Dealing with a difficult Father-In-Law - HELP!

[LunaLunita]

Warning this is a very long post! Sorry!

Im am writing under a different screen name so that I can speak freely here, as I am desperate for some wise advise.
I have a very difficult in law situation. My husband and his siblings were given a very large trust fund when they were 16 by their father when he sold his business. I have been with my husband for 7 years now and have seen my father in law hold this financial gift as a means of emotional blackmail and control over his kids since the day he gave it. Now all the kids are in their early 30s, though they continue to take emotional and verbal abuse because they feel indebted to this man who has given them such a privileged life. In fact my father in law reminds them of this every time they have a dispute, and threatens to take "his money back" even though legally he gave it away to his kids over 15 years ago. I don't know how many times I have told my husband that just because he gave him this money does not give him license to treat people the way he does. My father in law is a classic narcissist: he feels the world revolves around him, he has no empathy for anyones feelings other than his own, and if you have an opinion on anything that is different than his you might as well keep it to yourself because he won't have it. He's arrogant and dismissive and the only people who are still in his life are those that he has helped or is helping financially and they feel indebted to him - he in return feels like he owns them and can treat them however he sees fit. I could spend days sharing the stories of horrible things he has done to his family, its really quite sad and I really don't understand why they are still around. It is hard for me to understand the psychology of those who have this blind love for him and somehow manage to come up with the most ludicrous reasons for defending his every action, no matter how wrong it is.

Anyway, getting to current issue at hand. Things have come to a head with me and my father in law. He has had a proper dressing down with every other member of the family, even the other daughter in laws multiple times over the most petty of things, though it has not yet happened with me until now. A few months ago he told my husband that he decided he didn't want anything to do with me because I didnt give him the attention he deserved whenever we saw them. Apparently he has been keeping a list for a years (talk about passive aggressive). For example, there was one time 2 years back that he had surgery and I didn't ask him how he was feeling; then at our wedding I didn't pay enough attention to him; then 6 months ago when he came to visit us I didn't offer to make him enough teas nor was I up and making him breakfast when he got up in the morning (mind you I had a 3 month old baby) and then the icing on the cake was that I didn't sign his birthday card which my husband sent a few months back. So he called my husband the other day to invite us up for Christmas and has invited me up as well so that we can "bury the hatchet" in his words. I told my husband I would love to go up and have a nice Christmas and forget all this nonsense, etc, but I won't go up if that means he is going to give me one of his dressing downs - which means he will pull me aside in a separate room and have a go at me and tell me everything he doesn't like about me, make me apologise and then agree that I will not act that way going forward. That is his way of burying the hatchet. I would be totally down for having a two way honest adult discussion so that we can work through our differences, but he does not work that way. He doesn't allow anyone else to speak and he will not accept anyone giving him any sort or criticism , in his mind he is without fault. He would go into a blind rage even if I tried in the most gentlest of ways. So anyway, my husband very nicely called him back and thanked him for inviting us up for Christmas but that our only condition was that we wanted a nice Christmas and that no one would get getting a dressing down. My father in law lost it and said that it was necessary for him to be able to move on and that we would not be invited to come up unless he could address issues with me. Then he stuck it to my husband where he knew it would really hurt, and said "son if you don't come up for Christmas then there will be consequences to pay as your relationship with me will be in jeopardy and you will cause problems with your mother and I, so have a word with your wife and make your decision wisely". This is not the first time he has cued the emotional blackmail. So now my husband is distraught over what to do. he was in tears the other night saying that I was making him choose between me and his family and that I should just suck it up and deal with it because he is the one who is paying for our lifestyle (by means of the trust fund he gave my husband over 15 years ago). I'm of course upset over all of this as well, as I hate seeing my husband so upset and don't want to be the cause of him falling out with his father. I just think that boundaries have to be set, I have too mush self respect to let myself go up there and be yelled at so that my father in law can feel better, and then turn around and be able to put on an act for this man for the rest of Christmas. I still have my resentment towards him that will only be exacerbated by the situation. My question is, am I being selfish and unreasonable here? Should I just suck it up and take it just as everyone else does just to keep the peace? Or am I right in wanting to make a point and set boundaries, even if it means that relationships will fall apart?
Sorry for such a long post. I just have no one else to talk to about this and really need some help!

Just how big is this pot of gold, that allows your husband to turn a blind eye to his family being abused ?

Your DH is a wimp (crying indeed) and any man that stands by even encourages his family to abuse you simply is not worth it

noddingdog genius !

Your husband is a wet lettuce. I would not have children with such a person.

"son if you don't come up for Christmas then there will be consequences to pay as your relationship with me will be in jeopardy and you will cause problems with your mother and I, so have a word with your wife and make your decision wisely".

Consequences such as what?

never seeing the bully again?

Its FIL who is making him 'choose' not you.
Speaking of choices;
Your husband chose to marry you for the person you are
Your husband chose to accept the money and to build a life on it
Your husband chose to accept Christmas despite knowing his father would want to try to humiliate and degrade you.

Now you get to chose what you want to say to the old prick.

I may be tempted, as a PP suggests, to go and let he say his piece - whilst saying absolutely nothing myself. No response - verbally or otherwise. Remain totally impassive. Like the PP suggested, imagine you're on a beach. When he's finished ranting like the madman he clearly is, walk away. If he asks for your response / opinion, say you don't have one, you've nothing to say.

It will infuriate him but through his own doing. You'll have done nothing wrong. And he'll know you're in the right and he's in the wrong. But you'll have done nothing to inflame him. He'll be hopping mad but so what? You'll have done as he asked, no?

I'd then go and drink his most expensive wine.

if you are both indeed living off the money that the FIL has given to your husband, then its time to start supporting yourselves.. it may not be as luxurious a life as you have both been used to, but it will at least come without a price to pay emotionally

My MIL veers between treating me like her little princess and treating me like something nasty stuck on the bottom of her shoe, like her perpetual whipping boy, like I was put on this earth to absorb all her shit in order to make her feel better about her crap.

The only reason I continue to have anything to do with her is because I know 100% that if I said to DH 'no contact' then without missing a beat, without a second thought or a startled blink he'd say 'no contact it is. I'll delete her number now'.

I have that power right here in my hands and I choose not to exercise it. I could, but I don't.

You don't seem to have that and sad as I am that your DH is crying he's the problem.

Would your own father have treated you like this? If you wouldn't expect nor take it from your own, why take it from his?

I'd feign illness to shut the old git up in the short term then look into the legal side both for your DH and for YOURSELF then sort out your DH's priorities pretty sharpish. Then the two of you can take the greatest pleasure in telling him to F off.

How does this trust fund work then?

does FIL have control & your husband has to ask for money or was it handed over & husband has control of it?

If the first, then yes, find a way of living without it, if the second well then it's been handed over, why dpes husband feel beholden?

Any parent would do that if they could, & most with out the drama!

You need to point out that it is his father that is demanding that you go to theirs for a bullying session, and that is holding the money over him for not bending to his iron fist.

I'd suggest that he needs to decide whether he wants a wife or the money. As evidently he can't cope with both.

Has OH had his trust money ? If so, tell FIL that you weren't part of the equation, that no-one told you you had to abide a bullying manipulative FIL when you married. That he'd had no obligation to hand over his dosh, there wasn't a clause written in blood that he can poison everyones lives for the rest of his life.
Preferably have this conversation in front of the whole plethora of OH's family, then walk out with kids. with a "Fuck you" over your shoulder as you leave

Find out everything you can about the terms of the Trust Fund and find out why it was set up the way it is. It's probably legit but it could be some form of tax-dodge, or deliberate deprivation of assets or other iffy practise.
Especially determine this, what control does FIL have over the money today, I suspect that's zero which is why he's playing the emotional cards, but you need to find out.

Well done for your DH to call the psychotic his Father and say you were not going to accept being treated that way.

" Then he stuck it to my husband where he knew it would really hurt, and said "son if you don't come up for Christmas then there will be consequences to pay as your relationship with me will be in jeopardy and you will cause problems with your mother and I, so have a word with your wife and make your decision wisely". "

That is the pivotal issue in this, expecting his son to make you submit to his demands. Gah. Personally I'd decline his invitation to visit for xmas and "accidentally" let all of his colleagues and contacts see what a grade one fool he really is to have asked your dh to do that in the first instance.

Your self-respect is worth more than any amount of money your father in law can give you! Stand up for yourself & stay strong.

How about setting up a hidden camera (trained on FIL only) in the 'Bollocking Chamber' and then broadcasting the video all over YouTube/Twitter/Facebook? 'Mad Grandad Loses It At Christmas' could go viral.

What a nasty shit your FIL is; I'd be disowning DH, too.

There's not a chance I'd engage with this man (FIL) and his power tripping games. Attending for a dressing down indeed.

Your poor husband has been bullied into accepting this as normal. You don't have to. You're going to have to man-up for both of you and set your children a good example of what it is to have your own agency and self-respect.

Please, please, please, if you do decide to go along with this for financial or marital reasons, could you just stand there and laugh, and laugh and laugh on receiving your dressing down?

he was in tears the other night saying that I was making him choose between me and his family

Well yes and quite rightly so. How can your DH think it is right or appropriate to allow his father to treat you like this?

I would be giving your DH an ultimatum I think - refuse to pander to Daddy or you are shipping it.

No amount of money would persuade me to accept this bullying behaviour

Maybe the juniors should have a pow wow, & bite back ?

My FIL would use MIL as a way to manipulate DH. "Come do this.. or your poorly MIL will have to". It would infuriate him beyond belief, but one day we had to just put our hands up and let them get on with it MIL was a grown woman and she didn't want to leave him. He stopped being able to manipulate us, because he had no more ammo.

How does this trust fund work? If the money is already theirs, FIL has no say.

I'd tell your DH he is welcome to put up with his own family, but you will not. You're willing to live without the money if his father does in fact have the ability to take it back.

What you allow is what will continue. You allow your FIL to do this to you, you are giving him permission to do it again and treat you like shit.

I'm presuming that all the DILs & SILs are united in this ?
maybe the united girls should do a boycott ......oh the JOY

Absolutely he should be choosing.

He should choose whether or not to ask his wife to subject herself to humiliation at the hands of a bully who gets off on it.

You should refuse. You really should. why the hell should you allow yourself to be treated like that.

And, sorry to say it, but nobody who loved you would want that for you, so you need to have a very blunt conversation with your husband. He needs to see this for what it is.

No amount of money is worth this. He basically bought a lifetime of victims. Well screw that.

I'd be one who would go and stand mute during the bollocking. I'd then shake his hand and say "Thanks for putting me right, same time next year?"

Or I'd just bite him!

It really isn't fair to blame OPs DH. he will have been brought up like this, brow beaten etc.

He won't have any idea how to be different with his dad. That takes years and a lot of support. OP has said his sibs knuckle under, so he has no other role model.

Check the money, is it really DHs? Or does have elastic attached, legally? and then hand your DH some backbone... don't shout at him, just discuss the impossible place his dad has built for him, and you, to live in. Discuss the money situation openly.

Tell him you cannot and will not take your bollocking like a good girl, but you absolutely will help him make all the changes he wants, no matter how difficult things get with his dad.

A note of caution: it took me 15 years to help my DH fully get over his mum's actions. So it can be a very long haul.

Good luck.

I find it really frustrating that so many people are suggesting OP puts with this. Is it because there is cash attached to the behaviour?

Are we really saying that it's OK to be bullied as long as you are given a cheque at the end of it?
Noooooo .... it's so wrong....

Certainly establish the legal situation with the trust fund so at least you can clearly see where you stand there. Whether or not you have money or a lavish lifestyle I would urge you and your husband to have nothing to do with your father in law any more. His seemingly unquenchable control freakery shouts mental illness to me and, to be brutally frank, people like this cannot be reasoned with.

I wish you and yours well for a happier future.

If you do go, for whatever reason, be sure to wipe the old cunts toothbrush round the loo rim before you leave