(Name-changer). Said by PIL. While they can be very kind, its kind of indicative of their attitude. They were talking about selling their house (I'm not sure why) but they don't want to downsize or move out of the area, so apparently theres no point.
But more seriously, the issue is that they treat me and increasingly DH too as if we are some kind of black sheep. It seems to be based on my not always working full time in my profession (because I run a business too), and us having to do up our own home, because we can't afford to go out and buy a £400,000 house straight off. (so it must be my fault for having periods in my life where I wasn't working full time I think, according to them).
Basically they look down on us. For instance, I do now have a very good job, having done the graft in the early years with short term contracts, etc, and earn nearly £50,000 a year. I am doing an MBA in the evenings, on top of my job, yet MIL describes me as a "student". When I was between contracts for 2 months, with something else lined up, and living off my savings, FIL described me as "unemployed now" and suggested I should get a job at the local supermarket. There have been various passive aggressive remarks suggesting that I sponge off DH, when what actually happens is that I pay half the mortgage and provided all the deposit for our current home. They have been told this countless times, but simply refuse to believe it.
What gets me is that neither of them have had exactly stellar careers - they didn't have university degrees, had reasonable jobs and benefitted from multiple inheritances and lucrative early retirement packages. DH's siblings were both given large chunks of cash to buy their homes (they deny it but DH's brothers told us), and both SILs work part-time. They seem to me to be very money-oriented and assess people coming into their family solely in terms of what money they can bring into it. Like they expect a dowry or something (both SILs parents also provided large cash deposits).
They are nice people, most of the time, but theres also been some rude messages sent making aspersions on my character and motives, and I dread going to family gatherings now as I feel I get picked on, and can't answer back because of politeness constraints. I just feel myself not wanting to visit them any more, and I'm sick of being painted as some kind of useless slattern - I've always been quite a high achiever, and its not something I'm used to. Even DH has noticed it and feels the same way. What to do? The more I drop contact (already not frequent), the more I get painted by them as some kind of money-grabbing incompetent.