Have you ever played "my house my rules" on your parents and family?

I didn’t, but the opportunities that they had to stay with me were very limited due to distance.

When a niece married, she told us that we were not allowed in their house with shoes on. We all, including her father and Mom (her grandmother) accepted it. Mom would bring a set of slippers with her.

When my SO bought a house and I went to stay with him, he told his parents, and mother specifically, that I was the “lady of the house” and that they had to abide by our rules and not take over. It was pretty much a moot point in my opinion because neither are dominating, but was a nice gesture.

It’s not about revenge; it’s about respect.

Not really. Being older now, I realize why the rules existed the way they did. Mine are pretty similar.

Once when a relative (by marriage) started saying very racist things.

Where is the context for the question, or the link.

Reality TV?

Sweet revenge does not exist. It may seem sweet in the moment, but it eats away at your soul and deadens your heart.

My ex and I did have to set some boundaries around my mother-in-law after my son was born. And my former father-in-law was not allowed to smoke in our house. But there was no aspect of retaliation or vengeance, we were just setting our own boundaries.

I haven’t got my house, and my parents once used it to me in their house. It’s a little rude in Chinese culture I think. And maybe it’s rude everywhere I don’t know.
Honestly speaking I won’t even consider letting them stay in my house. They are middle class, they have enough money to take care of themselves.

No.

@wsxwh111 I loved it when my parents stayed at my house for visits. They had the money for a hotel, but I invited them to stay with me. It puts a whole new dimension on the visit. Much less formal, a lot more family-like, rather than “visitors,” and more spontaneity.

Yep, years ago now I had to set boundaries with my mother and told her she was not allowed to drink if she came to visit. She had alcohol issues and after a few drinks, ( a “few” for her was like 6 glasses of brandy or whiskey on the rocks) she would get all maudlin and guilt trippy and bitchy and rage about other family members and try to start arguments.
I told her that she had to stay in a hotel if she couldn’t abide by my rules. THAT went over like a led balloon, of course. Oooh the guilt tripping, so she choose to not come visit at all. Such is the nature of the alcoholic beast, they will always choose booze over anything else.

Firstly, to me it’s not a game to play. Secondly, house rules are not created for “sweet revenge” but to create a sense of order and consistency in one’s life.

In normal families without a great amount of dysfunction, the adult children generally mirror the values of their parents so the house rules with which they were raised make sense to them to continue.

In the case of severely dysfunctional families of origion (alcoholics/addicts being a prime example) the adult children strive for the opposite of the chaos they grew up with. So whatever rules they have in their own homes are an attempt to make order out of their own lives, not done for “sweet revenge.”

After her first child was born, my sister once commented to me that, for her, the fact that our Mother had died relieved her of the conflict about exposing her child to an alcoholic grandmother.

There was no “sweet revenge” about it. Just the very sad realization that had she still been alive, she would have to prohibit her from visiting because her household was a non drinking, non smoking place. It would have been a very unfortunate scenario.

Revenge is not sweet. It’s bitter and destructive to one’s inner being as someone above has already mentioned.

Out of all my friends and acquaintances, I can honestly say that I don’t know of a single one of them who set up their household rules as a game of one-upmanship with their parents nor to exact any type of “revenge”. I just find that to be a really strange concept.

Did your mom ever wake up @Coloma?

GA @Buttonstc.
House rules are set for children who don’t know any better, not for grown ass adults who do, or should.

@Dutchess_III No, she died. haha I had made my peace.

That is just sad, sad sad sad, @Coloma. But I’m glad you made your peace.

My parents barely set foot in my house. They lived hundreds of miles away, only came to visit once or twice and during those times only stayed in the house for a couple of hours before we left to go somewhere or they retired to their hotel room.

My Dad and his wife were the same. They’d pay a token visit to me and my 3 kids (which included his only grandson,) but after a couple of hours would go to spend the whole weekend with my sister and her family. It was a money thing, I think. They had a huge house, lots of room. However, when my Mom came to visit, she always stayed with me. It was nice.