Photo is unrelated to the article. [Getty Images Bank]
Photo is unrelated to the article. [Getty Images Bank]

A story about a daughter-in-law who asked her in-laws to stay at a hotel rather than at the couple's home when they traveled from out of town to see their 50-day-old grandchild has sparked a heated debate online.

The story was posted recently on Blind, an anonymous online community for office workers, under the title "The relationship between my wife and my parents."

The author, identified only as A, wrote that his wife finds his parents difficult to be around — or more precisely, uncomfortable.

A explained that he is from the Gyeongsang region while his wife is from Seoul, where her own parents live just a 10-minute walk away. His parents, by contrast, live about five hours away by car. "We've been married for six years, and my parents have visited our home twice," he wrote.

According to the post, the couple recently had a child. His wife's parents visited her at the maternity hospital and came to the couple's home after she was discharged to see the baby, who was about 50 days old at the time.

When A's parents said they wanted to come up from the Gyeongsang region to see their grandchild, his wife told him she would prefer they stay at a nearby hotel. "The baby was just born, and I'm particular about hygiene," she said.

After A relayed his wife's request, his mother stopped answering calls for a while before reaching out again in the evening in tears. She told him she would not make the trip after all and asked him not to fight with his wife. A's father also asked him to cancel a train reservation he had already made.

"I love my wife and I adore our baby," A wrote. "But I can't bear to watch my parents cry anymore." He described feeling devastated.

In a follow-up post, A added that his wife is generally reluctant to have even her own parents visit the home, and that her request for the hotel stay was tied to what he described as a cleanliness compulsion.

Some commenters sympathized with A's parents. "The husband handled it poorly by just passing along his wife's words without any pushback," one wrote. Others said it was understandable for the in-laws to feel hurt after making such a long journey, noting that parents of their generation likely consider staying at their son's home a matter of course.

Others, however, sided with the wife. "The postpartum period is when a mother's body is under the most strain — if that's what she wants, people should understand," one commenter wrote. Several others pointed out that she was not asking the in-laws to stay away entirely, only to sleep elsewhere, and that having houseguests so soon after birth would be uncomfortable for anyone still recovering.


choigo@heraldcorp.com