i really prefer them NOT staying with me, esp if it doesn't come from my side and its for a period of 4.5 months
survived the past 2.5 months with lots of quarrels and fights with my husband after his sister-in-law came to stay with us. when my dad got wind of it, he came over and had a casual talk with us over lunch about our family operates. everybody stays separately and thus happily. all his 3 sons (my half brothers) have been studying/working in singapore since young like me, but there is no such thing as staying with one another. everyone of us is different and occasionally everybody just comes out for dinner. even my dad's sister in uk and brother from aussie, when they come all the way here, they find their own accomodation arrangements and everybody may meet up, that's all
after getting over all the adjustments to my family life at home, of course i am still not accepting her, i had a good talk with her husband and my husband's mum. for the brother he is not too much older than us, he is able to understand that we deal with things differently. for the mum, she still felt that since she only has 2 sons, and one of the son's wife needs to come over to singapore to do something, definitely she must stay at our place, whether i like it or not. she said definitly ppl must make changes to living arrangement to accomodate family. but she is missing one thing here. i don't really feel like a family with this sister in law and she is just somehow related to me by marriage. she even wanted to bring her baby and my husband's parents over and occupy my whole house for me for half a year before i stopped her from bringing baby. the mum said, it is because she is understanding towards me who have piano exam, that is why she herself doesn't insist to bring baby over. i thanked her for her understanding and i told her my father's views. actually, if she were to do that, i think my father would willingly fight her for me. he is against other ppl bringing their baby to raise in my home.
anyway, now everybody agreed that if she has business here for more than 2 weeks, she will find her own means of accomodation outside my home next time. her husband said it won't happen again, i said, don't be too sure.
they gave us 2 months notice that they had plans to bring almost the whole family over to my house, and even felt shocked that i rejected the baby coming over. she came alone and i found our personalities totally clashing i really wanted to ask her to move out but my husband stopped me and quarreled with me over the grounds that he has very strong family values. fine!
anyway, after i finished with his family, i told him, next time his parents want to make me do something against my wishes, halfway around the world from china, i will make sure he gets it from my dad who are just one hour's drive away in malaysia. if it is parents issue, i won't face his mum, my dad will. so if it is small matter like some weird sister in law wants to give up her job and burn everybody's money to come here and study something for a few months, while bringing baby and parents over, i will never entertain again. and now that they know my views, they'd better not ask if they want my husband's family to be intact.
thing is, what i did is totally unacceptable in china. and what his sister-in-law intended to do in my home in the beginning, is something my frens and even piano teacher an old lady around 60 find unacceptable. especially my dad. but in china is perfectly alright. i told my husband's mum that if we are to have a family together, we need to give way, and not force our views on such things on each other. i will accept any parents coming over but not other extensions of the family without proper discussion. but from what i know, his parents don't like staying here for long term. and my mum loves to be a free spirit doing her own thing far far away from me. my dad has his own life too. so nobody is free to come and bother us. i just didn't expect the sister in law to be so free.
on a side note, my brother in law and his wife are considered quite highly educated and i have many frens with that level of education and capability who come over from china to settle down in singapore on their own means. what i am really afraid is that the sister-in-law, who has been telling everybody how nice it would be to bring her son over to singapore to live next time, will use my house as a base when she really comes over. even if she has a personality that i like, i won't accomodate, not to mention that our personalities totally clash. so this time, she is here purely on my husband's mum's insistence and my husband's values that have been passed down from his mum, ie. sister-in-law come here is like his mum coming here. i can't stop him from thinking like that, just like he can't stop me from disliking his sister-in-law. i do have a fren from china who was able to tell me exactly what my husband is thinking and what i did seems wrong to him. but i don't really care, since it's about having a home i like to live in for the rest of my life.
i have been living together with my husband for the past 9 years on and off, we have not come across any problem until this woman came along. i definitely treat her as an outsider but she treats herself as insider. this is totally ridiculous to me and even to one of my unmarried frens from china.
later she did realize her mistake in requesting for bringing baby and parents over, anyway it was her who brought the parents into the picture in the first place and i was glad the parents from the beginning expressed that they didn't really want to come over. guess they agreed because she asked nicely. but with me, no such thing. she also realized that i am not happy with her staying at my place, which could have been easily prevented if only my husband had not covered it all up and told her to come over all the same
to tell the truth, i also had no problems with her so far until she moved in, although i know our characters totally opposite. the reason i didn't want her to stay with me coz i know i won't be able to stand it for so long and fights would definitely break out sooner or later. if i meet her outside my home i'm naturally much nicer to her. i told my husband all this from the beginning, but ended up fighting with him as well. he didn't breathe a word of it to his family. he didn't understand so i let it happen. usually it's something to do with how she uses my kitchen... very small minor things that accumulate and build up. it is very inconvenient for me that there is some extra person staying here, but he simply doesn't understand coz he doesn't mind.
having a nice supportive family is no doubt a good thing, but i really would prefer the nice supportive family to be staying at different locations where u don't get into each other's way too much until it's no longer nice and becomes a burden.... there are many nice things that come out of my husband's family values, but this sister-in-law thing is not one of them. i know i don't like to be forced to do something just because the whole family thinks it's right. and i think nobody does, unless it's a habit from young, but somehow our education doesn't teach us that anymore. maybe, maybe not... and we can't really tell if it's a good or bad thing. to my husband, it's bad... to me, i prefer free and easy, not tied up to so many different kinds of relationships.
