Sorry for the long post in advance! Ive been with my partner for 5 years and we have a one year old child together. He comes from a large family who are very different to mine, my family is fairly small and we are all very close, chilled out and respectful and loving towards one another. His family thrives from drama, bitching etc and they can just be very hard to be around people. It would take me such a long time to explain all the instances they have caused upset but the centre of most of the problems is his Mum. She always has something gossipy to say, usually not very kind, she expects an awful lot from everybody as if everybody owes her, she's always sat on the phone to different children (my partners siblings) gossiping or moaning about somebody else. I forever felt like I was walking on egg shells just incase I did something for them to dislike me for. They hate that we spend a good amount of time with my family, because my family actually make plans to spend time together and its a positive atmosphere. They are forever telling my partner I have changed him or he does not care about any of them (even though he sees them every week and makes more effort than others so thats a load of rubbish) Oh the list is endless. Anyway, last night was the last straw, we wrote into the group chat on whats app asking if they fancied doing secret santa this year since there is a lot of them and we wanted to ease some financial strain this Christmas (its August I know but we know people start to shop early) and mostly focus on the children and oh my goodness it turned into a bloody feud about who spends more on who and 'where does that leave us?' tit for tat comments and my partners dad texting him telling he has upset his mum and he dosent care about his family. I was shocked that even something as innocent as a secret santa suggestion could become so difficult and I ended up sending in a message telling them how shocked I am at the behaviour in this family, its fully of bitching, negative behaviour, guilt tripping, tit for tat and its so unhealthy to be around and I was pretty fed up. It probably shocked them all a bit as I never say anything and am NEVER involved in any of the family drama but enough was enough. Of course they all freaked out and his dad made a sarcastic remark about how wonderful it must be for me and my 'perfect' family and made sure to remind me that my partner basically belongs to them by saying "remember partners name is part of OUR family". Where does that leave me then, an outsider I guess.
Basically, thats me gone. Even if I wanted to come back which I don't I would never live down having the balls to tell them how it really is haha. So my main concern now is how am I going to deal with this decision I have made and still remain sane and strong in my relationship and to limit any negative effects this will have on my child. They have been good grandparents but my worry is what about when my little one grows up and gets sucked into the drama and manipulation also? I don't want to stop them from seeing my child because I don't want my baby to be used as a weapon and they aren't any danger to them. As much as I wish they had different family and grandparents I can't change that.
My partner has made it clear to his Dad via text last night that me and our child will always come first and he is currently not speaking to them even though that won't be forever, and I wouldn't expect him to cut ties too.. after all its his family, theres a lot more emotion involved. The thing is they will pounce on him and make it their life mission to drag him away from me. Move over previous family enemies, Im the fresh new enemy in town haha (I joke but Im actually feeling so sad and lost right now). Im just very confused at how to make this whole situation as painless as possible, otherwise it defeats the point of removing this toxic family from my life if it continues to bring me more negativity than it did before.
Would love to hear from others in a similar situation :/