Relate for probs with inlaws

[ethelb]

Following a massive row last we with dp regarding his parents I want to go to Relate to sort this out. It has happened before and is the one bone of contention in the relationship.

DP is heppy to come but feels that he doesn't think it will do anything as he doesn't know what to say.

Is relate the right place for this kind of thing.

I think the key to your difficulties is in the fact that you've grown up in a family where criticism comes easy (you say you are critical about your mother and she is critical about you and all that stuff you grew up with about the grandparents), and he has grown up in a family where people are gentle and kind. You are just a bastard.

No I don't have to go everytime. They don't think I a stupid, they just assume I agree with them!

WRT children I have already been lectured on how it is positivly evil to give your children crisps, and if they ever become fussy eaters then I will have to send the children 'to them for a week to sort them out'! (Not even married btw. We want children but won't have saved up enough for mat leave for several years).

On the other hand I think they will be great grandparents. If they are as loyal to their grandchildren as they are to their children.

Blimey,they sound annoying but thats all.Cant you just bite your tongue and not see too much of them?

Mine have done far far worse but i love dh too much to let it destroy us so i tolerate them,see as little as possible of them and i compromise by going off fo a bit to do my own thing when they are around. Eg we stay with them and i tak dd1 out ice skating or they stay with us and i have aday out shopping or get my hair done,im also not too shy in taking myself off to bed early for a bit of respite.

Unless they have done something really bad then you have to accept they are his parents and he loves them no matter what.

thanks for all your help. Just thought I shoudl provide an update.

DP and have been seeing a councelor for three weeks and we went to see ILs for the first time since I last posted. The councellor and DP were encouraging me to confront FIL when he said something I found offensive and tell him calmly about my own 'reality'. I have siad this would not work as I think there is always the treat that it will get out of hand, but they said I had no evidence for this so I should confront him so I don't feel miserable on trips.

So I did. And it did not go well, to put it mildly.

FIL shouted and dismissed, sneered and basically insinuted I was stupid and coulnd't possibly understand (in a conversation about taxation in Belgium of all things!) and there was an 'atmosphere' for the rest of the trip. MIL backed me up a bit at the time and said that FIL was wrong to dismiss me, but DP said nothing. FIL just shouted that we were all wrong.

The next day MlL went to speak to DP in private to say that she thought that FIL 'had gone to far'. But nobody says anything to HIM.

At lunch time he starts rattling on about one of the fantasies he has about going into a shop and tormenting the shop assistant, I say that I don't like this attitiude as I was a shop assistant once and I had to deal with men like him coming in and thinking they had made a great big point by being confrontational with me, when in fact that had been a lazy way to make a political point. This did not go well with MIL and FIL and DP all telling me I was being offensive and 'couldn't understand'.

I have decided I don't want to see FIL again for long weekends (we have already come home slightly earlier than planned, but not for that reason alone) and DP sort of agrees, but is worried that his parent swill pick up on it. I think tough. But how do I make this not all my fault?

Your FIL sounds like an arse and your DP sounds like a spineless arse, frankly I'm not sure why you're bothering with the PIL.
You have done what your counsellor and DP suggested, it didn't work and your DP didn't back you up. I would be telling your DP to visit in his own from now on until your PILS learn to respect you.

I have told DP that, but he is now shocked that I have essentially called his bluff and has said that he will have to tell his parents that I am not going to see them as I don't like them if they ask him. When actually the issue is respect.

It's just all soooo unfair!!!!

His father sounds very controlling AND by trying to insist on telling you how to feel about hisparents, your DH is also being very controlling. FIL (and MIL) want people to be as one mind with them, Dh wants you to be as one mind with him... See a pattern?

All this 'oh, we won't see them at all then' nonsense is just emotional blackmail. FIL has always got away with it and not your DH thinks he can too. It's a nasty habit to have and not fair on you. You should have relate counselling, but to address his need to control amd have you agree with him this way.

The issue is that he is not on your side

could you trust him to stick up for you at a truly vulnerable time e.g. after having a baby?

If not, you should move on

it is not really about your PIL. Your problem is your DP's lack of loyalty.

@Holey that is a good question, and the answer is yes I would, except maybe not with his parents! But interestingly enough the therapist didn't think that was a relevant question as she said people do change when you have children and you can't guess at it. Their loyalty changes to be with their own family. Who knows

I do think the problem is that DP just does not see it. He finds my mother controlling but I emptathise massively and agree that she is.

@oxford I don't think they are being controlling, it is just his father does not care about how people feel. He just knows they are 'wrong' if they do not agree with them and brags about this frequently. He considers himself very, very intelligent. DP says this is not a problem and is part of his personality.

Otherwise DP is a normal, rational,lovely person. He is just blinkeredly loyal to his parents and it happens that one of them is a massive twat.

OP, but your husband thinks YOU are wrong for not agreeing with him. When you have a parent with powerful negative behaviours, you can pick them up and display one without the rest of you being a nasty sod too.

I am upset as I feel that if an argument did break out betweek them and myself (I don't think it would at the moment though, but we have no children...) then he woudl always side with them.

I have this same problem. Although in my case its because my husband is terrified of losing their love or something if he disagrees with them. But for me, if he took their side whilst they were clearly being horrible to me how could i forgive him.

At lunch time he starts rattling on about one of the fantasies he has about going into a shop and tormenting the shop assistant, I say that I don't like this attitiude as I was a shop assistant once and I had to deal with men like him coming in and thinking they had made a great big point by being confrontational with me, when in fact that had been a lazy way to make a political point. This did not go well with MIL and FIL and DP all telling me I was being offensive and 'couldn't understand'.

I don't understand. What's the political point and how is what you said offensive?

As for going off on one at you about taxation well now when you go back to counselling you can say that you do indeed have proof!

but DP is shocked that I don't think his father is the most intelligent person in the world. He describes him as erudite and esoteric BECAUSE of his pretentious smuggery.

Wow i don't even understand those words!

I think often kids grow up just believing what their parents tell them, that they are very intelligent for example, but its only as the years go by that the child, then an adult, realises that their parent isn't in fact perfect and that everything in this world isn't how the parent sees it.

When a parent is very overbearing it can be really hard to see past it. I know with my own husband he is only in the first stages of realising his dad is a bully, and is very resistant to that idea.

Ok they sound like fucking arseholes but you only have to see them every two or three months?! Seriously, can't you just suck it up?

Or is it more about how all this makes you feel about dh? Because you don't feel supported in general - yes he's lovely and affable and old ladies love him, that doesn't mean he's a properly engaged, invested husband who knows how to support you...

Yes it is a case of believing your parents are perfect which I don't ever remember doing with regard to my parents which is a problem as we are coming from this at such different angles. Dp insists it is me being too negative about his parents and uses my attitude towards my parents as evidence for this.

How can he dispute it when his dad shouted and shouted at you for having an opinion?

It is more to do with dp's attitude. He has an answer for everything and a reason why he should not get involved every time.

If this had happened a dp had asked him not to do it and apologise or at least acknowledge it afterwards then I think I would feel more comfortable seeing them again. I mean mil acknowledge it.

Mines the same. He promised me that next time they were rude to me he would intervene but he didn't. Had another reason not to it makes me feel like shit.

I'm not shocked as I witnessed the mother of all rows between my mother and her bil and my dad just sat and watched. But then bil apologised so it was different.

Sorry to hear that @poopoo. How is the rest of the relationship?

Get it very clear in your head what happened and what dp did. Go through it at your next counselling session. The counsellor should be able to illustrate to dp that he is being neither realistic in his expectations nor supportive of his wife.

The councellor and DP were encouraging me to confront FIL when he said something I found offensive and tell him calmly about my own 'reality'

WTAF???!!!

Your dp's f has elevated himself to the positon of Supreme Intelligent Being who adores sounding off the sound of his own voice, and the counsellor and your dp cosy up together and tell you to confront him if he says something you find offensive?

The counsellor saw fit to task you with a specific exercise; what exercise was your dp tasked with? Did the counsellor suggest that, in the event his f ran true to form, he support you or were you expected to slay the dragon put yourself in the line of fire with no back up?

It seems to me your counsellor's out of their depth and, in dismissing your legitimate and understandable concerns in relation to your dp's loyalty to you and possible future dcs, it would appear that they have an eye to repeat business at some future date.

It's not difficult to understand why your dp has grown up to be a people pleaser and I would suggest that you seek individual counselling to work out whether you are prepared to make the necessary compromises to remain in a relationship where you cannot necessarily count on his loyalty to you in the face of any further/future onslaught from his f.

That said, if you're prepared to grow a thick skin, see your dp's f as the bombastic, overbearing, but ultimately harmless, buffoon that he is, and let him sound off without rising to his bait, I don't see this as an insurmountable problem.

As he grows older you can treat him as if he's in his dotage, pat him on the head, and patronise him with comments such as 'how lucky we are to have someone as knowledgeable as your good self to show us the error of our ways' while smirking quietly to yourself.

Practice tolerance, honey. It makes the world go round and pours oil on troubled waters.

@Izzy thanks for your comments but I don't think being sarcastic is the solution to this.

Also, I have spent three years not rising to the bait, and DP got apopletic with me for 'not bothering to engage with debates' with his father. So we went to councelling, yada yada, I was encouraged to 'engage' and now the situation is well broke.

Fair enough.

But the problem is I feel DP is STILL blaming me for the situation and when I asked him if he would be willing to speak to his father about the situation he said 'what and tell him that you don't like him'.

My last 3 paragraphs were an attempt to lighten what I felt was a dismal prognosis and I can assure you that nothing in my response was intended as sarcasm.

IMO your dp is being highly unreasonable in blaming you for a situation that he, together with the counsellor, institigated and I can only hope that your next counselling session will serve to highlight this.

@Izzy, thanks

I am wierdly looking forward to the councelling session tomorrow but hope that no-one accusses me of manipulating the situation to highlight how unreasonable everyone was.

The councelling has made some progress wrt to DP's expectations. For example, he doesn't see every complaint I have against his person as a personal alight against him, he doesn't expect me to love his parents like he does, and he doesn't expect his relationship with my parents to have an influence on my relationship with his parents.

I can only hope that both your dp and the counsellor will come to the realisation that 'your reality', together with that of everyone on this planet, means jackshit to a man such as your dp's f.

Any attempt to engage such an individual in a debate that doesn't defer to his belief that he possess an intellect that is vastly superior to that of others is destined to incense and infuriate him, and it is to be expected that such an individual will seek to take his resulting anger out on the hapless soul who has the temerity to suggest that any matter/issue/topic is not as he claims it to be.

As it is probable that your dp has witnessed such behaviour by his f on occasions too numerous to mention, it seems to me that you were set up to fail and I can only also hope that your dp will see that, aided and abetted by the counsellor, he manipulated you into believing otherwise.

Under the circumstances, the fact that your dp didn't intervene when you were subjected to the full force of his f's wrath is, IMO, as reprehensible as it is shameful.

I hope you'll come back with an update after tomorrow's session.