I recently posted a version of this on AIBU but someone suggested I come here for more insight- sorry it’s so long.
Basically I’m having huge issues with the way I’m feeling towards my in-laws, particularly my mil. I’ve been with my husband for 20 years+ and I’ve always found her behaviour weird and challenging but I’ve pushed these feeling to one side and tried to get on with it to some extent. It’s always so tense when they come to stay and my Dh and I always argue in the lead up to them coming. For years my husband has inferred the issue is mine, that I’m being judgemental or bitchy or that it’s just run of the mill dil/mil tension. If I said something negative or wasn’t enthusiastic about spending Christmas with them etc he would say that I was choosing my parents over his. He’s accused me of trying to sabotage his relationship with them, (they’ve never been close but he has 3 older sisters who all seem close to each other and their parents).
Her behaviour towards me has always been, IMO very passive aggressive and I feel their whole family dynamic is toxic. Over the last couple of years I’ve come to the point where I’ve had enough and I really don’t want to spend time with them at all.
My husband has been having therapy mainly bc he had been suffering with depression and anxiety triggered (he thinks) by some very stressful money issues we have had over the last few years. He’s really struggling with his self esteem and he feels as though he has never really had any connection with his family. They don’t really ever discuss anything if any substance and I think he feels like his parents have never really listened to how he feels about anything.
Over they last couple of years I’ve adopted a non official low contact approach. They never contact us, they don’t phone even when they know things are really tough- they’re pretty disinterested in our children. I feel emotionally drained by the tension when we get together so I’ve stopped instigating meet ups, let Dh get presents- I remind him but I keep out of the buying etc.
Some examples of her behaviour are:
She monopolises very conversation and has to be the centre of attention regardless of the situation. Everything is worse for her, she talks constantly about herself until everybody loses the will to live.
She seems to completely lack empathy while simultaneously feeling constantly sorry for herself.
She has a huge range of mystery illnesses, mainly food allergy related. She has a long list of foods that she can’t eat, I always try to make a meal that takes these into account but often she will find something within the ingredients that she now can’t eat. She’ll then risk eating what I’ve made only to spend the rest of the evening telling my fil in staged whispers that she now has a headache or some such symptom triggered by what she’s eaten. Conversely if we go to one of my sil houses she eat a spoonful of trifle or something containing all the foods she can’t eat and seemingly be fine.
She’s constantly telling me how small/thin/petite she is and how the socks/cardigan etc I’ve lent her are far too big.
She makes constant semi-deliberate faux pas that are quite hurtful and then spends ages back tracking and saying things like oh dear, I really shouldn’t have said that- on the last family zoom we did she said ‘oh here comes porky’ when I sat down- my name vaguely rhymes with porky and I’m a bit overweight- she’s a very smug size 8 and manages to slip this into the conversation frequently.
My pil are very religious while I am an atheist. They take every opportunity to get my children on their own and insist that god does exist and not to let anyone tell them otherwise. She prays with them when she goes in to say goodnight and tells my children not to tell mummy. When I confronted her about this she tried to tell me they’d asked her to which is laughable.
She has never paid me any kind of compliment about anything.
She insists that my dh has a degree in a particular subject when he in fact he has a degree in a related but different subject. Despite both me and my dh correcting her she still insists she is right and we are wrong- it’s really quite surreal.
She refuses to acknowledge who my sister is and when I refer to her by name she says who’s x despite having met her numerous times.
She’s always making passive aggressive comments about the house and how dirty it is. She once scraped all the black bits off the inside of the oven when she was babysitting and kept it in a plate to show me when we got home.
She doesn’t invite us to family events and then shares photos on the family WhatsApp. When we question why we weren’t invited she just dismisses it and then she always says things like, what a shame you couldn’t come. Even when I say the reason we didn’t come was that we didn’t know it was happening she won’t acknowledge we weren’t invited.
If anyone challenges her behaviour she sulks or storms off crying and then spends ages acting wounded and saying how she never meant to upset anyone and how unwelcome she now feels.
She’s always anxious around the children telling them to be careful and stepping in when I don’t react and then telling me horrific stories of how she knows of a baby that cracked his head open and died standing up in his high chair or a child that toppled over a wall and was killed or similar so that I feel compelled to react.
She drains my energy- she’s like a leech that latches onto me looking for constant sympathy, reassurance, endless conversations about her...
The list goes on- I could write for days about her!
My question is to what extent should I put up with all this for the sake of my husband’s relationship with them? AIBU to suggest we don’t really see them except for the bare minimum? How do I handle Christmas etc. The rest of his family, parents, sisters, even their in laws always spend Xmas, holidays etc together- we’re never included in any planning, often invited as an afterthought last minute if at all and then given a huge guilt trip if we don’t go. My husband usually uses the excuse that we’re going to my parents instead and they hate that- they think I’m snubbing them and keeping dh away from his family. I don’t want my kids to see me feeling like I do when I’m with them- but am I being selfish- I feel so confused.
My husband is starting to realise (through a combination of therapy and me trying to set to some boundaries) that some of mil behaviour isn’t normal and he’s started to call her out on some of her more unreasonable stuff. This seems to have made her even more hostile and passive aggressive towards me and weirdly sycophantic towards him. She’s incredibly controlling manipulative.
What should I do?!