Potential estrangement... DIL side

I agree DiscoDancer. I just don't like to see a poster looking for advice and support to be encouraged to view her H negatively, especially when she does have an understanding of his predicament and/or encouraged to take control of their children and use them as weapons and/or a form of punishment.

Yes, I suppose it’s all down to what we experience. I had the same predicament, with a husband too ‘ scared’ to confront his mum. I gave him 25 years! I never viewed him ‘ negatively’. I chose him after all, but it was affecting all of us, certainly our children. I could see how it affected him, and supported him the best I could, but in the end, it was making us all anxious, and it wasn’t fair on the children. We tried to talk many times to his parents.
I understand you’re coming from a different place, have read some of your posts. You’ve never had that chance to talk. Very different from the OP. Something has to give.

As an afterthought....years ago, I was talking to my cousin, who had a similar problem with her MIL. She is ten years older than me, so I could also look ahead to see how it may pan out. My mother also struggled with her MIL. Every Sunday, my dad would take me and my sister to my nans house, while mum cooked the Sunday roast. I thought we went to get out of mum’s way, but years later, learnt, from my cousin, that my mum and MIL couldn’t stand each other, but she was happy to let us kids go. I remember, as I got older, my Nan and Auntie bad mouthing my mum.
The upshot of this was...my cousin said, “whatever you do, don’t let your MIL see the children, she’ll never need to be right with you. She’ll have her son and grandchildren....they are all she needs” wise words, which I took on board. For 25 years we went back and forth, seeing them....not seeing them, until eventually, my husband had had enough, and my two oldest children didn’t want to see them. Years on from that, my two younger children started to say there were things they remembered, but couldn’t articulate it at the time.
It’s not worth it OP. Hopefully, your husband may be able to change things, but somehow I think not. Take care and look after yourselves.

I do agree with you Smileless, and appreciate where you are coming from...but you can’t keep making allowances for adults, over the welfare of the children. I agree...her husband is vulnerable, but so are her children. He is the adult, and it has to start with him. Children need protection

Which brings me back to what I said upthread.....

Yes children do need protection and the parents have to decide together the way forward.

Exactly Madgran "the parents have to decide together the way forward" whatever that way may be.

Smiles

Here's the thing. From the sounds of it, what FIL and MIL WANT is a relationship with DH and the kids, without a pesky DIL in the way. "We don't care about YOU. Just give us those babies." Allowing them that relationship gives them exactly what they want - and teaches them that their poor behaviour is rewarded.

You don't reward that kind of behaviour.

Allowing them that relationship gives them exactly what they want - and teaches them that their poor behaviour is rewarded.

Fine but the decision is for BOTH parents

Any man that would continue to have a relationship with people like this and expose his children to that upsets his wife isn’t ready to be a husband or father.

If he continued with that I would start to focus on your worth.

I have no idea how to tag users on this site, but I have read all of the responses. I will try to address some points made here...

- my own Mum suggested that I have a quiet word with my MIL too. However, I don’t feel that I can approach her. Whilst my FIL can be verbally mean, my MIL has lost any kind of warmth towards me.
- I have talked to my husband so many times about talking to them, but he won’t. There is definitely some underlying issues in the relationship between them - I don’t think he wants to be aware of them or really think about it too deeply, because it’s naturally upsetting. He would rather carry on and ignore the elephant in the room.
- whilst I can see where many of you are coming from with the kids, estrangement is really a last resort.
- the fact that one of you found the fatty and incubator comments unbelievable, tells me just how terrible those unnecessary comments really were!!

I have been giving my in laws the benefit of the doubt for so long that I am probably seen as a door mat. The idea that my kids will hear them say mean things about me in the future won’t sit with me, so there will likely be a turning point when that happens. Making a decision like that will also put my husband on the spot to act on the breakdown of the relationship with them... so it might go some way in clearing things up to... or it could lead to irreversible loss because of there lack of having an open mind to listen to the damage that has been caused. As I said in my post, I’m not sure how to move forward with them because their unnecessary comments / coldness is unforgivable, not least due to the anxiety and strain they’ve put on our shoulders.

At the end of the day, I only want the best for my kids.... and it’s only because of the kids that I still see them.

How do your kids benefit from seen 2 people who are openly hostile to their mother, and their father does not do anything to correct it?

If your ILs are so nasty to you, they will do the same to the kids

From seeing sorry

If you have daughters, do they want to be called fatty by their grandfather?

The same applies to boys

That is how many eating disorders start

It is your ILs destroying the relationship they could have with your family - they are certainly doing a great job at that!

what benefit are your DC getting from being in touch with these people.
they are not a good example for children.
forget about them.
you don't owe them anything.
live your own life and have some peace and enjoy it.
all the best.

What foolish people they are being so mean towards you. Exactly what power do they think they have over this situation?
I wonder what makes people behave like this?
They stand to loose all of you, grandchildren their son and you.
Any normal intelligent person would be happy that their grown up children found love , marriage and had children.
When you see your children happy with husband’s and wives isn’t it normal as a mil & fil to love them too?
I feel very sorry for your husband as l doubt they were such nice parents to him and he’s still trying to be the dutiful son.
There’s no way that I wouldn’t visit them and I wouldn’t want my children going either in fact l would call the fil and tell him why.
I would feel very strongly about my children being around people that had treated me with such disrespect it’s the wrong message for them.
Shame on them for being so mean to you they are nothing but bullies.

Meant to say, no way would l visit them.

Your husband sounds a lot like mine. Eventually I decided that if I was nothing, I'd do nothing. Being too afraid to deal with his parents meant he avoided them. So they drifted apart. Now I look back and am annoyed with myself for allowing myself to be treated as I was for so long. My ILs weren't overtly mean like yours either. It was subtle but obvious. Although some witnesses to some events would say it wasn't so subtle really. I wouldn't want my children around people who think it is okay to treat others the way your ILs treat you. What can they learn from that?

Abi30

I have no idea how to tag users on this site, but I have read all of the responses. I will try to address some points made here...

- my own Mum suggested that I have a quiet word with my MIL too. However, I don’t feel that I can approach her. Whilst my FIL can be verbally mean, my MIL has lost any kind of warmth towards me.
- I have talked to my husband so many times about talking to them, but he won’t. There is definitely some underlying issues in the relationship between them - I don’t think he wants to be aware of them or really think about it too deeply, because it’s naturally upsetting. He would rather carry on and ignore the elephant in the room.
- whilst I can see where many of you are coming from with the kids, estrangement is really a last resort.
- the fact that one of you found the fatty and incubator comments unbelievable, tells me just how terrible those unnecessary comments really were!!

I have been giving my in laws the benefit of the doubt for so long that I am probably seen as a door mat. The idea that my kids will hear them say mean things about me in the future won’t sit with me, so there will likely be a turning point when that happens. Making a decision like that will also put my husband on the spot to act on the breakdown of the relationship with them... so it might go some way in clearing things up to... or it could lead to irreversible loss because of there lack of having an open mind to listen to the damage that has been caused. As I said in my post, I’m not sure how to move forward with them because their unnecessary comments / coldness is unforgivable, not least due to the anxiety and strain they’ve put on our shoulders.

At the end of the day, I only want the best for my kids.... and it’s only because of the kids that I still see them.

That’s right Abi. As I said, it took 25 years with us. We DID try, but it just didn’t work. The point is...you are struggling, so that is going to pass to your children. No doubt about it. As Agnurse says, you are rewarding their behaviour. Your husband is NOT going to do it. In a perfect world...you would be able to decide everything together and move forward. It’s not a perfect world, and you’ve gone past your sell by date. You can’t just sit back and let them treat you this way in front of your children. It’s not fair. You’re being too nice Abi.
Please don’t let this continue. It won’t end well.?

I agree with most of the comments Abi, so won’t repeat. I had years of problems too. You say you want the best for your kids. I’m afraid I also think that means not seeing your in laws as opposed to seeing them.

Only you can decide though, and you have to be comfortable with what you choose.

You cannot possibly know that the OP's parents in law will be nasty to their GC Hithere that's an irresponsible thing to say.

I do think you need to take a step back Abi, leave the job of sending photo's and updates to your H and make sure that if he's taking the children to see his parents, he's always within ear shot.

He may not be able to challenge them directly if they speak to the children out of turn, but you may then make a joint decision for them not to see the children at all.

It's good that you regard estrangement as a last resort which IMO is as it should be. I didn't see my p's.i.l. for several years because of my m.i.l.'s treatment of me but our boys continued to see them with Mr. S.

We, me in particular, were worried that their GM would make inappropriate remarks but thankfully she never did and we now have a relationship I'd never have thought possible.

I sincerely hope that the situation improves because estrangement is very hard for all concerned, but if your H does decide that he can no longer have a relationship with his parents, it has to be his decision.

As far as you're concerned, Toadinthhole is absolutely right,
"Only you can decide though, and you have to be comfortable with what choose" and the same applies to your H.

Thank you, I am not sure how this situation is going to pan out. But I will keep referring back to this thread to remind myself of all the advice which I am thankful for. I need to be a bit more confident in my own self-worth - as you can imagine with postpartum anxiety and depression, it’s never been so low. Perhaps then I can be more confident in making a decision that’s right for me and or our family if it ever came to that.

I am also debating on wether or not to show my husband this thread. Everything I’ve written we’ve discussed over the years. So nothing new. It would just be good to know what his thoughts are, as he doesn’t voice them when it comes to his parents. Perhaps it would give us the dialogue he needs to open up on the subject...

Sounds good Abi. It may be good for him to see other opinions. Whatever you decide to do, I wish you all the best for your future.

The risk of showing him the thread is that the tone of some posts about him are unpleasant and this could have the effect of making him unable to "hear" the bigger messages. That might not be very helpful for you. Only you can decide.

You’ve had loads of great advice, in your shoes I’d definitely be taking a massive step back and let DH be the organiser/social calendar manager with the IL’s.

Someone once put this to me when I was struggling with my IL’s and it gave me a bit of clarity. If these people, who come to your home, insult and make you uncomfortable were not related to you - would you ever see them again? Would you tolerate being spoken to like this by a work colleague? If the answer to both these questions is absolutely not (as it was for me) it may be time to weigh up whether it’s worth continuing to put yourself through this.

If an adult male cannot behave appropriately with his words to another adult and sees no issue in name calling/ insulting, then he has shown his true colours. Do you want this normalised for your own DC, for them to be around the emotional abuse your DH is now struggling to challenge? Again, if this wasn’t coming from a “family” member, I doubt he’d ever be around your DC again, so where’s the difference?

Ultimately it’s you and DH who need to come up with a plan - maybe ask him how he feels when his dad talks like that? And if he wants his own children to be afraid of speaking up the way he is?

I wish you all the best in negotiating this - it’s so hard, I let it go on for far too long and it became a horrible and toxic presence in my life, so I’d advocate for dealing with the situation sooner rather than later (based on how it effected me over the years).

Just thought I’d type a small update. I had a long talk with my husband. I found it difficult to articulate certain things and ended up showing him this post. You were right, he did initially focus on the negative parts associated against him, but he did not deny the ‘bigger’ messages. It’s a rollercoaster of a journey for him too. It’s his parents and he loves them. He doesn’t feel that approaching them would do us any good because even if they did have an open mind, any instant change wouldn’t be perceived as genuine. He also doesn’t know how to approach them, speaking to him a bit more on it and he’s scared. He’s ultimately scared of loosing that relationship with them. Everything he’s feeling is completely normal. I also feel awful. This whole thing is hovering over us like a black cloud. I worry that his fear will mean that he won’t be able to articulate a strong front with them and how they will knock him down. He also believes that although his parents haven’t been great towards me, since I took a step back, I am also not helping matters with them wanting to make any effort with me now. There is no winning or pleasing.... we have left it to one side for the moment, where he is going to think about what to say sensitively to them (if he ever does). What would be the best way to word it for him? I am still not sure how we will come through this, but I’m hoping for a happy ending...

I’m sorry is he not happy that your not making any effort?!

That would be the moment I stop giving a damn about him being sad and tell him to piss off.