Do you remember the first time you met your future in-laws?

My boyfriend took me back to his home when we had been going out for a while.

It was evening, they lived in an old farmhouse.

We went in, his parents were sitting either side of a huge old fashioned black lead fireplace, reading the paper.

He never introduced me, the parents just stared at me over the
tops of their spectacles.

After a few minutes, his mother offered to make me a cup of tea, and we chatted a bit.

Not the best start, but I went on to marry said boyfriend.

51 years later, still together, the in-laws long deceased, but we did get chattier as time went by!

I met my future in-laws some time before I got to know my DH as I was good friends with his sister, so they knew me before we became an item, so you could say we were all pretty relaxed. 😁

That's funny Calendargirl!
I have just heard from a df who is in her 80s. She said it was her DGM on being told she was seeing this young man asked if they had a carriage drive!
they didn't but she and her DH were happily married for over 50 years.

DH was studying in London and came from Staffordshire. A group of us were driving up to the Lake District and we stopped off at his parent’s house. His mother, who was disabled, gave us lunch. She didn’t realise at the time that I was going to become a member of her family.

My in laws were extremely eccentric. When I met MIL she kept saying "OH never told us beautiful you are .... wow!" .... it got embarrassing.....

A bit like Calendargirl

He was reading the newspaper.
She was knitting.

Both were trying to look nonchalent!

I heard this story on the radio some time ago about meeting inlaws for first time.

Guy goes to future inlaws. First impression, posh house, posh people, maybe I’m punching.

They all sit in huge lounge overlooking manicured lawn. He needs the loo and is shown upstairs. Large poo won’t flush away and he is too embarrassed to leave it. Fishes it out with toilet paper and thinks he will drop it out of top section of frosted window and hopes it will fall in flowerbed so he can retrieve and dispose of it as he leaves. He doesn’t know layout of house but remembers walking up drive with large flowerbeds.
Goes downstairs and they are all staring at a very large 💩 on the lawn. 🤣🤣

My in-laws lived abroad and we were already “living in sin” when I met them. They didn’t approve and I think they thought I’d led their son astray!

Nightmare scenario Primrose I trust your first meeting wasn't so embarrassing

Before I met her, I received a letter from his DGM when she heard we had decided to marry.
She said I must be a lovely girl if her darling grandson had chosen me.
She and I always got on very well.

I went for tea, and my dear future mother-in-law asked me if I liked scallops. Oh yes, I said enthusiastically, I love all seafood. DMIL, bless her, did her best but couldn’t stop giggling.

And that’s how I learnt that round these parts, scallops are potato slices, battered and deep fried.

I`d been going out with my boyfriend for 3 weeks when he asked me to go to tea on the Sunday. When I arrived, he took me straight into the front room, explaining that his parents and eldest brother were out back putting in a new window.
After a couple of hours, he went to see if the tea was ready, came back to say it had been on the table for ages, so we had cold chips and peas for tea!
Whilst we were eating, his dad came through, David said "Dad, this is Lois", dad said "Howdo" and carried on his way. Next his mother came through, same scenario, same reaction. Then his brother came through, I was introduced again, once more it was "Howdo".
We were married a few months later, and we all ended up loving each other dearly.

She went into the loo to check I'd put the seat down ...... I didn't pass that test.

It was a sexy Ava Gardiner meeting a shy teenager with long blond hair and no tights trying to look like Jean Shrimpton. Battle lines were drawn at the first meeting. I had no intention of marrying him and I don't think he did either.
7 years later I did with the permission of FIL as I shut up during the Rugby and we shared the same banana skin humour.
My dear father when asked said he didn't care if I married a Gypsy in a caravan as long as I was happy.

I knew my DFIL before I knew my DH, so it was easy. MIL wasn't such a pushover!
I grew to love my FIL like a father and he always treated me equally with his own daughters.

We'd only been on 3 dates when he took me home to meet his folks.His mum was standing at the sink washing pots and he introduced her as his granny ! She was 39 and not amused but she was lovely .We were married just under a year later and she was a granny when she was 42,she really wasn't amused when we told her but she adored our daughter all her life.She is very sadly missed since she died almost 2 years ago.That daughter is 45 now and they were very close ,spoke every day and Gran stayed with them often

Was after a 30 hour plane flight to Auckland. And we had two children with us.
In the winter of discontent so we left behind a struggling England and arrived in glorious sunshine.
They were wonderful to us.
I cried when we left because I knew we would not see them again.

My first meeting with my boyfriends parents was awful he's parents hated me on sight. Don't think they thought we would marry. I hated both my in laws from 1975 until his mom's death in 2015 aged 91: My father in law died in 1988 aged 70.

They never gave my husband any love or attention. They looked after him but never gave him what he needed . But my extended family did. He knew what a real family was. His parents had money when his dad died he had 2 pairs of brass cufflinks and his dad's car registration plate.

My father in law told me to my face I defective. I was born disabled but didn't get my diagnosis until last year as it's rare but has effected me since birth. I am now 65.

After we married we went every Sunday and if he parents kicked off . We would walk out and go to my parents who only lived a few streets away. But went back the next Sunday. My husband would never give up on his parents as he loved them but didn't like them.

My husband died in 2004 aged 47. When we told his mom he was terminal she just said oh. She outlived her son by 11 years but because of him and she was out children's nan I went every week and was her emergency contact. She told everyone she had no son or grandchildren. I hated her but it was me who sat by her bedside 15 hours a day for 2 days while she died. A nurse said you must love her but told her I hated her . But I did it because she was my husband's mom and our children's nan. Her brother and sister in law turned up when she had died.

But our children never gave up on their nan even though she treated them like crap. She refused to go too both their weddings. But went to her nephews.

That's the type of woman she was . But I was brought will little money but rich in love and attention. My husband had the parents and family he needed with mine. He was loved . I looked after his mom because of my love for him. If she had been on fire I would have gladly let her burn..
Sounds awful I know but that's how they treated us .

When I met mine I was offered a cup of tea, which I don't like, but was too shy to refuse. I then managed to choke on it resulting in loud burps and throwing it up all over the posh tea table!

We travelled down to Wales to meet DH’s parents. His sister, who, like us, in London at the time, had already given me the heads up about them. They were pleasant but once we’d been introduced his mother seemed to talk about nothing other than the girl she actually had in mind for him who was the daughter of a family friend. I didn’t fit the bill in any respect. We went, in the evening, to a local working men’s club and I compounded all his mothers misgivings about me when I refused to play bingo! It never really got any better. We tolerated each other.

I was lucky wasn't I! Poor whiff.

My own DP met in London before the 2nd world war. His family were NZ Scots Presbyterian sheep farmers, Hers Irish Catholic and mixed race Asian living in Burma.

He must have told his parents in letters that he was keen on this girl as I still have a letter to him from his mother kept by mine full of hatred for Catholics and begging him to drop her and return home to his loving family.

They married regardless and remained in England for 11 years but waited until after the war before starting a family.

When my DS and I were small we went to NZ to live. His dad had died.
My DM never got on well with her MiL but they tolerated eachother.

I loved my NZ gran and never understood why there was no love lost between the 2 women in dad's life.

After his early death, mum brought us to England and much later couldn't understand why my DSon had decided to emigrate there.

Yes, I met her alone and she was lovely and we have always got on. I miss her terribly

Our courtship was short, six weeks after six years of friendship, so DH's psrents barely knew he had a girlfriend!

We drove down from London, 2 hours away, me wearing my best dress and coat. It was summer it was cream linen and as we stopped to buy papers, I kept them on my lap and the ink rubbed off them onto my coat, so we arrived at the house with me beautifully dressed in linen 2 piece witha great inky mark all over my coat.

The first thing my future Mil did was whisk my coat away to put it in the washing machine! I was on tenterhooks all day waiting for DH to tell his parents we were engaged, he didn't do it until just before we left to go bck to London, I have never worked out why. My MiL's reaction was: 'Yes, I have realised that since you came in the door.'

The way she just whisked my coat away and dealt with everything was completely at one with who she was. i could not have had a better MiL

When we were still students, we’d gone for a weekend to London from our Yorkshire uni, and dh thought it OK to turn up at his folks’ house, expecting beds for the night.

I gathered that my future MiL was a wee bit dubious about me, but was polite enough (in her decidedly cut-glass voice) and I was given an old army camp bed in the sitting room.

At least (AFAIK) she didn’t refer to me the dismissive way my mother’s MiL evidently did at first - ‘Some blonde…’

It was over 5 years before we finally got married, and I always got on well with my lovely MiL, who died too young. Having only 4 boys I think she was very grateful for anyone who would take the slightest interest in e.g. her new kitchen curtains.

TBH I don’t remember FiL from that first meeting at all - only his much younger brother, who was dying to ‘play fight’ with him.