I considered changing my name for this but decided not to bother. If anyone I know in RL sees it then they will only sympathise, and perhaps understand the situation better.
Myself and DP are so much 'married' that we refer to ourselves as such, so I class his parents as MIL and FIL.
They divorced around three years ago, just before we had DS. It was a really sad situation, but we were all shocked when FIL suddenly moved in with a woman and they shortly afterwards bought a house together.
There was actually some history between them, but as we wanted the DC to have a good relationship with his grandfather we overlooked it and tried to establish a good relationship. It was fine at first but steadily went downhill. I put up with being practically ignored when we visited them, and being talked about as though I wasn't in the room.
I also bit my tongue when I was repeatedly accused of not feeding them properly.
The relationship has been strained, we visited them only when we really had to, so she has seen the DC only three times.
The nail in the coffin was last July when we were visited by Social Services. They had a report from a 'concerned' family member. DP knew it was her and his dad confessed it was but he had not known how to stop her. She had told them she thought our children were unhappy, and she was concerned that their best interests were not our focus.
I was fuming. I have been a sahm for over two years and my children are my life. We have been out as a couple maybe 5 times in the last year. My close family also took this personally, they said if there was any problem with our children they would be the first to know, and as they see them so much more often they are, if anyone is, in a position to judge!
We endured three weeks of spot check visits, an inspection of our home, checks of our medical records and an embarrassingly personal interview, which dug right into our childhoods, even our sex lives. We then got a letter confirming, as if we needed reassurance, that our children were safe and well cared for and no involvment was neccesary.
I actually photocopied this and sent it to them, but they have never mentioned it. We haven't seen her since and just seen FIL twice, both times it has been an 'elephant in the room' situation.
Now they are getting married in May. We are invited, and attending, but I feel very awkward about it. I know she is very bad for FIL (a man I have known since I was small as me and DP were friends from very young)
I also don't want to be in attendance to congratulate her on her 'happy day'
She has done nothing but cause trouble for us and I would be happy to never see her again.
There are more complex reasons as to why we really have to go to the wedding, but this post is so long I won't go into them.
I just wondered if anyone can advise how to play it.? (and writing it all down is very therapeutic!)