u/RedheadedJusticeGirl

I’ve been with my husband for 22 years. We have a great relationship. No problems there.

But my father-in-law has quite an abrasive personality. He likes to tease people a lot / get under people’s skin.

For example, during July 4th, a neighbor brought over potato salad but she was rushed (has a young child) and didn’t have time for it to set up on the fridge. She like most women, said some self-deprecating thing about it not having time for the favors to meld. All the ladies replied something like, “it tastes great, stop worrying about it.” My FIL on the other hand teased her at least four times about it being warm and not melding yet. Talking about it again and again. She eventually said, “I know you are just getting my goat, but it IS better when it has time to set up.” Poor woman.

Now on to me.

Over the last year, I got back into fitness. I now exercise 3-4 times per week & mainly strength train. I have lost quite a bit of weight and you can now see some light muscles. I’m only an intermediate at most and I’m 5’2 and 115 pounds (if that matters).

This isn’t my first time in the gym (previously strength trained for a few years), so I very quickly got decent strength & muscles again. I train both upper and lower.

Another important factor is we are childfree, so we have a lot of free time. Well, I spend 3 hours in the gym on Friday (before work) and 3 hours Sunday. Well this type of long gym session appears to bother my FIL to no end. And if you are going to complain that I’m not cleaning enough, we have a maid that does the first floor of the house because we can afford it.

Every single time we have visited over the last 6 ish months he asks me a million questions about the gym. It’s the same conversation over and over. And I am tired of it.

His biggest focus is I rest 2-4 minutes between sets. Hence the three hours. I explain that it helps you recover & push to true failure which is my goal. Not resting tends to increase endurance more than strength / muscle growth (Cool, if that’s your goal! You do you!) But I want to look like I lift, so building muscles and strength are my goals. I tell him I follow several fitness people that tend to cite studies and other educational content.

The only thing I can think of for his behavior is that he was also big into fitness (always had visible muscles, still does just smaller now). So maybe he thinks he’s an expert or that I’m trying to say he was not doing it properly? I don’t know.

But I NEVER EVER bring it up on my own, he is the one that brings it up and won’t shut up about it. We talked about for over 30 minutes this weekend. Also, I hate people commenting on my weight loss because I have struggled with ED before. So I may be overly sensitive.

So what are some good strategies to get him to stop? I’m at my wits end here.

I don’t want to tell him to fuck off, but I’m getting very close. I also don’t want to piss him off as he holds a grudge forever.

So any nice ways to shut it down are greatly appreciated! Thanks!

Edit to add:

You guys are hilarious! Thanks for all the ideas. Keep them coming!

Second edit:

I do 12 machines (lower upper lower etc) plus 60 hard jumps for bone density since I’m old.