Woman admits; 'I don't want to visit my husband's extended family.' AITA?

"AITAH for not visiting my husbands extended family?"

I've been married for 1 year and moved in with my in laws, happily and by choice about 2 months ago. My in laws are about 4 hours away from where my family lives. I am not a very social person generally.

I don't like big family gatherings or parties and I really do not like just 'popping over' in the evenings. My husband likes to visit his extended family every weekend 4/5x over the weekend as they are very close.

I go maybe 1x out of the 4 or 5 times he visits them each weekend. I absolutely hate it when his family pops over in the evenings after work when I'm all tuckered out and have no social battery left, but I firm it and put on a happy face and socialise. However, my husband has started to say that I hate his family because I don't like socialising with them.

I've explained to him that I don't even socialise with my own extended family as much as he does and I like my own quiet time. He wants me to start visiting his family more. I said I couldn't compromise on it because I was already pushing myself to the limit of what I can tolerate and he is now upset with me.

It's not like he didn't know I wasn't exactly an extrovert before he met me and married me, so I don't know what the shock and surprise is about me saying I won't compromise on it to protect my own mental health and energy.

Let's see what readers had to say:

kharmai7 writes:

Sometimes guys are super weird about the social pressures put on them by their families, and don't know how to navigate it.

I honestly dealt with a lot of the same stuff with my husband, my family are very disparate, very broken, and we all enjoy our space from one another, even if we love each other. Meanwhile his family regularly will just........pop in. It's horrifying. So I feel your side of things from a different space.

The other thing I'd suggest, is maybe trying to forge your own, proactive relationships with his family. This is what I had to do.

What I mean is like, say he has an aunt that you get along with when you talk to her about knitting. Instead of waiting for him to drag you over to her house where you'll have to find a way to bring up knitting so that you have something to do for that hour, invite her to a local knitting circle once a month.

Invite her to your house to knit and watch a show. Engage with her, proactively, when YOU have energy, not when your husband does.

I found that if I'm proactive about engaging with my husband's family, it makes it so I actually am able to dip out with less drama when there is an event I don't have the energy for, because I have made a good faith effort when I did have energy, and also, I enjoy the time more because I'm picking what we do.

The best case scenario here with them having said something, is that they all really like you and miss you when you're not around, so if you can find a way to get ahead of that, it will preempt those comments.

rositat writes:

Being that you do live with your in-laws you are socializing with part of the family right? Your husband wants you to get to know the rest of his family to establish a good relationship with them too.

Do they treat you bad? Not welcoming? You don’t have to socialize with them constantly but some effort should be made to get to know them instead of your husband going alone all the time.

oplity writes:

He doesn’t always go alone—I do join him once or twice over the weekend. However, he’d like me to come along every time he visits them, which can be 4 or 5 visits per weekend. While I think that’s a bit much, I don’t mind at all if he wants to go on his own.

His family is warm and welcoming, but they’re quite different from me and my family. They’re lively, very talkative, and love to joke around, which is great if you’re naturally like that.

For me, I’m a bit quieter—I tend to only speak when I feel I have something meaningful to add to the conversation. I struggle with small talk, so sometimes they’ll ask, “Why don’t you join in?” or “Why don’t you talk more?” even though I am participating in my own way. It’s just not as loud or outgoing as everyone else.