It's an in law one...

[inlawproblems]

First of all, I must start by saying that I love my PIL... 99% of the time.

DH has two brothers. One of them lives in the same town as us with his wife and children, and the other lives five hours away with his wife and child. We get on well with the one who lives five hours away but we haven't seen them for over a year due to the distance. They will be visiting next weekend and we are looking forward to seeing them.

Things aren't so great with my other BIL and his wife. His wife hasn't spoken to us for 18 months since our daughter was born, for a really stupid reason. He is backing his wife up but we don't think he really believes they are in the right. Before my daughter's birth we all got on well.

Literally everyone thinks they are being completely ridiculous and the thing they are upset about is utterly trivial. To avoid drip feeding, they are upset that we named our daughter a very common top 10 name which also happens to be their daughter's second middle name.

Anyway. We have invited the visiting BIL and his wife and child for Sunday lunch next weekend. We were also planning on inviting PIL.

When I mentioned this to FIL two weeks ago he said he was rather hoping that we would do something all together. I said that until BIL and SIL acknowledge how hurtful their behaviour has been and apologise to us, we don't want to have a relationship with them. FIL said they will never explain or apologise, and so I said in that case we won't be seeing them. He wants us to just let it go and play happy families. I made it very clear that doesn't work for us.

Today PIL came round for lunch and everything was normal, nobody mentioned next weekend. And then an hour or so after they'd gone home, MIL put a message on the family WhatsApp group saying they want us all to come round for cake next Saturday afternoon and Grandma will be there too.

We have not replied yet. We don't want to go. We feel that we are being strongarmed into seeing them and pretending everything is normal, when what we want is to have a discussion. (They have refused multiple requests from us to meet and talk.) PIL are banking on the fact that if we go next weekend we won't want to cause a scene in front of Grandma, or be unpleasant to SIL who is two months postpartum. (I wouldn't piss on her if she were on fire at this point but I recognise that the optics of having a go at a woman who's just had a baby in front of the entire family aren't great.) They're right about us not wanting to make a scene in those circumstances. That's why we don't want to go.

AIBU?

Thanks for reading if you made it to the end of this!

Their child was in hospital having surgery during the period of no contact. It’s probably fair to say they had other priorities going on in their lives and they too have most likely been hurt by OP’s behaviour whilst their child was in hospital.

Thats your opinion and you are entilted to it but most people here disagree with you.

To be fair, I think if SIL had appeared on AIBU saying 'I've never been a particular fan of my in laws, and then I've just found out they named their child my DD's second middle name, AIBU not to bother with them anymore?' She'd have been told to get over herself and grow up.

Their child was in hospital having surgery during the period of no contact. It’s probably fair to say they had other priorities going on in their lives and they too have most likely been hurt by OP’s behaviour whilst their child was in hospital.

And the first three months? Where the child was fine and SIL didn't want anything to do with them?

@inlawproblems
You can't control SIL's behaviour or how she feels. You can only control your own

Look, we're 32 pages in.
Basically nearly everyone is saying:
'Be the bigger person. Accepting the invitation may be the start of the healing process. It might not, but at least you've tried for the sake of your PIL and so that they can have 1 photo with all their GC in it'

Go with low expectations, but please go.

It sounds like your BIL was managing to be the sensible one until his DD became ill, then he ran out of emotional capacity and reacted disproportionately to his brother and you as a result. It's a shame he hasn't been able (for whatever reason) to back down from that stance since then though. You were never going to get his wife on side but he might have been gettable.

To paraphrase a great man/an evil racist (depending on your POV):

'Never in the field of familial relationships was so much toxicity created to so little avail."

Perhaps he still is.

We'd settle for sorting things out with him and just ignoring her as far as politely possible.

I think it would make sense to remind BIL and SIL that they do an awful lot for them and it would be nice if they could do this very small thing in return. If they don't want to do that, that's fine, it's their decision.

Of all the things to be agog about in your posts, it’s your attitude towards your PILs that is most shocking to me. I can’t believe you think this, let alone have the balls to put it in a post.

You want your PILs to use their love and affection and time spent with/for their grandchildren by one son as a bargaining chip to give their other son’s wife what she wants. The “small thing” to which you refer is an an apology from SIL/BIL to you/DH. Nothing to do with PILs.

You actually want your PILs to threaten or emotionally blackmail their child and his spouse, so that you can “win”.

You can dress it up however you like (respect our boundaries, don’t bulldoze us (because sending an invitation on WhatsApp is bulldozing 🙄), manipulating us by not telling us face to face etc) - but the bottom line is that you’re venal, superior, manipulative, not averse to blackmailing and all in the name of being able to “win”. Just shocking.

My SILand I don't particularly like each other, we never have. But we suck it up for the sake of our children being able to grow up with their cousins and their grandparents. Be the bigger person and move on with life, this is such a non issue.

Oh, give over.

We just want to protect ourselves and our children from their toxicity and don't want to be strongarmed into family reunions with people who have decided they hate us for no reason.

800 posts and the first reply absolutely nailed it.

Your choice OP: grow up or don't 🤷‍♀️

Given that you mentioned upthread that your DH has a nasty temper, are you confident that he didn't say something further to BIL that upset him?

I wonder if you needing a name that works in more than one culture is the bit that has upset SIL.

Have you tainted her daughter with ethnicity? She sounds deeply unpleasant and I'd stay well away.

OP, I think your in laws were very wrong to manipulate you to come to a party with your children when their parents refused to attend.
By doing this they have chosen sides.
I would be very pissed off.

I also think the PIL bulldozing of your upset is wrong.
Forget about your inlaws and forget about SIL/BIL/cousins.
They have made the position very clear.

I think you decline and state why. Ask that they respect your feelings on this matter.

There is no way my children would be in the company of cousins whose parents were actively saying negative things about them and I would be very pissed off that your PIL think this is ok.

Accept that this is not resolvable and tell you PIL that they respect your choices or you will see a lot less of them.

They are twats, but - they are never going to apologise

You have 2 choices

Accept that, be the better person and move on so that poor PIL are not having to deal with their kids' shit at this time of life (and quite frankly for it to go on for the next few years until they're dead)

Or you can continue letting her win by giving her headspace.

I cannot believe you are still holding out for an apology after 18 months. Seriously - you are a prime example of when holding a grudge is like trying to poison someone by drinking it yourself

Forgiving someone doesn't mean it didn't happen - it did
It doesn't mean they were right - they weren't
It is not even about them!!

It's about you choosing to let the situation go (or kicking it away if that feels more like it) and to stop allowing it to dictate so many things and make you into a petty, bitter, angry person

Just, stop.

@inlawproblems please take this in the kindest way possible, and I say this as someone who isn’t speaking with my DB/SIL over events just as trivial. We both made errors on both sides, but ultimately it’s now in a similar situation to yours.

1. you have to look deep inside yourself and truly ask yourself what you want from all of this. It sounds like it’s an apology you want, which I don’t think you’ll get. Are you prepared to accept that 2 families can have differing views and acknowledge that you just don’t think/feel the same over the issue.
2. are you prepared to move past it with no apology, is this an option for you? If the answer is no then I think you should follow your gut and avoid the event and assume your stance otherwise you’ll just end up replaying events and getting emotional over it which sounds like it’s not good for your MH
3. it sounds like you are hugely hurt by their actions, and trying to understand the situation based on how you would act. That’s the main thing that keeps me and my DB/SIL from moving past our rift. They aren’t prepared to budge on their values which is entirely their prerogative, but they can’t accept my differing views on the same situation so no longer want any contact with me.
4. if you were happy with your stance on this I don’t think you would’ve asked for advice, it’s not about being right or wrong, or others validation. Ask yourself what you want from all of this but just be prepared that what you want ultimately may not be an option.

good luck OP but stop beating yourself up about it, we can only control our own actions, not those of others.

I don't understand the winning bit. Your daughter is still called by her name. You are not changing that. You are not apologising for it. All rightfully so. She has made herself look petty and achieved nothing. How is that winning? I don't believe in the winners/losers thing but surely you have "won". The PILs are the only losers.

I'd do distant civility for the sake of aging, loving PILs.

Some of the very worst of MN is on this thread. Seriously.

The internalised misogyny: the unthinking bracketing-together of the OP and SIL as being equally at fault even though that is obviously untrue. Because as of course, everyone knows women fall out and 'bicker' for trivial petty reasons which are interchangeable with each other, so it must be all their fault when the DBs fall out and the family is broken up.

The insistence that the OP attends this gathering to keep the PILs happy and appease the BIL/SIL. Even though she has said upthread that she dreads the thought of going. Evidently her feelings don't count.

The speculations - with no evidence whatsoever - about the 'real' nature of the OPs relationship with the ILs and what could be motivating them. The unfounded accusations that the OP may be withholding important historical info despite the fact she has given plenty of detail and made her position very clear.

The attempts to sideswipe and goad the OP with deliberately spiteful posts. The hurt that the OP is feeling jumps out at me from her posts here - but these posters don't care about that.

And all this on a site whose purpose is to support parents, predominantly mothers. Some people on here need to follow their own advice and take a good look at themselves.

So true.

Erm. It's an interesting question.

DH and I are from different countries but not that different in terms of language and culture. Lots of overlap. A reasonable number of names that exist in both languages. We are both white and culturally Christian.

The name in question is a very popular name in both countries/languages.

SIL is from a third country/culture, she is not white and she is culturally Muslim. The name does not exist in her culture/language; as far as I am aware none of her DD's three names do.

The country where we live has quite a lot of racial tension and she and BIL chose names for their children which, in my opinion, show absolutely no trace of her own ethnicity or culture. We were quite surprised about that (but obviously didn't comment at all other than to say "how lovely").

Her children do not have citizenship of her country because her country does not recognise her marriage to a non Muslim.

Sometimes I wonder whether she is resentful about the fact that my extremely white children are likely to have an easier time of it in this country than mine, and be considered less "foreign".

So yes it's entirely possible that there is something more complex going on here relating to her ethnicity and culture. However, I can say hand on heart that nobody in the family has ever been racist towards her or treated her any differently in any way. We're not that kind of family and don't hold those kinds of beliefs. Everyone has welcomed her (and, by extension, her family) into the family with open arms. If her feelings towards us are related to this in any way, it is 100% a her problem and not an us problem.

I think it's pretty clear that they both upset each other, but I wasn't there so I can't comment further than that.

However, the fact remains that the blame is being directed at me, for reasons I don't quite understand, even though DH has told them 100 times that I'm not at fault.

Wow your husband is a piece of work and you are minimising his aggression issues. There is literally no justification for him to become “livid” and as clearly he was livid and shouting that’s not what was said, it must have been 200% worse.

you and him are similar though, and BIL/SIL suck too so still ESH. You and your husband still look as awful as them. Possibly your husband though is responsible for the fact that BIL hasn’t even responded to your apology letter and they cut you off completely

@inlawproblems how can you be sure what was said to the friend? You weren't there?

If you don't know how it went with your own DH, you certainly can't be sure watches said to the friend

He's not a "piece of work".

He had been feeling increasingly hurt and confused over a period of about 6 months by his brother giving him the cold shoulder and fobbing him off with excuses every time he suggested we all meet. For a while he thought that SIL just didn't give a shit about seeing us and had decided that they were going to see her family most weekends and BIL didn't have the balls to say, "Look, my family are important too and I have a brand new niece who you haven't even bothered to meet yet, and you're being really rude to my brother and his family."

Then we found out their daughter was ill and cut them a lot of slack because we assumed that the reason they'd been distant was because they were dealing with their own stuff and didn't want to talk about it and didn't have the emotional bandwidth for family meet ups with us.

Then we heard that the operation had gone well, their daughter was recovering well, panic over. We were happy for them. But the situation continued.

So finally, after 6 months of this, when SIL (who lives a mile from us) still had not once set eyes on our baby daughter, DH finally had to concede that something was clearly wrong and ask his brother what was up.

Try putting yourself in that position and imagine how you would feel to learn that no, it wasn't even that SIL doesn't give a shit about us and has a thousand things she would rather do with her weekend than come and meet our baby, but that it was a deliberate snub, intended to hurt us, for an utterly trivial reason.

I think most people would be angry in that situation.

@inlawproblems hang on, your DH started the conversation in a public place? Something so likely to be inflammatory?

But it's ok, because he regretted it?

What a stupid thing for him to do.

Because our friend has heard their version of events and told us that apparently for the first 3 months or so of DD's life SIL was refusing to have anything to do with us and BIL was attempting to reason with her and say it wasn't that big a deal really and not worth falling out over. Apparently they were arguing about it for quite a long time, for several months until their DD became unwell and BIL stopped asking SIL to let it go because they had other things on their mind. The friend told us that BIL only really became angry with us after the confrontation with DH when DH was not sympathetic to their point of view.*

So, on many other threads, if the SIL had posted this and the BIL wasn't supporting her and 'having her back', posters would be saying she has a DH problem! Instead, he's standing by her.
I imagine your DH wouldn't have given a shiny shit about the drama relating to the name either, if you hadn't made things so dramatic and wanting an apology and a meeting and whatever else.