Hello MN'ers, I am in two minds about the best course of action and need some outside perspective on this if anyone has some.
I have quite a fraught relationship with PILs, huge backstory but in a nutshell I find them very cold, unloving to their DS (my DH) in that they never contact us, expect all of the contact etc to come from our end and in the nearly 8 years that my DS has been on this planet they have never had him for even half an hour on his own, taken him out, had him overnight, offered to babysit etc - they are rubbish and in the beginning I went out of my way to try and 'force' them to be the grandparents I wanted for DS (not helped by the fact that my DM died suddenly when DS was 6months old) so inviting them for tea etc, but it made no difference and for my own sanity i had to lower my expectations and started to stop being a bloody doormat, I felt better about this and accepted they would never be interested and it was their loss, even though it made me very sad for DS.
Fast forward a couple of years and I'm noticing more and more on the odd occasions that we do see them that they'll mention ringing and visiting older grandchildren (their daughters children) and even ringing and taking out a foster child that their daughter had for a couple of years. This has really upset me and brought all those old feelings back again and asking myself why are they not interested in my DS :( I'm actually really angry and upset about it.
I have managed to bite my tongue as DS has always been present and I don't want him realising his grandparents give not 1 shit about him, but i don't know where to go from here? I mentioned to DH about having a chat with them but he is understandably defensive of his parents which has caused a couple of arguments, his mum is one of those women that no one ever confronts / argues against as she's a proper stroppy cow and in all honesty I think they are scared of her and she will just sulk for weeks. But my instinct is to say enough is enough, lack of interest and support I have come to terms with but favouritism of grandchildren is just heartbreaking, DS is starting to ask why nana and granddad don't pick him up from school or why he doesn't have sleepovers etc and I'm not prepared to lie to him to make them seem better.
But I don't know, it could just make things worse, and really, if they did want to spend time with him they would just be imposing their bigoted, narrow minded opinions on him, so maybe he's better off not spending time with such unloving cold people? I think my ideal of a nana which he has never had because my DM died is blurring things for me, but I don't know if I'm actually angry at them, or if I'm just angry that my mum died and she would have been such a different nana?
I don't want this to be an ongoing issue with me and DH either, but I also think he's a fucking spineless shit for not pulling them up on it - arghh, what should I do and how do I reconcile these feelings in me that are genuinely upsetting me.
If you've got this far, thank you, sorry for rambling... 