Visitors, Still!

A while back my lovely wife wrote about our visitors. Well we still have one, my father-in-law. He has be very unwell and while not in hospital he has been at out place for nearly 2 months now.

This has been very hard on us, we have never really had a close relationship with him, and my wife ran away (back to her mum) from his household when she was 15 or so. He has very different values from us but in respect for his ailing health we have been reluctant to confront him with the issues we have with him.

We have been married nearly 17 years and have gone through some tough times. We get through these by putting the other one and our relationship first. First above everything else.

We have “ticked off” other family members at times as we set rules of acceptable behaviour in our household and around our kids. This includes (what is considered normal now) no smoking in the house, we decide what the kids can and cannot eat when we are providing the meals (if the relation is providing food or our child is at their house then our kids will eat what is provided). We have always made it clear they are welcome in our lives if they have respect for us as people and parents.

As yet we have not had this conversation with my father in law because, up til now, the longest we have seen him is one to two days. I am sure our conversation will occur soon, probably the next time he says “slope head” in our local shops.