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?

I totally hear what people are saying. I know it's right, it's just so hard to see my DH torn up by his parents emotions and demands and then decide to add more to his load by telling him the truth. This is too much pressure on our family and marriage. It is bad for our children. My mental health is at risk.

He's let me down when I needed him, absolutely. But he's had decades of living like this, thinking it's his job to perform and please them or the sky will fall. They are very manipulative and know what to say to devastate and control him. Everyone loves their parents. Everyone wants their parents to be happy. He didn't choose to have abusive parents. I swear he is a good man, this is just one aspect of our lives and marriage.

But I agree it's serious and all the good things don't cancel out the fact that he is allowing me to be subject to bullying behaviour.

Bloody bonkers, your DH is no better.

Surely anyone can see how nuts they are from a mile off?

Sorry OP, not very helpful of me, I know. I'd get as far away from them as I could.

In what way, exactly, will the sky fall?

What outcome is he scared of?

Not having parents isn't wonderful (i lost mine many years ago, and they were 'normal', kind people), but you survive. The world doesn't end.

stassy makes a good point . What’s he scared off..I bet it’s not not having them around but it’s about how he will be perceived by “everyone” for going no contact. It’s as if he wants to be hurt and abused by them and he wants the same for you and your DC. You say you’ve asked him to leave as soon as they say or do something but he doesn’t..that would be the end for me. Because that’s just him pushing back and accepting/accommodating that your DC can be verbally and emotionally abused and he will not stop it happening.

I’m afraid in your shoes now I would clearly state no more visits to the PIL that include the DC if he wants to go he goes alone. Or you all go meet in a cafe but one wrong word from either of them and you will leave with the dc and you expect him to come with you ..if he chooses not then you have to decide where your relationship goes from there.

"I know it's right, it's just so hard to see my DH torn up by his parents emotions and demands and then decide to add more to his load by telling him the truth. This is too much pressure on our family and marriage. It is bad for our children. My mental health is at risk".

What is more important ultimately to you; your H's inertia or your mental health and your children's ongoing welfare?. His inertia when it comes to his family re his parents is simply hurting him as well as you and your children. They will be as surely emotionally harmed to a similar level your H is now at if any form of contact with his parents is maintained. I would not want to see them under any circumstances.

This is to your DH:-

It’s quite often an action in vain, trying to get toxic parents to change. You struggle to do whatever it takes to get them to become loving and accepting of you.

You would do anything to hear them say that they love you and that they are proud of you. Yet, it doesn’t happen. This struggle can drain your energy on a daily basis, and fill your life with pain. So, stop playing this game.

Simply let go of trying to get your parents to change, in hopes that this is the only way you can feel better about yourself.

Let go of trying to figure out what you are supposed to do to get their love, because there is nothing you can really do. Stop being so emotionally reactive to them and instead live a proactive life on your own terms. Let go of the fantasy that one day, you will get the caring support you deserve.

The child within you still clings to the hope that someday, your parents will see how wonderful you are and give you all of their unconditional love. Maybe it’s time to let go of this fantasy.
Instead of fantasizing how your parents will change, strive to become a self-defined and assertive person. The more self-defined and independent you become, the less your toxic parents are probably going to like it, but they will also have less control over your life.
That’s why it’s important that you trust your own feelings and perceptions, and become who you really are, following your own goals and respecting your own needs.

Your DH is letting you down badly. You are his priority and he should not be letting you get stressed.

He is not a good DH if he can’t see the damage this is doing to you. I would be cutting off all contact between yourself, your DC’s and your PIL. Your DH can make his own decisions. I would not want my DC’s to have a relationship with your PIL.

Wishing, read that back to yourself ' he doesn't expect them to stop criticising me or apologise' This statement is absolutely shocking to me. He is failing you massively and although you say he is a good man this is not the attitude of a 'good man'.
No decent man or woman would allow their parents or anyone to criticise their partner in such a nasty evil way.
I know it must be difficult for you but he is not in your corner or willing to put you and the children first.
Things will never change if you let this continue. I can't begin to imagine how your children are going to turn out after growing up in such a toxic situation. It's terribly sad.

As bad as you feel for your H, prioritising his wants is incompatible with prioritising your children’s needs. Your H demands for ‘time’ are excuses because neither he or his parents are willing to change.

I really do have to question why you keep deferring to a man who is obviously incapable of creating/ maintaining healthy boundaries with his parents.

I really appreciate all the advice and the time people have spent posting.

@Handsoffmysweets how long did it take your DH to see the light? Was there anything in particular that was the tipping point? Or just time?

He has reason to be scared of being cut off.

What is the reason?

There was a long running thread from a poster here who was having success with her DH but they were having both joint and individual counselling. It was very hard work but he stuck at it - took months and months.

He needs to shift from an adult-child relationship to an adult-adult relationship with his parents and that is very hard and needs a lot of support as they are clearly very happy with the current situation.

I did do this with my parents and we now have a very loving relationship but I suspect we would otherwise have been NC eventually - it took 3 years of weekly therapy and more work after that.

You can tell the hospital that if they turn up after you have had the baby, they are not to be allowed in.

Your children are nothing but a tool for these people to gain control. I can't believe how deep your DH seems to be. You need to disconnect completely, your children by extension. It's up to your DH to fix any kind of relationship with his parents. YOUR DC ARE NOT BANDAIDS. THEY ARE NOT MEDIATORS. THEY ARE NOT CHIPS IN A GAME TO BE PLAID BY TOXIC PARENTS. This has to end, your DH needs professional help to recognise that this. is. not. ok

Plaid? Omg. Played*
My own PIL are in their own field of toxic. I didn't even give DH a choice. I went NC (after 5 years of throwing myself into the dutiful present DIL role) and that meant our children. 6 months in an my MH is the best it has ever been.

Sounds to me like you may have an upper hand.
From one of your posts, you said they would have cut you off if it wasn’t for wanting a relationship with your children.

Use that to your advantage. Play them at their game. Cut them off. Do it for a while and then give them conditional visits.

I wouldn’t be held to ransom by a pair of arseholes.

@Babynut1 oh gosh every time they threaten to cut us off I think to myself 'stop threatening and do it!!'

I understand your desire to be a loving supportive wife, but I am getting totally frustrated by his insistence that you need to always “be the bigger person.” Why are you always expected to compromise on everything - every single time? He isn’t... they aren’t... just you. It’s not you being a bigger person, it’s you being the scapegoat. End it now, or your kids will end up repeating the pattern. You need to teach them that you are not a doormat, and that your opinion matters.

@justilou1 the 'bigger person' thing is what finally prompted me to post about it. It sounds so reasonable when he says it, and it does make our lives easier if we can get through a week without a drama from them...but it just feels like he's asking me to keep giving bullies my lunch money. He recently talked me into sending his mother a nice text message after she'd been criticising me to him the day before. It was a short nothingness of a text but I just felt so angry at myself and him afterwards.

I told him I'm not going to spend the next 30 years baking scones and smiling at people who are hideous to me in the hope of what?!? That they can make it through a Childrens party without doing anything worse than glaring at me over a fucking unicorn cake? That's seriously the best-case-what-he-is-hoping-for-scenario. I feel like he is going to rob me of enjoyment of all these happy family memories by making me give a front row seat to my bullies and hope that's enough to avoid a scene.

You said you moved nearer to them. Why? Do you and your DH have opportunities for jobs in other parts of the country so you can move away from them before your DC’s get further caught up in the damaging PIL’s?

@WishingILivedOnAnIsland they won't do it because you actually hold all the cards - they have no power, they want to see the GCs.

It was when I realised that I was actually powerful in my relationship with my parents - they would change because they couldn't bear to lose me - that things started to change. Up until then I had just really been a dutiful child who knew how to toe the line.

Your DH thinks he has to give in to their tantrums but actually they will never give up access to the GCs, it's too important to them. They have already found out what the law says so they know where they stand. Eventually they will learn the new way of your family - they will probably not like it - but they will do it as they have too much to lose.

wishing

re your comment:-

"I told him I'm not going to spend the next 30 years baking scones and smiling at people who are hideous to me in the hope of what?!? That they can make it through a Childrens party without doing anything worse than glaring at me over a fucking unicorn cake? That's seriously the best-case-what-he-is-hoping-for-scenario. I feel like he is going to rob me of enjoyment of all these happy family memories by making me give a front row seat to my bullies and hope that's enough to avoid a scene".

What was his response to the above?

Your H really does need a lot of therapy, there is no way at all he had anything even close to having a "normal" childhood. He's been programmed since soon after birth by these people.

Your husband will only see the light regarding his parents and stand up them when it's in his own interest.

You need to seperate your needs, your childrens needs, from your husband's.

For now, stop your children going to see these people.
Calmly tell your husband this is a non-negotiable.

Stick to it. If your husband has a fit, that is his problem.

Your children need at least one parent who cares enough about them to protect them from mentally ill, abusive grandparents.

Your children do not need abusive grandparents in their lives.

For goodness sake, what are you going to do when they start asking "why are you mentally ill mummy??? " because this is what they have being hearing, uncorrected by your husband, from their grandparents for years.

Instead of putting your husband's needs ahead of yours and your childrens, try thinking of the damage they are doing to your children.

Haven't they damaged enough people? Your husband is a weak mess.

You are weak to allow them abuse your children.

Because it is abuse for them to treat and speak about you negatively in front of your children.

They DON'T need grandparents.

If you won't protect yourself, protect your children.

@WishingILivedOnAnIsland - it is a sore point for me, as my husband told me he wanted me to “be the bigger person” and bury the hatchet with his mum who is a nasty, manipulative, divisive bitch. (Long story short, I cut her off after she came to stay with us for four weeks, drove us all mad with her intrusiveness, homophobic and racist comments and when she called our nearly 13 year old daughter a slut, that was the last straw.) After visualizing exactly where I would like to bury a hatchet, I asked why it was MY job to be the bigger person when I hadn’t behaved abominably in the first place. He then told me that she had sent me cards, tried calling and leaving messages, etc. ALL BULLSHIT!!! I showed him that he was wrong, and now a year later, he has decided he was right after all. He is believing this because he wants to. He doesn’t want to hear that his darling mother called his daughter a slut, or that she’s a lying liar or that all three of his kids hate her because she’s horrible to them and to me, or that his brother hates her for the same reason, and our sister in law (mutual enemy!!!)... he needs to maintain the illusion that he has a dear, sweet, lovely mum who adores him. If you don’t establish boundaries now, you are going to cease to exist for them all.

He doesn't think the children are being abused. They are affectionate, playful, generous towards the children. MIL knits then toys and clothes, they bring snacks the children love, they both play on the floor with them. DH would say that they would never speak harshly to the children and that they've gone some months without creating a scene in front of the children, which to him demonstrates that they are making progress.

The DC love their GPS and are happy to see them each time.

DH thinks it would be unfair to the children to cut them off from GP who are loving to them.

DH doesn't register that their behaviour impacts the children. And he thinks that their issue with me can be separate from their relationship with the children.

I initially agreed- I thought just because I don't get along with someone it's not fair to say no one in my family can see them. But they aren't capable of agreeing to disagree or being pleasant. They have literally made DC and I sick, which of course impacts the children. They are putting pressure on our marriage, which of course impacts our children. They are sucking all the emotional and mental energy from our home which of course impacts our children.

My DH came to my 12 week scan but was so distracted from a hurtful text message he received from them while we were in the waiting room it was like he was somewhere else. I had severe cramping and bleeding at 10 weeks and was sure I'd miscarried- but I pretended everything was rosy for days and didn't tell DH because he was hanging by an emotional thread that week because of something PIL had said. He has been emotionally unavailable to me because he is so devastated by them. I have felt so alone in this pregnancy and I am worried I will be alone in the newborn stage as well.

Which is a long way of saying I know it's impacting my children and my family unit. But DH thinks they are fine.