Help for how to stay calm and communicate effectively during mediation with in-laws

[222333Annie]

sadly, my DH has always had a very strained relationship with his family.since all of the adult children have met partners and had children it’s really seemed to increase family disputes. When my DH decided he could no longer take us being scapegoated and treated badly he took some distance.He now wants everyone to talk on zoom ( a lot of members of the family live abroad) he wants his dad to be the mediator.dad rarely gets involved but always strikes me as a firm but fair person. DH and I have agreed that we will try for a relationship with distance and clear boundaries going forward and he is hopeful this will be the way.I am not so sure and worry about him feeling disappointment.

my issue is they all talk over eachother, they love the blame game and often they say things I feel are intended to hurt deeply.They also either lie or ‘misremember’ events and conversations .This frustrates me as I have the memory of an elephant. I am not trained in family therapy but I feel like there are narcissistic family dynamics at play and maybe a professional would be a better mediator ? I also said to DH I’m happy for them to sort it amongst themselves but he has said he thinks it would be good for everyone to say how the situations have impacted them.

I don’t want judgement on the decision we’ve made but perhaps some advice on how to talk to or deal with people like this.I don’t want to lose my temper but I also do not want to sit there and take unacceptable behaviour.Im at a point where I really need to protect my own energy. In my life experience and family life we rarely argue and when we do things always seem to eventually come to a respectful resolution so for me this feels alien and very uncomfortable.

My advice would be not to do this. It won’t change anything and it will just give fuel to the toxic family dynamic.

I don’t get it. If lots of them live abroad, you can just not interact with them for most of the year, right? Clearly they don’t get on, so why is DH pressing this issue? Some people just don’t get along, I’d just leave it.
If this zoom call (a recipe for disaster to not do this in person, as you’ll miss a lot of non verbal cues and people will talk at the same time, half of what people say will be not be heard) will go through, I’d check with DH what he would like to get out of this and whether that is realistic. You can’t change people, only the way you deal with them.

It’s not going to work.

You're all distant enough that this needs to take place via Zoom, just go extremely low contact instead.

Certainly with dad as a mediator it will not be impartial, no matter how fair and reasonable you think he may be.

I would not participate in this and tell DH if he wants to do it he can leave you out of it.

I mentioned this but I think when they come and everyone meets he feels shut out and upset.I asked what he would like to achieve and he has said he just wants to know he’s tried everything possible before laying it to rest in his own mind .I agree that zoom isn’t a great idea

The one advantage of doing it online is that you could set it up so you can mute everyone and just unmute one at a time.to prevent them talking over each other.

But I agree with everyone else, this has Doomed written all over it.

if this Zoom session ends in any other way than your DH feeling worse than before it will be a miracle.
If your Dh insists I suppose all you can do is support but its a bad idea

How did he come up with this absolutely batshit idea? I would refuse to have any part in it. If your husband is looking for a way to make everything worse, he's found it.