Advice on how to deal with soon to be in laws
Just looking to see how people would handle this situation.
I moved to a mostly rural state and especially rural area with my fiance a little over a year ago, because she wanted to spend time with her extended family that lives in the area. I wasn’t excited for the move but I wanted to support her. They’re going to be my in laws in a month. I’ve spent a considerable amount of time visiting them at their home and having dinners with them, trying to be respectful as I can.
Anyway, her grandparents were very judgmental towards me from the beginning. I grew up next to a major city and I am what they would consider a “city slicker”. It didn’t bother me that they were into hunting, fishing, shooting, but they were bothered that I would rather take my fiance to the nearest major city to go see live music than go ice fishing up in their cabin in the woods with them. They made some comments towards me in the beginning of our move here to the effect of “they’ve given up on trying to like me, they’re just going to accept me” and “i don’t seem like much of an outdoorsman” (I’m not, to their degree. I like hiking, running. i like music, electric guitar, vinyl records. I hate hunting).
One of them has also made some disparaging comments about my profession (I’m a schoolteacher) and said that with my job “I don’t live in the real world”, and make comments about the amount of time off I get as a teacher. I’ve been nothing but polite towards them, despite the fact I can’t talk rural outdoorsman talk.
My fiance and I decided we are moving back to a more densely populated area in a year. However, her family’s treatment of me has caused some resentment on my end and has made me sometimes not be the best version of myself. I’m always polite to her family in front of them, but sometimes I’ll make comments towards my fiance about them that hurts her feelings.
I need to get over that to be the best person I can be for her. However, I don’t want to participate in her extended family’s country activities like hanging out in a hunting cabin in the middle of the woods or driving a 4x4 atv around. I just don’t like it. It’s not me and it doesn’t interest me. My fiance doesn’t care and isn’t into that stuff either, and her other side of her family isn’t like this and really likes me. She just wants me to be polite and participatory with her extended family we’re geographically close to now, which is tough when I’m not interested in their lifestyle. I just want to know how I can get through this next year with them without being insulted about the fact I don’t want to drive a tractor or hang out in the woods. Her extended family here weren’t a concern for the first couple years of our relationship until we moved to their state, and they won’t be a problem when we move because they’ll be largely out of the picture and not motivated to visit us because they hate cities with a passion.
*one other thing to mention- they like golf and I’ve recently gotten into golf so that has helped