... I wonder how common my inlaw's behaviour is, and whether I'm being a bit overly sensitive. (My own family lives in another country, I miss them dearly and I only see them once or twice a year, so perhaps that dynamic makes me more sensitive to how DH's family treats me.)
Basically, I come from a very inclusive family where spouses are treated as family members from day one. Once I was married, my parents saw DH and me as a family unit. Sure, sometimes they call just to talk to me or email a question specifically to me, but they would never try to do something that pulled me away from DH.
DH's family, on the other hand, seems to have an emphasis on "the real, original family members". They have a "original family member only" whatsapp group, where they share jokes and pictures that I am not a part of. I wasn't bothered by this at first, but I noticed that when I sent them pictures and videos of DC via another whatsap group at the grandparents' request, I never got any replies. I then learned that they were replying to each other to discuss the pictures via their "original family only" whatsapp group instead of responding to me. The result is that it does nothing to build connections or relationship with me. DH looks at it sometimes but isn't extremely involved as there's usually too much else going on. He shows it to me sometimes if he wants to share a joke they sent or whatever. I asked DH about whether he should just add me to that group and he said that his sister set it up and she is highly controlling and will be upset if he added me to the group. He said just not to make a big deal of it and while I can see that it's a small thing, I think the reason it bothers me is because it's part of their larger mentality. (We also have a whatsapp group with my family and my parents are extremely inclusive with spouses -- my brother and his wife are on it in addition to my husband and myself.)
SIL, who is in her mid 30s, has always had problems with me and MIL often seems intent on making sure SIL feels special and taken care of at family gatherings, but it's usually done in a way that makes me feel controlled or suppressed. If something I do makes SIL feel insecure, MIL will try to control the situation so that SIL can feel more secure. This is my take on the situation, so maybe I'm wrong, but it definitely feels this way. For example, I once brought a homemade cake to my inlaw's house for Christmas. SIL had baked mince pies for Christmas. MIL said we ought to put my cake to the side so that SIL's pies could be eaten. She went on and on about how great SIL's pies were, kept my cake in a cupboard for literally 4-5 days, then offered to serve it as if it were a huge annoyance. I told her not to worry about it at that point but she was like, "Oh no, go ahead and cut your cake and serve it". When I did, she and SIL did not want any, and MIL said, "There, your DH will eat your cake. See? DH go ahead and eat it." It was extremely awkward. Another time, I played Christmas carols on the piano. FIL was really enjoying it, but when SIL got home, she looked incredibly angry and glared at me across the room. A few minutes later, they asked me to stop and said the reason was they were all used to singing Christmas carols without accompaniment. Later I learned that SIL was trying to learn a Christmas song on the piano, and that she had told her family she didn't want the shine to be taken away from her performance of her song, which apparently took place after I left.
Shortly after DH and I got married (several years before our DC came along), SIL asked DH if he would come home to the house where she lived with her parents to catch up with her for a weekend. DH asked me if I was ok with that and I told her it was fine with me. Then, the day before he was supposed to go, he said SIL had sent through a plan for SIL and my DH and their parents to travel to France together to stay in a chalet for the weekend. I told DH that felt different to me -- it wasn't him going to catch up with SIL for the weekend, but was more of them going on a little holiday together last minute without including me, his newly wed spouse. I told him I did feel left out, but as all the plans had already been put into place by SIL, I also didn't want to cause drama. I told him that ultimately since we were married he should tell them that's not good form and that if SIL is going to plan a family holiday I should be offered the chance to go, too. I didn't make a scene, simply told him what I thought of the situation. He decided to go anyway and afterwards when we talked about it more he said he wished I had been more pushy/forceful in explaining how I felt about it (basically putting the onus on me). He has matured since then and has never done anything like that again, thankfully.
Recently, now that SIL has been in a serious relationship, things have gotten a bit better in terms of group dynamics when we visit DH's family. Still, though, SIL tries to have a great deal of control and the end result is that DC and I are often on the outskirts of the action or I feel suppressed and controlled. SIL's partner tried to talk to me during a family outing, simply asking some benign questions about my family, and instead of staying next to her partner and joining in the conversation (as I think would be the normal response), SIL instead marched off to her mum (my MIL) and within a few minutes MIL marched over to where SIL's partner was chatting to me and asked him some questions rudely and loudly. Meanwhile, DH, who SIL had also spoken to, motioned for me to come over to him. MIL and DH were trying to break up the conversation at SIL's request -- although they probably didn't realise how obvious it was to me. DH told me he found these types of family gatherings really stressful and that he couldn't handle the stress. I didn't confront him (as I should have) about the " conversation intervention" because I didn't feel like starting an argument between the two of us while he family were around.
I can see that this probably feels like disorganised stream of consciousness writing. Kudos to anyone who made it this far. I would be grateful for objective feedback. There are many more examples I'm skipping, and I think there is an unhealthy dynamic going on in this family relationship, but I also want to be aware of where I might be overly sensitive about it. I have gotten better over the years about talking to DH about this stuff, and his loyalty has transferred to me over his family much more -- but at the same time, I feel like he is not able to call a spade a spade and be honest about their manipulation and flaws as real problems much of the time. What would you do if these were your inlaws?