Inlaws ruined daughter’s first Christmas

[BonheursTrousers]

My inlaws have ruined another Christmas. We planned a long time ago to spend Christmas at our own house. I’ve had recent surgery, my daughter who hasn’t been well this year is comfortable at home and can play with her toys and my inlaws aren’t nice to me and I’ve endured more than enough Christmases with them and it’s not even at their house but another family member’s. It isn’t a child safe house, there will be untrained dogs so it would be a nightmare of having to hold a wiggly baby and not let them down, everyone gets wasted and we wouldn’t be drinking and oh, we just don’t want to.

They first were angry about this, but we held firm about celebrating it at home. (Mil wanted us to celebrate on another day, don’t know why she couldn’t!).

They then demanded we come to theirs Christmas Eve, but the same reason we were celebrating at home, because I’ve had surgery and need to avoid car travel unless necessary (like hospital appointments) was still the case (and DH was prepping Christmas dinner). Instead we offered for them to come to our house Christmas Eve and/or Christmas Day.

Christmas Eve DH received a long nasty message about how his mother was crying because we weren’t coming to theirs and she wanted our daughter at her house. This then turned into airing of mil’s grievances via FIL that she hasn’t been allowed to be a granny like her friends, and have our daughter to babysit or care for, or hasn’t been given free access to visit when they want.

There is a reason for this. She has been absolutely awful over the years. Like a poster recently, she told me that my two other pregnancies that ended in miscarriage were “just cells”, “a heavy period” and that it “happened for a reason”. (I was hospitalised for the second, needed surgery and was very sick for months afterwards).

She (and a little FIL) were such bullys during our engagement party planning we had to cancel it.

A previous Christmas we went away for a destination Christmas, and mil made such a fuss that her sister went to my DH to try and get us to cancel as it was upsetting his mother.

When I was pregnant with a high risk pregnancy and extremely sick and weren’t announcing in case we lost another baby, she complained that she couldn’t announce the pregnancy, I was weird, and that we were ruining the pregnancy for her by not being allowed to enjoy the pregnancy but telling her friends.

they ruined the post partum period by constant visits. I was very sick with an infection that landed me in and out of hospital and a sick baby, but the family insisted on coming separately instead of one visit seeing everyone together(, his mother, father, granny and sibling, aunts and uncles etc), so we would have constant stream of visitors and they would still complain they didn’t see her enough. This didn’t end until a health visitor who witness all this told them to leave and then told DH off as it was impacting my and the baby’s health and well-being. The constant pressure and drama gave me post partum anxiety.

I know I have a DH issue. He loves them but doesn’t like them, and is sad they are awful), but he’s now finally on board as he is SO angry that they ruined our first Christmas as a family.

How do we/he handle this from here? Her first birthday is in 3 weeks and I don’t want them to ruin another first. They have zero respect for us as autonomous adults that are leading our own lives and family now.

Reading between the lines your Xmas was spoiled because your dh was in a mood. He was in a mood because he feels in the middle of trying to please his wife and his parents. It may be that they are dreadful people or it could be that you are controlling and difficult. Or of course it could be a bit of both. It is however likely that this problem continues until either your dh decides to cut off his parents in the dramatic way many people on here do or you work out a way to get along with his side of the family at least superficially.

I don't think there is any point in your DH going round to have a conversation with them.

They won't listen, DH will get upset and end up looking like the bad guy.

While you can't change their reactions, you can change yours. How different would your Christmas have been if you had:
temporarily blocked them so you couldn't read the messages
read the message but just eye-rolled and said 'DH, your rellys are off on one again!'
kept them on an information diet so they didn't know anything about your plans/health/pregnancies
Definitely never offered they could come round to yours - this was total madness

One approach is for you to be the problem. Bullies respond to a bigger bully. Set out the law and mean it.

I agree with a PP that you should complain about their behaviour to date and state that if they are not more considerate in future it will significantly restrict if not reduce entirely their access to their grandchild because you are the mother and your word goes.

Also agree with a PP that your husband will not be able to do this due to past conditioning.

So your dh ruined the day by being in a mood?

@cansu I’m definitely not controlling, I’ve bent over backwards trying to please them. They have been awful in return. For example my mil stated she was sure my baby would have Down syndrome because I was too old, multiple times. Just nasty. Any baby we had was very very wanted.

DH doesn’t want to do the things they want. Ie they wanted a huge engagement party to invite all their friends because that’s what their mates had (difference is their friend paid for their children’s engagements), we couldn’t afford that (we were paying) and wanted something in budget and modest. He cancelled because he didn’t want the party they did and didn’t feel able to have the party he wanted without them steamrolling him. Nothing to do with me.

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This didn’t end until a health visitor who witness all this told them to leave and then told DH off as it was impacting my and the baby’s health and well-being.

That is bad OP. That is very, very bad. Your DH is not being a grown up here and he needs to be. And I can't understand why DH is telling you about the FIL texts. He should have dealt with that by himself.

Your DH ruined Christmas. Your DH has ruined many occasions. It doesn't matter if it was FIL, MIL or next doors pet hamster. DH is letting the nastiness in.

For example my mil stated she was sure my baby would have Down syndrome because I was too old, multiple times.

Wow - she’s a real piece of work isn’t she. Just that alone would make me want to tell her to eff off and go NC

Having something ruined by reading texts has a very simple solution. Don't read texts.

You can choose to protect you and your child’s mental health and happiness by not having these toxic family members in your life but you can’t choose for your husband.
If he wants to answer the phone and messages from them knowing he is going to get a barrage of emotional guilt then that’s on him. What is unacceptable is he spoilt the day, do you want a lifetime of this?
He has been brought up in this toxicity and although he can see their behaviour is wrong they know exactly how to push his buttons. If he wants to learn how to protect himself and the family he created then he needs therapy in order to learn how to. If he’s not willing then you would be better of without him.

It sounds to me as if your MIL has spent years terrifying the people around her, which is why your DH's Pavlovian response is to appease her and why your FIL's natural response is to pass on her grievances to you - he dare not.

My mother did the same to my wife for the first few years and my dad was the same; he'd drive her over to shout abuse through our letterbox or post ten sides of A4 vitriol each and everyday through our letter box, and when my daughter was born, she was able to gain access to her in the hospital and actually took her away for a few hours after birth.

There is clearly a much longer story here but the end result after my mother didn't understand low contact / no contact, was that I took her to court and got an injunction. That stayed in place until she died. Many people thought it was harsh. It was. And it was intended to be. Those 25 - 30 years until her death felt safe, peaceful, non-threatening and, given my upbringing, were a complete revelation. It's how life should have been growing up. No more egg shells, no more being bullied and no more emotional blackmail.

Think about what you want to happen and take control. Stop hiding behind excuses. Your DH needs to step up or this will become the pattern of your life as well, going forwards. Good luck OP!

I very much agree with this.

Also, one thing from your posts @BonheursTrousers really stuck out for me “I’m very bad with conflict and confrontation and I’ve always been the girlfriend parents love, so I know it’s not me it’s them.”.

This is something you have control over, that you can work on, and that will dramatically improve how you feel once you do. For some reason it is disproportionately important to you that people think you are great and that there is no conflict. That doesn’t always work when putting healthy boundaries in place. Cultivate the (mental) eye roll.

Yes.

OP, you and your husband are going to have to cultivate much better mental hygiene around this stuff. You ruined your own Christmas by allowing a predictably unpleasant text to eat away at your mood, when in fact, you had exactly the Christmas you wanted, by yourselves in your own home with your baby, with no visits from your PILs.

Rather than regarding this as a victory and enjoying yourselves, you chose to be lastingly upset by a text that didn’t tell you anything new, and reading it on Christmas Eve when you knew perfectly well it wasn’t going to say ‘Merry Christmas! Have a great time!’

Stop communicating with them. Not necessarily no contact, but all communication goes through DH – it’s his problem family and he who has failed to set boundaries with them when you were unable to due to sickness. He stops telling you when they’re weeping/complaining/stropping/complaining to other people, so you no longer need to know about it. Take yourself off any group chats, mute MIL and FIL phone numbers, don’t take their calls, leave texts unread.

For your daughter’s birthday, make the plan according to what you’d like to do. DH invites them, and the only acceptable answer from them is “yes, we’d love to come” or “no, we can’t make it”. Any drama or changes of plans or “oh but we want it at our house, can we bring the dogs, I want to make the first cake”, all of that nonsense? You won’t hear about it, because it’ll go through DH, and he won’t tell you about it. All he has to do is patiently repeat the invitation, and say “No, that doesn’t work for us, the invitation is [whatever you plan], would you like to come?”

Either they’ll be a no show (sounds like a fucking win tbh), or they’ll show up on time and behave (unlikely), or they’ll cause a fucking stink (late, bring the dogs, MIL crying, snide remarks about how weird you are, whatever), in which case you smile and ignore, spit in MIL’s slice of cake, turn them away if they bring dogs, go ahead with the planned timings even if they’re late – not your fault or issue if they miss the present opening/candle blowing/turn up during naptime and want to wake DD – that last one is an absolute no.

And then afterwards if they cause a stink, you can debrief with DH that they’re simply not invited to big occasions any more. Fuck em.

Yes I agree with a lot people say. It is a DH problem. He shouldn’t have told me about what the text said, just told his dad off and carried on with our Christmas Eve prep.

instead he did tell me, got upset about it which then upset me. It took till about 3pm yesterday till I could feel a bit like myself again.

As @weathervane1 said “t sounds to me as if your MIL has spent years terrifying the people around her, which is why your DH's Pavlovian response is to appease her and why your FIL's natural response is to pass on her grievances to you - he dare not. “

That is exactly it. Everyone around her comes to us with her grievances rather than her coming and speaking to us directly. It is so weird and not something I’ve dealt with before. It also means DH isolated from the rest of his family as she poisons everyone against him.

Your DH needs to make his own relationships with his family that are not triangulated through his mother.

Or cut the lot of them off.

So he picks a relative he genuinely wants to stay in touch with - he arranges to meet up with them minus his parents. He texts/phones them directly for a chat, not getting updates from his mum, not using a family Whatsapp group.

Thank you @AttilaTheMeerkat 🥺”It is not your fault nor your DHs that they are the ways they are. You did not make them that way. Grieve too for the relationship you should have had with them rather than the one you actually got.”

We have both been so sad they could have been close involved grandparents if their behaviour was vaguely more normal and reasonable.

There's a lot of information and support on this forum about toxic parents, and I think it would really benefit your DH to do some research on how to deal with his feelings about his parents. The 'Stately Homes' threads might be a good starting point for him (and you).

Ahh I see! She sent out one of her flying monkeys 🐒 out on Christmas Eve. Original! (Eye roll).

This is what these narcissistic people do. They try and ruin important events. Birthdays, Christmases, weddings etc. Anything where the focus isn't completely on them.

Put your boundaries in place and try and emotionally detach if you can't go no contact.

They haven't ruined anything.

For years you've (you and your husband) let them carry on with their rants and bad behaviour. M
As soon as one of them opens their mouth and starts you hang up the phone or put a hand up in person and say, "Enough!" Then you kebabs or ask them to leave.

They haven't ruined your daughters Christmas.

Your husband could have chosen not to engage with any messages or calls.

Bloody tell her straight! You're overbearing and a bully and is it really any wonder I keep you at a distance? I've had nothing from you but nastiness, cruelty and stress. Give her examples: miscarriages, party etc. Really lay it out for her how unacceptable her behaviour has been.

This is a good time (while your DD is still young) to get some boundaries in place and enforce them. Doing it now may save a lot of further issues in the future.

Sit down with your DH and make a list of what you both want. Try and agree what you can. Then stick to it. You need to present a united front. If one of you is tempted to waiver, remind the other one and reinforce the list and why you have it.

You need to prioritise each other and your DD. If your DH needs support in doing that, he can begin some counselling. He doesn't need to answer every call and text immediately either. He could set aside a certain time each day to read any messages from them. It may help him to compartmentalise his relationship with them and learn to manage it on his own terms.

Look, it is a very British trait for women to feel upset at being disrespected yet say nothing, do nothing, offer no consequences, all in the name of rocking the boat. However doing this only means the person doing the disrespecting thinks ithey can get away with it unchecked, the behaviour gets worse and things build over years until the upset person explodes and relationships get nuked beyond repair because they cannot take it any more.

Having good boundaries and outting your foot down when people take the piss out of you doesn't make you "difficult". There are no prizes for being easy going or a doormat - it ends up making nobody happy. You, your DH, your ILs arw all unhappy with the way things are, arent they? So put your foot down, have your husband tell her she needs to learn that she is reaping what she sowed. Supportive and respectful people get to be around you more, and you are more relaxed around them. Behaving the way she is and making it obvious how displeased she is with you is only pushing you further away. Start off by saying that, simple and factual. Don't be emotive and don't be drawn into arguments.

Yes, to your first paragraph, @Natty13 — but adding ‘and explaining this on here with a slight air of being proud of your own forbearance, rather than retrospectively appalled at your lack of boundaries and assertiveness’.