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Voice your opinion in the comments if you can think of a way to salve questioneer Peter‘s festive pain:
How can I get out of spending Christmas with my in-laws? My horrible, small-minded, racist, bigoted, climate change denying, Daily Mail-reading, UKIP-voting in-laws.
Or should I just suck it up, try and remain polite and go along?
I and my wife both are Guardian- (and Independent- and BoingBoing-) reading lefty libertarians. I really am not looking forward to three days of my in-laws banging on about immigrants being to blame for everything, as well as the EU, and their trotting out the Daily Mail and Express as evidence that renewable energy doesn’t work and is all just a big con (I work designing wind farms and marine energy installations), even though it reduced Britain’s energy bills by 10% compared to gas last winter! How the recession was really caused by the Germans (not the British bankers) as a ruse to take over Europe again (because, you know, The War).
I’ve had ten of this shit! I despise them. I despise their circular thinking nonsensical irrational arguments, and I regret every moment I waste in their miserly company.
So should I break a leg? Emigrate to Germany or France? Crash the car into a tree so we cannot drive there?
Or should I just suck it up, try and remain polite and go along?
Or something else?
Peter, you’re acting like this torment is all negative, but it does fuel bitchery for you and your wife for a whole year. Perhaps you could intensify this by turning it into a satirical game: your challenge is to access your inner Chris Morris and see just how ridiculous a point of view you can get them to agree with. Brush up on Brass Eye for ideas.
Or take the easy way out and just piss off abroad till January.
(If you can’t afford to go abroad, just tell them you’ve gone abroad and don’t answer the phone or doorbell.)
Answer Me This! Podcast 
December 18, 2014 at 4:25 pm |
Two options:
One – like Mary said. MTFU and tell them you’re not coming as you would rather spend this special time with someone that likes you, and you don’t want to spoil their Christmas with your toxic lefty views. It might feel horrid at first, but you’ll never regret it.
Two – if you have to go then MTFU and argue with them. You’re grown ups with opinions. Engage them and don’t suffer fools gladly. Don’t do the ‘turn the other cheek’ thing, kick back. Them: “It’s all the fault of immigrant.” You: “You don’t really think that do you? Only an ignorant person could come to that conclusion.” or a bit softer “I don’t buy that, is there anything to back up that theory outside the Daily Express?”. You might find they begin to back down a bit. Don’t forget, they are the fading generation, and your generation is the grown-up one.
December 16, 2014 at 9:20 am |
It sounds like they are intentionally having a go at you (any polite person would keep their views on negative renewable energy to themselves after raising it once). I imagine they believe you think you are better then them. They probably secretly have a massive inferiority complex. I’m willing to bet that you are better educated than them, which they resent. You say your wife is similar to you, so in their eyes she has changed from how they brought her up, and you are probably seen as being to blame – whether that’s true or not. So they resent you, and the only joy they get when you visit is pushing their views on you to try and prove to themselves that you are not better than them.
This must be obvious to your wife. Can she not be persuaded to limit the visit to one night? And if she’ll agree to that, meet her half way by being polite to the vile trolls. Just force the conversation to something else – “The Germans are responsible for the banking crash? That’s interesting, did you see the poppy display at the tower of London?” “Gay people cause floods? That’s interesting, did you hear about the drought they have been having in California?”
December 16, 2014 at 6:57 am |
How do they feel about you? Sounds to me as though they are sending you, the self-confessed leftie, up 😉
December 15, 2014 at 8:03 pm |
How does your wife feel about this? If you are both in agreement, maybe it’s worth telling them that you won’t be joining them, and why. If you despise them so thoroughly, it’s not as if you’d be losing a valuable relationship, and you never know, the two of you telling them what’s up might be what it takes for them to think twice about their attitudes.
If your wife doesn’t want to risk her relationship with her parents this way, then phone on the day you’re meant to set off and tell them you’ve both got raging diarrhoea and can’t spend more than 10 minutes away from the toilet. And you wouldn’t want to take your bug to them. So you won’t make it. Boom.