In-laws, whether they're obnoxious or friendly, are an inevitable part of almost any marriage. Because of this, people who think of themselves as someone's future spouse will sometimes refer to their crush's relatives as their future in-laws. Characters with this mentality often do this either out of a desire to kiss up to their crush's family or out of a sense of arrogance. If the "in-law" dislikes their family's pursuer, expect the latter to insist that they should get along because they'll be family in the future. If a person is particularly certain that they'll marry their crush in the future they might actually treat their crush's family like they already are in-laws.
A somewhat less common variant of this trope involves a person who ships their family member with someone referring to the latter as a future in-law. The latter person might be someone the family member has an unrequited crush on, a person who has a crush on someone's family member, or someone who a person wants to get with their family.
See also Mrs. Hypothetical for self-proclaimed future spouses. See Self-Proclaimed Love Interest, Parental Relationship Approval, Abhorrent Admirer, Fair-Weather Ex, Stalker with a Crush, Declaration of Spousehood, and Entitled to Have You for characters who are likely to have this attitude. Not to be confused with Phony Relative.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, REALLY Love You: Rentarou has met a handful of his girlfriends’ parents and has referred to two of the dads as “Father In Law” and attempted to call one of the moms “Mother In Law”.
- Buso Renkin: Played for laughs. The alchemy wars being secret, Kazuki and Tokiko initially fumble to explain her relationship to him and try passing her off as his older sister. This baffles his actual sister Mahiro, who asks if they mean Tokiko is her sister-in-law.
- Chained Soldier: Tenka refers to Aoba as her sister-in-law despite not even officially being with her crush Yuuki.
- Fairy Tail: When Juvia, who is madly in love with Gray, meets Gray's father Silver, who has been resurrected as a demon, she addresses the latter as she would an in-law.
- Fruits Basket: When Hanajima becomes attracted to Kyo's adoptive father, Kazuma (much to Kyo's horror), she and Uotani immediately begin speculating about the prospect of her becoming his stepmother. It's pretty clear they're (mostly) just doing it to tease him, though.
- Hello! Sandybell has a non-humourous example when Kitty says that her parents will be Mark's future in-laws - the Shearers are looking to ascend into aristocracy and Mark is of Blue Blood, though he wants nothing to do with them.
- Kaguya-sama: Love is War: Shirogane's little sister Kei is thrilled by the idea of her brother dating and eventually marrying Kaguya because she admires her and would love to have her as a sister-in-law. His dad also refers to himself as her father-in-law when offering to sit in on her parent-teacher conference, though in that case he was clearly trying to tease her.
- Lady!! has a variant when Lynn meets the cruel Baronness for the first time — Lynn asks who she is and the Baronness replies that she's her new mother. As it turns out, the Baronness wants to marry Lynn's father George for his noble title and has already swayed his own father into thinking she's an ideal candidate for him.
- One Piece: Because Boa Hancock is so in love with Luffy, she declares during the war at Marineford that his grandfather Garp is her grandfather as well, before stating it will eventually happen once she marries Luffy.
- Ranma ½: Cologne, insisting Ranma will marry Shampoo, constantly addresses him as Muko-dono/son-in-law.
Comedy
- In Rowan Atkinson's "Elementary Dating", it's advised
not to be too casual or too keen when meeting your date's parents on the first date, illustrated by Rowan silently mouthing "Hey." and "FATHER!" respectively.
Fan Works
- Danny Phantom: Stranded: Colette Bevier, Danny's Stalker with a Crush who wants to steal him from his girlfriend Star, sometimes refers to Danny's sister Jazz as her future sister-in-law, much to the latter's disgust.
- Papa Bear: While discussing future living arrangements for Adrien while Gabriel is under investigation for emotional manipulation and neglect, the Social Services agent states that, while the Dupain-Chengs are clearly capable of providing a loving/stable home, it'd be better for Adrien if he didn't stay with the family of the girl he's dating. Tom agrees, joking about how Adrien doesn't need to be around adults who refer to him as their future son-in-law.
Films - Live-Action
- Oscar (1991): "Li'l" Anthony tells "Snaps" Provolone that he wants to marry his daughter after telling him that he stole $50,000 from him. He then refers to "Snaps" as "Dad", to which "Snaps" replies, "Don't you call me that!" (Anthony does end up marrying "Snaps" daughter...the illegitimate one he didn't know about until that day. It Makes Sense in Context).
- In Oscar (1967), Christian Martin, mere minutes after revealing he wants to marry his boss Barnier's daughter to Barnier himself, starts referring to Madame Barnier as his mother-in-law. Ironically, as it turns out, though Monsieur Barnier is indeed his girlfriend's father, Madame Barnier is not her mother.
Literature
- Enchanted Forest Chronicles: In Talking to Dragons Cimorene is the Queen of the Enchanted Forest and Daystar is her son and the Heir Apparent. Daystar and the young fire witch Shiara share a lot of Belligerent Sexual Tension. Near the end of the book, Cimorene describes Shiara as "the next Queen of the Enchanted Forest", flabbergasting both Daystar and Shiara.
- Implied and later discussed by a third party in The Great Opposition. When Sima meets Amed's mother for the first time, the latter waxes lyrical that their house is very nice and cozy… and only lacks a gelin. Amed, terribly embarrassed, explains to Sima afterwards that gelin means "daughter-in-law", and Sima (who is at that point in her mid-teens and several years Amed's junior) is flabbergasted that the woman must have hinted at Sima's possible marriage to her son. Later, one of Amed's friends asks if Sima is the gelin of Amed's mother, once again to the extreme embarrassment of both Sima and Amed. Actually, the two of them are nothing but friends (apart from occasional flashes of a crush from Sima's side), and any possibility of romance is lost as Amed gets killed in the war when Sima is only sixteen.
- In The Wolfhound, Little Doe gives a bead as a token of affection to the Wolfhound when she is tennote . As she grows up, her feelings for him remain and mature but she rarely ever sees him (and if she does, it's in dog form in Or Was It a Dream? situations). However, when she meets a mysterious old woman, she has a gut feeling the latter is connected to the Wolfhound in some way and addresses her as "my lady mother-in-law". The woman accepts that address and calls her "daughter-in-law" in return. (Actually, the woman is part of the local All Myths Are True pantheon, but she is particularly watching over the Wolfhound, whose actual parents are dead).
Live-Action TV
- On Abbott Elementary, Tariq begins dating a single mother with a son at the titular school and immediately begins proclaiming himself a stepdad. He goes so far as to call the child, Nick, "Tariq Jr." or "TJ" even though Nick couldn't care less.
- Parodied in A Series of Unfortunate Events (2017) where the Hook-Handed Man declares that once Count Olaf marries Violet, he will become her “henchperson-in-law.”
Theatre
- The Mikado: Katisha, an elderly lady of the Mikado's court, falls in love with his son Nanki-Poo, to the father's delight and the son's horror. Nanki-Poo flees, and the Mikado pursues him with the help of Katisha, who refers to herself as the Mikado's "daughter-in-law elect". Yum-Yum turns this around on Katisha after she's tricked into marrying Ko-Ko (and Yum-Yum marries Nanki-Poo) by declaring herself the Mikado's 'daughter-in-law elected.
Video Games
- Final Fantasy XIII: Lightning's Berserk Button is Snow calling her "sis", since he is engaged to her sister, Serah, and basically considers her a sister-in-law despite the feeling not being mutual. It shows Lightning's Character Development when she finally accepts Snow's relationship with Serah at the end of the game, allowing him to call her "sis".
- Guardian Tales: Claude isn't thrilled at the Knight "wanting to be his in-law". (Granted, this is Played for Laughs.)
- Tekken 6: In Kazuya's Scenario Campaign mode, if he fights Xioayu, who has a crush on his son Jin, Xiaoyu will warn her "Father" to stop quarrelling with Jin or she'll have to kill Kazyua so they can elope.
Web Animation
- Hunter: The Parenting: While Kitten and Marckus are fiancés, they aren't married yet. However, Big-D insists on calling Kitten his son-in-law, being called dad, and this behavior extends to Marckus' nephew Boy, who calls Kitten "uncle-in-law".
- lovekoi manga: Taizo is a Momma's Boy who dumped his girlfriend Nagisa simply because his mother thinks Nagisa looks ugly with makeup and she didn't want ugly grandkids. Taizo got together with a more beautiful woman, but unlike Nagisa, said beautiful woman refused to do any housework, which leads to Taizo and his mother trying to get Nagisa to get back with Taizo. When Yujin, Nagisa's brother, tries to stop them, Taizo tells him "don't bite your brother-in-law," much to Yujin's disgust
Webcomics
- Not So Shoujo Love Story: Hanna continuously refers to Rei’s dad as “Father-In-Law”.
- Yumi's Cells: When Yumi meets her boyfriend Babi's father, she immediately calls him "dad".
Western Animation
- In Hailey's On It!, after Kristine starts dating Scott, she tries to get his sister Becker to call her "sister", on the assumption that they'll be in-laws soon enough. Becker absolutely refuses.
- The Loud House: In earlier seasons, Clyde had a crush on Lori. In one episode, he refers to Lincoln, Lori's brother, as his 'future brother-in-law'.