Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin...
In the wee small hours before the school run my husband and I returned home from a week long trip away to celebrate my husband's ...ahem...thirty- tenth... birthday. We have never left our children for this long before, and I admit I was nervous.
While we were away, my in-laws very kindly looked after our two children, in our home. The relationship between us and my in-laws has never been easy- my husband's mum (who he was very close to) died before we had children, and my FIL, who had been devoted to my original MIL, remarried very swiftly. My new "MIL" has always been very good with the children and encouraged family gatherings, although we know she is often economical with the truth and has always been quite controlling, which I believe is a result of insecurities arising from her own unhappy childhood, the ashes of which I admire her for rising from.
When my children (now 8 and 5) were babies, my in-laws would frequently ignore my requests to not wake them/ feed them chocolate/ sweets/ leave them in the sun etc, and we therefore never left our children alone with them.
In the last couple of years, things seemed to have improved, and as a result, on two previous occasions we have left our children with my in-laws for 2-4 days.
We know my in-laws like to be in control, and on each occasion we have returned to find they have rearranged some things in our house (reorganizing drawers/ furniture etc), which we accepted as our penance. We also know my MIL had been rummaging through our personal items, bedside drawers, reading post etc.
My in-laws have always been very critical of us, which we tend to roll eyes and ignore- we don't garden enough, we let our children watch TV (somedays), we don't eat red meat, we keep our son with aspergers in a mainstream school (where he does very well thank you). Since we moved house they have been repeatedly 'suggesting' we knock down walls "to open the place up" ( no thanks, we like the walls where they are), and we should apparently get rid of our trees, because the garden is always in the shade. (This is one of the reasons we bought the house- my eldest and myself are nearly albino, and sun-phobic. Our garden was family friendly even in the height of summer)
So... we returned from our trip in the early hours, then woke this morning (after the in-laws had left) to find that they have cut down our trees, removing all shade from our garden, (because that's how they like their own garden)leaving so much garden waste we will need to hire a multitude of skips to remove it before we can use the garden- we can't even get to the washing line or bins at the moment. We then found they have cleared out our garage because they considered it "junk".
Oh, they also introduced themselves to the neighbours and slated us for storing "junk" in our garage, and not cutting our neighbours hedge ( we offered, our neighbour said he preferred to do it himself).
What upset me most is that they cut both children's hair, and my 5 year old has been crying because she wanted to keep growing it. When we were away we Skyped, I asked why their hair had been cut, MIL said they were getting bullied at school because their hair was too long (?) When I asked my children about this, they had no idea what I meant.
I am fuming about all of this (i actually feel physically sick), and my husband is mildly livid, but doesn't want to start a family feud. I know my children adore their grandparents, and I don't want them to lose that relationship so I don't know what to do.
I now feel stupid and selfish for going away- we won't do it again, obviously.
Why would someone do this to somebody who trusts them? I am sad and angry. I feel violated actually (and I mean no offence to victims of burglary or worse) I don't know what to do now. I feel tonight that I would be happy to never see my in-laws again, but I know that would be wrong, and I know my children love them, and I know I will feel more rational in a day or two.
Any suggestions?
Sorry for the rant.....