How do you cope when you just can't stand your in laws?

[Honestlyannoying]

I'm know how horrible I must sound but its something that's been going on for years and I just can't reconcile either things.

All was well up until I had their first grandchild. We were always different but had a friendly, amicable relationship.

Dh used to do a lot for them, and I mean a lot. All their DIY, giving them lifts, popping to the shops for them, this was for them, his sibling and aunts and uncles. None of them are elderly or short of money. When we had a child all this had to be cut back drastically because I wasn't prepared to be left alone every evening and weekend with a baby while dh ran errands for his family. Well of course they didn't like that. Their answer was to try to send mil round for the day to 'help' me while dh went off with fil to do manly stuff. Lots of guilt tripping. Your poor sister is having to sit in the dark because you haven't fitted that new light for her. That kind of thing.

They are unbelievably old fashioned and quite sexist. Mil regularly refers to me as a housewife even though I am not and I have a job outside the home. They make endless rude and unwanted comments about my appearance, our home, our parenting, our jobs, where we go on holiday, my family, where we live. They insult dh about his weight, his clothes.

Mil made a revolting, sexual remark about our son when he was a toddler which I've never been able to forget and I regret not confronting her over.

One of our dc has a health issue which means he absolutely can't have certain foods and they completely try to overrule us and tell us that the medical advice we've been given is wrong or they argue the toss about it.

There is so much more but ultimately they are rude, obnoxious, overbearing. They compare us to dh siblings at every opportunity.

We should have put boundaries in place with them years ago. I'm 40 years old and sick of listening to it, it's caused so many arguments between me and dh because he doesn't say anything.

The end result is we hardly see them now. I feel guilty about it but if we are seeing them I feel complete dread.

Compartmentalise.
Don't rise to their bait - you don't need to justify yourself or your life to them. And so what if they think your house isn't to their liking, your figure isn't what they think it should be, your job isn't what they would do, etc. So what? Just don't rise to it. Smile and..
Memorise phrases like "thanks for that". "Thanks for sharing". "I really didn't need to know that". Say them in a bland voice with an expressionless face. And change the subject
Get up and walk into another room - the bathroom's always handy.
Reduce the length and frequency of times you have to see them.
Let DH see them on his own on occasion.

We all have people in our lives we could cheerfully run off a cliff so you are not alone!

We had very, very similar OP, I could have written 99% of what you have. I’ve actually just read it to my partner as it’s do similar.

I was polite for a while, then started challenging them on things and seeing them less. My partner did always back me but found it hard at first because they had controlled him with guilt for so long. Eventually it came to a head, I no longer have any contact, my partner speaks to them on the phone if they call. Our kids want nothing to do with them.

They still try to lay on the guilt but my partner sees it for what it is and just changed the subject.

I wish I’d have cut them off sooner, they caused lots of problems and unhappiness and it’s lovely without them now.

I feel the same about mine and just avoid them as much as possible. Luckily they live a few hours away so it's easily done though the requests for money still come in.

I found living a big distance helped. They’ve both passed away now but I still have Christmas anxiety as we always used to go there.
So much of this sounds so familiar to me, the difference I had is DH never believed they could do anything wrong. He even used to want me to call them Mum/Dad which is frankly weird.
It got worse when FIL died as MIL wanted DH to move home (without me and DC!).
But I had comments about everything and complaints I wouldn’t do as I was told.
My problem is I was too young and too nice when I met them so they took that as a sign I could be bullied. 50 year old now would shut this shit down much faster.