Still angry about this letter almost three years later

[Toska]

DH's dad sent this letter in his birthday card five months before our wedding. He had called them three months before to ask if they were coming to the wedding as I was paying the final balance and everything was non-refundable. They said yes.

For background DH's mum doesn't like me and spent the first two years of our relationship talking me down (we met through unconventional means, I'm a different race, I'm quiet, I'm significantly younger etc.). DH (then DP) did not stand up for me, he says he never noticed. It all came to a head in 2013 when I was getting ready to go with them to an event and she asked me where I was going when I responded with them she said that it was a family thing and I couldn't come. DH spoke to her about this, of course she pretended that she didn't mean to upset me.

She then called a few months later and I told DP not to speak about all the past incidents as she would find a way to turn them around. He didn't listen to me and did it anyway. I overheard this conversation and he was saying things like 'Toska thinks you've been really unkind etc', rather than 'I've noticed this. . ' He's really bad at standing up to his parents as they supported him until he was in his early 30s. I'm over 10 years younger and poor I think his parents knew that I would be too eager to make a good impression.

His mother then proceeded to talk about me to his other family members (they told me, one said that she told them I didn't like the way they looked at me!) and send nasty emails and make weekly phone calls to DP/DH about me. The letter I've attached arrive in 2014 a full year after the initial blow up. I've never spoken to them about their emails and letters and they've never apologised to me. DH maintains that after the letter from his dad he spoke to them about three months later and read them the riot act and they were sorry. If I ask when or what was said he says he can't remember (he is dyslexic). We've been arguing about his parents since 2013.

I had a miscarriage in January and I'm tired. I can't do this anymore. I'm tired of worrying about what rumours his parents are spreading about me, I'm tired of saying their names more than I say my own and I'm tired of being excluded. I'm undergoing assessment for Borderline Personality Disorder and have taken antidepressants for the last six years, worrying about all this crap is making me angrier, more destructive and paranoid. I have no rest, I've thought about this letter everyday since it arrived. My parents were abusive and we had social services involvement. I have my own crazy parents to deal with. All DH says is that we have to find a way through this but he doesn't know how.

What would you do?

DH is just not built to defend anyone.

Does this seem acceptable to you? If and when you have children, will it be alright if he can't stand up for them?

I think a lot of posters are confused about the timing of the letter and assume it's a recent thing. I don't understand why they came to your wedding after definitively saying they would not go. Why didn't you invite someone else in their place so the outrageous spend was not wasted?

Why do you talk about them every day? I get on brilliantly with my parents but I don't talk about them every day.

I think if anything is clouding your judgement, it's your desperation to be part of a family. It must surely have been pretty obvious before the wedding that this was a non-starter but you went through with it anyway.

Polly

Sorry, I thought you'd missed the line. Yes, they came to the wedding but we didn't know that they would when they sent the letter. All I knew was that I was £500 down. We told them three months before they sent the letter that the money was non-refundable so it felt deliberate and not so adult.

something changed their minds though to come?

If not, in your shoes I'd have had a 'standby list' of guests and invited 2 others in their place. It would have been their loss.

No, absolutely not. My 'D'F said something nasty about DH and I tore him a new one. I am not very confident let someone call me the wrong name for weeks but will stand up for people I love. He jokes that if anything happens with our hypothetical children he doesn't need to worry as I'll handle it. He was very sad when his parents weren't attending and I didn't want to upset him by giving away their ridiculously priced place so left it open.

I'm still angry, I want it fixed so I talk about it. I tend to fixate on the things that make me feel horrible, it even turns up in my dreams. I would like to forget this all and move on but I don't know how except for never seeing DH's face again. I don't know how to forgive.

I'm not sure what to say, but I couldn't read and run.

Sweetheart you need some RL support, whether that be from your DH, your gp, counselling, mental health support. You have to find a way to put this behind you (I know easier said than done) but you cannot continue like this.

Please please get some help

He jokes that if anything happens with our hypothetical children he doesn't need to worry as I'll handle it.
That doesn't sound like a joke. He's telling you you'll be left to handle every stressful situation.

You say they bully and attack you, and yet you haven't seen them
In two years?

I mean this in the kindest way, but I think most of their unkind acts towards you are imagined.

I think you are dwelling on things that happened a long time ago, seeing the letter as unkind (but it seems to me to be an olive branch)

Believing the timing of the letter was contrived to coincide with you paying for them at your wedding.

You are overreacting and making yourself very unhappy, you say they will always come before you in your DH life, and yet you constantly talk about them to him.

You have had a difficult time lately, not happy where you are living, and the trauma of a miscarriage.

I suggest you get some counselling, try to find some happiness, save your marriage with a man who has gone through hell with his family to be with you, if you can.

Good luck

Maybe some way working towards forgiving is seeing things from outside of your own feelings about it. It's so intense when it's all wrapped up in how you feel about yourself. They haven't got to really know you have they, and perhaps this was a problem from both sides with misunderstandings and mistrust.
So they have made bad choices and judgements and should apologise, getting that apology and clearing the air could help you? Not to become friends but to find peace.
Holding onto grudges is kind of a way of controlling our world, letting them go can be scary because you know, it gives people the chance to do it again? If you don't forgive them this puts up a mental wall for you that they can't cross and hurt you. I think you are so defensive because you have been really hurt in the past, they did not recognise that you needed perhaps more sensitivity and to earn your trust, they broke it. You are trying to protect yourself and no one is on your side so you feel alone and angry and resentful I totally get that.
Inner peace and forgiveness isn't just about giving someone another chance to hurt you or letting them off without a punishment, it's for you. Letting it go, doesn't mean you forgive and forget, just that you free yourself of the emotions

I would be interested to know a bit more about the dynamic with your mother? You seem to suggest that she was responsible for the £250 a place wedding (when earlier you said you and your DH had met when you were a student and he was unemployed - that's quite a jump in fortune?) I wonder how much the damage done by your parents is impacting on your feelings of persecution and insecurity in respect of your ILs?

So sorry you're feeling like this. Must be very, very tough

Your DH isn't going to or isn't able to resolve the situation with his DPS, even though it should be him who speaks to them about all of this. As he can't take care of this, what do you want to do about it? Are you willing to pick up the phone and talk to his DPS and try to resolve things?

You've been put in a terrible position and it sounds like your health is being seriously affected. It's not right that you're living like this. I think you're going to have to give DH an ultimatum. Either he makes an effort to sort things out with his DPS or you'll definitely go NC with them forever. To be honest though, I don't blame you for having NC, they sound like a right ridiculous pair.

Hi, OP.

I don't think you are reading too much into it. The letter sounds unpleasant.

But, I think you need to work on your current life situation, first & foremost: Your mental health issues, can you access counselling or an assessment so that you can talk to someone about your mental health?. Have you been formerly diagnosed? Is there any way that you can both move away? If you're living somewhere where you're unhappy it makes A LOT of difference. If this isn't feasible, can you find other ways of making things more bearable?

Have they given you any reason why they don't like you, other than the reasons you think?

My first father-in-law was a racist arse but made it known from the start that I wouldn't be accepted into the family because of my skin colour. I was under no illusion that that was the problem, and with small children, it was hard. But I went NC & it was a weight off of my shoulders. Although I found out years later that ex DP was damning the flames & shit-stirring.

I hope you manage to sort this one way or another. If they are being prejudice, there's nothing you can do about the way they feel & I think you need to accept it. If it because they see you as a gold-digger, what reasons have they come up with?

Fanning*

The fact you are dwelling on this three years on, as if it just happened, is I fear symptomatic of your mh issues. I also wonder if focussing on them is a way of deflecting your frustration at your own parents. Ate you now nc with both sets? You sound so isolated and sad, your dh seems a reluctant participant in your treatment, you are unhappy for so long. Do you love him? Unfortunately moving location was never going to make things go away. Counselling might be a good place to start, ideally before your treatment, to enable you to move on with a clearer head.

Oh op, i am sorry about your miscarriage

I have an interesting family dynamic too. I have shed many a tear over it, and despite the end argument happening 6 years ago it still comes up in our relationship every 6 months or so.
I am absolutely convinced it will break us up eventually. I really feel for my DP it is his family, so i feel guilt on top. As it was a very close family.
My children suffer, they barely see their family even though they live 5 minutes away. But also seeing how they've treated them has helped the scales lift on DP. I wanted them to have a lovely extended family with cousins and aunties surrounding them with love. It certainly hasn't worked out that way.

Back to your issue, If i didn't have the children i would be gone. The guilt to being the cause of the rift (their behaviour is the cause but if i didn't exist). My DH goes through phases of being supportive, he likes an easy life so will chose the lest line of resistance to whichever party that is at the time. Inevitably i find out and it kicks off again (every 6 months or so). The wider family appear supportive of me and us, but i don't know what is said behind my back, so i trust no one and talk to no one. I do polite chit chat but give nothing away on the odd occasions i see any of them.

I would not bring children into it until you know DH has your back. You've had a few shitty years from the sounds of it, between your family, his family, a crap move, fertility issues and a miscarriage i think you've had everything chucked at you. Deep breaths and honest talking. It would be easier to run of course, but if he can see what they are and have your back it could be the family you are looking for.

Sorry Toska I haven't rtft but I wanted to offer first and another perspective.

I identify with quite a bit of this but to a lesser extent: interracial/cross cultural relationship, MH, and not being able to let go of things.

I have a history of self-harm, and historical (years and years and years old) scars. SIL is a nurse and uses this - these very old scars + depression after bereavement to justify why DP should find someone else and treat me coldly. Personally I think there's more to it.

Like you I find it tough to let go of but I think both of us need to. You say you might have BPD but the treatment is not working. Could you possibly have Aspergers? Aspergers in women can sometimes look like BPD - emotional dysregulation often coming from overstimulation, tiredness, change, inability for the brain to process etc, self harm due to inability to communicate, fixation on people due to special interests, abandonment fears coming from fearing they've done wrong etc. If this is not applicable please ignore me!

As someone with AS and OCD i do often fixate on issues and can't let them go, especially interpersonal problems. I need there to be a resolution, if that makes sense. Perhaps this situation is similar - which is why I understand it still bothering you after three years and don't find it weird :) i still get annoyed about mean and unfair teachers ten years later!

I haven't rtft so I'm not sure what you want the outcome to be but you need your DH on your side. From experience I feel like the only way for this not to bug you anymore is if they apologise and the relationship is more positive from now on