Nightmare in-laws

[Mumtobe18]

So just to warn you this a very long post and there is a lots of background but I'll try to explain to best I can.
So to be short I really don't like my SIL. Just don't. We get on socially, at family events, smile, do small talk... But I really don't like her and I know it's reciprocate, but we do our best to hide it. I mean all the family knows, my husband included. The reason why I don't like her is that she thinks she is always right, everybody else is wrong, she manipulates the whole family to always get her way, she treats her parents like servents and often treats her own girls in a way I really think is wrong.
Her parents do everything for her and my nieces... I mean everything! During the first lockdown my MIL (elderly and with health problems) would get up early to get groceries, be home at 9am to look after the 2 girls all day(aged 16months and 4yo), cook lunch for all of them (my PIL, SIL, BIL, girls and my MIL's mother), cook and pack dinner for SIL take home for the family. This happened for months. At the weekend my SIL would drop one of the girls for her to look after because SIL was tired. MIL was exhausted, complaining to me and her DS (my husband) daily about how difficult everything was and that her daughter wouldn't help with anything, not even with the costs of the food (SIL makes a ton of money so does BIL as he is CEO of a international company... MIL barely receives anything from her retirement). I just kept telling MIL to talk to her daughter and start to say no sometimes as she couldn't continued to do it all. So she did.. And SIL started saying that she didn't want to help her and things fell a bit weird between them... On Christmas we were meant to spend Christmas eve with my husband's family (SIL was hosting) and Christmas day with my family (and swap next year), but just 2 days prior SIL says to my husband she doesn't want to do Christmas at her house and she doesn't want to invite her own parents, she would rather be alone as she was upset with her DM. They could go (her parents) but she wouldn't invite them (??!). My husband was devastated, really sad for his parents and for him as well. Tried to talk his sister out of that ideia but nothing would change her mind. PIL were livid. MIL even cried with me saying how ungrateful her daughter was after everything she has done for her. I told them to talk to their daughter and try to understand what happened and discuss things instead of keeping everything inside. But they refused. Everybody was just schoked of how cruel SIL was being.
Well, we decided to do Christmas at our place with both my parents and siblings and my husband's parents. It all went great despite us knowing and understanding they were sad they didn't get to be with their daughter and granddaughters. They tried to visit the granddaughters on Christmas day just to get shouted at for disturbing the kids while they were eating... Things were bad for a couple of weeks but soon they started talking again, and MIL started looking after the girls again... Slowly things got back to normal and everyone pretended Christmas never happened.
So a couple days ago my husband went to visit his mother and was summoned to go at his sister's to talk about what happened during Christmas. MIL said she didn't spend Christmas with her daughter because my husband said that SIL had told him she would only have 3 plates at the table for Christmas (this doesn't even make sense) My husband said no... I told you what my sister told me.. That she wasn't going to invite you for Christmas. Then SIL said that wasn't true, she never said that. Then SIL asked her mother if she ever complained about her (my husband told her to go easy on their mother because she had complained she was very tired) and MIL said that was a lie. They talked some more and both just put the blame of what happened over my husband. MIL even said she would rather have spend Christmas with her daughter then her son. Husband left defeated and deaply hurt by all of them. PIL saw my husband leaving upset and didn't even called him.

So.. I was livid. How dare they treat my husband, my family like trash??! I wanted to go and confront all of them but DH asked me not to. He said he needed time to process. Now a few days has gone by and he said he wants to talk to his DM and ask her why she did what she did. He is not planning to say anything to his sister.

My question here is.. How do I get over this?
I can see DH is ready to talk a little about it and forget everything. I am not. I want to scream on the top of my lungs of how unfair they all have been to DH, us.
DH says I need to respect his wishes because it's his family and he doesn't want to stop talking to them (I don't want that either). But how could MIL lie and blame her son? The one who is always on their side, defending them, over the one who abuses them over and over again. How can MIL say she preferes to spend Christmas with her daughter and grandchildren instead of us? How about my kids? I have 2 beautiful children as well. Are the other ones more important?
Not to mention SIL.. She created all of this mess, ruined Christmas and now blames my husband for saying something she never said?! And the worst is DH is not able to confront her. She has done things like this before (not as serious) but he never says anything to her. Ever. I hate this, why can't he just talk to her?
How do I live with this? Do I say something to my In laws and risk DH to be mad at me? Or its not my business? Should I pretend nothing happened when I see them? I don't think I can do that.. Honestly this is making me really upset as I don't know how to handle this. We all live in a very small town so it's impossible to just avoid them. Thanks for listening.

Do I say something to my In laws and risk DH to be mad at me? Or its not my business?

You don't say anything, he gets to choose the play with his side of the family and you get to choose with yours.

Your SIL and MIL both sound nuts but honestly your MIL sounds worse. Definitely sounds like she shows one face to you and another to your SIL. Stop picking sides, leave them to each other.

Honestly op just don't get involved.
They'll just have a common enemy, you, to gang up on.
Leave them to their shitty family dynamics and let your dh learn the hard way.

Your mother in law knows your husband will forgive her but her daughter won’t. She’s taking the oath of least resistance in order to be able/allowed to see all her grandchildren again and for her manipulative daughter to at least pretend she loves her.

www.insider.com/children-of-narcissistic-parents-are-either-favourite-or-scapegoat-2019-1

I think you're right. But it doesn't make what she did acceptable.

Expulsocorona very interesting reading! Absolutely spot on. Thanks.

I guess that reading your replies makes me think more clearly. You're all right. I guess I don't have to a be a part of their freak show. I am going to keep myself calm and try to avoid them for awhile until things settle a bit more... And just ignore them to the best of my abilities.

I would leave them all to it. You cannot make your DH stand up to them, concentrate on your own family and make your own lives. My SIL was always the favorite, she has treated her mum like shit over the years and when MIL finally got remarried her DH put his foot down and she listened to him.
Your Mil will come to the realization than she has made a mistake eventually. Listen to your DH if he complains but just nod and empathize, don’t rant as then you become the baddie.
Play the long game, you can do it!

Oh that's great for your MIL. But my PIL is useless.. Apparently he even said the daughter was his favorite child when they were little (in front of them both).
I have played along for many years.. My way of getting back at SIL is not showing how much she upsets me and live my actually very happy life. But it's taking a toll on me.. I had to listen to things over the years such as having a girl is sooooo much better than having a son (I only had a son at the time), but that stopped once I had my LG. Or things like.. You know studies say that (something opposite of what I am doing to my kids).. Once I offered DS juice at a family birthday meal as he has several food allergies and wasn't going to have birthday cake and had to listen to.. You know niece1 doesn't even know the taste of juice. When I know for a fact that when she was 2yo she would have more cake in a week and I'd have in a year.. But it's not up to me to say anything as it's not my child. It's none of my business but she keeps saying little things all the time to get to me and I just keep ignoring them.. Do I have to live like this forever? Before it was fine because we lived abroad.. But we returned home last summer and it's getting harder and harder to just ignore her.. DH's answer to this problems is to leave the country again. But I would I have to leave my family again so we don't have to put up with his side of the family? I thought that if I would stood up and defend ourselves and say we won't take any of this crap anymore everything would stop or at least wouldn't be as bad.. I am wrong? I am going to be the bad guy and have everyone against me if I do it?

Honestly, I’d be withdrawing massively from contact. When mil starts whinging about her dd, I’d stop her and say you refuse to listen to the bitching any longer. If sil pulls future similar stunts, don’t get involved. I’d be tempted to remind mil you won’t rescue her next Christmas etc. They’ve been horrible to you, time to stop protecting and allowing such shit behaviour. Your dh can deal as he likes, but he really needs to man up.

Totally back off, I have had similar in my own family and have gone very low contact for the last probably 10 years. It's hurtful but not as bad as being treated like a scapegoat.

What you have described here is not atypical of what happens within a narcissistic family structure.

Your DH is the scapegoat and his sister, your SIL, is the favoured golden child. As a result of your DH being the scapegoat, you are all scapegoated as well.

I would personally keep both yourself and for that matter your children also, well away from his side of the family. Your DH may want to keep seeing them out of his fear, obligation and guilt but that does not mean that you have to follow suit. He also needs to address his overt fear, obligation and guilt to his family through therapy as his inertia when it comes to his parents and sister hurts him as well as you people.

Do read "Toxic Inlaws" by Susan Forward.

@AttilaTheMeerkat

What you have described here is not atypical of what happens within a narcissistic family structure.

Your DH is the scapegoat and his sister, your SIL, is the favoured golden child. As a result of your DH being the scapegoat, you are all scapegoated as well.

I would personally keep both yourself and for that matter your children also, well away from his side of the family. Your DH may want to keep seeing them out of his fear, obligation and guilt but that does not mean that you have to follow suit. He also needs to address his overt fear, obligation and guilt to his family through therapy as his inertia when it comes to his parents and sister hurts him as well as you people.

Do read "Toxic Inlaws" by Susan Forward.

Totally agree with Atilla here.

I'd be keeping my children away from them, on the grounds that they will absorb that gran & grandpa prefer their cousins to them; and I don't think that would be good for my children at all. It has clearly done their son no favours, I would not be allowing them to fuck up my children the way they've fucked up their own.

"MIL was exhausted, complaining to me and her DS (my husband) daily about how difficult everything was ..."

Keeping myself away from them as much as possible would stop me hearing her complaints, but if I had to be in the same room as her and she started complaining about something she has no intention of dealing with properly, I'd be inclined to shut her down. Along the lines of 'You're not willing to do anything about it, so there's no point in complaining about it, is there?' and change the subject. But I'd aim not to be in the same room again with people who had treated my husband so shamefully

And maybe let your husband see you reading "Toxic Inlaws". And leave it around so he can read it too.

Agree with Attila.

I would be withdrawing.
I think you need to protect your children.
I wouldn't allow your MIL to speak badly of her daughter again or complain in front.
Tell her you don't want to hear it.
I would say the same to your husband.
He is accepting being treated badly.

I wouldn't want to be involved with any of them.
It sounds like a miserable, exhausting life where ye all live on top of each other.

Awful.
Can you move away from them?
This won't change so you need to make decisions for how you wish to live your life.

Just to echo PP to not get involved. I can see you getting wound up again in your second post and it's so clear how much they've upset you. It's a really hard situation to be in, but at the end of the day you can go to sleep at night knowing you're a good person who is dealing with this with class and having your husbands back how he'd like you to have it. I would suggest that if the MIL comes crying on your shoulder again, tell her you're not the person to come to with her problems with her daughter. I wouldn't be having that again - direct her to your husband and try to have as little to do with any of them as possible.

Good advice above.

I would withdraw too. DH can visit them if he chooses to but I would be busy. I agree with other posters about not letting your children have too much exposure to them.

As far as Christmas etc goes if you don't accept an invitation from them or offer to host them, then they can't mess you around at the last minute by withdrawing invitations or threatening not to come. Do Christmas just yourselves or with your side of the family or with friends.

I just want to say thank you. It's been incredibly helpful. A massive thank you!

You sound like a nice person. Respect your husbands wishes - the poor guy has been treated like shit but doesn’t want to fall out. She has blamed him as she doesn’t want to lose her granddaughters. As others have said I’d withdraw a bit - I’m sure you have lots of nice people in your life - concentrate on these people and let these toxic people get on with it. Let your MIL be a drudge - maybe she enjoys being a victim. Let the anger go as these people are just not worth it x

How hard for you, I echo advice above, do not engage with them. Support and love your DH.

Do not engage.
go low contact
Do not be the go between. Redirect SIL and mil to each other to discuss directly (avoid triangulation)