Reply to MIL - please help!

[josephwrightofderby]

PIL are very passive-aggressive. DH and I both find them difficult - I've posted before about how DH will actually be made physically unwell by them during a visit. Part of the problem is that they are engulfing and do not allow any room for difference - they just bulldoze both of us and we have to be stand-up rude to get them to listen. We end up exhausted and upset as a result. We therefore try to limit visits to a long weekend 3-4 times a year.

I just got an email from MIL that says 'I wondered if you have any ideas what DH might like for his birthday, as we could bring it to BIL's house when we see you there next week. Sorry to ask, but as we don't see you very frequently now, I'm sure we are out of touch when it comes to presents.'

We have actually seen them more this year than in any previous year, and (as the email states) we will see them at BIL's house next week. But we couldn't make a couple of dates for a full weeken in October - because DH is madly busy with work, something they refuse to understand - and they were inflexible about other times.

I realise that this looks like nothing on the face of it, but we are trying very hard to be more assertive, but it does not come easy for us. Just posting for advice about how to respond.

I would completely agree with the comments that tribpot has made, in particular the third paragraph. Both he and his sibling are indeed mired in a FOG state.

Re counselling you really do need to find a therapist who has NO bias about keeping families together despite the presence of mistreatment. It may also be that the first person you see may not be the right one. Counsellors are like shoes, you need to find someone who fits.

(I presume his parents never visit him; its expected that you do the 5 hour journey. Could you not stay in a local hotel/B & B if you did have to at all visit).

No, they do drive to see us! But that is always given as a reason why they need to stay for 4 days (tbh, it's a long way for them so I do understand this).

Staying in a B&B or something near to their home so we could get away to our own space would be amazing - but I think DH is a long way from being able to suggest that. It would be regarded by the PIL as offensive and they would resist it very forcefully. There is even an empty house that they own close by their home that we could use, but they would be extremely unhappy at that idea. Their unspoken 'rules' for visits are that we must all spend every minute in each other's company from 8am to midnight every day, doing exactly what they want to do over that whole time. This is one reason I struggle - I am not used to being around anyone for that length of time at a stretch and I find myself actually shaking and feeling ill by the evening.

I hear you on the counsellor Atilla. I will try to think of the first few sessions as an audition to see if it works.

We do agree that their behaviour is difficult. We absolutely agree on this 100%.

But

He and his brother both believe that PIL 'mean well' and are 'lovely really'.

You're not on the same page. Your DH does not see this behaviour as toxic (has he read the books mentioned earlier in the thread?) and so you're not starting from a common point of view in terms of developing strategies. I think a good counsellor will make this clear quite quickly.

I would like to push back on this more strongly, e.g. by insisting that we take separate cars

No, your DH would need to do that. If it would make him too anxious to do it, it's not a practical solution because it will put him in the middle of opposing forces. Put simply - you don't manage his parents. You support him in doing it. If that means on occasion he goes to visit with you, so be it.

I honestly could not cope with what you describe - having to go and visit one place after another in their car, spending every second of the day together. What about investigating the stately homes half way between your houses and suggesting an overnight stay in a hotel?

Can you and BIL all visit on the same weekend, so at least the effect is diluted?

I absolutely could not cope with it either....

... Next time you go and visit them, do the separate cars thing. Don't argue, justify or explain, just take your car too. Dh takes the lead, you support. Practice the scenario - cheery smile, "no, we'll take ours too." Broken record technique if needed, smile, repeat, bulldoze.

And when you hit breaking point, have a code phrase (dh and I often do this, something you can slip into any sentence that means 'argh, I need to get out of here.') then, get in your car, and find a nice tea shop somewhere. Announce you'll see them back at theirs later, anything they need from the shops? Again, practice the scenario until the fear attached to it diminishes.

You can stay in the B&B. Just book it. You had a voucher that needed using. It's booked now, can't change it (warn the owners beforehand that your batshit crazy mil might try to cancel it.)

On one day of your visit, you announce that you've always wanted to see X. Research what's in the area beforehand, so you know what there is. Preferably a big bloody hill or something you can climb. Make sure it's something they won't want to do, but if they do tag along, no biggie because you are leading and you will take separate cars. Again, no negotiation, smile, repeat, bulldoze. Arrange to meet later. Meet up for dinner.

You are a cheery, smiley, unconcerned bulldozer with a thick Teflon hide.

Re the car thing: Don't discuss don't say anything, just pick up your keys and get in your car. Ensure you have a sat nav (in case like me you get lost) so you can get home from where ever you are.

People can only insist if you join in. If your OH comments ask him "when was the last time we just went to 1 house?"

Gosh sounds hard work ... i find older people like to stick with doctors advise ... we`ll take both cars so i can pop back and rest later... doctors orders!! I have to say i build in separate time on visits ... how would you like to take the kids to the park? Ie bugger off so i can cook tea?

Would it be very silly to write up a secret charter with your dh? Put stuff like, only one stately home, two cars, bedtime of ten pm, etc.....and then when they start pushing, and you it will have to be you insist and act upon your rules, following the charter, he cannot complain as it was an agreed charter for both your benefits. Tell him you will enforce it with a brutal but breezy manor, and after the visit, see how you feel and amend the charter as needed.

In fact op, your new mantra is 'brutal but breezy'.

Brutal but breezy. Got it! I think the idea of a secret charter is a great one, and definitely the kind of thing I would like to work towards.

tribpot - I think you've really helped me to clarify something here. While DH and I agree that the behaviour is difficult/unacceptable, we disagree about the intention and motivation behind it. He thinks they mean well but just are difficult because they don't understand other people's emotional needs. I think they don't mean well and are selfish and pretty horrible individuals.

The trouble with the solution you suggest that he completely manages them and I just hover supportively in the background and say nothing is that my needs then can't be met at all and I am then under huge strain. What I would really like people to understand is this: if I absent myself, it puts him in the middle. If I draw a line when I've had enough and head home, it puts him in the middle. The reason it does so is nothing to do with me, but that neither of those solutions will be acceptable to his DP - and it will cause lots of tension, passive-aggressive questions about why I'm not going, huffiness, etc.

Now I completely understand that we can field those with the brutal-but-breezy attitude. But he will still be put in the middle!! The only way I can avoid doing that to him is by being a complete doormat and going along with whatever they want 100% of the time without complaining. And as I have stated, that is not possible - I simply can't do it any more, physically, mentally or emotionally. Whereas his "solution" is to go along with whatever they want, until his mental and physical boundaries kick in and he ends up repeat vomiting on the street outside a pub over Sunday lunch because the stress has got too much. (This has happened).

I am happy to take a lead from him - indeed, to date all I've been doing is going along with everything they have asked. But this isn't sustainable any more. I think it's vital that he is 100% comfortable with any future strategy and that he doesn't feel forced into anything. But we are very much in this together, because his PIL will view any attempt at independence on either of our parts as an attack.

OP, you may have answered this already so I apologise if I've forgotten, but has your DP ever seen a therapist / counsellor? He really does have a shocking case of FOG. He's so very enmeshed with his parents that I can't imagine how he would mange to start detaching without professional support. I'm in therapy myself and have been for several years and I'm such a different person now. The guilt is about 5% of what it used to be and I've become so much better at drawing boundaries and sticking to them. Actually, a lot of what I've done is 'growing up' - not feeling like a child around my parents anymore, not feeling afraid of them, detaching from them emotionally in a healthy way.

Of course, for therapy to 'work', he would have to be totally committed to wanting things to change, and being willing to work at it - not in the sense of working on his relationship with his parents, but working on changing his reaction to them. He's still saying they're 'lovely' and 'they mean well', and I understand why he does that, but he also accepts that their behavior is a problem and he would like it to change? He can't change their behaviour of course, but he could change how he responds to it.

I'm not suggesting that the current situation is sustainable, just that you can't fix it. This is where I think joint counselling will be really beneficial as you have a problem between you and your DH to resolve first.

Another thing to bear in mind is that it's not your job to rescue your DH. Of course you want to protect him from their overbearing ways but it's too easy for them to rebuff if it's all you all the time, saying no, answering the emails, tacking all the flack. Fundamentally they are his parents. You wouldn't expect him to manage yours, would you? There may have to be some aspect of role playing (good cop/bad cop) but actually it will be more effective if he's the bad cop and you the good than the other way around. Just as you would expect to take a tough line with your parents and have him be more conciliatory.

What would happen if you didn't go?

Several of my friends can't stand their in laws, or outlaws as we call them, so to avoid conflict, visits are made by husband to his parents. Usually, but not always, the husband is fairly laid back about accommodating the irritating habits of his wife's parents and goes along on those visits.

Some friends think they can hack it if it is only three or four weekends a year. Not worth upsetting the status quo.

I have to confess my ex daughter in law was a control freak extraordinaire! My son went on holiday with her parents every year at least twice. Family weekends with her family were de rigour and happened very frequently. They were like the Mafia! My son is very tolerant, laid back and was ridden roughshod over but he did not seem to mind, and never ever said anything about it! neither did I. As long as he was happy, nothing to do with me.

However, when he brought the children to see me, he always came alone. She did not want to spend time with his family. Indeed, it was a struggle for him to get permission to bring the children. We accepted the situation. It was his life and we were grateful he came at all, we knew how difficult it was for him. After I retired I moved within an easy distance so he did not have to make such a journey. He was dispatched to tell me I could move nearer if I wanted to, as long as I realised it would not be like the Waltons. I would only see him the same as usual, about 4 or five times a year for a morning or afternoon visit.

I did not react, said I understood! but I remember I cried when I was on my own. I felt so rejected and wondered what I had done to invoke such treatment. Anyhow life went on and I was excluded more and more. But I did not react and made the most of the contact I had.

However over the years the marriage deteriorated. Trying to have iron control over someone never works, eventually the worm will turn, and he did!

If someone is trying to control you you have choices, roll over and build up resentment and one day you will flip! Be assertive and set the ground rules, or walk away and say not for me thanks.

tribpot - Ah! I understand now! And I completely agree that it has to be led by him and that I can't 'fix' this on his behalf.

lotta - I love your story about how therapy has helped you. It is so uplifting. He had some individual counselling a few years ago that REALLY helped. I don't know all the details, but he has told me that he talked a lot about how he relates to his father. It helped him to define the dynamics between them as unhealthy, and to start to carve out a space to stand on independently of their approval. It really reduced his levels of anxiety and stress, and he did emerge from it a noticeably calmer and more confident person in our everyday life. However, when he is around them he tends to revert to a kind of rabbit-in-the-headlights panic, fearful of their passive-aggressiveness and manipulation (which is ever-present). I know him as this very able, capable, clever adult who manages an enormous amount of responsibility and takes tough decisions at work - and they have the ability to infantalise him instantly as if he's still 14.

As I've said, I think the time has probably come for us to have joint sessions about the practicalities of how we go forward, and to give him an opportunity to air any concerns he does have. I desperately don't want him to feel controlled or pushed into anything by me, so I think it's important he has space to explore this safely (and I am ready to hear whatever he has to say). It may be that the joint counselling leads to more individual therapy for him or for me. I guess we'll have to see how it goes.

marzipan - I'm sorry about your DIL. It sounds really difficult. Dealing with controlling people is a major headache, and it sounds like you were amazingly restrained for a very long time.

I dunno....considering the crippling anxiety and stress they cause him, I don't see why he can't be rescued a little bit. When you decide to head home after ONE stately home, in your getaway car, you can throw him a rope....."why don't you come too dh, you look tired/I need your help with a fake job I just thought up/ etc". You can be the bad guy, he can give his parents a defeated shrug and say something like "better go then, the boss has spoken". I don't think he has it in him to suddenly become assertive considering how much the stress of their company alone causes him. We all need help sometimes.

And, I would think up some infuriating new little sayings to toss their way once the pa starts. "Piffle, nobody needs to see two stately homes in one day". "Oh, I'm sorry you feel that way. Anyhoooo, we must dash."

Try this article: www.issendai.com/psychology/estrangement/notes-all-or-nothing.html

It's talking about difficult PiL having contact with kids, but it's essentially about the battle with trying to set any boundaries when PiL see any boundaries as a threat and just want the adult child to do exactly what they're told. And they see this state of the adult child doing exactly what they want/they are told as normal, and any deviation from that is wrong, so they will always push for things to go back to what they see as 'right'. You have two groups of people who see this situation from two totally incompatible positions.

There is no way to do this without PiL getting upset. That's what dh is going to struggle with, because PiL getting upset in his mind is associated with being a bad son, being in the wrong, disappointing them, letting them down. There's a lot of guilt and shame in there that PiL are playing on. The trick is learning that PiL getting upset is not going to cause a disaster, it is ok for them to be upset and everyone will come through it, and that is probably going to take a counsellor's help.

Well, lots of opinions on how to deal with demanding in laws. However, it seems a ridiculous situation where an adult married couple have to go to joint counselling to work out how to deal with his aged parents and their desire to do things their way.

Isn't this all a bit too civilised. Oop north where I was born, we would have said! ' Ma, Pa, we love you but you are being a total pain in the proverbial. Sort yourselves out and stop being so self centred or we won't be coming to see you any more! There you go job done, lol! Of course only their own child can say this to them, not his wife!

marzipan - People who are in the grips of feelings of fear, obligation and guilt towards their parents would sooner gnaw off their arm then tell their parents where to get off. Even oop north. Parents can sadly fuck up their children in any era or location.

Damn, I don't know where I have gone wrong with my adult son, no fear, guilt or obligation!! The ungrateful boy tells me where to get off at every opportunity. I can't do right for doing wrong, lol!

Hm, marzipan, I can't help but wonder why your son was so drawn to such a controlling, domineering woman in the first place...

at marzipan. It sounds like you guys have a great relationship now, which gives me hope.

rumble - you are absolutely right. It is a guilt-and-shame trick. Since counselling, DH has said that he knows those aren't a 'rational' response, but the anxiety is habitual and 'comes first' - it arrives before the process of rationalising has happened and is then difficult to disperse. (As you can all tell from this thread, it makes me extremely anxious too, though I do my best to hide this as it's not helpful for DH). Unlearning that pattern of vulnerable and immediate responsiveness to their PA cues is going to be a gradual thing.

Being OK with PIL being a bit upset (due to unreasonable demands) is the key. BIL's partner, who is amazingly sane and lovely, says 'They sulk for a bit, but they get over it'. That's the attitude we need to cultivate. Responses on this thread have really helped me to see that as a very, very valuable tactic.

ricekrispies - wise words. You are right. I suspect that there is a bit of a cultural element, though - PIL never, ever talk about emotions, and if you engage them on that level, you will get a lot of embarrassed blinking. I think other families may have more open and receptive cultures of listening!!

Talking in the dark - I have often thought about that. She is 8 years younger than him and when they met she was only 19 and had not fully come into her own!! She was always strong and capable. But my son is a bit laid back and is happy for someone to take charge. However it soon began to get out of hand, as she really got into her stride. Once the status quo is established it is difficult to change it. She controlled everything, money, what they did in holidays, weekends, the children. My son says she changed dramatically after the two children were born. I guess that's true for many of us. We fall in love with our children. My son definitely became the meal ticket. I guess he was unhappy for years but never ever admitted it. They had the children and he felt he had to hang in there. He did try to discuss it but typical if the narcissistic controller, he was always wrong, she was always right and was clever in manipulating situations to make him think he was making a fuss about nothing. These situations are insidious. Narcissists are charming at first and attract people to them, once they are firmly in the web, boy, oh boy do they show their true colours. Sadly whilst most of us learn from our relationship mistakes, narcissists go blindly on believing they are right and everyone is out of step but them. There is no correlation between age and wisdom and I have met such personalities in their eighties who still think they have always been right and it's the other guys who are always wrong.

On the topic of not responding to the provocation in emails etc...

You do not have to attend every argument to which you are invited.

Repeat this to yourself when necessary. It has worked beautifully for us in thwarting a relative's attempts to draw us in. Ironically, it was my MIL who gave it to me as advice, for which I thank her many times over.

Brilliant Gnomic! Sometimes there are people who try to control you by pressing your buttons to keep the tit for tat emails going. What they really hate is being ignored. They are trying to maintain control. As you say you don't have to go to the party!

'You do not have to attend every argument to which you are invited.'

Love this and will try to remember it! Thanks Gnomic

I will pass your thanks on to my MIL. It honestly was a life enhancing bit of wisdom for me, and I'm glad to pass it along.