Advice for managing PIL with new baby

[WishingILivedOnAnIsland]

My PIL are challenging people to get along with. When displeased they rant and scold, recite lists of hurtful personal comments on a loop, repeatedly threaten to cut DH out of their lives and have even thrown physical tantrums (dropping themselves on the floor sobbing). It can be over very small things and it is absolutely exhausting. They are easily offended and constantly feuding with someone or other. They have cut multiple family members permanently out of their lives.

We moved nearer to them when DC2 was born and found them overwhelming. They would show up multiple times a week uninvited and stay for hours while DH was at work. I had PNA for about 5 months after DC2 was born and unfortunately DH told them about it. They would repeatedly do things to our newborn (eg holding her up over their heads or kissing her when they were sick) that they’d been told triggered my anxiety. They since told DH that they’ve made a point of not following my requests in relation to DC because ‘if we had she would have just kept telling us what to do’ and anyway why should they listen to someone ‘mentally ill and irrational’.

I recovered completely from PNA a long time ago but they still constantly (as in, multiple times within a single conversation) refer to me as ‘mentally ill’ and ‘irrational’ and try to convince DH he shouldn’t allow me a say in decisions.

After trying for a long time to please them, I went LC about 1 year ago. My stepping back infuriated them and they have been compulsively criticising everything about me since. They actively hate me now. I cannot be in the room without at least one of them glaring/ pouting/ refusing to look at me when I speak-and sadly this behaviour is a best case scenario as we are always afraid of a massive scene. It’s really unpleasant and I am increasingly concerned about DC picking up on the dynamic as they get older.

I will give birth to DC3 soon. My counsellor said that PIL were a significant factor in worsening my PNA last time. My relationship with PIL has obviously soured since then so I expect they’ll be worse. They will likely demand a lot of bonding time with the new baby and DH will want to try to satisfy them in the hope of preventing theatrics. Basically I am dreading it and trying to think of how to protect myself emotionally during the newborn phase.

DH is a good man, a wonderful father and supportive to me in every other way. He is very intelligent but has a blind spot when it comes to his parents. He sometimes just goes along with what they say and want without considering if it’s reasonable. He tries hard to please them and is scared of their threats to cut him off. He respects my decision to be LC on some levels but also asks me to be ‘the bigger person’ by being relentlessly nice and accomodating to them no matter how they treat me.

I don’t want to be separated from my BF newborn so they can see her without me, which is what they will be expecting. However I am also worried about being pressured into contact with PIL while I am exhausted, hormonal and sensitive. I am concerned that I am at risk of another bout of PNA and I feel really stuck.

I want to sit DH down soon and agree on a plan for the newborn period ahead of time.

So my question (thanks if you made it this far!): what is reasonable in terms of PIL’s involvement here? What rules/limits/boundaries am I within my rights to ask for? Any tips or advice?

TLDR: PIL are hard work - tips / rules for managing them around new baby?

@magicBrenda Right now I am hardly ever around PIL and DH has supported my decision in relation to that.

But I think where the inevitable conflict lies is their access to DC. I do not want them around DC. At all really. I might be ok with two or three visits in public a year but that's it. DH can visit them as much as he likes, he's a grown man and years of emotional abuse make this complicated and hard for him. But I agree they are toxic and messed up and I just don't want my children around them. It also means that I can never fully break away from PIL because they have a tie to my DC. What they say and do continues to impact me because it's impacting my children.

The problem is that PIL blow up, abuse and threaten DH when they feel they aren't getting enough time with DC. So DH's relationship with them is conditional on him providing the regular access to DC they feel they are entitled to.

So if I say- 'no your parents can't see the new baby. End of' then it would have the same effect as telling DH that he has to give up his own parents forever. Which is a massive thing to demand of someone.

@FogCutter They have had some consequences in that they now see the DC much less often than they would like. They used to come around multiple times a week, and I used to send them photos and updates every day.

When I went LC I ended all that, which is why they are especially furious now and why I am enemy number one. They say I am depriving them of a relationship with their GC and that they are awake all night crying about it...which if you take them at their word means they haven't slept for one year.

DH has tried to talk to them about their tantruming, but they genuinely see nothing wrong with their behaviour. They say it is simply an 'outpouring of raw emotion' and spin it around to try to make DH and I feel guilty for upsetting them so much. They also simply deny they said or did things even though we were in the room with our functioning eyes and ears at the time. So DH has tried to lay out consequences but it just infuriates them more and it gets us no where.

@HumpHumpWhale Thanks so much, it's vile!

That's a good strategy, I'm thinking about how to implement it.

How do you know there will be no inheritance? Just curious.

Ignorance is bliss @WishingILivedOnAnIsland

Just ignore ignore ignore

The pure manipulation of your DH here is passive aggressive abuse. He is delusional to think that they love and care for him if they would put his family through all this.

One day he will realise that he is fighting for a relationship that they don't really want. I worry that when your children are old enough to not have to visit them with DH that he will be ignored and dropped and that will have an effect on his mental health.

You are first and foremost responsible for the well being of your children. If they start picking up on how toxic the relationship they seem to have with everyone is then it wouldn't be a good influence for them.

My DC have very limited contact with my MIL for the same reason. She is bat shit crazy and the less they see her the better for me.

@Wantmyflipflops I agree. I really wish the counsellor he went to see had just said 'this is emotional abuse' and connected the dots for him. He focuses on the 80% of the time they are normal and happy, and has an amazing ability to forgive and forget the 20% of the time they are cruel.

So if I say- 'no your parents can't see the new baby. End of' then it would have the same effect as telling DH that he has to give up his own parents forever. Which is a massive thing to demand of someone

Your children are not a bargaining chips for your DH to see his parents. And your husband shouldn’t use them that way.

They are emotionally manipulating him and he is emotionally manipulating you.

Why are you willing to throw your kids under the bus for the sake of a man that’s got parent issues.

Wake up OP how they have treated you is dreadful. Don’t think they won’t start talking to your kids like this or about you as they got older. They would have had years of conditioning by them and will accept (just like your husband) any shit that gets thrown at them.

Thank you everyone for all your advice, it really helps to talk it through.

Your husbands needs to go back to counseling. I wouldn’t allow access to the kids as they are absolutely toxic and are going to spout hatred about you when they have the opportunity.
If the PIL cut contact with DH because you won’t allow access to the baby then that is the PIL cutting contact not you. Don’t allow them to bully you into giving up your children

Councillors are not there to tell people what to do.

If your dh went in with the view of salvaging his relationship they would have given him the tools to do so.

He wants to see his parents, he wants his kids to see his parents.

Where do you fit in with this?

Children’s mental health

@magicBrenda I've literally asked DH that. Where does this leave me? Whats the plan for me in all this?

He doesn't have an answer beyond wanting me to give them all more time in the hope his parents can improve their behaviour and our relationship will heal.

He has said that if it came down to it he would chose me and DC over his parents, but he really doesn't want it to come to that. He views this as a conflict that will hopefully heal and pass with time. But his parents have always been difficult for me, even when I was being a good DIL and going along with all their demands and nonsense. It's who they are and how they have relationships. I don't think they will change.

His strategy in continuing to see them and bring DC is to 'keep the lines of communication open' and 'be the bigger person' for long enough that they have time to see the error of their ways and change.

If he would be open to reading up on it, the. I’d suggest getting the book ‘Toxic Parents’ by Susan Forward. She also wrote a ‘Toxic Inlaws’ book if you’re interested.

The thing that strikes me is that your DH wants a relationship with his parents as he loves them.

But they don't actually love him at all - they now see him purely as a conduit to the grandchildren. They have said that if they had no access to the GCs they would go NC with him.

Does he not find it unbearably painful that he is of so little value to them?

I am not sure I could ever get over finding out that my parents didn't want to see me anymore now I had reproduced, they had moved on.

Or is he brushing this under the carpet as it's too painful so he keeps up the relationship - at the cost of hurting you. I think this needs bringing out in the open and when he faces up to it, you will finally have your resolution.

They only like little kids as they are easier to manipulate.

WishingIlivedonanIsland

re your comment:-
"His strategy in continuing to see them and bring DC is to 'keep the lines of communication open' and 'be the bigger person' for long enough that they have time to see the error of their ways and change".

That strategy of his is flawed at the very least and doomed to failure because his parents are abusive. His inertia when it comes to his parents too is merely hurting him as well as yourselves as his own family unit. He would really like you all to get along mainly because he cannot or will not deal with his parents, its too painful for him and he cannot face them.

Your H is also well mired in FOG (fear, obligation and guilt) and your children will become as emotionally damaged as he is by their abuse.

I would certainly agree that there is a vast amount of manipulation here; from his parents to him and from him to you. He is absolutely not able to protect his children from his abusive parents so you are going to have to do this. It does not follow that because he wants a relationship with them for his own misguided reasons your children should meekly follow in his wake. All this too over time could well kill any love you have for him. His primary loyalty should be to you people rather than his own parents but it still lies with them.

You certainly need to be laying down firm and consistent boundaries with him re your children. I would not personally want any of your children to be or be further exposed to their toxic behaviours because they will be harmed by seeing them and it will happen right in front of your very eyes.

He really should be seeing a therapist who has no familial bias about keeping families together as well as someone vastly experienced in emotionally unhealthy and otherwise abusive families.

Do read "Toxic Inlaws" by Susan Forward to further understand the power and control dynamics that are being played out here.

I would also suggest you read and post on the "well we took you to Stately Homes" thread on these pages. You are right as well; such people do not change.

@WhiteVixen I think I read one of her books called 'emotional blackmail'. DH flicked through part of it and kept saying 'my dad has said most of this word for word', 'this is exactly my mum' etc. but I think it was too confronting for him because he didn't read it all the way through. It had a section on things to say to de-escalate situations when the person is attacking you and I think he's tried those phrases like ' I understand you see it that way' etc.

@AnnaMagnani He finds it incredibly painful when they reject him like that. He is shattered by it.

Which in turn makes it really hard for me to demand anything of him right now, he is barely coping with the grief of the relationship he wanted to have/thought he had with them.

"But I think where the inevitable conflict lies is their access to DC. I do not want them around DC. At all really. I might be ok with two or three visits in public a year but that's it"

I would not even do any visits in public because of the ways in which you as these children's mother are treated. It will send them mixed messages and they are receiving more than enough of those already from their abused father.

Not that you are but do not ever underestimate the emotional harm such people can do to their children (look at your DH for instance) and in turn their grandchildren as well. Toxic parents like you describe more often than not become toxic as grandparents too.

No contact is precisely that; no contact.

It may be an idea for you also to look at the Out of the FOG website.

From out of the FOG (things to do section)

The 50% Rule says that we are responsible for 50% of the things that happen in any relationship we share with a person who suffers from a personality disorder.

That is not to say that we are responsible for anyone else's behavior, words or actions. We didn't cause the personality disorders in our loved ones, their behavior or their destructive tendencies. Those are caused by a combination of their own mental illness and their own poor choices.

But in all our relationships, we are responsible for 50% of what happens. We're responsible for our own choices, our own behaviors, our own words and our own actions.

And that is why it is a good idea to stop and think about our own behavior whenever our focus tends to be predominantly on the other person's behaviour.

We are responsible for 100% of the choices that wemake, the things we say and the things we do.

This is really difficult.

Tell your husband you want boundaries and to model to your children how they should deal with bullies.

These people should not have unsupervised access to your children. My BIL still talks about how awful his grandfather was to him - he is in his forties now. What hurt most was he didn’t get any support from his parents. Your husband should be protecting. His relationship with his children, rather than his relationship with his parents.

Cut way back on visits - move further away if you can. Each time they bahave unacceptably show no emotion, just tell them to leave and come back when they can behave like adults. Every time.

Treat them in the same way you would a child having a tantrum. Show it won’t work.

I think if you've managed to keep them out of your house for a while now, it would be good if you could keep that up with DC3. So, however tough it will be for you in the first few weeks, you still make every visit to DC3 at which you are present to be in a public place. Of course if they need to make one of their legendary public displays of outpouring emotion about that then they will have a grand audience in the cafe or park or whatever. And you can go home to your safe PIL-free home.

After 6 weeks or so when BF is more established you could consider letting DH take DC3 to them, or you could remind him what happened last time he took a BF baby away and didn't bring it back in time for the next feed and keep up with the park/cafe visits.

How old are your DC? Because I’m sure they either have already or will very soon pick up on this conflict. They will hear the IL talking about you in this way and they will see daddy letting them ..this isn’t good.

@Dippypippy1980 We have a new rule that when DH visits them with DC he will leave if they start carrying on. But I think he finds it hard in the moment to decide what constitutes behaviour worth leaving over. For example, their last visit they were fine except for making one short snide comment about me. DC (toddlers) were present but apparently not paying attention. DH didn't leave but said he defended me against what they said. He told me about it when he got home and I was annoyed he didn't leave the moment they said it. It wasn't the worst comment in the world but I think they will push/ignore any boundary we give them so we need to be firm every time. DH wants to be more flexible and give them time to change.

What he's probably thinking is that they aren't actually capable of biting their tongue completely and if he actually told them their behaviour was unacceptable and left each time they made a negative comment (as we agreed) then he would literally never have a visit with them that didn't end in a conflict and him leaving early.