To leave my dh because I can no longer abide his parents?

[Oddment]

have nc for this but am a regular poster.

I have been with dh for 7 years, married for 1. We have a year old ds (got married when I was 38 weeks pg) things are ok between us, we have problems like everyone else but get through them.

The problem is his parents. He has always had a very 'parental' relationship with them. They treat him like he is an incompetent child and me also. He has an older brother who can do no wrong in their eyes and they let him get on with it.

They have just left after visiting for four days. I feel like I have been beaten up mentally. On the outside, they are very normal. Retired, very into their home and garden. They visit every three months for a week. When they are here they do our garden, totally disregarding what I want planting despite me being quite insistent. They always think they know best.

Pople who know them say they are lovely and I should count myself lucky to have such nice inlaws. They don't realise how shit they make me feel. They are always making suggestions on how I can run the home better, parent ds etc. They make me feel like I am twelve. Dh is used to it and says I am overreacting.

We owe them £70,000 that they lent us to buy the house. We are only paying off the interest not the capital. I feel so indebted to them that I feel I cannot say no when they tell us how to decorate or do the garden. I feel like it's theirs and dh's house and nothing to do with me. They don't treat dh's brother or wife like this.

I need to leave. I cannot stand it. I have massive self esteem issues from my childhood which are coming to the surface again because they make me feel like a stupid kid who know fuck all. The thought of putting up with this for the next however many years is too awful to contemplate.

I don't understand the gardening thing anyway because the OP contradicts herself.

"When they are here they do our garden, totally disregarding what I want planting despite me being quite insistent"

" I feel so indebted to them that I feel I cannot say no when they tell us how to decorate or do the garden."

Are you giving them mixed messages by any chance?

Sounds like your problem is with your DH. You've told him how you feel and he's ignoring you. You need him to get on your side.

I can't really tell from this if they are just making suggestions to you, or buying stuff and planting it, or whether they are totally disregarding you in a bullying way. Lots of IL's, mine included, like to make 'helpful' suggestions about parenting, bedtimes, sweets, how to decorate the house, what to do with our lives and so on. My MIL is from a very matriarchal culture in which it is positive normal to tell your children they are doing it all wrong. We laugh about it and ignore them.

I would step back a bit, I think your reaction is a lot about you and your self-esteem as much as it is about them (I'm sure they are annoying and so on too). I don't see where this goes to ending your marriage though, as they would still be in your divorced family!

And not only will they still be in your divorced family...you'll still owe them £70,000 along with your ex.

re the loan and the interest - are you paying them interest at or above market rate? because rates from banks are pitiful at the moment, so if you are paying them above what they could get from a savings account, you are doing them a favour. But you should only be doing that if you couldn't get the loan elsewhere on better terms.

if you can extend your mortgage on a rate lower than you pay them in interest, then you should do that!

Either way, if they lent money to BIL and your DH is happy with the loan, you need to accept that and stop thinking of it as something you are beholden to them about. Just stop. They lent it, on equal terms to golden boy BIL and your DH, they're happy, they're not out of pocket or on the bread line because of it. Unless they bring it up as a reason for you to kowtow to them! They may have done it as a way to circumvent inheritance tax on some of their estate too.

tbh it doesn't sound like something to leave your dh over. though I appreciate it is frustrating. you need to grow a pair about the garden and your parenting, or a mechanism of brushing things off - "thanks for the suggestion about the dcs, but I prefer it like this".

what do they do in the garden that you don't like exactly?

my in-laws a re a bit like this. i think it's not worth leaving for, but i would suggest 3 things:

1. visit them more
2. learn to smile sweetly and say 'thank you, i will think about scarlet for the hall...' and then stop thinking about it
3. find jobs in the garden for them.eg ' i want to put a bush in here, but i don't know what sort - what do you think?'

if you can divert them to limited areas, you can contain them. they obviously do think a lot of you to lend you the money and to come and help you. you just need to find a way of managing them so they don't seem such a chore (and if the worst comes to the worst, tell them the plants they planted all died (sadly) so you had to replace them with your favourite japanese cherry, which has just flourished!)

don't leave your husband if you love him - better to go on a weekend away when they come.

Another solution of course is to concrete the garden over.
Or get some Roundup and selectively kill every plant they put in against your wishes

We borrowed 30k from my parents to buy our house. All is fine and dandy. It can be done if the relationship is good.
Weirdly it is dh's parents who always want to do stuff in our house. Currently they are chomping at the bit to tile our kitchen. Whilst I don't really care either way I will not be having my kitchen tiled - the wall will stay bare. Can't you just say no? Or if you are really being overriden just change it all once they've gone so when they come next time no sign of the plants etc?
One tip that was useful with my dh when trying to explain why I was upset with PIL was to reverse it. I asked him to imagine if I acted that way at my MILs house (with specifics - eg. what would you think if I arrived at PILS and went straight to the laundry room to go hang up clothes? etc). I pointed out that if I respect MILS house rules she must respect mine. It did help.

It seems to me that nothing can be sorted out re your DH and yourself until the 70k is repaid.

As you are not paying off any capital to your PIL's, it seems they feel they own a % of your home and this % is showing no signs of decreasing...you and your DH are showing no signs of wanting independence from them.

I would feel very powerless in this situation as well...but would not be leaving my DH.

I'd be clearing the 70K and then reassessing everything with a clean slate so to speak.

I agree that you are letting them behave like this. You let them come and stay in your home for a week every 3 months (which would be too much for me!). You and your DH borrowed the 70k off them. You let them do your garden. Why not stand up for yourself and say, no sorry, this is my house, if you want to come and stay, heres a hotel link, my garden stays the way it is, etc..

I don't think you can overlook the 70k they have leant you. Pay your own way in life and you're not beholden to anyone. Theres a very similar situation in DP's family. He is the elder brother who is left to get on with his own thing and has never been lent money. Same with his sister. Yet his younger brother (who is not at all incapeable but just lazy and takes the easy solution if someone offers it) was given 250k towards the purchase of his first home. Which he has never paid back.

I would hate to be in that position. Do you have a loan repayment schedule set up, because at least then you could legitimately tell them it was your own house and to butt out a bit?

Read about Transactional Analysis - it's all about the roles we take in relationships such as parent/child for example where a partner mother's their spouse or a partner act as child in a relationship.

In your case it sounds as though your DH and his parents have not moved to an adult/adult relationship and that is a move both parties must make. If your DH cannot do this then of course you may not be able to sustain your marriage due to the impact on your emotional well being. However, this would be more about you leaving your husband due to his failure to manage his relationship with his parents rather than you leaving the marriage because of his parents iyswim. I think it is important to make this distinction for it is he to whom you are married and it is only him that can manage his outside relationships in such a way that the marriage does not suffer.

He may well be willing to make changes that place him as an adult in his relationship with his parents depsite them continuing to try and take a parental role. Have you fully tried to do this? Do you have his agreement that such control from his parents is dentrimental to his life as a fully fledged adult? If he is unwilling to see this then YANBU to consider the marriage to have failed, but it is obviously important to be sure that any negotiations have come to an end and that he is indeed unwilling to address the issues first.

I wish they were my in-laws - loaning me £70k interest free and helping in the garden. Can we swap!

Yes, in their efforts to be useful and helpful they are being a bit of an annoyance, but you could have far more troublesome in-laws. How would you feel if you were having to give them money and help out with their chores and gardening?

Surely you can put up with them just 4 times a year.

I'd recommend putting your foot down with your DH re extending the mortgage rather than leaving him if there's no other problems in your marriage. Emphasise to him how negatively this is affecting your state of mind, your relationship with his parents and indirectly your relationship with him.

I can understand how beholden you feel and how hard it would be to live with this.

A few years back my PIL proposed buying a house jointly with me (DH couldn't get his act together in terms of long-term employment or contributing to the deposit). I politely declined, preferring to live in a flat which I could afford on my own salary rather than a family house with garden which would be half owned by them. I told them that I felt that their proposal was kind but would be infantilising for DH and would lessen my respect for him as an adult man. (I was a little more diplomatic in how I put it...)

Reading your post definitely makes me think I made the right decision, especially since we've now decided to get (amicably) divorced. It would be so much more complicated if PIL owned 50% of my home.

I'd still like to know how the OP didn't spot the PILS were like this during the 6yrs before she married their son and had a baby with him.

If they were the same then as they are now, I think it's totally disrespectful to the baby to want to divorce her Dad.

Also, I wonder if the OP would feel the same if her DH were to get custody and she became a non resident parent?

I think you are getting a rough ride here. I wouldn't like my inlaws to turn up, run roughshod over my home and then expect me to be grateful for it either!

You have two problems as far as I see it, 1. your DH, who needs to stick up for you more, and 2. the loan, which gives the inlaws the feeling that they own you and can treat you as they like.

Speak to your DH- tell him that after a visit from his parents you feel so ground down you are considering leaving him so you don't have to go through it again (and whatever the other posters are saying, leaving him WOULD mean that you would not have to stay in the same house with them again). If this doesnt make him take your distress seriously, then you do indeed have a problem. Limit their visits - perhaps just visit them, so you can leave when you like.

And strongly consider remortgaging with a proper bank loan so you can repay them the cash they have lent you.

Your DHs relationship with his parents is not healthy if he thinks it is OK to not defend his wife and to be reduced to a child rather than a grown man in his own house. And the thigh stroking think is .

Re the 6 years of putting up with it, maybe the OP has just finally snapped? People put up with a lot of stuff for a long time sometimes before they can build up the strength to do something about it, particularly where they don't seem to be getting any support from ANYONE.

And showing the baby that everyone thinks it's ok to disrespect his mother and treat her like a cipher in her own home isn't exactly great either.

Sorry I think that's rubbish. If she 'finally snapped' then that would indicate there were always problems there...in which case having a baby with him and marrying him was a pretty stupid idea.

Sorry but I just get so angry at how little thought some people have for their kids when choosing a reason for divorce.

I still think the OP is assuming she'll get custody and that if there was a chance she wouldn't, she might well find a way of attempting to deal with this situation first.

Also re the putting up with it for 6 years thing, sometimes it takes that long for the reality of a situation to sink in. You either can't quite believe it's happening or you think that you'll easily be able to change it / him / them.

People will put up with things that they believe are temporary or out of character but once it becomes clear that they're permanent and an integral part of someone's character then all bets are off IMO.

Well, not everyone can choose the perfect husband. Maybe she thought he would change. Who knows?

I just think it's a little cruel to threaten a woman who is being bullied with the potential loss of her baby if she doesn't keep putting up with it. Hopefully her DH will man up- it's not just the OPs fault. Clearly she is in a very bad way if she is considering divorce.

Anyway OP, your DH is the key here. Perhaps you should have asked this question in relationships rather than AIBU? That way you might get some support and people there who know more about this sort of thing than I do who can suggest some tactics to help you with your problem.

Why do you invite them to your house so frequently?
Why invite them for a whole week at a time?

Why not visit them for a change and start re-arranging their house and garden.

I just think it's a little cruel to threaten a woman who is being bullied with the potential loss of her baby if she doesn't keep putting up with it

Sorry who is threatening anyone?

And I don't believe she's being bullied. She just needs to learn to assert herself, stop giving mixed messages re the garden and try not to borrow huge amounts of money from control freaks.

If the PIL are that bad, they could have always put their name down for a council flat...7yrs on and with a baby I'm sure they'd be in a council house by now.

You have my sympathies OP.

My inlaws are just like this. Very nice and pleasant and helpful and like a train on a track when they get an idea about something. There is simply NO steering them or stopping them. And it is all done in such a passive, pleasant way that I feel helpless.

And they would also use lending us money or helping us out as a reason to have a say in our lives which is why we NEVER EVER LET THEM HELP US IN ANY WAY. We would sell the family dog before we would borrow money from them (and we would never sell Brownie ).

I would say you were a fool to agreeing to the 70k, but then I have the support of my husband in resisting their well intentioned Triffid-like strangling of our lives.

You need to get your husband on side. Explain to him clearly and calmly exactly what the problem is, and how you would like things to change. Use the method an earlier poster said of explaining that no one would accept you going to their house and reorganising their garden, so they shouldn't do it to you.