I have in-laws.
There are many things I do not understand about the in-laws.
One thing is that they feel an absolute NEED to do everthing in one big group.
For instance, one of them is very down and weak right now and in the hospital.
So over the weekend, those who live near gathered at one of their houses. Instead of organizing visits all twelve of them marched on the hospital at one time and visited the sick person as a group in the room. Stayed two hours and left and all went out to eat and then all went back to the person's house.
One of them told me that the patient being visited was overwhelmed and said very little. I am surprised the hospital didn't say something but apparently they didn't.
This happened one time when we visited one of them who had just had major surgery. We flew in, went to our hotel room, changed clothes and then went to the hospital. Made the mistake of calling one of the other people first. They dropped everything they were doing to race to the hospital so we could all be a BIG group visiting a person in the after surgery care ward! Of course the person then too got overwhelmed and tired.
Because when they do things in a group, no one can visit one on one, everyone speaks at once, they tell the same repetitive storys as a group and people start shouting over each other to be heard and it is a like whoever can shout over the next person loudest dominates the conversation and generally that's the same two people and other people end up just listening.
Everything is done like this. In order to even get a private visit with one or two of them to have a more get to know you conversation you have to do it incognitio because if the others find out you're coming, they'll break their legs to get there and make another group situation. If they find out later about any one on one visits they get HURT and OFFENDED.
This is totally foriegn to me!
In my family we do things some times as group and sometimes one on one. So we see the different sides of the people, their group persona, their cozy get together persona and then their one on one persona. But with husband's family it always, always has to be the group.
So share similar stories or explain the behavior to me.
EDIT: This is not a Fe/Fi thing. They run the gamut personality type, some TJ, FJ, FP. Only my husband, my niece-in-law and myself have ever expressed any negative opinion about the group thing. Everyone else loves it and they love to express loud joy over how they do everything in a group, they have slogan like sayings and they often do refer themselves as "we" or "us" like they are a borg.
There are many things I do not understand about the in-laws.
One thing is that they feel an absolute NEED to do everthing in one big group.
For instance, one of them is very down and weak right now and in the hospital.
So over the weekend, those who live near gathered at one of their houses. Instead of organizing visits all twelve of them marched on the hospital at one time and visited the sick person as a group in the room. Stayed two hours and left and all went out to eat and then all went back to the person's house.
One of them told me that the patient being visited was overwhelmed and said very little. I am surprised the hospital didn't say something but apparently they didn't.
This happened one time when we visited one of them who had just had major surgery. We flew in, went to our hotel room, changed clothes and then went to the hospital. Made the mistake of calling one of the other people first. They dropped everything they were doing to race to the hospital so we could all be a BIG group visiting a person in the after surgery care ward! Of course the person then too got overwhelmed and tired.
Because when they do things in a group, no one can visit one on one, everyone speaks at once, they tell the same repetitive storys as a group and people start shouting over each other to be heard and it is a like whoever can shout over the next person loudest dominates the conversation and generally that's the same two people and other people end up just listening.
Everything is done like this. In order to even get a private visit with one or two of them to have a more get to know you conversation you have to do it incognitio because if the others find out you're coming, they'll break their legs to get there and make another group situation. If they find out later about any one on one visits they get HURT and OFFENDED.
This is totally foriegn to me!
In my family we do things some times as group and sometimes one on one. So we see the different sides of the people, their group persona, their cozy get together persona and then their one on one persona. But with husband's family it always, always has to be the group.
So share similar stories or explain the behavior to me.
EDIT: This is not a Fe/Fi thing. They run the gamut personality type, some TJ, FJ, FP. Only my husband, my niece-in-law and myself have ever expressed any negative opinion about the group thing. Everyone else loves it and they love to express loud joy over how they do everything in a group, they have slogan like sayings and they often do refer themselves as "we" or "us" like they are a borg.