I've been with my DH for 13 years, married for 10. We have 2 young children. My relationship with in-laws has been strained but cordial for the sake of my husband. They've done and said some dodgy stuff over the years, for example when we were first together and I was invited round for dinner, they asked me about the council estate I'd grown up on and if our "toilet was an outhouse because isn't that what council houses have?"
Also a few years ago, my sister and law (their daughter, husband's sister) and her husband (who is mixed race) had their first baby just after ours and they wanted 3 weeks alone as a family before they received visitors. The in-laws were frothing and said their choice was ludicrous and took the shine off the birth etc and then blamed it on SIL's husband's "customs" from his birth country and it couldn't possibly be SIL's choice. BIL called them out on their prejudice and how they wouldn't listen, they went NC and the in laws didn't see their baby grandson until he was 1 year old. There's no such custom from where he's from, they made it up. BIL is still NC with them. We've supported SIL and BIL over the years and we're friends with them. SiL keeps things civil and brings their children up to see their grandparents on her own.
This has never sat right with me because I think they behaved disgustingly towards new parents, someone of mixed race and someone who was supposed to be family. My relationship was strained with them even more as a result but also because they've made racist comments, his dad uses the shortened version of Pakistani to mean any brown person from Asia and his mum once said "If any of my children were gay, I'd disown them". My husband has witnessed everything they've said.
We took them to task about it because although they have never respected our parenting decisions, the last straw came when they caused our newly diagnosed autistic child to have a meltdown. They didn't listen to us when we said not to do something, they did it anyway and it led to a horrific meltdown which took him a long time to recover from. They only see their grandparents once a month maybe and they aren't very affectionate with them. They constantly compare them to their cousins and put a massive emphasis on academic achievement. We told them all this while they didn't agree, things were civil but then I brought up the racism/bigotry and his dad exploded and became very aggressive. They claimed never to have said anything and that I was making it up, despite my husband saying he'd heard it as well and made us leave.
Nothing more was said over the past 4/5 days since it happened. Then my husband gets a text this morning saying "we will always be there for you, child 1 and child 2. Don't leave it too long to get in touch. All our love always mum and dad." It's honestly sent me into a tailspin and I'm not sure what to do now. How can they deny that anything happened and not only that but blame it on me?! Like I'm keeping them hostage or something. Husband is "drafting a reply". I feel sick and my stomach is churning with anxiety.