Stuck between parents and DH

Other than missing your children’s birthdays/Christmas and generally showing very little interest in your kids (crap grand parenting really) your family sound fairly normal

Your husband sounds utterly batshit tbh

I used to find my in laws and the way they lived completely incomprehensible and could not see why they couldn’t be more like my family. It was a major source of tension in our relationship when we first got together and especially when we had children.

And then I got older and grew up a bit. And realised that all families are different and that they were never going to change. I had to adapt to the way things were in a way that protected me but also enabled my husband and children to have a good relationship with them.

His issue here is the ridiculous ‘life is too short to tolerate people’ phrase. Life as an adult with children and a partner is not about valuing your own feelings and desires above all others- it is about adaptation and compromise. Neither family is going to change- you both need to find a way in which you can both live with that.

It's not you. It's him.

He has very strange ways.

Compromise is the bedrock of marriage.

What is he like when you go to friends houses who have different rules to his parents. Does he try to enforce all these rules at your house too? Or does he accept that you live there also.

I was 50/50 but it's coming across as controlling now

Your husband is an intolerant arse and needs to understand he doesn't get to dictate how other families behave. Different isn't wrong.

I can't believe your husband thinks it's normal not to use the loo in his parents house, the mind boggles!
Apart from the lack of gifts on birthdays for their grandchildren your parents sound the most warm and welcoming, his sound like his mother could be Hyacinth Bucket.
Can you imagine your own children as adults, do you want them to be able to call over or would you prefer an invite only system? Do you want them to feel free to use your facilities? How does he feel about them as adults being in their childhood home?
Your dh sounds like he will alienate your children once they are adults.

In some ways (eg toilet and not being allowed to help make drinks etc) his upbringing is odd. Very odd. I think your DH has come out with slightly off norm views due to his upbringing. Its bizarre. Is he neurodiverse? I ask because he is incredibly black and white.

Equally, though, in some ways eg your DM and DF not interacting with their grandchildren, is odd. But you sound very balanced.

Not a lot of middle ground to be found here if he won't accept you go to your family without him though :(

BTW your siblings marital breakdowns are not likely to be because you visit your parents whenever and can make your own drink there.... another flag that your DH may be neurodiverse.

Before I got married, I was finding it hard to understand my in-laws to be attitudes, way they behaved at times. It wasn't causing a problem as such, just my struggle with it. Was chatting to my DH's best mate about it all, he said to me that every family has a different dynamic & I shouldn't try to understand it, just accept that that's how they do things. Not try to fight against it as such, just accept that's how it works in their family. It really helped me to hear that & it stuck with me (we've been married almost 10 years now & things with in-laws are much improved).

What happens if you have friends over, can they use the toilet or help make a cup of tea? Your husbands family sound like they're in a time warp. More worryingly though is his obsession with your family. Do you pass as many comments on his family? He seems to obsess over your parents behaviour, does he expect & demand that everyone in his life behave exactly as he expects ie dictates?

This 100%

To be honest I would never have just gotten up and made myself tea in my in-laws, but I would have in my parents house, and I was able to come and go as I pleased at both my parents and in-laws houses, I didn’t need an invitation.
My ex-husband would have been the same.
I would never have minded my mum or my in-laws making themselves a cup of tea when they came to visit.

I would never have went to either of their homes if they weren’t in and just let myself in though, but I did have a key for a just incase scenario (they lost their keys, I needed to let myself in if they were ill etc).

The thing for me here is what do you expect your children to be like when they are adults, will you expect them not to visit if they haven’t been invited, will you or your husband expect them not to use the toilet when they visit you?
I wouldn’t want my children to feel like that, to me my home will always be their home.

Please can you clarify something OP?

Are you parents letting themselves into your house?
Are they coming round uninvited all the time?

or
Are they sometimes when at your house, making a cup of tea and using the bathroom?

It’s just that from your posts I gathered only the latter but there seems to be an implication from your husband that they are overfamiliar and rude.
I can’t tell if this is actually true (if they were doing the former, I think it would annoy a lot of people) or his interpretation.

I have another question for you. Please try to be very honest with yourself.

Who has compromised more in your relationship to arrive at your own family (you and your husband’s) way of life?

Your husband is a fucking weirdo, totally damaged by a weird upbringing.

So when you need the loo at his parents house, what do you all do? Run to Tesco? Beg the neighbours? Piss in the garden?
No family is perfect and maybe your parents could be better gp’s, but it’s not a hill to die on.
However, your dp is absolutely fucking nuts to think not using his own parents bathroom is in any way normal, unless they had crippling ocd.
I’d be the one threatening to finish this marriage, not him, unless he had a serious rethink about your perfectly decent parents.

Your dh is trying to alienate you from your family, he sounds controlling and ridiculous. Your parents are out of order not even putting money in a card for their grandchild but they haven't done anything else remotely wrong.

You’re making too many excuses for everyone. This isn’t about being tolerant. Tolerant is for opposing religious or political views. This is about being adaptable.

All adult need to be adaptable, and to be honest, I think your DH needs to get over himself and step up here and get over himself.

My DH and I have quite opposing families. Mine of a ‘lower class’, not well spoken, louder and jolly and informal. My DH’s very formal, wealthy etc. Never have any of us had an issue mixing, because we are all adaptable adults.

The othe point is how do you want to raise your kids? Do you wjat them to bring friends home after school or come home from uni and make a cup of tea and open the fridge or wait to be invited home l, have them knock on the door and invite them inside for a cup of tea?

I actually dont think his parents are necessarily "wrong" either, the grandkids love them, but he is bang out of order pitting you against yours

Tbf I would always drop a text to see if someone is free but couldn’t care less if a family member from either side was having a rummage around in my fridge.

Your husband has a very disordered relationship with his own family, it’s fricking insane that he’s not allowed to use the toilet. Do you think being around your relaxed family throws into stark relief who fucked up his family is and he can’t bear it?

He knew what they were like before you had kids.

He chose to marry you and have kids anyway.

Hes bringing it up now because he knows you are far enough down the rabbit hole to seriously consider severing ties for the sake of your marriage and kids.

He is using the abusive tactic of "everyone else thinks so, see, even ex-bil and ex-sil" as a (false) example to threaten you with divorce in an unspoken way.

Neither your parents nor his are grounds for divorce. His threatening tactics are.

He needs to re-evaluate your relationship due to your dps as they're ruining his life?
He's willing to end your marriage because he doesn't like your dps?
He's blaming the failed marriages of your siblings on your dps even though he knows Exbil was having affairs and Exsil wanted to be nearer her family 200 miles away?
The truth is he hates your dps and doesn't want to be around them and is scratching around for reasons to get them out of both of your lives.
What did you say when he said he needed to re-evaluate your relationship?
I'd have said "ok, let me know when you've finished your re-evaluation and then we can discuss if we're selling the house, 50/50 with the DC, CMS etc"
He's trying to control you, he wants no contact with your dps and the veiled threat is the end of your marriage if you don't comply.
Take back control.
Your dps sound perfectly normal-ish, in my family it's normal to have keys to each others houses, make a drink, enter without knocking while calling out "it's only me", my son in-law has a key to my house.
Call your dh's bluff.

Thing is, this notion of a close family is totally at odds with “they never engage with the DC or buy them birthday presents or remember their birthdays.”

It’s clearly more of a free for all, in fact I’d go so far as to say that it sounds like one of those families where the OP and her siblings pretty much brought themselves up.

If OP hadn’t mentioned the toilet thing (assuming that’s even true) the responses would be different.

And if the family set up was different and it was the DH’s family who were like the OP’s, people would be telling her to set some boundaries.

But obv as it’s parents and not in-laws it’s the DH’s fault.

As for the DH saying this threatens the marriage, well, again, if the roles were reversed people would be saying “you don’t have an in law problem, you have a DH problem,” and would be telling her that he either sets the boundaries with his family, especially with regards to their relationships with the DC, or she would need to rethink the marriage.

I can’t help but wonder why he wants to control and isolate you. For example, would you be more compliant and easier to abuse if you didn’t have the support of a family.

I can’t believe the toilet thing. He has never used the toilet at his mum’s? Have you? Your kids? This is mad.