Pervy FIL or just accept it? UPDATE PAGE 6

[MyLilacCritic]

Hi this happened last year but i can’t shake it. One of my character flaws is allowing resentment to build! I’m bad at addressing difficult situations with people in the moment - I just freeze (fawn response?)

Context I am 32F, husband 34F. His PIL are both 70 and his sister is also 32F.

in the first couple of years of our relationship I spent a lot of time with my husbands family. Because I love him and had the newly in love goggles on. Family is important to me. I was also conscious of the age of my husband’s family, i.e. not so many “good years” left.

FIL became ill so i was a dutiful daughter in law and we increased the visiting.

when we would say goodbye, it was hugs all round. I thought I was being over sensitive but his “hugs” made me feel awfully uncomfortable, inappropriate hand placement and lingering. Ugh!!!

I also felt that he would sit there staring at my chest gormlessly. Hard to prove, again - but it made (makes) me very uncomfortable.

for me the peak moment was last year. In laws were visiting us. In front of his wife and daughter, unprompted in the middle of a group conversation as we were standing around chatting, he grabbed my hips with both hands, shook me, and said something (totally irrelevant and non sequitur). I didn’t say anything, just froze. Nor did SIL or MIL they just stood there in stunned silence. Notably, my husband was not in the room.

since then, I can’t bear to be around him. I can’t talk about this to my husband as I can’t bear to crush the image of his father to him - it feels too cruel and I love my lovely husband so much.

However, keeping this from him is hard. I will do anything not to be near his parents (they’re a package deal). I try to wear the baggiest clothes possible and squirm away from any contact with them. Not a great relationship to have with your in-laws. Nonetheless FIL remains pretty determined to try and put a disgusting sloppy kiss on my cheek at the bare minimum. if we were out and about as a 4, (PIL, me and DH) I can’t bear to “pair off” with FIL who I resent so much.

I tried to get support on dealing with this in therapy but didn’t get very far. But I knew the Mumsnet herd might have som experience in this - please help me work out what to to!

My mum recommends trying to focus on the positive qualities of the people who raised my wonderful DH. Unfortunately, I’m finding this very very hard.

YABU - he’s just an old man of a generation that got overexcited. You need to forgive him and move on
YANBU - totally unacceptable behaviour from any man, let alone your FIL

Any advice on how to proceed with managing this relationship?

I am so sorry for your losses x

I am so sorry for your loss. You and your husband are really going through it right now, try to take care of yourselves.

So sorry to hear you lost the baby, what happened with fil then ?

Totally unacceptable. Call it out.
If you feel uncomfortable there is something wrong

RTFT for goodness sake.

There is a clue in the title that there is an update. There is also a post today from MNHQ asking people to check the updates.

FIL is now deceased and OP has, very sadly, lost her baby.

I didn't see the gap, and my post was valuable information about dementia.

Why are you haranguing me and not the others who have recently posted without reading the update?

For the love of god, let the comments about my post stop. This is not helping the OP.

HTH.

It's all very well saying that with the benefit of hindsight but there were a few of us who just didn't see the update. So? And I don't need you to explain how MN works, I know already thanks.

@PithyViewer,,"valuable information about dementia" You mean calling people ignorant who don't have such intricate medical knowledge of dementia as you seemingly do. I have no regrets about warning women, cleaners, carers etc about my late FILs sexual harassment, whether he could help it or not. Sexual abuse is as damaging to the victim whether the perpetrator has dementia or not, so don't call me ignorant. To OP, I offer my sincerest condolences on the loss of your baby. I lost my 13 year old son to cancer 4 years ago and it was the worst thing that ever happened to me. Please take things one day at a time and look after yourself.

Sorry but yours was one of the first replies that hadn’t read the update, though there have been more since. It is really not hard to look at the date of the post before replying. Your response to the poster that replied “RTR” to you was unnecessarily arsey with your little “HTH”

HTH

I’d argue that you don’t, if you didn’t a) notice the post was written in January and wonder why it is trending in February, b) notice the big fuck off UPDATE in the title, or c) just generally have the thought to read the latest post from OP when you notice it’s a long thread.

But sure - you know best how to use MN 😊

I read ALL the updates before replying. In that 40-minute gap, I was doing other things as well as replying. So after my post appeared, I then saw the update, which had obviously appeared in the 40 mins since I read all the updates. And I was writing in the middle of my night, which is not your night.

Please, please stop nit-picking and going on about this. It's totally inappropriate in the light of OP's update.

@MNHQ May I suggest that you delete all of the "discussion" about posting without seeing the latest update. Some posters are looking for arguments by posting shaming and insulting remarks to various pp, and they are clearly not going to stop. It's pretty vile in the light of OP's update, which should be the only focus here.

@PithyViewer You can't police the thread in that way just because you've been called out in a way you don't like. To delete posts in that way would leave the thread looking like a Swiss cheese and would make little sense, which really wouldn't help the OP.
Most people have been very kind and supportive to the OP. How about you let this go now?

Pithy’s previous post(s?) have already been deleted.

Most people have been very kind and supportive to the OP. How about you let this go now?

Right back atcha.

{mention:PithyViewer}@PithyViewer@PithyViewer my reply to you had nothing to do with you reading or posting before or after updates etc but you are a hypocrite complaining about other people posting shaming and insulting remarks when that is exactly what you did to me in your post early this morning. It seems you can give it but you can't take it and it is appalling that you are trying to hide behind OP's grief.

Still not stopping, I see.

Evening, everyone.The thread is being dragged off course by this latest disagreement and it's not fair to the OP, particularly given the tragic turn of events. Given that, we're going to close this thread to new posts now as we don't think the thread continuing is going to be of any further support to the OP.