It’s a MIL one…

[UpToMyElbowsInDiapers]

TLDR:
haven’t so much as spoken to MIL (at all) in over 4 years, though there was no specific precipitating event. Will soon spend 2 weeks with her. How do we interact without it being hopelessly awkward? What should I raise as low-stress topics of conversation?

Back-story:
DH and I live overseas, in my home country, and we’re very close with my family. Because of newborns + pandemic, we haven’t been to the UK in 4 years. We’re travelling back for 2 weeks this summer with our 3 DCs, two of whom my MIL (their DGM!) has never met.

My MIL has many health issues, is very isolated (seemingly by choice), and in many ways, despite being well off and not at all old (only 60ish!) lives what seems like quite a sad and limited life. She has no friends (not a one), and only interacts with my FIL and one other relative. She has one other child who lives very close to her, and who has children of their own, whom she sees only every few weeks and only for short periods as she finds “events” overwhelming. For the most part, I feel very sad for her.

The challenge is, I also cannot stand her. Not only has she been horrible to me, she’s also routinely horrible to my DH. She disapproves of me having a career, particularly a career that involves travel. For example, at one point, I was travelling 4 days per week, and she told DH: “if you divorced her, it would barely count as divorce. If she travels 4/7 of the week, she’s only 3/7 a wife”. We were happy newlyweds at the time…

Another example: as the pandemic was easing and travel restrictions were becoming less onerous, on of my DH’s DGPs died. Although we had 2 toddlers and a newborn, my mum told my DH to travel back to the UK for the funeral, and she’d help me with the kids. I thought that was a terrifying good idea. DH was about to buy his ticket, when my MIL called to tell him please not to come as it would be too stressful having a house guest and that it was too much effort for him to travel for the sake of 3 days in the UK. I know my DCs are really little, so maybe I’m off base here, but if I hadn’t seen one of my DCs in 4 years and all of a sudden they said “I’ll be there in 2 days” I think I’d weep for joy, not say “don’t bother”…??? My DH felt a bit rejected, and also pretty gutted to miss his DGP’s funeral. He convinced his parents to at least have the service streamed on Zoom. Now, they were doing the service at home, with only the immediate family, and had TOTAL flexibility on timing. They bandied a few times around, but ultimately settled on 10amUK… knowing that this was 5am for their DS who was barely getting any sleep with a newborn. But whatever, he said nothing other than “I’ll be there”. DH got up at 4:30am, got dressed, logged onto Zoom and… turns out that the family had gathered a bit early and decided to just get on with the service ahead of schedule, so he missed it, completely. I know that the funeral wasn’t about DH, but this was his DGP who helped raise him… it strikes me as really thoughtless of his family to have excluded him from the service.

My MIL constantly low-key rejects my DH in this way. She’s never called him - not once, not even on his birthday - it’s up to him to call his DPs. When he calls, she prattles on about her home improvement projects. She never asks how he is, or barely. Not when he has a new job, not when he has a new baby, not when he’s been unwell. My DH is a wonderful man, and it makes me quietly seethe to see him dismissed this way by someone he loves, year after year.

So yeah… just like MIL doesn’t call DH, nor does she call me. Difference is, I don’t call her either. I really do resent her an awful lot, which is really uncharacteristic of me. I’m a low-drama person and I get on well with nearly everyone I meet. I desperately want to love my MIL but I can’t see a way to get there.

When I show up on her doorstep, with 3 DCs and 4 years of no contact… where do I start???

OK. this sounds bad and I get why you're dreading it. It would be really easy to say don't go and I think you'll get a good few replies saying that. obviously you could also mitigate potential landmines but staying somewhere else, organising days out, having an escape plan etc.
But essentially whether you go or not you might find it useful to distance yourself emotionally from this somehow. Yes it will be upsetting seeing how she treats your dh and what he had to put up with growing up - can you use that as a way of understanding him more fully? yes she will wrong foot you when you tread on a landmine. Can you just repeat to yourself "its only x days and she's been harmed in some way/ has this unfortunate personality poor woman"? can you work on your (justified) anger about the funeral before you go, and forgive? the answers may not be clear cut.
anyway whatever you decide, she may ring and cancel!

I really hope you're not staying with her for 2 weeks. I suspect the only way this will work would be to treat it as a holiday, plan to do lots of lovely things and see your mil occasionally. When you do see her, keep it short and sweet.

Your poor DH. Unfortunately, his dm's mother is unlikely to change her behaviour when you visit.

sorry no one else has replied yet op. I have been there myself and it turned out there was a good reason for my mils behaviour (that's a story for another thread). just saying we can't control what other families do or think, you sound so lucky with yours!
Good luck whatever you decide x

sorry @Neolara x post

How on earth has it come to this, to you people as a family showing up at her home after not speaking to each other (for good reason I might add) for some years now?.

Honestly I would cancel this visit, do not do this to yourselves. Stay where you are and if you are daft enough to visit the UK in order to visit her then have a back up plan. A code word agreed between you and he should be said when its getting too much. At that point you leave not to return. Its not going to go at all well for you as a couple, its got disaster from the start written all over it.
If you are staying with her it will be like walking into her house aka a lions den with only a chair.

Why are you both putting yourselves in front of your abuser?. His mother has not changed an iota in all the years since your now DH was a boy.

Are you both merely responding to her jump request where you both say how high?. It will also do your DC here no favours whatsoever for them to see you people as their mum and dad be so denigrated and otherwise disrespected. Both of you surely would not tolerate this from a friend and your best course of action with someone this disordered is to cut them out of your lives entirely. What has she and does she bring into your lives other than a whole host of misery and ill treatment?. Your man is the scapegoat here in his family and as a result you people as his family unit get scapegoated as well.

You should not and do not have to love someone who has been abusive to both you and your DH. Why would you want to do that?. Wake up and smell the coffee here!. Be nice to people who instead actually deserve your care and attention. And for goodness sake stop feeling sad for people like her; they have no friends for bloody good reason (she does not want friends and besides which they cannot abide her nastiness). She has no remorse whatsoever for what she has done to you and your H. She has never apologised nor has taken any real responsibility for her actions. You will never receive either.

Do read Toxic Inlaws by Susan Forward; your H needs to read Toxic Parents by the same author.

Oh yes, to be clear, we’ve booked a (bloody expensive) AirBnB for the duration of our stay. We were not invited to stay with his parents, which is good because I already told DH after our last visit that I couldn’t fathom staying with them again (this was the 3/7 a wife visit).

We’ll do lots of park trips, visits to other relatives, my best friend from secondary school may come up for a couple of days from London…

You know what, I’ve been truly dreading this “giant visit to the in-laws”, but I think you’ve given good advice - to treat this as a nice holiday during which we’ll need to put up with a few awkward in-law outings. I can probably keep myself busy with the DCs when we’re there. My youngest is still BF, so I can excuse myself at any point to go feed him in a dark room. I may be able to stretch this out another four years without talking to my MIL, hahaha.

The only thing I want to be careful of is not letting my DCs pick up on how I feel. I wouldn’t want to cloud their judgement of their DGPs.

Start with booking a hotel or such like. Have a chat with dh about time limited visits. Bring a photo album maybe, or a framed photo gift.
It does sound as if mil would appreciate visits rather than being in her house for 2 weeks. Hard to imagine her house would be baby proof for example. Offer to take out for a meal. Though that sounds tricky with 3dc.
It does seem overwhelming for everybody as the plan stands right now.
Do you have other plans for this holiday? Trips, sightseeing, beach, those safari/adventure places(Lego land, Alton Towers type)?

There’s a lot of good sense here. I’ve been trying to gently show my DH how messed up his family is over the decade we’ve been together. Living so close to my family has been great, and has given him a nice model of what a loving family can be. My DPs are absolutely devoted to my DH and treat him as one of their own children. He sees them independently of me, asks their advice on big life decisions, helps them around the house, etc. He’s said a few times how lucky he is to have my family. Just last week he mused “I think I’d be sad but I would cope if you died. I’d miss you, but I’d still have an amazing support network. But I could never, ever cheat on you, because then I’d lose not just you but your whole family.” … gee thanks darling. Is that the ONLY reason not to cheat on me? 😂

In all seriousness though, I think it’s important for him to reach his own gradual conclusions about his family, and not for me to cut him off forcefully. He’s in therapy (at last!) which I think is helping him see some of the very cold and heartless ways in which they have treated him. We’ve already agreed that this trip will be the only one for a good few years. So I think he’s on the way to setting boundaries…

No do not suck it up to keep his mother "happy". Plan days out completely away from her altogether if you visit the UK. If he wants to see his mother that's up to him but it does not follow automatically that you have to along with the kids seeing her toxic behaviours at first hand. Do not do that to them or your own self.

The truism you should be aware of here is that if a relative is too toxic/difficult/abusive etc for YOU to deal with, its the SAME deal for your kids too. Toxic relatives do not and never do play by the "Normal" rules governing familial relations. The rule book really does go out the window here when it comes to such families.

"In all seriousness though, I think it’s important for him to reach his own gradual conclusions about his family, and not for me to cut him off forcefully. He’s in therapy (at last!) which I think is helping him see some of the very cold and heartless ways in which they have treated him. We’ve already agreed that this trip will be the only one for a good few years. So I think he’s on the way to setting boundaries…"

Your DH is in therapy (good) but he still has a long way to go here in terms of recovery from abuse. You two have to present a united front here; division will be seized upon by her and used against you both. He is likely not strong enough emotionally and he would come off far worse from any confrontation so avoids it. You therefore need to step in and say no more to being abused. Self preservation is necessary here.

Boundaries too are hard to set when you've basically been encouraged to please the parent /s at great cost to you in putting your own wants and needs dead last. She will likely not ever respect any boundary you care to set her in any case.

And why would you want to see your MIL ever again given how she has treated you personally previously?. Would you have tolerated this from a friend, no and his mother is NO different.

Why was such a visit at all agreed to; that shows poor boundaries and appeasing behaviour. He may well be seeking her approval still; approval she will never give him. This is what I mean when I state he has a long ways to go still.

Sadly your MIL isn't going to transform so you probably aren't ever going to feel the love for her you'd like to feel. That may be something you want to acknowlege and feel sad about in the first instance.

The good news is you are clear about the behavior that has upset you and the ways in which your MIL has disappointed you, so you can use that knowledge to get realistic about what you can expect on the trip.

Given what you know, what is the best case scenario for you, your DH and your DCs? Then you can work to that goal, however minimal it is, and feel good about it. Maybe it is as simple as 'to physically spend some time with her in recognition of her title as mother and grandmother, to eat foods that are traditional to the family, keep the conversation light, and get some photos of the DC with her''. You can also plan ahead in terms of how much time you will spend with her in any one sitting. You can plan short visits or activities like sight-seeing, playing cards or looking at photos. Working out how much time and energy you are willing to put into this relationship will help you avoid resentment, which is typically something you feel when you've given more than you wanted to. Whatever the reasons are for the way she treats your DH, it is hurtful and it is wise to protect yourself from tolerating too much hurt.

Another idea is to consider separating your feelings about the ways she wronged you from your feelings about how she has wronged your DH. By all means acknowlege all of those feelings, then you may find some space to be a bit more neutral when your husband is dismissed by his mother - which may allow him to feel his own grief or sadness about this. Sometimes if one person is doing a lot of feeling work it allows the other person to avoid their own feelings, and your husband is the one who will be most impacted by his mother's behaviour.

You're well on your way because you're thinking about all of this and once you and your DH have come up with a strategy you can even share some of this with your DCs, depending on how old they are. Having done some of the feeling and having a plan to aim for means you'll be able to turn up at her front door and say 'Goodness me, it's been such a long time, look at how the children have grown and let's get some photos of you with them'.

I think the thing I struggle with is that yes, she has said horrible things to me, and yes, she’s extremely COLD with my DH… but “abusive” seems like a very strong word.

She was a middle-class, stay-at-home mum, who cooked fresh meals, helped the kids with homework, taught them what they needed to know to go out into the world… both of them have their issues, but then who doesn’t? I don’t like her one bit, but keeping my DH and our DCs from her seems spiteful when she is cold and not-my-cup-of-tea but also not appalling.

“Given what you know, what is the best case scenario for you, your DH and your DCs? Then you can work to that goal, however minimal it is, and feel good about it. Maybe it is as simple as 'to physically spend some time with her in recognition of her title as mother and grandmother, to eat foods that are traditional to the family, keep the conversation light, and get some photos of the DC with her''. You can also plan ahead in terms of how much time you will spend with her in any one sitting. You can plan short visits or activities like sight-seeing, playing cards or looking at photos. Working out how much time and energy you are willing to put into this relationship will help you avoid resentment, which is typically something you feel when you've given more than you wanted to. Whatever the reasons are for the way she treats your DH, it is hurtful and it is wise to protect yourself from tolerating too much hurt.”

This is a helpful way of framing it. Thanks.