Help me cope with FIL visits

[Sexnotgender]

Hoping you lovely people can help me.

My anxiety is through the roof with the thought of FIL coming to stay and I need help to cope.

My in-laws live overseas and so when they come they stay with us for weeks at a time.

I’ve negotiated it down to 3 weeks, I’d prefer less but they’re coming a long way and my husband wants to spend time with his mum which is understandable.

MIL is a delight and I adore her.

FIL is an abusive bully and everyone tiptoes around him and doesn’t rock the boat.

I struggle to ignore his behaviour as I was in an emotionally and mentally abusive marriage for 10 years and his behaviour is a huge trigger for me.

I’ve thankfully got about 3 months before they visit again but I’d be grateful for any advice on how to cope with the visits. I want to get through them as mentally unscathed as possible and support my husband and make it an enjoyable experience if that’s possible!

My advice to you is to be clear in your own head what you will and won't accept. Is your FIL abusive towards you?

I also recommend making yourself as busy as possible during their visit. Creating space is a great way to avoid all the noise your FIL brings with him.

Also, make sure your husband is very much involved and hosting their visit. It should not fall on your shoulders. The more he has to do, the less likely he is to freely invite without considering the consequences of his father.

If he is abusive to you in your own home, tell him to leave. If he won’t and your DP won’t back you up, leave and go and stay elsewhere.
It sounds like you’ve taken a lot from him already. How is your DP about this? His father is being abusive to you.

My husband is very involved, he doesn’t expect me to shoulder the burden of the visits. I have no complaints on that front.

Ideally FIL wouldn’t come but in order to see MIL we need to put up with him. He’s more of a sly bully, he’s manipulative and his opinion is the only one of value in his opinion.

I can’t throw him out as then we wouldn’t get to see MIL.

DH wants to find strategies to help me cope. He understands how hard I find him but as I said we need to put up with FIL or DH won’t get to see his mum and they are very close.

I'd be looking at Airbnb for them, why have an abusive bully in your own home with everyone walking on eggshells. Either that or mil comes on her own.

MIL wouldn’t be allowed to come on her own unfortunately. That would be the perfect solution.

We have a large house and more than enough room to house them so an airbnb would be seen as rude and to be honest they probably couldn’t afford it.

We definitely need to put them up in our house.

I'm sorry, but this is ridiculous. You are a grown woman and they will be guests in YOUR home! Why on earth would you tolerate being disrespected and abused in your own home? Tell your husband in no uncertain terms that this will not stand, and if his father is an abusive arsehole, out the door to a hotel he goes.

I hope you see how shit it is that your own husband would allow ANYONE to bully and abuse you. What a useless twat of a man.

OP hasn't said that the FIL is abusive to her

Have you read the Captain Awkward blog? It's really good and gives lots of advice on how to deal with bullies and bigots. You might find it useful. I do hope it helps.

I am guessing that it isn't overt abuse, just constant disapproval - much more difficult to call someone out on.
I have a walking on eggshells situation with my Dil so you have my sympathy OP.

Careful OP - you're being emotionally blackmailed into enabling an abuser.
Your mil and dp have been conditioned to appease him and are still controlled by him - this is not your problem it is theirs.

Be the one who is strong enough to say 'no, this is not acceptable'.
DP and mil need to be told that YOU will not tolerate abusive behaviour and will call fil out on his bullshit every single time no matter the consequences....and are prepared to kick him out if he dares direct it at you in your own home.

Plus, visiting/living with you for weeks on end every few months is too much.
You are being coerced into becoming fil's victim 'for the sake of an easy life'
You are being dragged into the very cycle of abuse that you fought hard to leave behind.

Perhaps your dp should live on his own if this is how he wants to live?

To be clear my husband is not a useless twat as stated above!

Esspee is right it’s constant disapproval which is hard to call him on. I’m not good enough, nothing I ever do is good enough.

He’s actually abusive to DH and MIL though not physically when he’s here, I know he was all through DHs childhood though.

Last visit was for a massive achievement in DHs life and in public he was all gushing proud father but in private told DH he was a massive disappointment.

He’s a misogynistic, bigoted, racist bully and it’s the atmosphere he creates that I struggle with.

I struggle not to tell him to get to fuck!

MIL isn’t in the best of health and lives thousands of miles away. I will not deny my husband the chance to spend time with her. However the arsehole comes as part of the package and I just need to manage that.
I’ll take a look at the captain awkward blog as the name alone sounds like him to a T.

MIL is not entirely without blame in this situation either; she has chosen to stay with her abuser of a husband for her own reasons. She failed your now husband also as a parent because she did not protect him from his abuse of her and in turn her son.

I would not have either she or he in your house to be honest with you. You have the advantage of them being thousands of miles away but you need to put mental distance between you and they as well. Your H is too mired in his own fear, obligation and guilt re his mother to be of much if any use here.

Why do you actually need strategies in order to cope with FIL, your H is really wanting you to have those. You do not so much need strategies so much as firm, consistently applied and higher boundaries. Your H has real problems with boundaries and wants you to act similarly to him. Does he as well really want to be told by his dad yet again that he is a massive disappointment to his dad because that will happen.

There is no easy way of managing such people. Do not further enable FIL yourself.

People from dysfunctional families end up playing roles; what roles are both MIL and your H playing out here?. They are indeed playing roles to their H and father respectively.

I agree they enable him.

I fully don’t understand why MIL didn’t leave him, she was the earner in the family. He’s a useless waste of space.

How do I put boundaries in place? My problem is I see red and get angry as it’s such a trigger for me.

Attila dont you need some more more details of the country in which the OPs MiL lives and her financial situation before staying so boldly that she has chosen to stay? You get that not all countries and cultures make it possible to leave, right?

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Your MIL gets what she wants out of this relationship with her abuser of a husband and that is partly why she has stayed. We learn about relationships first and foremost from our parents and perhaps her own father was a abusive waste of space too.

People stay in abusive relationships for many reasons; fear of their abuser being a primary one. Also money worries and children are another consideration for some. There are indeed many and varied reasons.

No one else can make you do or feel anything. You are in charge of whether or not you maintain your boundaries. For example, say that you are at a family gathering and your difficult uncle says something derogatory about your job. When you tell him to stop making fun of you, he says something about how you’ve never been good at taking a joke. Right now, you have two choices. You can either pretend that everything is fine or you can say something like, “That crosses the line. If you’re going to continue, I’m just going to leave.” This establishes what is and what is not okay and puts the consequences of the action back on the difficult family member.

Dropping hints or being passive aggressive about your boundaries is the worst way to make sure that anyone understands what they are, especially because many difficult family members are difficult expressly because they are careless. Being very explicit about what is okay and what is not okay is the only way you can make sure that they understand what your boundaries are.

That’s very helpful thank you Atilla.

Yes but she has chosen to stay with him and raised her son within that environment as well. Its harmed OPs now husband. Abuse is not at all any respecter of class or creed; it happens the world over. What country they happen to live in is really irrelevant.

People can and do leave relationships the world over, the person always has a choice here. It is I grant you not easy to leave but staying with such a person is no picnic either. No country or religious text on this earth states you have to stay with an abuser when you are married or otherwise in a relationship with them.

OP I totally get where you are coming from.
Well done to your DH in coping with him.
It is only 3 weeks

If you have a big house, put your PIL as far away from your bedroom as possible.

Is it possible for you to have a 2nd sitting room where you can retreat to? You can call it a sewing room - he will never encroach if he thinks it is for women things. Leave some sanitary towels in plain sight.

You have 3 months so that takes you into early summer - take up gardening and be outside as much of you can.

For one weekend can you visit a sick friend.

A good bit of passive aggressive behavior from you.
When he says something you don't agree with, head tilted, smile and say interesting theory; gosh I never thought of it like that.
Oh, no FIL that won't work for me but thank you so much for thinking of me/us.

Make sure you say on numerous occasions how proud you are of your husband and the man he can become. Go over and give MIL a big hug and say thank you for bringing up such a lovely man. How lucky you are to have the life you have.

Think of it as a challenge - FIL neutralization!
Also one of those meditation apps could be useful - try Mindfulness.

And more so tell us how you get on.
Use Mumsnet as your blog and we can give you advise as you go.
Think of it as a game.

You are not going to change him and you still want to see your MIL, so it is about taking his power away and the hold he has over you, your DH and your MIL.

We do have a second sitting room, I’m also breastfeeding which will not be approved of so might chase him away by feeding.

Strategies to cope with a visiting abuser are more commonly referred to as walking on eggshells
Their is no way to appease an abuser they abuse subtly or no so subtly for any and all reasons regardless of What hot coals everyone hope over.
The reason this man triggers you is your brain actually wanting you to get as far away from his toxic cloud
the fact that he still emotionally abuses you Dh is utterly disgraceful and unacceptable your Dh does not deserve this continually treatment as a grown man.
Realistically it's your DH that needs strategies to find his voice to assert his boundaries around his abusive father. And those boundaries should be no way ever!
You both may adore mil but she sat back while her helpless vulnerable child was physically abused!

I say all this as a survivor of childhood abuse and it's taken years to disentangle myself from that FOG. I now do not expect anyone including myself to walk on eggshells around people who don't even deserve my company.

Hot coals everyone hops over *