Hello, hope all are well.
I have been married for 14 years and we have a 7 year old. I want to write few things that happened few years ago as I want to get it out of my chest, hopefully it helps with healing me as well, so sorry about the long post.
My FIL and MIL(who lives in a different country) visited us 7 years ago when our daughter was 1 year old. My husband wanted them to stay for 3 months although I begged him to have them visit for 3 weeks or less as all they wanted was to visit the UK. After marriage, I soon realised that they are very different to me so I always kept a distance from them. So I did not want to complicate my life by having them around with a 1 year old when I was trying to find my feet back at work after maternity, hence my request for 3 weeks which never happened.
On the first day of 3 month period, MIL started a huge fight. I had all the food cooked for them and MIL on the first day before, during and after having food was constantly asking me to tell FIL to cook a dish the next day. I refused, but she kept on insisting. Btw, FIL and MIL do not get along at all, they fight and FIL is short tempered. After being asked so many times, I jokingingly raised this with FIL that I learnt that you are a good cook. He got so upset with me as he thought I wanted him to do chores around the house and MIL's stance completely changed after this. I feel like a fool for listening to her.
So day 1 did not go well, I was struggling with working from home and taking care of DD because FIL wanted to watch tv and MIL would be cooking. On the days I went to office, I sent her to daycare.
Daughter had very bad bouts of high fever at night time, we used to rush her to A&E. FIL is a smoker and whenever I come back from work, I can feel a strong smell of smoke in the house. I told my husband about it, nothing changed, instead bought more cigarettes and alcohol for his father (husband is a people pleaser, never takes sides). So I had to ask FIL to not smoke inside, but it continued. I don't know if this is connected but the night they left, my daughter stopped having fever, I wonder if it was the smoke that caused it. Asking to not smoke clearly did not go down well!
One night DH was not around, something upset FIL and he was angry, he started raising his voice. I told him that if people shout, neighbours will call the police. He changed what I said and told his kids that I threatened to call the police. The whole family has stopped interacting with me for it. He has a brother and sister, both married with kids. I got to know about extreme sulkers after marrying my husband!
Since then in Whatsapp group, his sister/father/mother do not wish me on birthday and for anniversaries sister say 'Happy Anniversary HUSBAND NAME'. My husband says 'Thank you' which annoys me more than their message!
I can go on and on about a number of incidents. I know I cannot change them/change past. Even after 7 years, family members are still sulking, so I have joined them and now return their behavior. For eg. for their anniversary, I just wrote 'Happy Anniversary'.
But the problem is this is not how I want to live my life. I get on well with most people. There was only a girl in college who I did not get along with and so second year, I tactfully moved rooms and was so much better off. I try to avoid issues than to deal with it. But in this case, I cannot move out like I did. I want to stop feeling this way on a daily basis. I am also resentful of the fact that it did not feel like my husband supported me when I needed him the mos. I cannot shake off this feeling that I deserve to be with a much better partner/family. Am I being unreasonable!
Thanks so much for listening!