Host- guest customs

[Owlie]

Uh, weird. I've been with my BF for nearly 6 years (so, practically family). Yes, a SO of an extended period of time falls into a gray area of "not a typical houseguest, but not quite family either" area. I've usually spent a week with BF's family at a time. I'd help with cooking (chopping stuff, stirring stuff, or I'd be in charge of a side dish), dishes, my own laundry if I did any (unless we did a load of cycling clothes), or tidying up the bathroom. (That mostly consists of "keep my stuff corralled and my hair out of the drain".) Now that we've been together longer, I have no problem with helping to clean the kitchen or something similar. I don't like touching other people's stuff without permission, so my helping out still ends up being "Where does this go? Where do you want this? I need to do x. Where is y?" Usually it's faster for BF to do it for me. (Yes, I've been visiting these people for a while and I still don't know where everything is...)

It was the same when we visited my parents when we were in college. He'd help with the cooking, strip his bed before he left, did his own laundry, and "keep the bathroom neat" is "don't leave soap and hair everywhere and hang up the bathmat when you're done." No "clean the bathroom" stuff.

That response from his mom... Who does that?

[lph]

Ok, the asking to help with a chore and being annoyed she forgot I guess you could chalk up to different house rules and child/adult distinction, and them treating your daughter as a family member more than a guest. But being openly furious afterwards and refusing to accept a written apology is just way beyond different customs. It's either incredibly rude, or there's something more behind this. Is there anything your daughter maybe didn't pick up on? Is there any way they have been annoyed at her for some time, for not helping out regularly when she visits, for instance? Or does she change the way they relate to their son? And are they used to having house guests? Some people (I'm one of them) enjoy visitors but it stresses them a lot.

I'm not defending them, just trying to understand their rather bizarre behaviour.

Helping out can be a fine line - when our son was small and my ILs would babysit, my MIL felt very free to "help out" at home. I didn't mind her straightening the kitchen and putting away the dishes, but when she started making our beds and picking up clothes in the bedroom I had to politely tell her to please, stay out... I like to help out too because it makes me feel useful, but I stay out of people's bedrooms!

[zoom-zoom]

Those people sound psychotic! If I were your DD I'd be thinking very hard on whether this is a family I want to be involved with long-term. Unfortunately, when we marry someone we are also marrying their family. My MIL is a royal PITA and has said and done some really exasperating things over the years that make me so envious of my friends with wonderful ILs. My MIL's obnoxiousness has not been a total deal-breaker (in large part because she has always lived out-of-state), but I have friends who have true "monster-in-laws" and it has caused irreparable damage to their marriages.