Not sure if I've posted in the right place -
My in-laws are a huge family and I feel like such an outsider. They’re all loud, I’m more shy, they’re extremely opinionated, and there is always the snide remark or comment about me - for example, if I suggest something for the kids (such as a day out), they always fob it off as a crap idea and their response feels rude. I bought a gift for someone’s birthday, and instead of saying thank you, they mentioned how they weren’t keen on it.
There’s never a smile when I see them, I’m not spoken to (unless it’s about the kids) and when I try to initiate conversation, it’s just empty responses and a lack of eye contact. When we moved house, it took my in-laws a year and a half to ‘pop over’. We live just 10 mins from each other.
I’ve spoken to my partner about feeling disliked, and he says it’s all in my head. I know it’s not. We've been married over 10 years and it's always been like this - it's just making me itchy now and I'm not sure why. Perhaps it's because I've been having a really awful time recently (life changing stuff) and there's been absolutely no compassion or contact. They just don't seem to care. It only seems to be me that’s the one on the outside too, everyone else seems to have their place.
It upsets me because they’re fond of my children, but I can see they would rather I’m not there.
It’s hard! We see them every week (sometimes a few times a week!!), and if I try and make my excuses to my partner, he makes me feel guilty and says I should be there.
Anyone else in the same boat?
How do you deal/how would you deal with feeling like an outsider within family?