In laws want weekly visits, AIBU?

[Stressedmum223]

Name changed for this. My husband and I have 2 very young children. His parents, who live nearby, expect to see us at least once a week but preferably more. We’ve tried to explain that we are not available every week, but they send my husband barrages of text messages demanding visits.

They act incredibly affronted and angry that we aren’t available at their beck and call, and infantilise my husband when he tries to establish boundaries. Are we the unreasonable ones here? I would have thought seeing them twice a month was still frequent, but in their mind and actual words we are keeping them from their grandchildren.

We aren’t close with them at all, and IMO they treat their own son quite poorly. He doesn’t like them very much, but we both want them to have a relationship with our children.

YABU - You should see your in laws every week or more
YANBU - It’s fine to see your in laws every other week

DH needs to stop replying when they bombard him with messages. You can't appease abusive people like them, nothing is ever good enough.

What are you hoping to achieve with your messages here? Do you get a kick out of trying to shame people looking for earnest advice? You seem as unpleasant as my in laws.

He does. They just keep sending them. It’s really increased in the past week as we have tried to establish a schedule of seeing them every other week, and only at the weekend. They’ve refused to accept this and have sent numerous texts trying to organise visits before the weekend (when we have plans to see them). If my husband ignores them, they send more and angrier texts.

It’s just getting unbearable to the point where I’ve now said we’ll see them every other week, that their behaviour is intolerable, and that if it continues they will see even less of us. I think they’ll ignore me though. Starting to think we need some kind of break from them, as another poster mentioned upthread.

What’s even weirder is that in person they act like none of this has happened — they won’t mention their horrible behaviour over text or show any anger or aggression, apart from blanking us when they first see us as mentioned.

3-4 times a year seems so little! Unless you mean staying at each others houses for a few days. Can you imagine maintaining a friendship with someone you met only 3-4 times a year? Will you be happy seeing so little of your DC?

In my opinion when older people get ‘difficult’ you just have to let go. There are plenty of options on phones these days to mute incoming messages and calls, archive chats until you’re ready to reply etc.

I’m probably a bit more callous than most but I’d be printing out the messages and having a face to face conversation about why they don’t seem to remember this abuse and if they were having a memory loss episode or a simple tantrum.

Stop replying to messages, stop even reading them. Visit as and when you are comfortable, leave when you have had enough. It will be strange at first and you’ll feel nervous/full of adrenaline. But it’s your life and this is clearly impacting you both a huge amount.

There are some grandparents (my own DP) who feel entitled to a cross-generational family existence. (My own DP didn't have one themselves, incidentally, when they had children). It's not about reason, there is no reason. It's just the way it is and has to be with them. I think it's something to do with getting to an age where they question the meaning of their existence/their relevence etc etc, once their own children go off to have lives of their own (which, to people like this, generally means having children of their own. Nothing else counts). They feel discarded, pointless, aimless, irrelevant etc without young people being dependent on them. If their own marriage isn't secure, they also need the distraction.

All you can do with people like this is be firm and consistent, like a broken record. They're not going to change. They'll wind themselves up and up and up to breaking point when they're not getting what they want, and then they'll take it all out on you. I suppose you can wait for that to happen, or not.

NRTFT

Get them told - they sound unhinged

He could always block them

You don't even like them and they sound crackers - why would you want them to have a relationship with your DC!!??

They treat other relatives better than they treat us 😂 DH seems to be the black sheep of the family. So I suppose we’ve carried on as we have as we’ve assumed their rudeness and neediness would ease up at some point and even diminish… but it seems to be increasing lately and getting worse.

@loropianalover I think this is very good advice, actually, as we’ve had sit down conversations in the past and it hasn’t improved anything. I think a full on ignore and only contacting to arrange a visit might be the way forward. I’m at my wit’s end really.

You’ve absolutely hit the nail on the end as to why IMO they’re acting this way. They’re very very unhappy in their lives and I think our DC are a distraction from that.

Yeah, figures. Your FIL is probably miserable and trapped by his wife’s ill health, your D.C. are probably the only joy he has. He’ll take out his frustrations on those around him, too (your DH). It’s tricky. You’re doing the right thing staying out of it, you can’t fix this. This is between your DH and his parents. There’s no obvious solution that isn’t totally heartless.

He definitely is. I feel sorry for him, but we can’t fix his life. I think he’s probably depressed. MIL is unhappy too but in serious denial about how bad things are — she can’t leave the house on her own, for example, but doesn’t see this as a reason to make lifestyle changes that could improve her quality of life.

I do think cutting them off would be heartless and I don’t want that for my children, at least not at this stage. It’s all very difficult.

Maybe your DH can try to be more blunt with his DM about her situation, with a view to her making adjustments and being more considerate of FIL. He could dangle the carrot of seeing their DGC more frequently than the rarely which her current denial is heading towards? It’s not emotional blackmail; it’s just working towards a solution that works for everyone.

When they start sending a barrage of texts perhaps your DH could send them one message stating that he's not going to respond to these texts and will see them on the pre arranged day. Then mute them and follow through. Do this every time and they'll get the message that sending awful messages doesn't work.

I think this is great advice. Have suggested to DH who is going to implement it.

How do you intend to raise dc who can stand up to bullying and bullies when you and dh are unable to? You intend to offer up your dc to appease these bullies to make your life easier... What life will dc have in such people's company? What positives can they add to their lives that they don't add to yours /dh's?

🙄 Some of the comments on here.

You openly admitted they treat their ds poorly. Why would you expect different for your dc?

You are prepared to sacrifice the mental well being of your dc to stop them harrassing you is what I took from everything you have written. Is your dh mentally well given their treatment of him during his life? Honestly some dps...
Woman up and protect your dc...

This is a ridiculous take. My husband had a perfectly fine childhood. It’s as an adult that he doesn’t get on with his parents. I’m not sacrificing anyone — take a deep breath.

I’m another who just doesn’t understand why you’re so determined to maintain a relationship with toxic people who treat you and their ds as though you are of no consequence. Their behaviour is abnormal. Why do you persist in having a relationship when they treat your Dh so badly? Do you think your ds will not notice? Do you really think he will benefit from seeing his grandparents treat their ds like this?

You’ve come on here asking if you’re BU to lower contact but then have a pop at ‘some of the comments on here’ which seem perfectly reasonable from an objective point of view. If my pil ignored me, they wouldn’t see me or my children (although you say they also ignore the baby!) It sounds as though your DH doesn’t actually want to see them but your lack of relationship with your grandparents is driving this-imo-misguided trajectory.

I feel I could have written your post word for word OP. I'm in exactly the same position as you. I don't have any answers but just wanted to say I know exactly how you feel!

I called out two over the top posters, yes. I would do so again. It amuses me how if the OP doesn’t seem to go with every single contribution to their thread on AIBU, it’s met with hand wringing. The vast majority of posts have been helpful and thought provoking.

I’ve experienced genuine dysfunction in my life, so my in laws dramatic BS does not seem reason to cut them out of my children’s life. I think cutting people out is a very serious thing that shouldn’t be used at the drop of a hat. Your mileage may vary. Certainly if their behaviour escalates, we will reassess the situation.

I’m very sorry to hear that. It seems like this is a more common experience than I realised!!