Everyone on this board really helped me during my engagement with insight about handling tricky situations with grace. Now I need help with my in-laws.
First question: H and I live in an urban center with a high cost of living. We're both people with fine arts degrees using our degrees in our careers - YAY! Unfortunately we're not high earners and have a bit of student debt between us - not so yay. But we're really happy with our lives and feel good about where we are and what we're doing. However we've accepted long ago that we probably won't be buying a house within the next 10 years due to the high cost. We're fine with this, but H's parents keep bringing it up, sending emails from realtors, etc. H always had the kind of relationship where they would get random hair-brained ideas about things he should be doing, and he would just ignore them or explain over and over why that idea didn't apply to his situation. He's really the kind of guy who lets things roll off his back though and has never been shy about just stating the facts about his situation. Now that we're married though, it's different. He understands that it upsets me that they keep sending these emails, implying that our life isn't good enough and they keep trying to talk about our finances with us. I'm much more private about my finances and H understands this and thinks it's the better way to be - he just doesn't know how to come right out and tell his parents that a topic they have always discussed is now off limits without making me look like the bad guy. I'm not twisting his arm - he feels like he would enjoy their company more if they talked about other topics, it just never really came together in his mind until I came along.
His concern is that they just don't seem to accept subtle bean dipping, and he feels like at some point he needs to explain to them point blank that we are married and they can't stick their noses in our business, but he knows his mother will get all emotional and his father might suddenly pin this on me. He also thought that perhaps since I'm apparently adorable and sweet and they really want me to like them, if I just nicely explained that I view these things as private they might take it better ... I feel this way too, but I know the usual advice here is to always have the child deal with their own parents and that's probably for really good reason. We would have dealt with this before marriage, but for some reason they seemed to back off when he and I moved in together and only started in after the wedding. Sigh. At least we're on the same page. Any advice?