The official UKY inlaw venting thread

so it turns out that my brother in law may have just buggered up our visa process.  DH and his siblings share ownership of the home we were meant to live in as part of an inheritance from their parents.  problem is, the deed to the home was issued for the wrong address and is still under DH's parents names.  i had spoken to my brother in law about getting the deed for our visa applications and he said he would take care of it, only to change his mind and pass the responsibility off to DH at the last minute.  ( brother in law was named executor of estate )  DH calls the land registry office and they said the problem could be fixed by having all the siblings come in, present the wills ( which no one seems to have any certified copies of ), sign some forms, and pay some sort of fee.   the siblings are, kind of, scattered through the UK and now DH and i are working on their schedules.  maybe i'm just feeling defeated due to the usual amount of time it takes for a document like this to be issued.

i'm so unbelievably frustrated!  brother in law KNEW of the problem and he KNEW we needed this.  we were supposed to apply in march and now that's looking a lot less likely.  i'm so angry that i feel like crying, but there's nothing i can do.  it's been such a horrible week..

DH has been debating on how to tell his mom that we're actually leaving the UK and moving back to the US. She's been ambivalent toward the whole thing and hasn't really said much about it since we told her that we applied last summer.

He rang her yesterday evening and she was only concerned if DH could take her to her coach so she could go on holiday the 18th of March. His response was 'if we still have the car I will, if not you have to take a cab'. Then she said something that just sealed the deal that we're doing the right thing about moving back to Cali: 'Well you never should have brought that woman here anyway and that child shouldn't have been born here to begin with'. DH was furious. She also said that she'd never see DD or I again and that DH should come and get his things that are stored at her flat (just childhood memento's that normally a parent would keep) or they're going in the bin. So he's going down on Sunday to pick it up...by himself.

She can't be bothered...neither can I anymore and I really don't want my daughter to remember her. I just hope we're leaving with her young enough so she'll forget our life here.

WebyJ - she sounds like a piece of work! She had some tight purse strings and is pissed he has cut them and blames it on you. So sad when people act this way when I am sure all you wanted was a nice relationship.  At least your DD has grandparents waiting in the states to shower her with grandparent love ;-)

I was intrigued by the title of this thread, but my inlaw problems seem to pale in comparison to many here. Mine live just down the road from us. We see them every Fiday for tea and we take them shopping on a Wednesday evening as FIL cannot drive at night anymore. Spending time with them is more like a job than anything else. They are very simple folks, and for all appearances seem to be nice folks, but they are not. MIL has lots to say about lots of folks (including the one sister she has left) and none of it is very nice. I can only imagine what she says about me when I am not around. FIL is and always has been a bully and sadly, MIL now bullies him in return. He is very feeble-minded and she is forever berating him for it. Neither one of them can hear, but at least FIL admits he is deaf as a stump. They are completely incapable of doing anything for themselves, even down to changing a light bulb...hubby says that have ALWAYS been like that. Yet, when they REALLY need help, they will not ask for it!

I have given up baking and cooking for them or even sharing a large bag of tates with them as ther eis always this: 'that cake/pie/dinner you made was lovely, don't get me wrong, duck. But it was just not very good/too sickly/too sweet/too spicy (coz it had cinnamon in it)/too salty'. So I gave up.

FIL is determined that he is about to die (he just turned 80) and Friday tea has turned into a discussion about his ailments, right down to his bleeding testicles and his irregular bowel movements. MIL is forever telling me about her leaking bladder. No wonder my son won't go over to their house anymore.

Perhaps the worst is that I have no way to connect with these folks. I might as well be from Mars. They have led such a sheltered life that they know no more than this little corner of Lincolnshire. You cannot discuss the news as MIL will start crying and leave the room and FIL can't hear a word you are saying.

That's my rant for now. Thanks for listening.

Wow and I thought I was the only USC on here with an unreasonable UK MIL...lol.

WebyJ--your MIL's actions are very similar to mine (although, in some respects, worse).  Mine is a control-freak, this became alarming apparent after our DD was born.  Like you, before that we had a "good" relationship...oh well.

It certainly helps to have hubby on board, even if it does place them in an awkard situation.

I empathize with everyone on this board...so sad family can be difficult!
 

WebyJ - she sounds like a piece of work! She had some tight purse strings and is pissed he has cut them and blames it on you. So sad when people act this way when I am sure all you wanted was a nice relationship.  At least your DD has grandparents waiting in the states to shower her with grandparent love ;-)

Ditto.  Hugs WebyJ, you and your child deserve to be showered with love, and I'm sure your parents will have loads and loads of love to give!

Welcome scwk0511.  Your inlaws sound like hard work and not very pleasant people to be around.  I hope venting about them on here has made you feel a little better. 

WebyJ, hopefully remembering that conversation with his mother will help your DH if he gets homesick in the US (it happens to us all) and begins to gloss over some of the difficult details of your life here.  Hugs to you.

BiL and new SiL.

I don't even know if I've ever gone into this guy much, but he has really upset Mr A (who is washing his hands of him).  This story is VERY complicated and long, but basically, it seems that the only time he wants to interact with us is when he wants to "borrow.  We met her once.  We had invited them to dinner, but after cooking and baking all day, it turns out they ate before they got here.  They stayed for about an hour, asked for money, and left soon after we turned them down.  At Christmas, we bought them gifts (stuff which I personally would have loved to receive), and they are still sitting on the shelf in our entryway.  Mr A wants to drop them at my parents-in-law, and we probably will, but to me that is totally treating him like a wayward 20 something slacker who needs to pick up his Christmas gifts from his elderly relatives or something and BiL is in his mid-40s.

At Christmas time, Mr A tried to call and text BiL--no response.  FiL asked Mr A if he'd heard from BiL (this was NYE).  Mr A moaned about BiL not picking up the phone/texting, etc.  Of course, the sun shines out of BiL's bum, so this was somehow not BiL's fault.  Bil calls Mr A later that day and says that because SiL doesn't celebrate Christmas until January and New Years wasn't a big deal in Ukraine, he hadn't bothered.  But apparently, they celebrated it enough to spend Christmas with parents in law.

So in January we get a call from FiL asking if we've sent off a congratulations card to BiL.  BiL and SiL got married, invited MiL and FiL, but not us.  They got married in Tooting.  Close enough for us to WALK. 

SiL got her FLR and promptly went back to Ukraine, where she is right now.  I am not sure when she's coming back, but supposedly she's arranging for her child to come over.  Their advisers for some reason decided that this was the best way to do it.  I am not wasting my breath explaining that it is possible that they could mess up her application for ILR due to too many days absent as I assume their expensive advisers have told them.  I am also going to assume that they know that FLR was granted on the basis that she planned to live here in the UK with BiL and not back in Ukraine.  I hope that they don't run into deception problems if when they apply for ILR or an extension to her FLR.  Or problems with intervening devotion.  Okay, a part of me SO MUCH hopes they run into problems, and I hate that I feel that way.  Mostly it's because they are so cocky about immigration, and didn't even realise that they needed to apply for FLR before she returned back to Ukraine.  But everything else we've advised, including not to bother with a fiancée visa unless they were having a big wedding, has been ignored.  We're not bothering with saying anything, because they haven't been concerned about much when we brought things to their attention.

I don't doubt that BiL loves her, she may well love him, and I wish them the best if that is the case.  I just hate how this makes me feel and hate how it makes my husband feel.  He and his brother have been close in the past, but ever since Mr A returned from grad school, BiL has been at times, really hurtful.  He can be the nicest guy in the world and the biggest butthole.  At one point Mr A was struggling to find a job after we first got married.  He was taking anything that came up, but it was usually temp work.  He even worked for a while at a fast food place.  One night BiL came into Mr A's room and told him to get a job.  Fast forward a few years, BiL has gone bankrupt.  We end up shouldering the burden of paying most of the bills (which they didn't even tell us were overdue--despite our paying our bit, the money hadn't gone from their accounts to the bills we owed).  We haven't been fully paid back, and at this point, we can't expect it to happen.  Yet BiL was able to pay for trips to Russia and Ukraine, for the dating agency/translator/whatever fees, for presents for fiancee and family (some of them quite large), and when he was visiting Ukraine, he was constantly texting everyone for more money.  Contrast that with when we were having money problems, Mr A didn't visit me for almost a year.

BiL and new SiL.

I don't even know if I've ever gone into this guy much, but he has really upset Mr A (who is washing his hands of him).  This story is VERY complicated and long, but basically, it seems that the only time he wants to interact with us is when he wants to "borrow.  We met her once.  We had invited them to dinner, but after cooking and baking all day, it turns out they ate before they got here.  They stayed for about an hour, asked for money, and left soon after we turned them down.  At Christmas, we bought them gifts (stuff which I personally would have loved to receive), and they are still sitting on the shelf in our entryway.  Mr A wants to drop them at my parents-in-law, and we probably will, but to me that is totally treating him like a wayward 20 something slacker who needs to pick up his Christmas gifts from his elderly relatives or something and BiL is in his mid-40s.

At Christmas time, Mr A tried to call and text BiL--no response.  FiL asked Mr A if he'd heard from BiL (this was NYE).  Mr A moaned about BiL not picking up the phone/texting, etc.  Of course, the sun shines out of BiL's bum, so this was somehow not BiL's fault.  Bil calls Mr A later that day and says that because SiL doesn't celebrate Christmas until January and New Years wasn't a big deal in Ukraine, he hadn't bothered.  But apparently, they celebrated it enough to spend Christmas with parents in law.

So in January we get a call from FiL asking if we've sent off a congratulations card to BiL.  BiL and SiL got married, invited MiL and FiL, but not us.  They got married in Tooting.  Close enough for us to WALK. 

SiL got her FLR and promptly went back to Ukraine, where she is right now.  I am not sure when she's coming back, but supposedly she's arranging for her child to come over.  Their advisers for some reason decided that this was the best way to do it.  I am not wasting my breath explaining that it is possible that they could mess up her application for ILR due to too many days absent as I assume their expensive advisers have told them.  I am also going to assume that they know that FLR was granted on the basis that she planned to live here in the UK with BiL and not back in Ukraine.  I hope that they don't run into deception problems if when they apply for ILR or an extension to her FLR.  Or problems with intervening devotion.  Okay, a part of me SO MUCH hopes they run into problems, and I hate that I feel that way.  Mostly it's because they are so cocky about immigration, and didn't even realise that they needed to apply for FLR before she returned back to Ukraine.  But everything else we've advised, including not to bother with a fiancée visa unless they were having a big wedding, has been ignored.  We're not bothering with saying anything, because they haven't been concerned about much when we brought things to their attention.

I don't doubt that BiL loves her, she may well love him, and I wish them the best if that is the case.  I just hate how this makes me feel and hate how it makes my husband feel.  He and his brother have been close in the past, but ever since Mr A returned from grad school, BiL has been at times, really hurtful.  He can be the nicest guy in the world and the biggest butthole.  At one point Mr A was struggling to find a job after we first got married.  He was taking anything that came up, but it was usually temp work.  He even worked for a while at a fast food place.  One night BiL came into Mr A's room and told him to get a job.  Fast forward a few years, BiL has gone bankrupt.  We end up shouldering the burden of paying most of the bills (which they didn't even tell us were overdue--despite our paying our bit, the money hadn't gone from their accounts to the bills we owed).  We haven't been fully paid back, and at this point, we can't expect it to happen.  Yet BiL was able to pay for trips to Russia and Ukraine, for the dating agency/translator/whatever fees, for presents for fiancee and family (some of them quite large), and when he was visiting Ukraine, he was constantly texting everyone for more money.  Contrast that with when we were having money problems, Mr A didn't visit me for almost a year.

Wow.    If they were my family I wouldn't wast another ounce of thought on them let alone worrying about their visa issues.  They don't deserve it at all.  Even if Mr. A was close with his brother in the past.  They don't sound like very nice people (certainly not very responsible) at all.  Just my 2p.

DD & I have not been well lately. DH came home yesterday after working his Sunday managing the shop and promptly sent me to bed and then took care of DD the rest of the evening till she went to bed. This included Bath time. Which is when MiL decided that she just HAD to ask DH something so she rang his mobile...he was giving DD a bath so he didn't answer & I was in bed. Besides it's not my phone, I don't answer it.

So about an hour later I'm feeling a bit better and I drag myself out to the sofa to cuddle with DD for a bit before bedtime & DH took a minute to go out on the balcony to have a ciggy. It was then our house phone rang. Knowing that only my parents call that time of night, I jump up and answer it thinking it was them...no, it was MiL.

She didn't even say hello, just:

'where's my son?'...uh, he stepped out for a minute.

'I rang his phone earlier and he didn't bother to answer' ...he was giving DD a bath.

'did he even go to work today?'...yes 

'why was he doing that, that's your job'...I'm not well and I was in bed.

'you do a lot of that don't you. have you bothered to take that baby to the doctor'...she's not a baby, she's almost 3 and no I haven't because it's a virus and just needs to run its course.

'well they will give you antibiotics for it if you were a decent mother'...it's a VIRUS! ANTIBIOTICS WON'T DO ANYTHING!

I think I hung up on her after that, because I really can't recall saying goodbye or not 

'you do a lot of that don't you. have you bothered to take that baby to the doctor'...she's not a baby, she's almost 3 and no I haven't because it's a virus and just needs to run its course.

'well they will give you antibiotics for it if you were a decent mother'...it's a VIRUS! ANTIBIOTICS WON'T DO ANYTHING!

 My mother used get antibiotics for everything and save them up for times when she or someone in the house got a cold.  No matter how you explained it to her, she'd swear it was okay.  My MiL will get on you the moment you start sniffling to make an appointment with the GP to get antibiotics.  Not to mention she thinks:

-A breeze in your ear causes an ear infection.
- You get a cold from being cold and/or damp.  Being too cold or too damp for too long will give you "your death of cold".
-It is better to go without a coat than without a hat.
-GPs must be called the moment you don't feel well, and it's her duty to remind you.  Constantly.


It's only a mild PITA if you actually get along with said old wife giving medical advice.  It gets a lot worse when they are awful even before they find out you have a cold/flu/whatever.

Wow.    If they were my family I wouldn't wast another ounce of thought on them let alone worrying about their visa issues.  They don't deserve it at all.  Even if Mr. A was close with his brother in the past.  They don't sound like very nice people (certainly not very responsible) at all.  Just my 2p.

I don't know my new SiL at all.  It could have nothing to do with her or everything to do with her.  I really didn't want to make a judgement about her because we're likely to have to interact with each other for the rest of our lives. 

I guess I should just let Mr A drop the pressies off.  BiL is staying with Mil and FiL while SiL is in Ukraine although he is still paying rent on his flat--the first flat he's lived in that's not his parents'.  He moved there in the autumn.    Even though he's been there when Mr A has visited, he's not come out to greet him and Mr A's parents have said that he's talking to SiL on Skype.  Once the pressies are gone, we won't have to think about it so much I guess.

I just worry that it has to do with me.  Mr A thinks it has to do with him.  And, of course, it could just be that it has to do with the fact we didn't have the money to lend give them so they could have a church wedding like they originally planned.

This is a vent - yes

I do like my MIL, I really do.  With my FIL in the hospital its become mad.  They haven't lived together for 6-7 years and honestly never bothered to get divorced but she did his shopping once a week for him.  Now DH is going back to work and its back to me being a taxi b/c she doesnt drive.  EXCEPT she told DH on Sunday that I shouldnt be involved it should me her, DH and his sister but WAIT the sister hasnt spoken to the father in 16 years - they don't speak AT ALL. My FIL has never met his grandkids b/c they dont speak why in the world should sister have any say in anything when he almost died a few years ago she still wouldnt go see him.
DH said his sister has no right to say anything but this is the person my MIL talks to since she watches her kids and makes there dinner every school night.  My MIL feels intimidated by me because I remember ever conversation with every nurse and I read his chart and I know and will ask my FIL exactly what is up and he won't yell at me.
DH also told her I remember everything to tell him when he is not there and she got all huffy.  Why in the world should I keep bending over backwards for her if it is not appreciated?  I missed a week of work and countless hours where my pay check was 60% less then it normally was so I could cart her around and make sure my FIL is ok.
My MIL seems to be so negative and sure maybe its fear but it is driving me nuts.
DH said this leg problem could be years and she replied oh he will be dead in a year WTF who says that?
I just dont know how to sit back and watch her not ask questions to the nurses so I feel I am not doing my FIL any good if the questions DON'T get asked.

My MIL has purchased a crib for a baby of a friend she watches once a week. She informed DH that the crib is really a gift for me and him whenever we have children. 
Ummm...that would be a NO!

Her husband chain smokes in her home. I'm not having my future children in a smokey crib. (smoke is a cause of SIDS) I know exactly what type of crib I want whenever I do have children. And DH and I are not planning on having kids anytime soon! 

My MIL has purchased a crib for a baby of a friend she watches once a week. She informed DH that the crib is really a gift for me and him whenever we have children. 
Ummm...that would be a NO!

That's a big WTH?