feel like wiping in laws out out of our lives. aibu

[inmyshoos]

My in laws live 4 hours away. So do my folks. When we moved here for work reasons in laws were over the moon saying beautiful part of world and theyd come visit. My folks were gutted because they would not see the kids so much.

Dont want to drip feed but there is a long history of in laws being completely unsupportive with our family whilst they practically raise their other sons dc.
They are heavily involved in their lives and we barely get a phonecall.

We have asked on the odd occassion for help and been told they cant as they have committed to the other gc.

So two days ago dd1 broke her arm in two places and needed an op. My dh works away and when he goes i will have the otherv2 dc plus our two dogs (one is a young pup) and need huge walks. Just managing the other two dc will be tricky enough as they are outdoorsy kids. We have been cycling and swimming and kayaking our days away and allthat will be impossible now with dds cast. Dc are 5, 7 and 9.
It takes a lot for us to ask for help.
So dh asked would mil fancy coming up on bus for a few days while he works. She replied 'oh no i will just see you when you come down'.
I feel like never seeing them again. They do nothing but upset us. They once had a 4 night stay in a hotel half an hour from us and didnt visit. Different if they didnt bother with the other gc but they are heavuly involved in their lives. I would have no oroblem with never seeing them again. My oldest and youngest arent fussed about them but my dd1 with the broken arm really connects with her gran.
Aibu for feeling like cutting them out.

Thank you to those who understand and have offered helpful advice

I only understand inmyshoes, because I have walked in your shoes

NC is the best way, and get all the books, toxic parents, toxic in laws from amazon...help him emotionally disengage....

And i do try so hard but it is usually met with a hard slap There you go, you know its going to happen dont keep going back for more.

Inmyshoos. It's very hard, that realisation, and there is, in my experience, absolutely nothing you can do about it. I'm an only child, but it has made my hyper aware of not favouring either of my own DC. My advice would be not to go back for more - this is not a situation you can change. Good luck.

Ok going by your original few posts I thought YWBU - particularly over your dh's 40th.

From your later posts - I agree they are unpleasant and hurtful.

Toxic family members are just the same as toxic non-family members - who cares if they are family? If they are damaging you and yours emotionally then sometimes you do need to remove them from your lives.

But this is your husband's parents.

I think you need a few good long discussions with your dh and work through this together.

Reading your posts OP has given me the rage. YANBU for wanting them out of your lives.

I would just make no effort to meet them. And if you receive a text inviting you somewhere just say that you can't make it but hope they have a good time.

If you expect nothing from them, you'll not be disappointed.

The key thing to remember is that it's not you, it's them. Honestly. It's their problem that they can't treat their DC or DGC equally and starting to believe that will be the start of the process of learning to deal with it.

Your last explanation makes everything clear.

I would have nothing to do with them and I would never ask them for help. At least, not whilst FiL is alive.

You haven't said why you can't ask your parents.

Could you own parents help?

Your pils sound like my ex pils, they would do anything for sil but nothing for us. In the end we didn't ask, its quite funny as sil dc have grown up now and don't bother with them, because they neverbuilt a relationship with my dd she doesn't really bother with them either.

Now you have given more info I would just not contact them ever again.

jimmychoo sorry your MIL behaved so badly. I was lucky. Mine never once asked for anything or chided me for the foolish things I kept. We agreed a plan of action every chest of drawers and cupboard- emptied them together onto the bed, sorted them together and bagged them together. Mind you she is much taller and a different size to my mum but she would not have asked anyway. She is just not that type. It was not about her.

How old is the one with the broken arm & how do you usually cope in the hokiudays with three kids & two dogs when your husband isn't there?

No nice grandparent would treat her grandchildren the way your MIL has treated yours, your dcs will see the difference in the way the dgcs are treated and this will either breed resentment in them towards their grandparents or cousins, or they will try to compete to receive the same attention. Neither of these options is good for your children, your dh has already suffered due to their perceived favouritism, don't let your children follow the same pattern.

Put and end to any relationship with them, please try and convince your husband it would be better for everyone, especially your children. Live your lives as if they are not there, it will save you all a lot of heartache in the long run.

Fwiw, it seems sad your dh has not confronted these incidents at the time, e.g., the family lunch - I would have said "are we not family then?". I think you need to call people out on their behaviour at the time. You have a long list of incidents and it would be nigh on impossible to get a satifactory resolution or change of attitude now, it is just better all round to withdraw. If they ask why then you have an opportunity to tell them, and then decide based on their reaction if you want to remain NC or attempt to rebuild the relationship. If they don't you have lost nothing.

If it helps get your dh to write a letter to get it all out of his system and then put it in a drawer and forget about it.

It will initially be hard on you dd, but as she doesn't seem to see them very often it will fade and become easier, your other two seem indifferent and your dd probably will feel the same in time.

I'm another one with the same issue, other grand children / nieces every weekend, trips, holidays, presents, shopping, nice meals out. Mine nothing, no baby sitting, no trips, no gifts.

Now I think some of it is perceived weakness, so the other mum 'needs the break' 'needs the help', she is perceived as the one in need the most as she screams and shouts the loudest. We don't, we just get on with life. If we can't take ds we don't go, when I've had operations ds goes to work with his dad. It's sad I'm incredibly frustrated and ultimately my son doesn't know them.
We aren't no contact but we are down to three or four polite visits a year

We don't visit my MIL anymore,speak if we bump into her but thats it.
She never bothered with our kids which was fair enough but when her daughter had kids everything was about them.She woud sit infront of us rhyming off all the stuff she had bought for them and how many times they had slept over etc
We just decided we were not visiting any more.
MIL only ever phoned if she wanted a favour expecting my OH to drop everything and go round.
If I tried to encourage her to come to us she would say she was busy or she couldn't be bothered to traipse all this way....so when she wants OH to go over we give the same answer,sorry we are too busy or we can't be bothered to traipse all that way.Her reply was its only a couple of miles.I said yes I know its only a couple of miles to you but apparently it is about ten miles back...silence then a huff lol.She has stopped asking.

One day Immyshoos they will really need you or your OH and you can say no.
Hope you get some help from people who care x

OP, what would happen if you directly asked for help? Make it clear they are needed now and if they still say no...well you know for sure where you stand. Im not clear as to why you didn't directly ask for help- some people need it spelling out. Whats the reason behind this?

I do understand where your coming from though but perhaps because we have had issues with my IL's of a similar nature. It does hurt when they don't want to know their GC.

...and exactly what Emotionsecho said.

lulu

grabbing DM clothing and encouraging me to chuck all of it out, looking at it like rags

she grabbed it to chuck it out, not to keep it she made it clear it was rags to her.

"Right i am going to text and ask directly" Why don't you pick up the phone and talk to her. So much can be misread through texts. Speak to your MIL and tell her yourself what a nightmare you've found yourself in and that you wouldn't ask unless you were desperate but you'd really really appreciate some help. Like you said, if she says no then so be it, you have your answer. But it may be that she doesn't fully understand the situation.
BTW - we're in your position; both work full time, 2 kids and 2 cats (not as hard as dogs to look after but you get the gist). Both my parents emigrated the year my DD1 was born (cheers Ma...) and DP's parents are too elderly. If either of ours are ill, we simply have to take time off work. Not ideal but it's not forever.
Good luck.

Oh here we go, drip feeding is annoying, when the OP already said there was a lot of background.

And the well I had no help etc and wouldn't dream of expecting it rah rah, booey for you. DH and I have no family in the UK either but I still think the GPs are being total arseholes. And I would OP go nc.

Inmyshoos have you asked your parents to help? Instead of focusing so much energy on you ILs, just ask your mum or dad to help. I can see there are some things that they have done which have royally pissed you off but I can't see anything that bad that they should be cut out of their son an GC life.

My advice, you know what they are like, so stop expecting them to change and let them get on with it. It's their responsibilty how close they want to be to their GC. You can't force the situation.

If they are so unsupportive, it can't be a surprise that they won't help.

I don't see why you would stop seeing them for behaving as they always have.

If you live far away from family and they are unhelpful anyway, why not pay a babysitter like millions of other people do? "DH and I never go out together"...well why not? Thats your CHOICE.

inmyshoos - wow, I wish I'd seen this post earlier, it looks like you could have done with some more support.

I've been where you are, I have ILs who favor one of their four sons, over the other three they have. They also favor the GC of their favored DS.

In our case, my DH and the other two non-favored sons lived NEARER to their parents, than the favored son. Yet more effort has always been made to visit and support the Golden Child and the Golden Grandchildren.

DD2 was born in June 2013, and it was SIX weeks before my ILs saw her for the first time, and then they only "popped in" on the way to visit the Golden Child, as the Golden Daughter-in-Law had given birth to their third child. Yes that's right, my ILs only popped in to see one newborn granddaughter (they stayed for less than an hour), as they were on the way to visit the other newborn granddaughter. They stayed there for the whole weekend.

And I have many stories, similar to yours, so I do understand how you feel and where you're coming from.

As a family, we moved to the United States in December (just after Christmas), and despite everything we were keen to set up regular contact between our DC and my ILs.

My FIL is very tech savvy, and already had Skype and that set up, to keep in regular contact with the Golden Family (who live three hours away from them). We left the UK with promises of regular Skype chats, which were arranged for a certain day and time, that worked in both countries.

The first Skype chat happened, and I said to DH afterwards, "You know what, I thought your parents would let the DC down, but they didn't. Maybe us moving so far away has actually triggered something in them." Alas I spoke to soon.

The second week came, my DC sat there ready, but nothing happened. DH said, "maybe they got held up, I won't say anything." Then the third week came around. Then the fourth. Then the fifth.

DH sent e-mails, left answer phone messages, and yet we heard nothing. Before long, THREE MONTHS had passed, and we had had no contact from my ILs other than that first Skype chat. So DH stopped trying to contact them.

Then I found out I had fallen pregnant again, and we decided not to tell them, as they clearly have no interest in our family. However, totally out the blue, we had an angry e-mail from his father demanding to know why we hadn't told them I was pregnant. It all went downhill after that.

Anyway, I'm aware I'm going on, so rather than go on and on further, I'll just say this...

We have now cut FIL and MIL out of our lives. It is the most glorious feeling, more for my DH than me, and he actually told me a couple of weeks ago that he feels a huge weight has been lifted. He has clung so desperately to the very poor relationship he had with his parents (through their doing, not his), in the hope that one day they might show the same kind of love to him (and his other two brothers), that they do to their favored son. I think all this has made him realize, this is never going to be forthcoming.

And no, our children won't suffer, in fact they were suffering more from clearly being made to feel less worthy than their "golden" cousins. They had noticed it, DS2 (8) had commented on it before.

Only you and DH can decide whether it's worth continuing to have his parents in your lives or not, but whatever you decide, please know there's someone here who understands how you feel.

(I don't normally do this, but if you ever want someone to talk to, feel free to message me via the personal message system).

Not sure why you can't do out doors things with a cast, she will just need to be careful and not get it wet. Walks etx can still be done

Take it you've never had a broken arm and an operation to fix it then? Just cos you can't see blood doesn't mean it doesn't hurt...

I feel your pain, as both my own DM and in-laws give significantly more help to siblings. Mind you, the siblings are very needy and VERY vocal about their neediness, so maybe you need to lay it on the line a bit more. I wouldn't cut them out, but I do feel aggrieved!

Your parents?

tess thank you. Your message means a lot. Good to know how good nc can feel. My in laws are a huge strain on my relationship with dh. He too clings to this broken strained relationship. Time for change!

What about your parents Inmyshoos. Why cant you not ask the to help out?