Why are my inlaws trying to kill me?~?

How long are they staying?
I generally force my bf to handle situations involving his parents and when problems with mine come up I deal with them, it just minimizes any risk of hurt feelings, miscommunication &/or resentment.. Maybe your husband (alone) needs to be the one to put his foot down and explain the situation to them?

They could be here a long time. They are looking for a rental now to move into, but even if they found one tomorrow the start date would likely be a month from now. My husband thinks they should stay in our house longer and save some money. I don’t mind them staying, except for this food situation.

My husband has told them to stop multiple times. Now, I have done it too. They just don’t get it. We say don’t buy donuts they buy cookies. Then I’m with my MIL and she picks up some of my husband’s favorite cookies to buy again, and I tell her don’t buy them. The next day she comes home with other cookies, and when my husband says he doesn’t like them very much she says, “I wanted to buy the other ones but JL said no.” So then we realize they are being literal; donuts, those specific cookies, etc; so we tell them just no junk food period. Still hasn’t worked, and my husband’s weakness is sweets. He has no control. I have said to them, “you are trying to kill me,” I don’t know what they are thinking.

Be blunt throw it in the trash in front of them and tell them again it is bad for your heart.

The why they keep bringing “bad” food? They are trying to nurture you and their son with “treats” !

Realize they are actually trying to be nice.
You have already stated your preference numerous times so you need to step up the message. As painful and cruel as it sounds you have to throw the food out in front of them. Saying “I can not have this in my house. It makes me sick and is not good for DH. For us this is worse than smoking.” If you want to back it up with cholesterol or blood sugar data you can.
Offer an alternative.
“If you want to bring something for us to eat, bring XYZ or ABC. That is great for us.”

I think it is their way of showing their appreciation for being able to stay in your home. Not everyone is happy to have their in laws stay for an extended period. You could thank them for the chocolate and say it is a pity you can’t eat it and you would personally prefer some fruit instead.

They are trying to show their LOVE for you & your husband. Yes, it is NOT in a healthy way; but it may be the only way they know how to show it. In my family, feeding the younger generation shows that they are loved. Although I miss them dearly, my health has gotten better since most of them passed.

Instead of bagging & putting their goodies out of your sight (you know it’s still there), why not toss it in the trash so it is NO longer a temptation? Now that I live alone, I have stopped buying unhealthy treats so even when I get the urge, it’s NOT available when I’m at my weakest & I’m too lazy to go to the store to buy some!!!

A lot of people simply don’t understand what healthy food is. I have a friend who has all sorts of health problems (pre-diabetes, high cholesterol, overactive thyroid, obesity) but she has no concept of healthy eating. She mostly eats fried food (and gladly pointed out to me that she was ordering fried chicken, because chicken is healthy) and she advised her sister, who also has similar problems to order a salad, which they shared, but they added a heap of blue cheese dressing, and then sprinkled salt on both the salad and the fried chicken.

My friends are the nicest people, but they simply have no knoweledge of nutrition. It makes me sad, but it’s not my place to “school” them, and subtle hints don’t work. They are fearful of my “weird vegetarian” foods, so they never want to try any of it.

Not sure what the solution is, except to be kind and grateful, and use every ounce of your willpower.

It might be helpful to have your husband gently explain why you can’t eat certain foods, with a written explanation from your doctor (or something similar from WebMD or the Mayo Clinic) with a list of foods that are OK, and a list of foods that are forbidden. At least in this case, they know, but you are not actually “confronting” them. Make sure that list is taped to the fridge and pantry.

If that doesn’t work, then you can get a little bit more aggressive, by telling them that you will have to throw away the items, or that they can keep a box of these off limit foods in their own room, but they need to be consumed there too.

Just make sure you let them know how much you appreciate them. They just don’t know.

From their perspective, you said not to bring donuts. They took that literally, and brought cookies, not realizing that one is as bad as the other. You need to make a long list of good and banned foods.

I hope it works out without too many hurt feelings : )

My brother has several health problems. He won’t eat at my house because I cook mashed potatoes with every meal & he says it is unhealthy for him to eat them. I cook other veggies when having company so the potatoes aren’t his only option. Then I go to his house to eat & he has broccoli which is healthy but he dumps a full 16 ounce bag of cheese on top of it & pigs out. Maybe I’m wrong but a ½ cup of potatoes isn’t as bad as 2 cups of cheese. Then he got insulted when I tried to explain that he could lose the 20 pounds his doctor is recommending IF he’d cut out the cheese for a month or so.

If your inlaws are trying to kill you, they are outlaws. (Isn’t that what inlaws do??)

@kritiper I have had both good & bad inlaws. The good were as good as the bad were bad!!! Amazingly, the good inlaws belonged to the good husband & the bad inlaws belonged to the horrible husband. I suggest to my younger friends that IF they don’t have a good relationship with their prospective inlaws that they move on because the spouse temperament correlates with the inlaws IMO

@LadyMarissa sounds like your brother is pre-diabetic and can’t have starch or sugar. No carbs in cheese or broccoli and diabetics can’t tolerate high carbs like mashed potatoes.

I know they are trying to show their love, but get this…

At their house they always have a ton of candy out in candy dishes. Well, this is my house and we don’t. They are welcome to bring in whatever food they want for themselves, my MIL likes to cook, so she is welcome to use my kitchen like it’s hers, I don’t mind her stuff in my house and kitchen, I don’t have any type of OCD about what is where in the pantry or fridge, etc, but don’t turn my end tables into the Willy Wonka factory. Lol. We all eat quite a bit of the same foods, so it’s not that there is completely different sets of food for everyone.

Yesterday, I noticed two more packages of prosciutto. I don’t eat it, but my husband likes it. He ate some of it from the first package they bought. I’m pretty sure it’s fairly high in fat. Now, they keep buying a ton of it for him. We have told them over and over, just because we eat something don’t buy it AGAIN for us. For them, fine, like I said, they should buy whatever they want for themselves, but we don’t drink orange juice every day, or eat prosciutto every day, or eat watermelon every day. We don’t always have the same bread in the house. One week rye, one week multi-grain, one week white, but they obsessively buy the same thing over and over for us once they see we eat something.

Let’s just say it’s a pattern.

I guess if I threw it out it would maybe finally stop the behavior, but I’m going with putting the chocolates in the pantry for now. I might eat one a week, we’ll see. For now I haven’t been eating any. Probably, to drive my point home I shouldn’t eat any.

@LadyMarissa I can understand your frustration.

One explanation might be that your brother knows he cheats on a healthy diet, but only wants to cheat when it’s something he loves. What I mean is, if I cheat I might cheat with pizza, I don’t want it to be mashed potatoes with cream or a load of butter. Mind you, I eat mashed potatoes sometimes, but I use very little fat and cholesterol in mine. I have no idea what you put in your mashed potatoes. I also don’t want to eat a bunch of cookies if I eat badly, I’d rather it be linguine with meat sauce. Plus, I don’t want to eat badly daily, I control it to a minimum. At home I’ve been trying to be very close to vegan, well actually I do have some skim milk and egg whites, so not vegan, but extremely low cholesterol diet, and lowish fat.

Another explanation might be your brother is convinced carbs are bad, and possibly he’s totally wrong, but that’s what he believes. If he’s diabetic he might be right.

Are they overweight by any chance? Maybe they’re like people who drink….they want everyone around them indulging too.

You asked without being a bitch.
Why?
The level of rudeness required to completely ignore the necessary dietary requirements for you to stay alive needs not be meet with subtlety. Tell them the garbage must go, and if they cannot separate themselves from it, then they should leave with it.
If they are poor guests, maybe they shouldn’t be guests at all.

@Dutchess_III My MIL is overweight, my FIL is thin, and he has tremendous will power when it comes to food. He also uses food to torture his wife. He’ll not eat to cause her to worry. Total power play.

Actually, I see with my husband and his sister that they don’t perceive accurately when they are hungry, so maybe they and their father actually have something in their brain that doesn’t register hunger correctly.

My FIL does the same to his wife bringing her crap food when he knows she is trying to diet.

@Patty_Melt that’s not an option, I’m not going to ask them to leave.

I really think the passive aggressive is worth a try. It’s their language. I’ll let you all know how it goes.

I would do as @LuckyGuy suggested except for I would bring the food over to my neighbors or take it to work and share with those who would have no problem with these foods. I would let them know that you that you can’t have it, so rather then throw it out you will give it to other people. Then suggest some healthy snacks they may buy instead that maybe they can eat as well. They may just want to sweeten the deal of them staying but eventually they will get tired of wasting money on feeding strangers.
I know what you mean. I went through the same thing with my in laws but since they had a short stay with us and we had to drive them around, I would take them to the store and would get loud in the store about all their purchases. I would speak loudly, and say, Why are you wasting money on that crap that no one will eat and go in the trash?They don’t like scenes so they quickly bought what they wanted and stop buy crap they don’t even eat.

^^ Some great ideas, but I just can’t get over the rudeness.

@JLeslie, there’s a pretty big clue here:

> My MIL is overweight, my FIL is thin, and he has tremendous will power when it comes to food. He also uses food to torture his wife. He’ll not eat to cause her to worry. Total power play.

There’s something really off about this.

Just for the sake of argument, let’s consider for a moment if it might not be about love and kindness but about power and control. You mentioned power twice in that comment. Maybe you already have this idea, but let’s look at it anyway.

Is there a possibility that they they feel like they’re in a one-down relation to you while in your house—and this is their way of trying to one-up you? Or are they by any chance competing with you for your husband’s attention or for control of his diet? Do they have something to gain by sabotaging you?—anything, no matter how warped? If they can make you lose your temper, what do they win?

And is it really both of them, or is it just her? Is it an extension of her ongoing war with her husband (which I infer from the line I quoted)? How about an ongoing war with her own eating habits and (again) wanting to bring you down a little? If you break your diet, does she win?

When they see you eat some particular thing, you’re showing them one thing that you will accept, so it’s a sure bet—compared with a random wrong guess.

What else is going on there at your house that mirrors this dynamic? I’ll bet there’s something.

Could it be a culture clash?

No need to go defending them here. I’m not attacking. I don’t know them at all. I’m only asking—just on the chance that it’s not benign, what might this actually be about?

@Jeruba It’s the same problem when we stay with them if that makes a difference. We stayed with them two years ago for a few months, and they kept bringing in and making food that would be seen by me as treats for once in a great while, not for daily consumption.

This would not be the first time my MIL does to others as she has complained others have done to her. There is tremendous hypocrisy, and a lack of self awareness in the family.

A recent example, which is sort of related, she had been complaining that many Americans call everyone from south of the border “Mexican” when many of them are not Mexican. She’s Mexican, and especially in the climate of Trump this bothers her. Last week my inlaws went with me to folk dancing class, and a Korean woman in my class went up to them and said hello, and introduced herself in her extremely broken English. When my inlaws told me about it my MIL kept telling me the Chinese girl…I told her she’s from Korea, and my FIL chimed in that the woman had said she was from Korea. My MIL continued to do it over and over during this conversation even having been corrected a couple of times; she kept calling the woman Chinese. Eventually, I said, “calling her Chinese is the same as people calling Nicaraguans Mexican.” She actually acknowledged that what I said made sense. It’s hard for me to control myself when I see blatant hypocrisy, although usually I do stifle.

As far as culture and power and being parents, they do have a thing about wanting to be the ones that can give rather than receive. I think a lot of parents don’t want their kids to support them or pay for them even on little things. It’s not only with their children, his dad wants to be the one to pick up the check at a restaurant no matter who is in attendance. Money has always been their way of trying to have the upper hand. Even buying chocolate is part of this in my opinion. For sure they do not consciously see it that way. It’s mixed with the very nice desire of wanting to nurture and give, but it’s tainted.

I don’t want to make it a power struggle. I need to come up with something they can do that they’ll feel good about maybe. I wonder if that would work?

I also would have a little of the problem I suggested in my response to @LadyMarissa. I am not perfect about what I eat. Yesterday, I was great all day, but then a friend brought over leftover lasagna. I had a small piece as a cheat. My inlaws I’m sure would focus on this sort of thing, but if my inlaws brought in something “bad” once a month, I would not have a problem with it, it’s this daily bombardment. Plus, the lasagna is a help that no one had to cook dinner, it was for everyone, and I see it as different than a bag of chocolates anyway, even if cheese, meat and egg is on my keep to a minimum list. My dinner was mostly a huge salad.

There is definitely all sorts of psychological analysis to be had with the situation.

They also in many ways are good inlaws, so harping on the things that bother me is a very one sided picture that is only part of the picture.

How about you say “No, thank you very much.”?

@rebbel We say, “nooo, we asked you not to bring in sweets and desserts.”

Maybe adding the thank you would be better? You might be right.

Actually, now we have basically said don’t buy us any food. If they go to the market and ask if we want anything, I might do a few things to their list, but I don’t want them guessing what to buy for us.

OMG! My inlaws just came home from being out all morning. They had done some food shopping. I was on the phone with my dad when they came in and didn’t see what they had purchased.

My husband left the house while I was talking to my dad.

I just saw there is whole milk in the fridge. I texted my husband saying they bought whole milk and wondered if his mom was planing on making rice pudding again? My husband just finished the other batch this morning. A huge batch of it. She uses a pound of rice to make it. He wrote back he already told her not to make it, I guess he saw the ingredients as she unpacked the grocery bags.

It doesn’t look like they bought anything for me, so maybe they are finally getting the hint regarding my situation. We’ll see.

Wait.
You said they like to be the ones doing the giving.
There you go. Drop not at all subtle hints. Don’t flat out tell them. No. People like that need to believe it was their own idea.
Example :
When they are within earshot, to your husband, “Honey, since my diet has changed, and I gave up blah blah, I have discovered I really love somethingy. I am surprised at how good that tastes to me now.”

^^Yeah, I was thinking I need to come up with things that they will think is their idea to “treat” me with. I think you are on target really.

I just had a conversation with my MIL, I said nothing about anything related to this, she asked me to read the direction on a hair styling product, and she starts telling me out of the blue that her husband wanted to buy the rice pudding ingredients for himself. I quickly said, oh, if it’s for him then go ahead and make it, I’ll tell your son. Then I said, “is it for your husband, or is he doing it for his son?” She said she didn’t know, and then launched into all the things he does regarding mind games and food.

Still, I think it’s both of them not just him.

One sort of tricky thing is I can’t talk to my husband about a food in front of them so they purposely overhear and guarantee they’ll listen to it. I speak to my husband in English, and they don’t understand English very well. I could throw in a “I like this very much” in Spanish, but we never have a conversation in Spanish when it’s just us.

I have always thought people who used food as some sort of power play were odd. My husband used to kind of be that way, so I just quit eating anything he cooked.

^^It’s odd to me to. My family doesn’t do anything like this regarding food. If anything, my mom makes a comment when I’m eating a lot of bad food. That’s now, that I’m an adult, and I’ve gained some weight, and our bad genes are becoming impossible to ignore. Growing up food was a non issue.

Same here. Eat, don’t eat, starve, don’t care! We didn’t have junk food in the house…..we had Hostess Ding Dongs, which we would eat after school while watching Gilligan’s Island, but that’s it. No chips, nothing like that.

^^ I remember eating Doritos and watching Popeye after school : )

I didn’t read all of the answers above so I apologize if someone already suggested this but, have you considered “suddenly developing” a deadly food allergy?
It could happen so technically you wouldn’t be lying per say…....lol.

My brother suddenly developed a deadly food allergy & then he forgot what he had told me & served the same food to me when he had me over for dinner. I waited until after he finished a HUGE helping to ask how he had cured his allergy. After sputtering around for a while, he finally admitted that he had lied. Our Mother had taught both of us IF you don’t tell the first lie, you won’t NEED to remember that you told it & the 2nd lied will be TOTALLY UNNECESSARY!!!

@LadyMarissa Was there a reason for him to lie?

Only one he admitted to was that he wasn’t in the mood to eat it when was coming to dinner at my house; so, he came up with a good reason for me to not serve it.

^^^^ Oh brother.

I prefer the truth to making up an allergy. The truth is my cholesterol is crazy high, my BP is high half the time, I have damage to two heart valves, my A1C is normal, but close to being high. My family gets heart disease very young on both sides of my family. Why is that not basically the same as having a deadly food allergy? Fat laden foods are deadly for me!

Meanwhile, a close friend of mine who is quick to criticize my inlaws when I vent to her just told me about how she lectures her adult son about how fat he is. Tells him he’s a dad now (9 month son) and he should lose weight as a responsibility to his son. She tells me how his wife cooks garbage. A day later she tells me how excited she is that she found black and white cookies in the supermarket and bought a package for her other son who is coming to visit. She tells me, “I hope he doesn’t get mad, he told me not to make him any desserts, because he’s trying to lose weight.” I told her, “that’s the same thing my inlaws do to me.” She then made some excuses, and said he can not eat them if he doesn’t want to. I said, “your buying a cookie you know he loves, a weakness for him.” She something else, and I said, “he only sees you once every few months, it’s not a big deal, it’s not like my inlaws buying cookies and donuts daily.” I thought I had to release her, so I did.

I had told her when she talked about her older son being fat, that it can’t just be what his wife is cooking, he’s too big to blame her solely, he must eat a very large quantity of food. That he probably associates food with love, because she, my friend, is big into cooking, and a lot is centered around food in the family. She completely dismissed that idea as having any validity.

I also think it’s horrible that she constantly tells her son he’s fat.