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?