didn't say anything about mine. I am pointing out a behavior. Sounds like that strikes a nerve.

 

[jethreauxdawg]

This is my MIL. To. A. "T."

That’s my wife’s MIL. That show hits real close to home.

 

[Seinfeld]

Irrational? I got nothing

Now rational complaints? I could write a novel

 

[hdogg]

I used to try and recycle. Until I went through the travel ball stage of life and observed a set of tournament fields on a Sunday afternoon. I quickly realized I was shooting a BB gun at a freight train.

I also used to criticize MS for not recycling. Nowadays, I just consider them honest.

I do recycle, especially glass and cans where there is value. BUT yes, every time I go to a hotel breakfast buffett and see all the waste, or a weekend kid sports tournament, it's obvious that my contribution is a drop in the bucket.

 

[17itdawg]

My in laws are good folks. My father in law is just a grumpy old man. He likes the idea of spending time with my boys until they've been there about 5 minutes then he remembers that my two boys can't sit still nor do they want to stay inside no matter the weather. Then he gets angry that my kids don't want to watch tv with him. He's a good guy overall. Just set in his ways and lonely.
My mother in law is wonderful and probably deserves sainthood for putting up with my FIL. She just spent two weeks at my house. Watching my boys for us because their school/day care was closed for two weeks getting ready for the actual school year. I mean she does plenty of stuff to annoy me, but I don't have a damn real complaint after the last two weeks of living with her. Only thing that drove me absolutely crazy over the weeks is she blocks my entire driveway when she pulls her suv in.

 

[dorndawg]

I used to try and recycle. Until I went through the travel ball stage of life and observed a set of tournament fields on a Sunday afternoon. I quickly realized I was shooting a BB gun at a freight train.

I also used to criticize MS for not recycling. Nowadays, I just consider them honest.

I do my best to recycle anything aluminum/metal I can, most of those can be reused over and over pretty easily. Obviously this is far easier if you have curbside recycling. But I don't beat myself up if I miss some here and there.