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Everyone knows exactly what you mean when you are having a bad day and someone asks what's wrong and your response is "the in-laws." It's a universal understanding. No one likes it when their mother in-law comes to town, and my family is no exception.

Where in my husbands family he actually spawned from I have no clue. He is a gentle person, polite, caring, friendly, surprisingly normal. His family however, it's not even comparing apples and oranges because in a sense, they're similar, they are both fruits. Comparing Joe to his family is like comparing the moon to my dining room table (which is square, so see, no shape similiarity!). There is absolutely nothing that would lead you to believe they even came from the same planet.

Joe's family is obnoxious and absolutely grind my nerves until they're gone and I quit speaking to them for the rest of their visit. They have complete disregard, show up when they want to, often a day earlier than announced. They leave their stuff all over my living room, and do not listen to a thing I say to them.

It's easy to see why weeks before they come I start to get annoyed, stressed out, pissed off, even. I have found his family going through our bedroom, caught them sneaking through our mail, and completely emptying out our kitchen without offered to repay us for anything. They refuse to stay in a hotel, even if we offer to pay for half, which I think is quite generous.

Because I work myself up so much before they get here, this obviously leads to tension between my husband and I. He doesn't understand what the big deal is, they don't come that often, blah blah blah. I point out that he's not here with them all day (I work from home) and that they don't go anywhere during the day, they just hang out in the living room. I mean, you wouldn't just go to someone's office and hang out all day, so why is it ok to do it to me? (Our desk is in the living room).

It is to the point I hate going to visit them, I literally dread going. I wait until the very last minute to pack my bag and whine, and bitch and moan about it the entire 7 hour drive. In the car I'm the 5 year old that keeps asking, "Are we there yet?"

I have found a way to deal with my crazy in-laws, and that is to simply not deal with them. I'm not the type of person to fake being nice, and by keeping my mouth shut and not talking I keep all of the things that are running through my head from actually escaping.

I get all of the "You should be nicer to your in-laws" speeches from my family, who then when I remind them they think the same things about them as I do to, they prompty shut up. It's a dynamic of the family we choose not to talk about until they get here.

The silver lining in this cloud: we live 7 hours away. I don't have to worry about them just dropping by several times a week. Fortunately for me, they only make the journey 4-5 times a year at most.

Learn more about this author, Lavanda Brown.
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