I am not sure I belong on this forum. I have been taking time to get to know everyone and their wicked mil's in all the mil forums, but the recurring theme seems to be DH's who "don't get it". My husband completely gets it and always has. I remember right before we got married one of my sil's said "Its ashame for my brother to be in the middle of these problems" and he responded "I am not in the middle, I am on the side of my future spouse, and I always will be". The problem for us has been that we aren't sure we want to separate ourselves from his entire side of the family- save one uncle. Its a very difficult choice and we are currently trying to decide just how to create healthy boundaries, or if we need to sever ties. And plus, I am a SAHM, and am usually the one who deals with them on a day to day basis. I guess this is where I need support.

Does anyone else have and have always had a supportive DH, but still winds up having to deal with inlaws?

Twinkletoes

I have a supportive FH... it didn't happen over night, but he has finally seen "the light"!.. And he has stood up to MIL, regarding me. (She is not a big fan of me... basically b/c she is super jealous of how much FH loves me and that his loyalty lies with ME...)... AND, all the in-laws are on her side......

At this point, I am basically staying away from IL b/c it has been heated and ugly for the past 6 weeks.. (i.e. MIL telling him that I manipulate and control him and that I am stealing him away from his family... etc, etc, etc)... SO, FH is not really speaking to IL, save FIL who is ill and the innocent bistander caught in the nasty middle of this mess..... I am not really communicating with any of them...

I'm sure that this will calm, and I will be in your situation soon... wondering how to act when I am forced to be around them....We are still trying to decide whether we want them at our wedding or not...

Why do you have to deal with MIL on a daily basis? What does she do that makes life difficult? (Is she mean or does she expect too much of your time?)...

My husband has a 1.5 hour work commute, and a very long work shift. I am basically at home with the kids by myself until 6:30. He gets home, we do mealtimes and bedtimes together, then we don't accept phone calls after 8 (to keep from waking the kids up).

We have a slightly unique situation in that our home is a bit of a novelty. We have two sets of twins under 2 years of age. I am basically housebound.

My mil is the kind of person who is either emotionally hot or cold. She will go weeks not calling to check on us (a huge point of contention, when she found out we were pregnant with the second set, she convinced us to move into her town because we would 'need her' and then she didn't even see the babies until they were 4 weeks old and has been to our home less than 6 times in a year), then, when the novelty of how fun it is to be a grandma to baby twins hits her again, she suddenly wants to come all the time.

We are not welcome in his parents home over a disagreement over our wedding 6 years ago. However, his mom expects us to have an open door. The fact that we expect her to call first and make sure its a good time to visit makes his entire family angry. They keep insisting that "Family" wouldn't consider a member coming over a "pop in". But again, how foolish is that when we can't even enter my husbands parents driveway???

In the faith that things would get better, we have tried to have a relationship with my mil and sil's, but, its not proven to be healthy or happy. Either we are hearing second hand all the crap my mil says about us (in attempt to persuade us to go to her home and apologize for the wedding date 6 years ago), or, we get really snotty phone calls, and worse- two weeks ago his sister showed up here and demanded my husband go apologize over our wedding in front of our older twins. He had to throw her out of the house, and she argued with him in the driveway for 45 minutes about how he had ruined the family and how her son now shows her disrespect (her son is 20) because of the example of disrespect my husband has shown his parents.

Its really very stupid. Its not "normal inlaw crazies" its "certifiable inlaw" stuff.

Here is an example. One of my husbands sisters is a recovering addict. They all enable her. At Christmas she wrapped up one of her art supply tools into the babies gift bags by accident. This was an exacto knife RAZOR blade!!! I happened to find it because I was opening their gifts with them. When I saw it, I made a comment to my other sil "wow, we need to let SIL know what she did" and my other sil says "NO! If you did  that, SIL would feel 'bad about herself'". And as far as when any of them talk crap to us??? We always hear back "They are experiencing heartwrenching pain because of what YOU did to our family and are just trying to work through their feelings!!!"

We are very proud of the fact that we have never said anything mean to them, or anything we would be ashamed of later on. But, sometimes being the "bigger person" is just code name for "enabler".

And we are done. We are just unsure how to make the final cut from them. Whether we should just stop taking any form of communication, or if we should write it out, what.

First of all, WOW: 2 sets of twins under 2!! You have to be one busy lady! You ILs do sound crazy..... Some of their ideas/expectations sound unreasonable. If they are anything like mine, and they sound like they are, I am sure they are having a hard time with the "change" that their son/brother has his own family and that your decisions do not include their opinions/input.

Only you and your DH can decide if you want to sever all ties with his family. It's a serious decision and one that may be difficult to follow through completely.... If she is a good grandmother and loves your children, it may be worth another approach/attempt to set boundaries/rules.... Maybe you and your DH could sit down and figure out a plan that includes "position statements and specific boundaries/rules", establish these boundaries together and share them with the family. If the ILs are not willing to follow the new rules and respect the new boundaries, then you consider cutting them off... It will be "their choice" at that point, and you won't have guilt... You have EVERY right to set guidelines and boundaries that work for YOUR family... and the ILs can bitch about them all they want; but YOU deserve for your boundaries to be honored. If they refuse to respect your boundaries, THEY are making the choice to not be a part of your family. But, you must establish and implement the boundaries with them before you accuse them of disrespecting them.....

Susan Forward wrote a great book called "Toxic In-laws" and it guides you through setting up boundaries and expressing them to ILs.
She says to first write clear, unamgiguous position statements that define what you are willing and not willing to put up with...Ex: "I am not willing to have your parents interfere with the way we raise our children." Then, set the boundaries/rules that will make your position statement attainable.... i.e. what you are expecting your IL to do or not to do.... Then you have to set the rules/boundaries with them - by clearly explaining the changes you are asking them to make....

It's a pretty good book. If you haven't read it, you might want to look into it. It's an easy read with good suggestions and it lets you know that you are not alone in your situation..

Hang in there. And good luck....
Erin

I can't say they are good grandparents- my husbands father has never even seen the younger two and they turn one next month. And my husbands mother? She is emotionally hot and cold with all of her kids and grandchildren. Also, if she hears of something "bad" they did, she thinks its her job to punish them by removing emotional support. She doesn't grasp unconditional love. They are a catty gossiping mean lot.

The only issue for us has been one sister. She gets "punished" if she is speaking to us when the others aren't. For a long time now we have kept the rest of them within our good graces solely to make life easier on her. But, recently she lashed out at me over something really petty- I told her I thought it was unhealthy for me to hear negative things his family said about me and that I felt we should stop engaging in negative conversations. She took it really poorly and hasn't spoken to me or my husband since- that was a month ago and normally she checks in on us regularly.

The kinda of stuff she said to me has made us reevaluate the entire lot. I can't believe she would be so mad at a decision I made to try and get along better with his family- how can I get along with them if I am hearing all the toxic things they say??? I told her I didn't like the seeds of bitterness and anger those seeds grew in my heart and I needed to focus on more positive things in my relationship with her.  She accused me of calling her a gossip, making her feel stupid, and talking down to her. She said she had been our only supporter and obviously I hadn't deserved it. It was really crazy. It was so bizzarre I printed out our email exchange and asked friends to please tell me what I had said wrong to trigger the kind of retaliation I had received... none of them could pin point anything- and one friend I chose is especially critical!

Since this, I am done with all of them. I am not even exposing my kids to them. And my being "done" means my husband is as well, as he says he had only tolerated anything from them out of respect for my friendship with his sister and my wishes. He has told his mom this several times, that I am the only reason he has them in his life at all right now as he doesn't need their drama!