Frequency of visits of in-laws
This is mostly about my contacts to my in-laws rather than about my child (apologies if not the right forum).
I have a fraught relationship with my brother-in-law and generally would try to avoid contact as much as possible. The problem is that my spouse is very much attached to him and invites him every weekend for a lunch. My spouse knows that we are not on good terms (the feelings are mutual) but thinks that since she co-owns our house she can invite him whenever she finds it suitable.
This situation annoys me a lot. I love my wife and I have respect for the close bond that she has to her brother but I am not happy with him coming over so often. Furthermore, I think that I should be able to say "no" to a visit to our home by someone whom I am not on good terms with. I don't mean that he should stop coming. Rather, I don't want him to come every weekend.
I feel a bit uncertain about this situation. I don't want to be the bad guy who ruins the bond between siblings. At the same time, I feel disrespected by my spouse and annoyed by the frequent presence of her brother. Any advice?
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[she] thinks that since she co-owns our house she can invite him whenever
she finds it suitable
That's an example of a very selfish behavior. I think you should have really long and sincere talk with your wife with a lot of "I feel"s, "partnership"s and "compromise"s. I think that no one should use such argument at all, not to mention somebody's life partner.
The simple answer is simple. He comes over once every two weeks and you grin and bear it. A compromise where no-one is totally happy. After all, compromise is the essence of any relationship between two equals, right?
That's the short answer (which may well turn out to be the right one).
However, there's a wrinkle to this that has to be considered. Your wife probably isn't doing this just to spite you. Two of the most important men in her life can't stand one another and she's stuck in the middle.
What she'll want is for you to get along, or preferably to become friends, to see in each other what she sees in you both. Your dislike for each other will be upsetting (and perhaps confusing) for her.
Her solution to this is to keep throwing you together in the hope that familiarity will breed something other than contempt.
As a husband, your primary job is to care for your wife. Therefore, you need to take steps to make her life better, sitting idle and hoping the situation will resolve itself is not a good option.
Whilst you may never warm to the guy, your part in this compromise is to try to make it work. Don't just sit in the room with him without hitting him with a stick, work at it. Try to find some common ground, some way that you can have a civilised conversation with him.
tldr:
Speak to your wife. Tell her that you don't want him coming around so often. After all, the two of you deserve time alone with each other. Balance this by saying that, when he is around, you're going to do your best to get along and ask her to help you find some common ground.
Good luck!
TL;DR: You need a therapist for this, preferably for the two of you, or, if she refuses to go, for yourself.
He basically insults people without meaning it. The problem is that he doesn't realise it and have difficulties acknowledging it and apologising for it. It's not just me who has a problem with him - he gets routinely fired from jobs for getting people mad at him. As far as I know, he hasn't been able to stay in a job for more than 3 or 4 months. My wife says "he is just like that" and has accepted it - as have other members of her family. I have difficulties having such person around. –
This makes the answer a bit more difficult, because your brother-in-law is not merely insensitive but he is dysfunctionally so (for anyone to be unable to hold a job because of boorishness makes it dysfunctional.) And like so many dysfunctional people, the family has tolerated this behavior, making excuses for it ("he's just like that".) Of course you have difficulties being around him; so would anyone but his family. Unless he is mentally handicapped/had a mental illness, it isn't possible for him to repeatedly insult people without knowing that what he's saying is insulting. How many jobs does someone need to lose? The hints are there. He either can't (because of a personality disorder) or won't (because of insufficient incentive) change.
You presumably knew the brother before proposing to your wife, so you made a commitment of sorts to the family. Now you have to work it out.
Of course you don't want him over every Saturday, and, yes, you have good reason to be hurt, as your wife is not being a very sensitive spouse, especially with the attitude that because she co-owns the house, she can do whatever she pleases, even though she knows how you (and a number of others) feel about him. You are feeling hurt, disrespected, invalidated, coerced, and probably (at times) unloved. It's understandable. And it's not acceptable to be dismissed by your wife.
I assume you've talked with your wife 'til you're blue in the face, and the problem is still there. And you're reminded of it every Saturday. It's time to negotiate.
Your wife's cultural background might regard weekly time together the norm. If so, she can meet him away from the house, sometimes on weekends, but why not on weeknights as well, to allow the two of you to have whole, peaceful weekends together? This is not at all unreasonable.
The key issue here is that reasonable, healthy boundaries need to be set, and your wife/wife's family probably has no experience with healthy boundary setting. This is so much more common than you'd expect.
You and your wife need to take this to a therapist. I assume a separation of your sister from her brother is not the outcome you desire. The therapist needs to help the two of you negotiate an amicable (and healthy) solution.
I empathize, and I wish you both the best of luck.
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