(no subject)

[conuly]

Dear Carolyn: What do you do if you don’t like your daughter-in-law? Mine is a self-absorbed slob. As an example, she once made a comment laughingly that she never dusts. Which is true. She never cleans. They live about a four-hour drive from me and I love my grandchildren, so I try to visit for the weekend maybe once every four or five weeks. They live in an apartment and they have bugs. Yuck.

And when I do visit, she never cooks, never even suggests what she might make for dinner. I spend a fortune on takeout or else take up all the food for us and do the cooking myself. I might even have a kinder attitude but she never even thanks me for anything.

One of the few positive things I can say is that my granddaughters and daughter love her. I love her for that reason, but I just don’t like her and I feel like not visiting but that would hurt the rest of the family. Can you say anything to get me through this for the rest of my life?

— Anonymous

Anonymous: She gets 12 words of warmth for her heart, and 170-ish words of savagery for her housekeeping. (They’re her bugs and dust, then, not your daughter’s?)

Until you’re willing to hear it, there’s nothing I can say.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/01/30/carolyn-hax-in-laws-wont-stop-hugging/

Comments

[cimorene]

Also if they both live there, they share the bugs regardless of gender! But also, even if her DIL is incredibly untidy and sucks at both cooking and cleaning, none of this is a remotely good reason to dislike her. Not saying thank you MIGHT be a valid factor, but given the rest of this story I'm thinking... not.