I have gone NC with PIL and feel great. DP is sad.

[amispeakingintongues]

NC with them for last 7 months, and have felt huge relief. I don’t let them in my house anymore, at least while I am here. Kids are welcome to see them whenever but I don’t trust PIL to look after them unattended because;

FIL shouted at me/ us in his house over the fact I gently reminded my own children (ages 1 and 3) to be careful of the boiling hot cup of tea stupidly placed by MIL on a side table right behind them. He heard me say this, then spat out “No what (dc) needs to do is go next door to get his snack)”. I was taken aback by this blatant undermining but ignored it as he’d already been rude to me over something else and I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of a response. 30 secs later, my partner walked in, saw the hot tea. Without a thought, he moved it immediately and the unhinged outburst from FIL went something like “NO DON’T MOVE MY TEA. YOU DON’T CHANGE EVERYTHING YOU DO WHEN YOU HAVE KIDS THEY MUST BE TAUGHT TO AVOID THINGS” (again, kids are 1 and 3) to which I managed to reply, whilst stunned “They are my children and they are so little, if I see something dangerous I will protect them” - and he replied “DON’T TELL ME HOW TO RAISE CHILDREN WHEN I’VE HAD X5/6/7” (he’s estranged from half his kids all with different mothers so)
… afterwards I just found the car keys and politely asked MIL (who heard all of this and didn’t say a thing) to let me out the house. I sat in the car and burst into flames (and tears). Never seen them since.

Some context: They felt (their own words) that I wasn’t good enough for their DS when we met over 10 years ago. Since then their opinion according to my DP has changed, and they apparently think i’m a good mum to their grandkids etc but never once have they said anything positive about me to my face about my character or anything that made me feel genuinely liked and respected, rather than tolerated. Even though I have bent over backwards in my people pleasing ways cooking, hosting, long heart to hearts with MIL, taking her out on lunches, taking the kids to see them etc, there has always been an undercurrent of disdain towards me. Which has worn me down in more ways than i can explain in one post.

Anyway. My DP is getting pressure from them to nip this all in the bud whilst maintaining they absolutely will not apologise to me. And that somehow, I am in the wrong. DP disagrees with them but that doesn’t change much because they are withholding attention/love/affection which is upsetting him. This master manipulation is no surprise but my DP is not well attuned for seeing this for what it is. DP wants me to put it all behind me for his sake, just so they can come to the house. I don’t want to not uphold my new found boundary but also don’t want DP feeling upset. I know i’m not being petty, just feeling like I don’t know what’s best in the long run.

They literally hate feeling like they are not in complete control / or being judged in any way at all.

Don't we all? After all, it's them judging you that has made you dislike them.

The trial idea is ridiculous.
DH loves his mum and he has every right to invite them. You don't have to be there, or if you are, then you don't have to cook for them.
As someone else said, your home is the safest place for them to be with your children. You/your DH have control in your own house and can place drinks wherever you like, and monitor the situation without treading on their toes or changing the way the PIL's normally do things in their own home. That's what your PIL seemed unable to cope with.

Hardly small fry. Refusing to move a hot drink when small children are there is really dangerous. Who on earth would argue about that? The unhinged shouting at OP and her DP when her DP moved the drink is also completely unacceptable. OP's FIL sounds utterly horrible as well as rude and inhospitable. Her FIL could just apologise if her PIL are so upset about not being welcome in OP's home. They obviously aren't upset enough to do that.

OP's DP did move the tea and his dad went mad and shouted “NO DON’T MOVE MY TEA. YOU DON’T CHANGE EVERYTHING YOU DO WHEN YOU HAVE KIDS THEY MUST BE TAUGHT TO AVOID THINGS”. How on earth would it be a benefit to have this horrible man in their lives? He doesn't care about his grandkids' safety and he is happy to shout at OP and her DP in front of the kids.

This.

Mine are horrific and there is an unhinged SIL who lives with them. I dread any visits but while I was afraid of negligence around young DC, as they got older it turned to emotional manipulation. I think you have to be around to protect DC. I just keep it as low contact as possible. DC hates visits. DH pretends all is fine (I have a DH problem as well, at least I know where he got his filthy temper and denial of reality).

So sorry. I have similar and feel the same. The only issue is if I do call it out my husband becomes foul and tries to blame me for speaking up. The thing stopping me divorcing is fear of shared custody, with DC alone with PIL and SIL (who never left home and has major issues).

Dreading Christmas already.

55+ can mean many years of experience navigating relationships with batshit in-laws, not just being an in-law.

I'm with the people who would not want my kids seeing your FIL with only their dad, so I'd either have to grit my teeth and sit through those visits or push for full no contact. There's no way in your shoes I'd risk exposing them to that sort of toxicity without me there, if there was a chance dh would minimise it and let things slide.

It’s always the dil holding the pil ransom using the dc as pawns. As the mother of sons I realise the dw holds all the cards, I can never make a mistake or express my feelings and never expect anything.
Of course it was dangerous and you need to safeguard the dc but going nc hurts your DP and your dc and deprives them of a relationship.

i hope all the dil on here who are quick to stop pil seeing the dc (although allow their own parents more leeway to make mistakes) think about the future if they have sons. What goes around comes around.

@amispeakingintongues So,

• You allow your PIL to have contact with your DC so long as your DP is also present, and
• You allow them to come to your house so long as you're not there, but your DP is.

Seems OK to me given the way they've treated you. I actually don't know what more your DP (or PIL) expect you to do. You're not stopping the three of them from having a relationship, or your PIL from having a relationship with your DC, which all seems perfectly reasonable to me. Why should you be forced to play happy families when they can't even be gracious enough to apologise? Maintain your boundary OP - and continue enjoying the relief it brings you. 😊

You have my every sympathy. I’m the mother of two adult children. It was my parents who behaved in a similarly dreadful manner (and worse). I kept going and so did my poor husband and kids. I wish I hadn’t and all I can tell you is I wish I had cut contact. Your husband needs to have your back and you need to be a united front (if possible). I don’t agree that they should be allowed into your home if you’re not there. It’s your home, your sanctuary.
People shouldn’t downplay the risk of hot drinks - that is patently a great risk to children.

If it were me, I’d at the very most say your husband must do what he wishes to do (whilst being aware of how this will make you see him).I’d not be happy for them to see my children in this scenario because they can’t be trusted to act in the children’s best interest - keep them physically safe and to not listen to abuse and disrespect of their mother (you).
Stay strong and good luck.

OP isn't trying to stop her DP seeing his parents either, nor their DC seeing them - it's only OP that's gone NC - she's not trying to force her DP and DC to do the same at all.

Did you even read OP's posts? She has gone NC. She is not stopping her DP from seeing his parents, or their DC seeing their grand-parents, so long as her DP is present. The five of them can, and do, have a relationship - it's just OP who's stepped back.

Damned right.

my 8yo spent 2 weeks in a burns unit with 2 ops because a steam bath tipped on him. That was on my watch, the guilt was immense.

your kids are so little @amispeakingintongues youre absolutely right to protect them, and the way your PIL treat you is unacceptable. The disregard they have for the safety of their own gc is beyond comprehension.

fuck em. Tell dp to get used to it and eventually PIL will lose interest

How do you know the OP isn't the batshit in-law?

DIL and PIL have different views on how to raise children. Shocker.

I read so much on here about people “going NC” with relatives. It’s odd but IRL I have never heard of a single person doing this. Reducing time spent with a difficult relative, and/or complaining about how unreasonable they are, yes. Cutting them out of your life and making it difficult for them to see grandchildren, no.

I’ve been through some challenging events in my life which have caused major rifts with my own parents and my now ex-ILs, but disagreeing over child discipline/snacks/whatever is not worth creating such a drama over IMO. Even my ILs, who turned on me when ex left me for OW and slagged me off to relatives because I told them about OW (who ex and ILs wanted to keep secret for a while in pursuit of their story of “the marriage just ended for no particular reason”) get a pleasant few words from me when I drop off or pick up DD from theirs. They’re still her grandparents and she loves them. I can get over my own feelings about how they treated me. Life is short and grandparents aren’t around forever.

Yup, and her remark about the hot tea could have been said in her usual superior snotty way and was the final straw for the FIL who'd had years of being spoken to as an idiot and just freaked but didn't go out and sit in the car having a tantrum. I'm not saying this is what happened but one-sided posts do leave a huge void as to the other side of the story. (Oh, yes, the hot tea should have been moved)

So much of what you’re saying resonates with me, OP. My in-laws are awful and years ago blamed me for a fallout that happened within their immediate family (ie, them, DH and his brother). They had never been ‘great’ - MIL is really immature and self-centred - but this family row was next level.

They also refused to apologise to me, and I now haven’t seen them in over 10 years! It was difficult at the time because I decided to leave DH to it to sort out his relationship with them. That was quite hard to do in my case as it was clear DH was desperately trying build bridges with them (despite how they’d behaved towards me). But they, of course, continued to be really difficult with DH and eventually he could find his own dynamic with them without me in the equation.

Though I stepped back, my bottom line was that he was free to take the kids to see them, but they couldn’t visit. If they were going to be so disrespectful to me, why should I run around making myself scarce so they could see my children in my house? They live a fair distance away and I think DH made two or three trips there with the kids, but ultimately the kids barely know them and DH has a very distant relationship with them now (think the odd text and FaceTime at Xmas).

It’s really sad for all of us in different ways, but this is of their own making, unfortunately. Just try not to engage with it and lead your own life…

They sound awful, but I would say for the sake of DP I’d be willing to give them one final chance & I would genuinely make an effort. Just as soon as they both apologise for what happened & committed to being more respectful. It’s in the PIL court then, not yours. And I wouldn’t budge from that position.

Absolutely.

A few years ago when reading threads like this I probably would have weighed in on the side of the OP.

Hot tea and small children is hard to argue with, isn't it? I'm pretty sure I have yelled at my own parents for doing similarly silly things. Probably hot tea included. I also remember one memorable time when my mum was supervising my newborn while I had a shower and then minutes later I came back to find that she had put my tiny baby on the spare room bed surrounded by a mountain of pillows and cushions and was lying down having a nap next to her. Thought I was massively overreacting when I pointed out the suffocation risk. It's actually really common for people who were last responsible for a baby in the 1980s to do things which are widely understood to be unsafe now and get all huffy when you point this out, and tell you how all of their children survived to adulthood and they don't need someone who has only been a parent for a year or two telling them what to do. It's incredibly annoying when you are the parent, but certainly not a reason to go no contact.

Regarding in laws and boundaries, I have a horrible sister in law (my husband's brother's wife) who is currently no contact with basically the whole of her husband's family and essentially stopping him and their three children from having a relationship with them too. My lovely in laws are devastated about no longer being able to have a relationship with their son and grandchildren.

I'm quite sure that if she were on here (she's not) she would spin an absolutely convincing story which would have 99% of posters on here telling her that she is definitely not being unreasonable to go NC with her in laws and that they didn't deserve to have a relationship with their grandchildren. But it wouldn't be even a little bit true.

So in my experience, there are two sides to every story, and here in AIBU we only ever get one side of it. I will never again encourage an OP to stop her children having a relationship with their paternal grandparents, because in real life those grandparents could be just as innocent and undeserving of such treatment as my parents in law.

Sometimes in AIBU I think we forget that (assuming the OP is not a troll) these are real people and there are real life consequences of following our advice. By encouraging someone like my toxic SIL to believe that she is right and everyone else is wrong, you could be contributing to depriving children like my niece and nephews of a relationship with their lovely grandparents. (Their only grandparents who didn't raise an absolute monster.)

What a ridiculous row over nothing. Were you looking for a reason to kick off? If I were your DP, I’d ban your parents from “his” house.

Grow up OP.

All seems a bit dramatic.

This is peak MN. To go NC over that single, admittedly unpleasant, experience is to say the least, dramatic. Does no one have the ability to talk through issues anymore? Does no one have any conflict resolution skills? No resilience? What do you do at work if someone blows up and thirteen argument? You don’t go NC with them, you wait till everyone’s calmed down and then discuss like adults.

Some people think emotional abuse is okay. Cut off the people who shout at small children to protect the children.

Honest to goodness, that kind of person needs help.

For those saying ‘what a fuss over nothing’, you seem to be overlooking what OP also explained -

‘They felt (their own words) that I wasn’t good enough for their DS when we met over 10 years ago….never once have they said anything positive about me to my face about my character or anything that made me feel genuinely liked and respected, rather than tolerated.’

This is the kind of shit that wears people down. It’s just occurred to me (crazy it’s only just struck me given my own history) that such situations seem to explode once children come along. OP has obviously spent years trying to build a relationship with the in-laws who have been difficult, but now she’s so busy with her own young family, she doesn’t have the energy to ‘play nice’ all the time. And why should she?! Her FIL risked the safety of toddlers and then shouted at her. It’s unacceptable.

Also, I think that for some grandparents the relationship with in-law children can be fraught because a rising sense of their own mortality - with that can come regret and even jealousy.

It was so clear to me that a lot of my MILs issues were down to her getting older, being unable to accept her son was now an adult, and, sadly, a real degree envy over the lives we were leading.

As I get older myself, I think I understand more why in-law relationships can become so difficult! My experience has also given me a LOT of insight into how to behave when my own kids get married/have children! I won’t be making the same mistakes, thank god…

But sometimes the person your child marries or is in a relationship with is an arsehole. In laws aren’t always wrong.

It seems as if PIL’s must say nothing but the wife’s/husbands can say what they like.