You’re Married To Him AND His Family: Proceed With Caution

Your husband may be the greatest thing ever, but that doesn’t mean the same is true of his family. They could be the oddest collection of misfits that you’ve ever seen. The secret is to make him think you love them just as much as he does. It may kill you on the inside but from the outside its best to pretend that everything is sunshine and roses. You can save the gossip and strange habits of his family for lunch out with your girlfriends.

His family can well be the butt of many jokes, outside your husband’s earshot, of course, and can include some of these tried and true reasons that have existed for a long time:

10. For one thing, his sister. She is bossy, a real know-it-all type who is the authority on every subject know to man and just generally annoying to be around. She is his “baby sister” so he doesn’t see her personality flaws like others do. He thinks she’s great and vice versa, and she thinks of you as an obstacle to her relationship with him, so your only choice is to grin and bear it, at least while you are in front of her.

9. There’s always that one weird uncle: the one who gets a little too close for comfort, the one who wants to have you all to himself, and is just generally creepy. When he’s around, best to have your husband close by.

8. Your in-laws have strange eating habits and strange eating choices. To them, it’s normal, to you, it’s bizarre. Better to say “thanks, but no thanks” instead of telling them how you really feel.

7. You are a big sports fan and they couldn’t care less. OK, so here’s one more subject you can’t talk to them about, even though you don’t understand it.

6. There’s that overly friendly aunt who is always trying to cozy up to you and press you for a lunch date. Odd how you can never find a convenient time to do that.

5. The family is just generally nosey, one thing you have a definite problem with. You aren’t a totally private person, yet you aren’t comfortable with telling them every single detail they don’t need to know.

4. You and the family are poles apart politically. Better to save those discussions for a later time – those times that never seem to come around.

3. You are a voracious reader and the last book they read was in grade school.

2. They tend to invite themselves over without notice. Thankfully, your husband stepped in and set them straight on this.

1. Be truly thankful that your husband is from a different mold than the rest of them. After all, that’s why you married him!