I get along okay with my in-laws. I learned early on that there are some subjects you do NOT bring up with my FIL and when he brings them up, you change them fast.

My MIL is a very giving person; she can't say no to anyone regardless of the request, which sounds great until she's promised to do too much and comes to you asking for help at the last minute, especially financial help.

For example, she offered to pay for her daughter's, SIL's, Las Vegas wedding and pay for the plane tickets for some less better off family members. Very generous of her. Well the time came for the final down payment to be made and MIL didn't have the money because she purchased the extra plane tickets. So she came to us asking to borrow $1000 and she needed it that day because if it wasn't sent immediately, SIL would lose her wedding entirely. Since we didn't want SIL to lose her wedding, we agreed on two conditions: 1) we would send the money to Vegas ourselves because MIL is known for asking for money for A reason and actually using it for B reason and 2) we needed it back in full before the wedding 3-4 weeks later because that was the money we were planning to use to cover expenses to get to Vegas and back for the wedding. MIL agreed and we sent the certified check to Vegas that day and they got it in plenty of time. The waiting began to get our money back. We were leaving on a Thursday and as of the Wednesday before we still didn't have it. We told MIL that we'd still go (couldn't get our money back for the plane tickets at that point anyway) but we were seriously unhappy about the arrangement. Well we get to Vegas the next day and MIL gives hubby an evelope with $1000 in it in $20's. At least we got our money back but it was very akward walking around Vegas with that much cash as we are more plastic (debit card) people.

Luckily such incidents with MIL are pretty few and far between, rarely more than two a year and we've learned to say No early and often.