Hello! I’ve just hashed it out with my father in law but I feel like I need an outsiders perspective to know if I’m being overly sensitive or if this is behaviour to expect.
I recently gave birth to DC 3 a couple of days ago but it was whilst I was pregnant my FIL really pissed me off. My partner and him have a good enough relationship but they’ve definitely had struggles particularly since we’ve had kids. For my partner it highlights his dads absence and lack of support when he’s been really struggling. My MIL who is no longer with FIL is going through chemo and whilst she has always offered support we dont feel it’s fair to take it, knowing that she’s also physically struggling. Her partner is also useless and is a functioning alcoholic so she doesn’t have the best support herself. She is also based really far from us. My mum has helped us the most in the past and I would say she is our main support if we need it but she isnt that close by either, she is also 10-15 years older than my in laws and single. I’ve also found she doesnt actually like having to make the long journey and doesn’t always willingly want to help as she’s older so we try not to ask much. We are actually very self sufficient as we do so much ourselves and pay for nursery and baby sitters if we have the spare money but it’s never to do anything for fun it will literally only be for childcare whilst at work. In fact all of our family support is still just for this. I think in the five years of having kids we’ve been to the cinema once on our parents time. We’ve never done anything else!
My DH missed the birth of DC2 because we didn’t have childcare in place in the middle of the night and because of this we asked my mum to come stay with us until the baby was born 2 weeks before due date. A really big ask but she agreed. 2 weeks pass and we feel like she really needs a rest because she’s been helping out so much around the house whilst I focus on all the childcare and my partner is at work. We really want to give her some respite so we ask FIL if we paid for his train fare (because he’s used cost of travel a reason for not coming in the past and he lives 2 hours away) would he come for the weekend just so my mum can rest and come back. His reply was “sorry I can’t it’s my works end of year do and I will be out eating and drinking all day, sorry it’s not my fault it’s this week” My partner then said well could you just come on the Saturday morning instead and leave Sunday and his response was “sorry I’ll be too FKD” My partner sarcastically said thanks for your help and his FIL said “it’s not my fault it’s on the same day. Don’t wanna fall out with you over this”
Is this normal behaviour to expect? Were we asking too much? I personally was shocked by the order of priorities but also zero offer of an alternative day or week. we said absolutely nothing back.
fast forward to today..
FIL’s wife keeps in touch and asking about the baby but I feel resentful in wanting to share much detail because FIL hasn’t said checked in at all about baby’s arrival. I explained the birth was chaotic, my partner was worried the baby had died and that whilst we were all doing ok the journey here was quite traumatic. I kept asking why FIL still hadn’t called his son despite knowing this information so he sends me a message by way of her instagram saying he hasn’t heard anything for three weeks because he thought we were annoyed at him. I urge him to call his son himself and not talk to me about it. Hours pass and I have enough and call him and we hash it out. He says I’m not the boss of him, he didn’t want to not go to his work outing, he wanted to go to it and he wasn’t not going to go because he has plans. He then says more excuses as to why he won’t come such as I hate London, I hate trains. No one’s going to change me, I’m not gonna be the father he wants so we are never gonna be ok. I was thinking, he literally just wants you to visit!?! What the fuck is he actually asking of you that is so wild. He also said I’m not at your beck and call… this is the only time we asked you to come down and we thought the reason was pretty valid!?
when we go to where he lives, he is hands on with our kids and they really enjoy each others company. But that happens about 4 times a year. there is zero effort ever to put himself out or to come to us.
am I being ubreasonable in thinking he should’ve at least offered an alternative day he could do some heavy lifting instead of a 72 year old woman? Or is this a common mistake to think this way.