I have gone NC with PIL and feel great. DP is sad.

Tis won’t work. The DP will bow down to the ILs every time.

Then even if the OP holds firm, DP will be “sad” (aka annoyed he has to face facts) and there will be a row.

How are they seeing your husband and kids currently, does your husband take them to his parents house without you?

The child's father did exactly that (move the tea) - and got shouted at for daring to do so.

Be with the kids so they are not at risk.

Have firm boundaries and tell DP that he will stick to them with PIL or tell PIL to leave/leave with the kids.

I can’t believe that you’ve seriously cut your in laws out of your life for something like this!

So agree. My in laws are so lovely and great with my children.
But I just don't get those that persevered when things are toxic.

The very first time my friends daughters ex nurse MIL tried to tell her what to do with her baby, and take the baby from her, she stood up and asked her was she out of her mind?
She said to her, are you one of those batshit MIL's that think they can behave however they want?
She took baby and bag, car keys and left, she left her husband too. She was gone. She drove to her mother directly and turned her phone off.

Her husband followed her about an hour later after having an almighty row with his mother.
She had also over stepped with the wedding, but they had let things go for the peace, but the baby was a whole different thing.

They didn't see them for months. She just refused to risk having her MIL around her, spoiling the new born stage.
Its all good now, 2 years later.
Everyone knows where they stand.

I swear if more people stood up the first time they were treated poorly, they would save years of stress.

OP has tolerated this for 10 years.
Madness.
His own children avoid him.

But it's also quite immature not to apologise when you've upset someone, no?

I was always so confused as a child why we visited my mum's parents when she told us all sorts of horrible things about them all the time because they severely neglected her growing up.

This and it is always the person they’re being unkind to that has to be the bigger person.

This...

They're idiots... It's not just they'd happy exposing their tiny grandchildren to stupid risk... Scalds are grim...

It's that the kids will think their behaviour is normal and disrespecting their mum so normal...

The daft father in law already has a crap history parenting his own kids...

Like hell would he have more than minimal contact with my small kids.

OP, you married a weak damaged man from really low class abusive people.
He doesn't know any better.

Yanbu to no longer associate with them.
Your children do not need low class toxic grandparents.

Its a MN thing that grandparents must have access no matter how abusive or toxic.

My friend tolerated her overbearing father for years to be polite.
Her mother listened while he made PA aggressive remarks.

One day when leaving her 6 year old daughter told her she feels sad when she sees mummys face when Grandad talks.

That was it. She didn't understand what was being said, but she was absorbing the emotion.
It was very triggering for my friend who had 35 years of his nasty digs.

She rang her parents and told them what had been said and that she needed lots of space.
They lived 30 minutes away and she had done all the visiting.

She took a complete break for a full year.
She told the children grandad made her sad so they wouldn't be visiting. They accepted it.

A full year later they agreed to pop in briefly as they were passing.
Her father couldn't help himself, had to make a dig at her husband.
She immediately gathered the children up, wouldn't discuss anything, was just gone.

She rang the following day to say she was done and there would be no more visiting.
She kept to her word.

Through therapy she realised her father was a raging narcissist and her mother enabled him.
She felt no loss, just relief at her decision.
Her children very very rarely asked and then forgot about them.

Your FIL sounds like scum.
Protect your children from scum.
Even if it costs you your marriage.
Marrying into an awful family like that is such a burden.
Be clear to your husband you will protect your children from his awful parents.
You owe them nothing.

If that's what you want to call it.

There doesn't have to be a winner and a loser.

If someone doesn't move their cup of tea out of the way of your children, you can move your children out of the way of the cup of tea and move on.

If you don't like spending time with your in laws, you can leave your husband to entertain them while you go to Sainsbury's or out for lunch with a friend.

There are so many ways of dealing with this which would be so much more proportionate than going no contact and saying you won't let your in laws into your house unless they apologise. Demanding an apology from someone who doesn't agree that they have done something wrong is always counterproductive. And using your children as a bargaining chip to get one over on your parents in law is despicable.

I think it's a bit of a non-specific drip feed to say, "there have been ten years of incidents, none of which I am going to tell you about" in response to people saying, "OK yes, you shouldn't put a hot cup of tea next to small children, but you can deal with this without going no contact." It makes me think that the OP is making a mountain out of a molehill because she thrives on the drama and wants to win.

That and the thread title, "I feel great but my partner is sad." Well yes, of course he's sad because they're his parents and he loves them.

Like I said, I've seen this sort of scenario play out in my husband's family and just cannot encourage people to go no contact or withhold access to their children unless their parents in law apologise and admit that they were completely wrong. And it makes me wonder about what sort of relationships these posters have with their own families and in laws.

Real life isn't as black and white as, "Go no contact unless they apologise." Human relationships don't work like that. In real life taking this kind of approach causes huge amounts of completely unnecessary damage.

So, roll over?

Sometimes you just nod and smile and recognise that you aren't the main character.

Putting your own ego above all else never ends well.

How should the OP realistically work around her DP’s and ILs’ shortcomings…that isn’t just her rolling over and taking it…and is also realistic (because the ILs seem to have behaved appallingly for 10 years so a personality transplant is unlikely)?

No way am I victim blaming. The situation isn't great obviously but it isn't as intolerable as it could be and she's focusing on herself rather than the children. Theoretically they are still put in dangerous or abusive situations as she's not there to protect them and it's upsetting her DP. Sometimes you need to work around other people's shortcomings.

Why do they NEED to come to your house? Like, ffs, they can all go to a cafe or soft play or whatever. This weird attachment they’ve got with your home (aka a power play) further entrenches that they don’t care about your boundaries and just want to do whatever they like.

FWIW, OP, I think it’s absolutely fine for you not to let them in your house. Billions of other buildings on this planet. It’s your house too. Once your DH gets a spine and can be trusted then maybe he can have his arsehole parents in your home. My ILs used to emotionally manipulate and cry that eg “but I want to XYZ”…yeah, well, I want to be an astronaut and command a spaceship but I’m not qualified to do it so it’s a no. Once they’re qualified civil normal people with a compass for danger and your DP qualifies himself by getting a spine and some objective perspective on his parents, they’ll have earned the right to XYZ…

I didn't

I told my DH just how fucked up his family were and he was grateful for the support in extricating himself. Something he hadn't quite managed to do fully, something his mother and brother used against him in quite a cruel, constantly demeaning fashion

Sometimes batshit crazy family relationships just need to be walked away from

Why are you so invested?

They’re really not 😂

Are you alright?

I would carry on as you are O.P. you said how much happier you have felt. If they apologise you can re think but otherwise leave your husband to it. If they are cruel to your kids again I would re think the kids having contact or else limited. I think too many people get away with being unkind in life because they are family and we should make the effort. As I get older and wiser I think you reap what you sow in life. Your in laws are reaping what they sow quite frankly. The ball is in their court to apologise x

I'm not saying that cups of tea near children aren't dangerous. But there are better ways of dealing with this than people shouting at each other and demanding apologies. If you ask your FIL to move his cup of tea and he gets huffy, you just move your kids until he's finished his tea. It's not like the in laws have been doing childcare and the OP has just discovered that they take them out in the car without car seats. Cups of tea are a danger that parents can protect their children against by keeping them out of the way.

I feel like if there were actually big reasons why the OP is right to go NC with her in laws, she'd have led with those reasons.

But this thread is giving me the same vibes as my SIL. If she posted on here she'd no doubt get all kinds of encouragement and irresponsible advice to cut my PIL off. But in reality she is very much the bad guy and has continually started conflicts over incredibly minor issues and destroyed her husband and children's relationship with my PIL through a thousand tiny cuts.

Whatever.

I just hope he's watching them like a hawk.

Because the approach "they learn from their mistakes" doesn't work well when it comes to 1 year olds and boiling drinks.

If the children's safety is at stake I'd say that was a far more serious matter and something that does need to be the mother's call, if the father is intent on disregarding it. The compromise solution might be to see them in a neutral place where they don't hold all the power, rather than in their own home. This isn't a case of 'what I say, goes' or a power wrestle as to who and who doesn't have jurisdiction over what the kids do - it's a case of both parents working together to achieve a compromise solution that's in their children's best interests (rather than their own).

In most circumstances a relationship with their grandparents is in children's best interests. Putting their personal safety at risk is not. So there needs to be a solution which takes both factors into account.

There is no love lost between me and my in-laws. I've stepped back and DH facilities that relationship entirely. But I have no need to worry that he would ever override DC's safety on the whim of his family or otherwise. Nor, to be fair, do I have any concerns about DC's safety whilst with them.

OP's situation is entirely different.

I expect part of the reason DH is ‘sad’ is because the onus is now on him to maintain the relationship with his parents. From what OP said, I suspect the ‘wifework’ of arranging visits etc previously fell to her.

Have the PIL visited your house whilst you were out? It’s not clear from the posts. Also, how far away do they live & how frequently did you see them before?

Or she could...