Inlaws & sil issue

[Hawkinsfirefly99]

My sil (mid thirties) lives at home with my in laws and her 5yr old son. Nephew's dad didn't want anything to do with them once she found out she was pregnant so they dont see him at all. He asked her to have an abortion but she chose to continue with the pregnancy. Sil is pretty useless which means they do quite a big job in raising nephew (they cook, clean, look after him on inset days. Being retired means that they're always around to help sil.)

I completely understand that it's pil's prerogative to have whoever they like live with them but aibu to think it would be nice for mine and dp's kids to get to spend some time alone with the in laws?

If we plan a day out with them then they just turn up with sil and nephew. If we visit them then sil and nephew are there (obviously because they live there). Nephew tells my 3 year old son that pil's house is 'his family's house' and nobody bats an eyelid. Nephew's toys are all over the house so my son inevitably wants to play with them, just for them to be snatched out his hands by nephew.

If we want to see the inlaws alone then we have to orchestrate an event to so we can do that (visit when we know for certain sil and nephew are out - which is v v rare, or if my dp is off work and nephew is at school). This has caused quite a bit of tension in the past between me and dp because it means we cant 'just pop in' to his inlaws house. If we do we get hounded to stay for ages so nephew can be entertained by our son or we have to listen to them rabbiting on about nephew.

My mil was as the birth of nephew and basically raises him as her own so i understand there will be some slight favouritism there but surely she must realise we don't want to hear about him at every available opportunity on the very occasional opportunities we get to see them on their own.

I think mil very much feels guilty that nephew doesn't see his dad so fills that by spoiling him with day trips etc. She also tries to force a relationship between nephew and my 3yr old son because nephew doesn't have any other family. I just get irked that we can't have a normal grandparent and cousin relationship.

Am i really being unreasonable about this?

She is their daughter
Of course she will be a priority

Be nice

And if you want to see them alone text and ask for some alone time

Good advice. SIL sounds like the spoiled and enabled golden child. Distance yourselves and don't bank on any inheritance either. Just make sure you are not left responsible for SIL in the future when she needs someone else to enable her.
The OP doesn't need to worry, the SIL will move on in good time for her to take over the care of her elderly PIL.

Lovely

I'm getting a real sense of deja vu with this thread.

Did you post about this before, OP ? Or have we got 2 posters in the same situation ?

If anything, I'd have thought inviting your DN round on a regular basis to give your PiL a bit of a break would be the nice thing to do. It's not easy having a little one living with you when you are Grandparent age.

Is the visiting set up so regimental that two extra people ( bearing in mind that theres people on here who have said they had to share with up to 11 others) can't be going about their business when you go to visit gps? So when our kids go over you say 'x are you going to tell your gp about your day?' And the others might be ok as ting, having a drink or something. You can totally do that as he's only three and you can also include dn. 'Dn what did you do in school today, then 'ds did such and such.' So get him included and have fun OP, that is what it's all about!!!

Ok as thing was supposed to be playing!!!

@backforgood not posted before but would be interested in seeing the other thread to see what replies they had!

Pretty similar to the replies on this thread, tbh

The OP doesn't need to worry, the SIL will move on in good time for her to take over the care of her elderly PIL. speaks from bitter experience

I suspect you might be right Myimaginary.

No - I disagreed with you and I am in a very similar situation - probably even harsher than yours. I can just see the bigger picture AND I can empathise.

I think you should if anything count yourselves lucky that you're not in your SIL's position. She's been put down all her life, and made to feel thick. They're taking over her role as parent, she's probably been made to feel that she wouldn't cope on her own. Your DN's DF is completely uninvolved and that's going to be hurtful when he sees that your DD has a loving dad.

For all you know, your SIL might well envy you your independence.

Your PIL don't actually seem like nice people at all tbh.

Most children would prefer to spend time with their cousins than with their grandparents.

Huge generalisation.

OP, I actually think YANBU because I do empathise. My SIL is equally hopeless (her mother even says this), so her kids take up a lot of my in laws time and her DH is also out of the picture. I think you should get your DH to be straight with his parents, tell them what the issue is and maybe they will see it from your point of view.

I can only say your DH and his sister aren't close, because I prefer to see my parents when siblings are there.

We actually plan trips together as we have more fun that way.

All the cousins get to play together in grandparents house.

I would not be jealous of a mid 30s single parent living at home. I'd feel sorry for her.

Next time you invite your inlaws on holiday, make it clear it's just them and not SIL and DN to come along.

Another idea is to try and get your SIL to get to meet someone.... help her make an OLD profile.

It sounds like she has little confidence and her parents are a large part of that. They really aren't helping her. The truth is they like her living with them... and convince her she can't live alone. They're really the selfish ones here.

They're thinking about themselves. I'm not sure I'd really want to be spending more time with them.

It's almost as bad as a former colleague of mine, whose mum asked her to have a baby and give to her to raise. It's selfish for nobody's benefit, but her own.... just like your MIL.

I feel your pain! Dh's sister, her husband and two toddlers lived with his parents for years they've only just moved out. (Next door, in to the house dh's parents got dh to build for them.)

They are still at their parents for hours every day. Mil makes dinners for them to take home most nights. Fil chops their wood and does their garden chores.

Neither dsil or her husband really work.

Dh and I fucking LOATHE them. They're bleeding his parents dry and exhausting them.

They have absolutely no time or energy left for dh or ds. I find it hard to be civil with them now.

It's hard to see other kids get more attention than yours.

I get it. I totally understand where you're coming from.
My DM &DF live abroad, and DSis lives near them. My DC's get to see their grandparents a few days a year. I want my DC's to have as much 1-on-1 time with their Grandparents as possible without "sharing" their time with their cousins.

I also want time, alone, with my DM & DF as I don't see them that often.

Nothing wrong with wanting a bit of 'special time' with your MIL and the kids' grandpanrents.

I don't think you're being selfish or unreasonable

@NCjustforthisthread you don't have to not emphasise to want to see your inlaws more.

wireswires
This is a similar but more extreme situation. Do you know what the drivers behind this are?

My question in each of these scenarios would be, what do the parents of the adults ie grandparents get out of the situation?

For me in ops situation, her in laws have either consicously or subconsciously decided that they will sacrifice the needs of one of their children to satisfy theirs thus keeping their daughter in a perpetual state of need. They have waged a targeted campaign to infantilise their daughter and taught her that she is not be able to fend for herself alone. This now solves their empty nest problem and satifies their need to want to continue to be parents both to their adult daughter and subsequently grandchild. As a result, they’re never, ever going to be that interested in the children of their adult child, who made the step into adulthood. It doesn’t serve their need. They don’t want to be grandparents. They want to be parents.

I therefore feel sorry for ops sil as she is in an abusive environment, as is her child, who sounds massively insecure.

Hawkins
For me, you are targeting your anger at the wrong person / people. You should be angry at your inlaws for not caring enough about any of their off spring and grandchildren, abusing and infantilising their daughter and her child.

This leads me back to my post above, which you haven’t addressed.

@mummyoflittledragon i completely agree with both of your posts.

I think in order to possibly change my outlook on the situation we could reach out to sil more and arrange to do things with just her and nephew, effectively cutting the inlaws out of the equation and allowing sil to assert her own independence and mother her son. The effect might be, she realises she can cope alone and it's a win win situation.

Of course, the danger is that pil would just turn up to prearranged days out anyway. As others have said above, it's going to be hard to break that pack mentality. It's been going on for 5 years now. It's become their norm.

My children would much rather see nanny and grandad than cousin.

I always think it’s a failure to launch/bad parenting tbh that leads to these issues. Setting up an adult to be so dependent on you is not good for the adult child or in this case the nephew who’s living there thinking this is normal.

Grandparents lose half their children/grandchildren because the launched side step back for their own sanity and their children’s.

@mummyoflittledragon

Your post is pretty much identical to mine just a few before yours. 🙂

The inlaws are the selfish ones here, I'd say we surmised it perfectly.

I don't think it's wrong to want to see your PILs without SIL and dn always being there. You are not wrong to want your ds to have his own relationship with his dgps, independent of his cousin. My relationship with my GPS was separate to my cousins'relationship with them and it made the times when we were all together, very special because we were all valued and loved individually, not just as an 'add on'to each other. My MIL has always spent more time with her other GCs, despite us asking her to spend tine with ours too. Now all the gc have grown up and moved on, she is finding herself quite lonely because the ones who are still nearby are our dcs, the ones she never attempted to build a relationship with and who now have lives that really do not include her. I feel sad for her, but she's created the situation herself.

Families are as they are: your ILs have a different relationship and household than ‘typical ‘ GPs might have, but you seem to want them to slit into a ‘typical ‘ grandparent role.

It does sound as if they enable SIL’s dependence, and it may be that she was the Golden Child growing up. And this may cause a generation of lasting resentment.

Your DP doesn’t have a ‘right’ to see his parents under hs preferred conditions. But if he missed them he could talk gently but directly to them. Say that he feels sad that sometimes he wishes your Dc could get to know them one-to-one as GPs as well as times with his cousin.

Hawkins
I really am glad you agree with what is being said. I do hope that you can open your heart to this little boy and forgive your sil the pain she is causing you. You are most likely to get what you want by approaching the situation in this way. For if you can get your sil on side and split the pack as you say you will be able to elicit help from her.

The caveat as you say is the pils are so used to getting their way they may well ride rough shod over you. You may also discover to your dismay that they don’t want to get to know your little boy. And as I said I think this to be a real possibility. I think they are interested in control and being parents. Not grandparents.

I do know how it feels to be the outsider. My grandma looked after my cousin and she was closer to her. I felt like an interloper and like my grandma has been taken from me. What could I say? I was 11/12 when it started and it wasn’t malicious. And I definitely wasn’t the favourite on the other side either.

So do try to remember each time he says “this is my house”, these are my toys”, he’s actually saying:. “I’m scared”, “I feel threatened”.

Sandy
Yes I also read your post. Sad isn’t it?

It’s great you get on with your siblings. I don’t with mine as he is violent to me and sil regularly screams at me and then started to do the same to dd. So I do also see the other side. However before we were nc, we did get the kids together at my mothers house.

You’re not going to listen to what you perceive to be criticism of your view point so I won’t bother but I will say this:

Be very careful about letting your jealousy and resentment rub off on your dc. I’ve never met a three year old who volunteered information that he was “made to feel uncomfortable”. I think that’s you massively projecting and you will do him no favours raising him with that snowflake mentality.

Also, when he’s 5 try to remember the expectations you had of your nephew. I guarantee you won’t expect the same maturity and sense from your 5 year old as you do from your nephew.

Those of us who have been in your situation know exactly how it feels, OP. You do not sound selfish, or jealous, or any of the other silly insults that people are throwing around.

I wouldn't worry too much about your nephew's territorial tendencies, it affects you more than your DC, who won't be much bothered.

Could you invite your PIL for a night out, say a meal to celebrate something, so that your SIL can babysit her own child. Once you've got them on your own you can say how nice this is and raise the whole two families thing. You need them to be a captive audience I think, if you want them to hear you.

They are smothering your SIL and it's doing her no good. Do you ever get time alone with her and her DC without the PIL there? She might actually be more amenable to giving you time alone with the PIL than they are.