My In-laws have never been the best, even though they would tell you different. Ever since my husband and I moved out, they would offer us help but never follow it through. Everything has pretty much been on my parents; for context, I am an 'only child' with a half-brother who has had longstanding issues with our mother since before I was born. He is 20 years older than I and he has walked out on me more times than I can count, so there has only ever really been me and my parents. We were a very small and close family unit before I moved out.
My husband on the otherhand, is the oldest of 3 children. He seemed to be the one they relied on for everything, including picking his little brother up from high school.
Since we moved out and started navigating a family of our own, we have had no ends of trouble with my in laws. We had them talking about us behind our backs ans saying horrible things, in the end my SIL decided she couldn't 'hold her tongue' anymore because I had been found to have blocked them all on social media (for my own mental health) due to things being said behind our backs about things that I post about my parents and the excitement I felt for a holiday destination I had booked for my 30th birthday. There seemed to be jealousy that I had posted about that, but not about the upcoming holiday I was going on with my in laws to Cornwall. - I would have closer to the time, but this just got jumped on...
At the time my son would have been 8 months old and I was anxious as hell taking him all the way down to Cornwall, knowing it was going to be a long journey because babies aren't meant to be in the car seat for longer than an hour... maybe hour and half... I wanted to prioritise him ans his health...
When we eventually got to the holiday destination, my FIL pulled my husband to go show him the table tennis in the garage of the accommodation. Once my husband had left the room by BIL and his girlfriend and MIL appeared to make hasty exits leaving me and my sleeping 8 month old alone in the livingroom... it all just seemed like they'd rather be other places in the house than sit with me.
Even on our wedding day before our son was born, they behaved inappropriately. My SIL started bickering with my husband's friend at the dinner table... FIL stated he would be paying for the wedding meals but then close to backed out saying he could only afford desserts... it was a nightmare... The day after we had our reception/gender reveal... my MIL asked my FIL if he wanted to sit in the livingroom where my mother and my husband's family friends were sitting. I watched my FIL screw his nose up, shake his head and say "No" where they all then trapsed put to my back garden to sit outside. When we brought this up with them during a confrontation a few months after my FIL accused me of lying and hearing him wrong. Saying that when I hugged him he heard me say "oh god" which was untrue, but i feel this was to get the spotlight off of him.
I understand that when we had our wedding and gender reveal my FIL had been in and out of hospital with kidney stones, however I did not feel it was nice of him to ignore my parents at my own wedding and gender reveal. My parents have medical backgrounds so they would have understood. But it seems my FIL judged them poorly.
I've had pretty much all sorts thrown at me where they've said they 'walk on eggshells' around me, but never explained why. My SIL had said we don't make them feel welcome, but never explained why. My SIL also said, we put my parents on a pedestal, but FIL and MIL both deny saying this... it was all just really nasty and really hurtful.
I have tried my best to get on with everyone for the sake of my son (2 yo), however I have still been noticing some oddities. My SIL has not long had a baby and has set out some boundaries for everyone to follow (which i agree with as we didn't do this with our son). One of the boundaries is, if someone thinks they are becoming unwell to stay away.
Now, our little boy has been on and off unwell since last December. To the point since January we have been back and forth to out of hour GPs because he was running temperatures of 40° which was very worrying for us. We were sent up to the local hospital from OOH GP, my MIL had messaged to ask if we had everything which we thought was a glimmer of hope... I told her we didn't have anything and needed nappies and bottles. Her reply "maybe when M settles R can nip off and get them" she expected my husband - her son to leave his son and wife to go and get nappies... we honestly thought they would offer to bring them and support us. In the end my parents brought them to us. (My neice hadn't been born at this stage).
At the moment I just feel like my in-laws don't care about my son. My husband recently fell out with his mum because we found out his brother had visited with a cold which had caused our son to get ill again. My MIL has tried to deny knowing that my BIL was ill however BIL confirmed to my husband that their Mum knew. So she started trying to say it was "2 weeks ago." My husband was furious because they wouldn't have gone to see our neice if they were ill, so my husband doesnt understand why our son is the exception.
Now coincidentally my MIL is sending me a picture of 3 really old photos she has now put in a frame and put on her livingroom wall... our son is 2 yo and we feel she could have done something like that a lot sooner. We are feeling like she's had pictures printed of the new baby and has likely done this to make it not seem suspicious... its nothing to do with us what MIL has in her house (despite them not liking the pictures I have up in my livingroom - even though I had pictures of them too)...
We also found out that the in laws travelled over 30 minutes to go see SIL and baby, but couldn't travel 20 minutes to come and see me and baby when I was on mat leave... they expected me to travel to them on my own with a million and one baby items and a newborn, when my husband works 6am - 4pm but my SIL's partner works from home and has flexible work due to his occupation. It just doesn't seem fair. I just feel like I'm expected to jump through hoops all of the time, with no support from them.
I'm even noticing differences on social media, my MIL will heart react to every post my SIL puts on, including those of baby but she doesn't even give mine of my son so much as a like react. I know people will say "its just social media" but it wasn't "just social media" when I was getting spoken about behind my back for the things I would post or because I tried to block everyone because I felt like what ever I posted was upsetting them and felt like the less they saw the less they could be upset with me. But i just got accused of "She hates all of your family" to my husband. I know I could have just hidden the posts from them but hindsight is a bitch.
We don't know how to navigate this anymore because we've tried having frank conversations with them and we just get minimal accountability, denial, or they claim they don't "recall."
My husband has tried direct confrontation where again he gets deflection, denial, lack of recall and the "it's not my fault" response...
We've tried distancing and received backlash for not going to visit them.
I don't know what else I can honestly do, it's really impacting my mental health and I cant help but take it purposely the way they treat my son because my FIL has even said "I couldn't have him" to look after. My parents are twice my in-law's ages but they care for him whilst I'm at work and on days he isn't in nursery.
Edit: my mum has even said to my in laws that if they wanted to look after my son on the Friday when they finish work early they were more than welcome to, however there has never been any offer or ask.
There is so much more to this story, but you honestly would be here until Christmas.