Farm wife seeking complicated advice

[Birdsofprey]

Sorry, this is long.

I love my husband, and his family.

I thought I knew what I was marrying into, because I'd worked on a few farms so the labor was familiar to me.

Basically, hubby's grandpa owns the family farm. We farm 1,000 acres, some lots leased some owned. Not sure what the proportion is.

"The farm" owns our home. So no rent or mortage, but also if we lose the farm, we lose our home.

I don't mind the april-november 16 hour days. I mostly don't mind that sometimes I'm doing various rennovation projects on my own because my husband is too tired.

What I do mind, and want advice on how to handle before I freaking explode:
Granpa owns the farm, but he doesnt live on it or work it.
In laws are the farm managers. FIL is a narcissict who I can't stand. MIL.. I love her, but the better I get to know her, I don't like her. Example: we have a 6 month old baby, and in laws live 10 minutes from us on another farm owned home. I'm done making plans with her or accepting offers to babysit so I can go to a dr appt because she cancels everything last minute and screws me.
Grandpa doesn't like women being in charge of business, so FIL is really the one in charge but MIL and hubby are worked and stressed to a point where I'm suprised they havent had a heart attack, just keeping the farm alive from FIL's stupidity.

MIL doesnt want to subject me to FIL's tantrums, so there has been outright REFUSAL to teach me to do anything on the farm that I don't currently know from previous job, "to protect me". Let me deal with him and or make that decision on my own!!!! This means that I know very little of what actually goes on because grandpa wants to protect hubby from FIL tantrum, and MIL wants to protect me. So hubby was told to go to college and get a degree, with the promise of working on the family farm when finished and just needing to work off-farm until then, and is just permanently on-call with the farm if FIL isn't around, or is preoccupied, and hubby's experience is needed. The entire thing is a cluster fuck.

Hubby is the only one of 5 kids interested in farming. So he's supposed to eventually inheret the farm which is why he's willing to put his soul into something this convoluted.

I've been remodeling my chicken coop. Long story short, the thing was a disaster when I moved in two years ago and it's been a PROJECT. MIL recently told me how my coop is gonna operate when it's finished. I don't even remember what she said because I tuned most of it out. She has 5 coops, and wants our properties to work in tandem basically. But -telling- me how my coop was gonna work, just because she owns the property rubbed me the wrong way.

I was a stay at home mom for baby until recently because we could afford it, but we can't any longer (burned through my personal savings to do so) and I went back to work last month. I work nights, hubby works days. I sleep very little, mostly just with baby during her daytime naps. Hubby is a full time college student "who can't multitask" so I've got baby duty + house duty + yard duty + doing the remodel I was SUPPOSED (yes, I'm mildy angered) to get help with by myself + winter prep of chopping wood, stacking it, and kindling because a fireplace is how we heat our home... 90% by myself unless I peek, see he isn't in a test, drop baby in a play pen in his study, and walk away to make dinner or do whatever it is I can't do with a baby, which isn't always feasible because of what he's working on or what I need to do.

I just want to explode some days with the utter bullshit of it all.

If it was just hubby, baby, and I on our own plot I don't think I'd be nearly as pissed/stressed/confused all the time, but the combination just....

Add that when we dated, and pre-baby, we had discussed having 2-3 kids so no single one felt the burden of keeping the family farm on their shoulders, but 7 months post baby, I'm very conflicted because I don't think I can do this again. Emotionally, physically, definately can't afford it financially (plus, the idea of "would I feel guilty for giving baby A 7 months of stay at home mom but baby B only got whatever maternity leave my job offered, which is likely to be 2 months or less?"). Plus, grandpa recently decided hubby needs to get a job outside the family farm (to "expand his knowledge of how successful farms make it") once he finishes his degree next month, which means that one person at home on the farm with baby helping with farm chores while the other is at work is no longer an option, so either we work opposite shifts or pay for a babysitter.

I told him a few weeks ago that I definately can't do postpartum 2x again, and he said he's OK with it if I can't even do it 1x more, because he loves me more than our potential children, even if we have to adopt to keep the pressure off the kids shoulders, but realistically we can't afford to adopt, so if I decide I can't do this again, our current child will be an only child with all the weight of the farm.

AND - it doesn't help that I can count the number of times we've had sex in the last year on one hand. I used to be the initiator, my drive is easily twice his if not more, but starting at the end of the pregnancy, my want to dissapeared and now.. I want to want to have sex, but I just don't have it in me.

So my life looks great on the outside, but is a giant stressful shit show on the inside.

Does anybody have basically coping advice for me

You don't need coping advice because no one could cope with all of this. You're remarkable given you've made it this far without completely melting down.

This entire situation is untenable.

You and your husband need to have a very, very serious conversation about what it is you both really want, what is reasonable, and what will allow your marriage to survive, because how you're living now won't achieve that. Your marriage is doomed unless you break free of the chokehold his family has on your life.

You are near breaking point already, op. This can't go on.

Life is too short. You need to take a step back and consider whether you can walk away from this horrible life. Getting paid work and renting a small place would be a start. I know housing is really difficult atm, but where you are just now is unsustainable.
Are DH's siblings supportive? Are they aware of the situation?

I just went back to work last month, working nights. There is absolutely no way I'd ever be able to convince hubby to move somewhere we had to pay for, when this place is "free".

DH's siblings are all well aware of the situation. One lives on the other side of the country, one lives a 5 hour drive away, one is.dead, and the other lives with us and is a useless bump on a log.

I've been struggling with that exact thought recently. 5 -> 10 years down the road, can I actually realistically keep living like this, where grandpa and FIL have final say over my life?

Our wedding was just 2 months ago, and it really hit me after the wedding how batshit the entire situation is. Sometimes grandpa threatens to just sell the farm if we can't keep a handle on FIL's idiocy, which is beyond infuriating. Grandpa is MIL's dad, but he consistently chooses FIL over his own daughter.

MIL has told us many times in the 2 1/2 years I've been around that shr's going to divorce FIL, but it never happens.

Hubby leaving the family farm isn't an option. My options are learn to cope with the shit show, or plan for a divorce when I literally just got married.

Hubby leaving the family farm isn't an option.

Of course it is. It is absolutely an option. If your husband wants to keep his marriage and his family, it's the best option he has.

I second what @Aquamarine1029 said.

All the various positions and non negotiable everyone holds from where they stand, make sense if you see it through their eyes... But collectively they make for a lose lose situation which only works (for now) by breaking the very thing they are banking on for their future (you and DH).

I've dealt with some very hard long / medium term situations in my time and I don't think this is sustainable. If they won't listen you'll have to lob a metaphorical bomb in and see what's still left standing after it explodes.

You've done incredibly well to cope this far.

@Aquamarine1029 is right. I know it's so much easier said than done but it seems to be the root of all your problems.

This is a very complex situation. Given the realities on the ground, what would be your ideal solution?

I am concerned about this though:

Hubby is the only one of 5 kids interested in farming. So he's supposed to eventually inherit the farm which is why he's willing to put his soul into something this convoluted.

Supposed to inherit? That sounds worrying to me. (a) because it gives Grandpa and FIL a means for a stranglehold over your husband. And (b) because so much could happen in the meantime, until Grandpa pops his clogs.

This is no way to live. I know you only just got married, but sometimes it pays to cut your losses.

He should get a position on another farm hopefully with accommodation and then the family might realise they don't have him over a barrel and then be willing to do things not only on their terms.

A period of independence and separation would be good for everyone. He doesn't have to do it under a cloud, he could sell it as upskilling but it might redress the balance

No guarantee of success but if it could be a plan and gets him away so there can be some oxygen into this situation...

Anything could happen with the grandparents, the in laws, the siblings, the farm. Relying on an eventual inheritance as a reward for stress, overwork, little money and a supposedly " free" house is a fool's errand. As you are aware, the house isn't free at all.

I’d be very careful regarding the house and the farm. My MIL inherited her farms from her late husband and attempted to sell the farms despite her son in law living in the house on the farm where he has worked all his life. He has had to pull together A LOT of money to buy her out and it has gotten very very messy. Is there any way you can consider living elsewhere?

He doesn't think he's over a barrel though. The situation is occasionally annoying, but overall fine and acceptable to him.
He lived and worked off the farm when he was younger, for about 5 years, so him knowing independence isn't an issue.

Will the farm go from grandpa to your DH or will it go to your FIL first?

Is the farm all in one piece or is it piecemeal around the countryside?

I think you need to make a plan which is not reliant on them because I'll bet there isn't and won't be anything in writing guaranteeing your DH the farm, and in 20 years you could end up with absolutely nothing.

First up. Remove yourself from their farm completely. Do NOTHING. STOP making a fancy shmancy the chicken coop on their land, or if you already have built it make it clear it's YOURS and not part of the farm. And make sure it's a moveable one.

Then see if you can lease small bits of land to start your own things quietly to run yourselves independently of the farm. The first one might be for you to run chickens all by yourself.

Unusual breed chickens are quite popular here in Australia. I drove MILES to get a Cream Legbar for blue eggs, a Splash Australorp and a double-laced silver barnvelder because I loved their colouring. Once my Isa Browns die I will replace them with other interesting chickens (probably an Araucana for more blue eggs - I only have 6 back yard chickens).

The males can be culled for meat, eggs sold at markets (blue, speckled and brown eggs are very popular as not "commercial"). And excess hens sold to home breeders.

You can run a nursery and primary school "chicken hatching" program by supplying the incubator and eggs and a chick enclosure. You can let the hens be adopted by willing parents and take the cockerels back to the farm.

There must be other types of farming that you and your DH could do on the side, eg a a few rare breed pigs to sell for meat, some turkeys for Christmas, direct to customers if you can, or via a local butcher.

If you don't want to compete with your grandfather you could set up a shed to breed rats, mice and crickets as reptile food.

Etc, etc.

Do it all under your own name as you were clearly told you can't be involved in the family farm due to FIL and because Grandfather doesn't like women on the farm.

With a regular income coming in see if you can get your DC some nursery hours and only work for yourself during the day, growing YOUR business.

Sadly, ideal sitiation is grandpa dies and MIL either finally follows through with the divorce, or he dies too.

Oh yea, I know. Grandpa could sell at any moment (which he has threatened) and screw us over, or FIL could do something that cost the farm (because of the narcissism, he thinks he can do no wrong, not just where the farm is concerned, but in all of life).

Ah.

Then he needs to clearly see how this is from your pov, he needs to listen.
Everyone is content with status quo, but that's at your expense. They can either budge up and make room for your needs too. Or if they insist it's all about you accommodating them,...

You’ve married into the family business, and that family business is heavily reliant on your husband and yourself. You are both workhorses for this business in which they get to make ALL the decisions (including how your chicken coop, that you built, is going to be utilised) and into which all your savings have been absorbed

You are paying a huge price for a home that’s not yours, and the promise that the farm will one day belong to your husband and yourself.

You are being very trusting OP.

There's no way any person can sustain your workload, and a baby, while only sleeping in the daytime when the baby does.

So it hopefully runs... Gramps, MIL, DH? Does MIL have any siblings? Then surely when the day comes DH's siblings will expect some kind of inheritance. It can't pass 100% to DH surely? Does DH have a formal role in the farm at the moment? Director of the Ltd company or a partnership? I fear not from what you say.

In essence you guys sound VERY exposed with little guarantee. I think you need to build some security and autonomy away from this "line" into your life.

But my love, you are newly married with a young baby. It sounds like you are smashing it while dealing with VERY complicated family dynamics. It sounds like you've got time to plan, time to build or change. Hang in there x

Spot on advice there from @OrderOfTheKookaburra to my ears

I wish it was that simple.

Farm will go from grandpa to MIL, but as lovely as she is, she's brainless. FIL is some kind of pgrass seed savant (which is what we grow, grass seed and wheat seed), which is part of why grandpa always defers to him even though the family line is grandpa -> MIL-> hubby. If FIL is still in the picture when grandpa dies, even though MIL would technically own it, we'd still have half the issues we currently do. Her marriage directly affects mine.

It's piecemealed. I don't know how much we own vs how much we lease either. I know our place is owned outright, at 100 acres, and where MIL and FIL live is owned, at 10 acres.

The reason my coop is getting a remodel is because back in the history of this property (before they bought it) the building used to be a hog shed. Prior owner at one point remodeled it into a chicken coop, but there.are a list of reasons why we.use the prior owner's name as a swear word, because his idea of doing anything was to half ass it and do it pretty much the wrongest way possible. So I'm keeping the building as a chicken coop, we don't want to deal with pigs, but it needs remodeled and done correctly vs how hubby and.his mom had.kept it and were just running with the shitshow that it was.
I'm trying to set things up so that we can have meat birds and egg birds. Around here I can't legally sell the meat without a bunch of liscensing, but I could sell my eggs. MIL is paranoid that the local government will "decide" our flocks have a disease and come eradicate our flocks (totally legal here in Oregon, and has happened to several people we know).

What I have a say over, on our property, is the chicken coop, the yard in front of and behind the house, and MAYBE a small pasture we currently don't use that's about 1/4 of an acre that I'd like to have milk goats on, if I'm allowed. I say allowed because MIL and grandpa have to OK it before I could do that, since there currently is no fence, and I'd need to build one. The rest of the 100 acres we live on is either field, or MIL's horse pasture, horse barn, and horses which live on our property. So anything I did on this property that was mine would have to be done in my coop, in the yard, or in the pasture if I got.permission to.build a.fence.

Thankfully the only things I've personally put money into were tearing down and rebuilding the raised garden boxes, and buying the paint for the coop. I was able to get the new wood for the interior walls for free, but yes my savings is completely gone. I spent it staying home with the baby because i'd been promised a.seasonal position on the farm during harvest, specifically to keep me from burning my savings, which of course never happened and hubby knows I'm pissed about.

Yes, that order of inheritance is correct. MIL has one sibling, but he wants nothing to do with the farm and lives in a different state. Hubby's siblings want nothing to do with it, so outside of money inheretance, they don't want anything from the farm.

We are extremely exposed, yes. It's why I get so mad about being told i'd get help with things like my coop and then nothing happens, because I can't do it all with a baby on me. I sadly have actually done a massive amount with the baby in a carrier, or sleeping in a.box in the barn while I split kindling, but some things I can't do. Like pressure wash the concrete floor of my coop so the new floor sealant has a.clean surface to adhere to, I can't do that with a baby on me. The sooner my coop gets done, the sooner we can have more birds than we currently do (8 hens and two roosters) and I can get us rolling with selling eggs and butchering our own meat birds.

Thank you. I'm in a rough spot here and hearing somebody thinks i'm handling it OK means a lot .
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I think you need to stop thinking mil might divorce fil... That is highly unlikely given the way inter generational relationships and livelihood are intertwined here. That and the fact that she might get fed up at times but she's enabling him in this dynamic, she isn't about to break free of him and send him packing.
So whatever you decide it should be with the expectation that fil is not going anywhere.
Investing ALL your best adult years on a promise of inheritance which may never come about in the way you hope for many reasons, who does when, other wider family wanting part of things... You are taking a huge gamble that this patience will pay off in the end. You've got all your eggs in an unhealthy basket right now!

Sorry, cross posted.

You are handling it very well. You're being reasonable and working hard.
Unfortunately everyone else is only doing the latter.
Your dh and dc are very lucky to have you, you're clearly capable and bright...

Wait so
...random part to pick out but it stood out to me but you say you can't do the postpartum two more times and hubby says 'well how about just once then cause I love you more than a non existent kid' ...Wait, what? Well, no he doesn't or he wouldn't be asking you to do it again.

And grandad the mysoginist too...ugh...

And if I was being honest...imo I'd say that farming is often based on the exploitation of females (eg, continually impregnating cows for dairy until they.are spent and then sending them to slaughter when their milk dries up). So it's not a surprise, arguably, that it seems like they all view you as there to serve their needs but not get ideas above your station.

Don't bring more kids into this.
I wouldn't live my life like this. Your partners playing pretend support. And you're both playing pretend marriage.

It's OK to make mistakes so long as we learn from them. Bad marriages are big mistakes but hell, no one is perfect. I'd vote to cut your losses and split. Wouldn't want to spend my life with asshole inlaw.

I feel for you op,but I feel especially bad for your poor child who is going to grow up in this shit show and expected to carry it on if something isn't done.