To not want to help FIL after surgery?

[fluffyboos]

I dont have the best relationship with my in laws due to their past behaviour towards me.
FIL is especially very sarcastic, offensive and irritating.

FIL has come out of hospital due to surgery on his prostate and will be on bed rest for at least 4 weeks.

My husband wants me to go round with a box of chocolates and a card and offer to help and perhaps try and make peace.

My main issue is that when my own father was diagnosed with prostate cancer at the height of the lockdown, my in laws offered me no support whatsoever.

In fact my FIL even shouted at me calling me lazy for no reason whatsoever, he actually made me cry, all this whilst I couldnt even see my dad whilst he was receiving treatment.

Despite this I still did the bulk of my in laws chores in lockdown and never received a thank you or any appreciation.

I work part time where my husband and his sisters both work full time so they are limited on time.

My MIL has arthritis and will struggle to look after him on her own.

I dont see why I should be expected to help just because I work part time.

In laws are not grateful people and I have told my husband that they cant be nasty and ungrateful but expect help of me.

I have refused to go round and it is causing massive tension in the house.
Surely my husband and his siblings should arrange help between them?

They arent even my parents.

I am all for helping people but not when they have been so disrespectful and nasty towards me.

My husband is now quite upset and not really talking.

Am I being nasty like my husband says?

I had something similar with my MIL - I detached but I also had to put down boundaries with my DH (he was also the golden child) because every bit of info that came back was negative and got under my skin. So he needed to stop. I was also not continuing to inadvertently enable by being his emotional skip - he needed to hold and process all that shit not dump it on me. He soon saw the light. Tell him that you have relieved him of being ‘piggy in the middle’ - you don’t want to know any info in their plans or their conversations. Cut him short. Get busy elsewhere with other people and change the topic to talk about them if he doesn’t shut up.

You know that it’s unlikely you will see them again - enjoy every moment. I have zero regrets dropping the rope on my alcoholic Narc MIL - my only regret was I waited too long and tolerated too much - similar to you more than her other own DC who were NC. What a waste of my life.

As @Dotcomma and @Gloriously have said, this is typical narcissistic behaviour - arrogant, entitled, re-writing history to suit themselves, not hearing anything they don't want to hear, manipulative - and I can promise you now they will also be vindictive.

When they realise that you have pulled yourself free from their web, they will be poisonous, so be prepared. You are very wise to remain NC, because even the slightest kindness from yourself (if you were to feel sorry for them, for instance) will be seen as weakness - a chink in your armour - and they will exploit it.

Do as you are doing. Tell your DH not to tell them anything about you (he will, of course - even he tries not to they would wheedle it out of him; people like this are adept as getting others to give them information without even being aware they've done so - and change the subject every time he mentions them. Tell him firmly that you hope that they are well but don't wan to hear any details of their lives either way.

You don't need to tell them why you won't visit - they know very well why but choose to ignore your feelings because it suits them to do so. As @Gloriously has said - they will try every which way to draw you back into their orbit. Stand firm. It gets easier with time (I speak from bitter experience).

More broadly, This is JUST the way women are assumed by family /hospitals /neighbours to be the default carers....

Within days she'll be having phone calls... Can you just do this /that... What's happening with xyz...?.
(i know this... This is what is happening to me NOW... 🤬... I'm pushing back but I'm exhausted and it's so bloody stressful....)

More specifically, they've been abusive of her... Like hell should she be involved.

Four weeks bedrest?? Haha.. He's either misunderstood or outright lying.... Fastest way to DVTs /bed sores and disability..

Why would he have 4 weeks bed rest? He should be fully recovered by 4 weeks, he should be up and about doing things slowly, its not a major op, think they are pulling a fast one here.
Id be ringing his doctor to ask what his recovery time his and how best to care for his needs, bed rest I doubt it
Im with the others don't give in,

No one gets told to stay in bed for weeks! Not even during hospital stays, you're up and dressed every morning. My gran's had a couple of surgeries recently, they do the opposite of letting you rest, he's in for a shock if he thinks that's happening. My Gran joked her physio was training her for the Olympics.

Just so I understand, your husband has seen you be reduced to tears by his dad? Has heard the degrading spew he says to you and said and did nothing to protect you? Seems to me that husband is a wet blanket and using you to get out of caring for HIS parents. I personally would go no contact. Sit your husband down and talk to him about how toxic the relationship is you have with the FIL. Tell him how much it has effected your mental health and no longer want to be in any caring position for a man who clearly doesn't like you. I would also point out that as your husband he has a duty to protect you as per the vows he took when he married you. Boundaries need to be set and stuck to and if he wants your marriage to last then he needs to respect that and not force you into something that will make you hate/resent the husband.

Hope you get this resolved

The more you post, the more it sounds like your H wants you to be the skivvy so he inherits.

He will probably up the pressure on you to care for his parents as they become older so his inheritance isn’t used up in care home fees.

your H sounds money grabbing to be honest. And is pissed he might have to work for it.

Yes of course as @Emotionalsupportviper says the narcissist vindictive behaviour will kick in and be very targeted to you once they realise you have stood your ground - look what they did to their own DD - wrote them out of their will and made a whole show of it with your DH dragging him along to the solicitors.

If you withdraw effectively enough to emotionally protect yourself this will impact on your DH instead - he will be v uncomfortable but make sure he doesn’t bring this to your door. I would also say that the golden child of Narc carries some of their traits (this is called ‘fleas’) - maybe not so extreme but well worth pointing out (as in my case with DH) when some unattractive and unacceptable delusional, arrogant, entitled and grandiose behaviours emerge.

So assume that your IL will be vindictive, that they will proactively use your DH as the messenger, that they will up the ante with some exaggerated health crisis that requires your deferential presence.........don’t fall for any of it. Don’t be exposed to any of it by telling your DH that you don’t want to hear.

I would also be be wary of any ‘apology’ because that will be fake and a trap (as it was in my case). Just be done with them - no more words needed - just actions. Don’t even continue to repeat the reasons to your DH - he knows well - the only discussion he wants with you is to change your mind.

Did your Dh support you when you were in tears after your Fils comments? Did he stick up for you?

OP, sticking to your guns rigidly and reading carefully the advice of @Emotionalsupportviper and @Gloriously among others is thousands of £ of counselling.

They are cutting through the noise by spelling it out.

This WILL get a lot uglier before it gets easier.

Your husband is not a good man or husband.

He doesn't have your back.

Good men don't stand by and allow their wives to be used and abused, .....just because it suits them.

He is their son, their favoured son.

Look carefully at the future you want.

NEVER rely on this man, he is too selfish and too focused on protecting himself.

Discussing with his mother THEIR future needs and worries.

I have no doubt he has discussed you in terms of your usefulness with his parents.

As his parents need more help expect both him and them to become nastier.

They will not accept your NO.

Do not consider having children before they both have been buried, you need to see just how ugly and vile your husband will be.

I don't believe you know him at all.

He is happy to see his siblings disinherited, so ugly of him.

Excellent advice above to insist you do not want to hear ANYTHING about them.

Watch carefully as your husband refuses to adhere to your wish.

Stay strong.

Excellent insight by @billy1966

Apparently my husband said nothing as he is sick of being caught in the middle.

People always use this particular excuse when they want to discharge their own responsibilities or, more acurately, to transfer them onto someone else. This is straight out of the playbook.

I'm failing to see how he can be in the middle: they're his parents. Note the nice dollop of emotional blackmail thrown in there for good measure. I'll lay good odds that your MiL said no such thing.

His ability to twist and change the narrative is quite remarkable. Somehow in almost every utterance of his you report here, he's managing to convey his belief that the responsibility for his parents is yours; not least that caring duties are the social responsibility of women per se.

The misogyny is entrenched here but he's also a very skilled manipulator. Many MN posters can spot this a mile off: I've seen Billy, for one, unpick these situations piecemeal before. She's wise to it, and gives sage advice.

I also know how difficult it is to hold the line amid an onslaught like this, and applaud you for it. It is so draining to be faced with this sort of crap day in, day out. You deserve better than this.

NB. the point about the parents becoming nastier the more you hold the line is another one out of the playbook and you should be prepared for this.

People can't change others' behaviour, they can only change themselves. So, when they recognise their abusive relatives are never going to change, they address this by setting boundaries. The pushback is considerable. The abusive relatives have been used to having things exactly as they want them for some time, and when that changes their primary objective is to get them back to the way they were before. The behaviour of both your PiLs and your DH will ramp up before it abates, that's almost a certainty.

This is another thing Susan Forward talks about in her book Toxic in-Laws, which gives practical strategies for dealing with this. A top tip is powerful non-defensive communication, which goes a little further than grey rock by a refusal to defend any points of attack they might level at you. So when your DH uses words to the effect of 'you are a lazy good-for nothing DiL, you should be helping my parents and I might lose out on my inheritance because of you!' Your response 'That doesn't work for me'. 'I'm sorry you're upset' (the classic non-apology). 'I don't accept your opinion of me'. 'I am willing to do (this), but I am not willing to do (that)'. It leaves them nowhere to go. If you JADE (justify, defend, argue, explain) they've instantly got you, and will unpick all the reasons why you must do whatever it is they expect you to do.

I really can't recommend Forward's work highly enough. It's a game-changer.

I'd say you're right

@fluffyboos
The topic was mentioned again of the worry of who will step in and provide help in later years

You make it crystal clear, right now, that you will not be involved in care in later years at all.

Until your DH steps up and says to his parents that you are a topic that is off limits to them and he will not stand for them badmouthing you to him or anyone else and that he is not going to discuss you or anything to do with you with them, then he will always be stuck in the middle.

He needs to draw a line in the sand here and whether or not he has your back after this is a whole other conversation but for the moment, they don't get to mention you to him and he's not going to talk about you with them.

At the first sign of them failing to do this, he leaves.

If he doesn't do this, they will all talk about you when you're not there to defend yourself.

You need to spell that out to him so that he can take the next steps.

Agree @LookItsMeAgain but the step before that is for @fluffyboos to put that exact same boundary in with DH - to calmly close down every conversation he starts and to give him a consequence if he doesn’t stop - eg “I will get up and leave the restaurant, dinner table, sofa if you continue with this” - no more words just actions. And continue to do so until he gives up / respects your personal boundaries, preferences, feelings, decisions.

Maybe he will learn from your calm, considered handling of boundaries and do the same with his DPs.

Quiet actions and consequences not repeated words - they have all already been said and rejected.

I feel for you. You are being massively manipulated and bullied. Stand firm.
I'm going to forgo commenting on your husband's behaviour but you should expect loyalty and support from him. He should stick up for you.

There are plenty of unpaid carers out there who were railroaded into caring whose lives have been all but destroyed, please stay strong and don't let yourself be bullied into doing anything for this ungrateful family

Yes I do feel as if I am being manipulated.

DH had great pleasure in telling me that his sister, her husband and kids had made fairy cakes and brought them round to IL's last night as if to make a dig at me.

But than told me that IL had told him after they left "the cakes are awful and arent as nice as Fluffyboos" - what a nasty thing to
say.

DH did have a go at FIL when he made me cry - the only time I have seen him stick up for me.

This whole situation has made me re evaluate everything, DH just wont accept how I feel or see my view points.
Its like banging my head against a brick wall.

I do think DH is pushing for a reconciliation as he feels this whole situation with me standing firm makes him look bad.

With Christmas coming up people in the family will be asking questions as usually we would all have a big family dinner before Christmas hosted at the IL house.

I have told DH I will not be going and if anyone asks he can tell them the truth.

It wouldnt be your responsibility if his father was frigging santa claus, let alone some mean old fucker.

So, when you didn’t meekly agree to be FIL’s carer, they have contacted at least one of their previously LC or NC daughters, who has responded by rushing round with some fairy cakes, just like you would have done, but the cakes aren’t as nice as yours Is this supposed to spur you into action to bake them a batch to take round or what?

Wait for said daughter to be reinstated as beneficiary of their latest wills!

Your husband sounds bloody awful.

Tell dh if he doesn't stop pushing for reconciliation you will be pushing for divorce. The message he verbally delivered imo was il speak for We Wish Op Was A Mug.. Not lovely at all.

I do think DH is pushing for a reconciliation as he feels this whole situation with me standing firm makes him look bad.

Well it sounds as if he's worried about not getting all the money!