This is such a sensitive one and I’ve really tried to find a way to address this without sounding like and as*hole, but here goes……
I have just returned from ANOTHER family gathering with my partner’s family. The party included casual racism, sexism, way too much drinking and trash talking about basically every person in the family not present. My partner is at party for his cousin (and staying overnight) and I am slammed with work at the moment. He suggested that I go to his family’s so I could ‘get support with childcare. Despite this being agreed NO ONE offered to hold baby whilst I worked and it was clear that this was never their intention. In fact, they all just wanted to drink (I’m still breastfeeding so on the orange juice), engage in toxic, trashy gossip and mouth off about immigrants and anti-brexiters whilst I run around after my toddler in the sandpit. I am so bloody frustrated.
I met my partner when he was studying for a master’s in criminology and I am a child psychologist, completing my PhD. We both share the same liberal values about the world. I honestly struggled to see how he fitted into his family as they are so different. But a few years ago, we decided to leave london and move closer to his family (10 F*CKING mins away) so we could settle down and start a family of our own. Since our son came along they’ve been amazing with him and clearly adore him. But everything else has been on their terms. We visit their house at least once a week, go on holiday together every year (booked by them) and the majority of our weekends are taken up by family gathering like the one described above. Despite my partner and I being super stressed and sleep deprived managing emotionally-demanding jobs on top of childcare and side-hussling to make ends meet, there is so much pressure to commit to everything according to their social schedule. But since my son has been born (he’s 19 months), we’ve only been offered babysitting ONCE so we could go out alone together. In the same period of time we’ve been asked to look after their house whilst they go on holiday 6 times. I hang out with his family or friends all
the time and basically never see any of my own, who granted, live a few hundred miles away. But the worst thing is that my partner NEVER stands up to them or puts boundaries in place for us. It’s causing so many arguments in our relationship ( we’re even seeing a couples counsellor) because I just feel so resentful and suffocated by it all. I felt that I could take our differences with a pinch of salt before, but since my son has come along I’ve realised that it’s not what I want for him and it’s all making me feel emotionally drained.
The kicker? We need them for childcare because we can’t afford nursery on top of our mortgage 😩 It’ll be surprising to no one that we have vastly different parenting ideas and despite my Psychology qualification (and the fact that it’s my bloody child so-who-cares-what-you-want/think 🤬) my requests to not leave him to cry on his own, not feed him freezer pizzas and ice-cream and not invalidate his emotions in toxic ways ( boys can cry all they fucking want/need), I am mostly always ignored. I feel that no one in the family really bothers to get to know me or my values and I really feel like I’m losing myself. I really want to move back closer to my mum where I actually feel supported and have a group of like-minded friends and my partner agrees this will be good for us. But I’m so stressed about the emotional fallout this will cause. Is there a way to manage this without causing a rift between my partner and his family?