I never feel I fit in or accepted.

[Rainbow03]

I never feel like I fit in with the people around me. Growing up I was never really shown love and acceptance. I fell into a decade long abusive relationship which is no surprise really.

Im with someone else now and have been for a few years. I’m ok with him but it’s his parents that are getting to me currently. They always comment on the other brothers girlfriend’s pictures. Saying how proud they are of her and their family. How well she has done raising the kids. They have known her 10 years and me only 3.5 so perhaps that’s why.

I have a child with their son. They never say they love me or our family. They never say they are proud of me. I sound stupid as I’m a grown up but the other daughter in law has lived a sheltered life. Never worked, what has she done to be proud of?

Ive suffered abuse, fled, spent years in court alone. Had no one, one one has ever been proud of me. Got my house alone, decorated alone, alone through all the worst times of my life. Why don’t they say they are proud of me, or anyone really?

Im so sick of having to hear that they are proud of her because she crocheted a bird of homemade a Yorkshire pudding.

Im sick of sitting with people and not feeling accepted or worthy or understood. It’s not just them it’s everyone. No one has ever been proud of me and im starting to think there is just something wrong with me. I see people having supporting family and friends. I dread getting really sick because I would have none of that family and friends rallying around telling me I’m doing great etc.

Your inlaws sound like they need to be needed. You don't need help and are self sufficient. They think it's odd. I'm in a similar situation. My sil breathes and she gets a medal

some really good advice on this thread, it’s even given me a lot to think about!

This post in particular has hit the nail on the head, I think some people are a bit wary of independent women and prefer women that are a damsel in distress? They take offence that you don’t need them and are withdrawing pleasantries to punish you almost

whilst I haven’t experienced the exact situation as you or OP, in a work context (where I’m civil with people who don’t like me) I might ask them for help for things that I may already know answer on just to break the ice a bit. Find some random token thing that they’ll sink their teeth into, which will distract them from their current attitude - make the busybodies feel busy.

They are your in laws by accident only. You don't need them to like you or approve of you, although I know it might make life easier. Or you might just think it would - their praise, if you were to get it, might just feel cloying and irritating, because they are not your kind of people and have no understanding or wish to understand what you went through. They don't sound particularly emotionally intelligent. See as little of them as you can, and look elsewhere to find your people.

You’ve gotten some good insight and advice so far. But what about your partner? I wonder if there’s an element of him being the black sheep and his brother being the golden/favoured child. Is it possible that some of their crappy behaviour is intended more to send a message to him? I’ve seen this dynamic quite a bit, where they snub the partner of the scapegoat child too.

How can you be proud of home baking but not be proud of someone recovering from abuse?

Because they be ignorant/uneducated or even nasty. Well done, ignore item and carry on doing well

I’m not invalidating you I agree with you but you’re clearly tired and should go to bed because the rest will help you calm down a bit more

Oh Id love a bloody rest! If someone would take my 1 year old who thinks sleeping at night is a waste of her time!!!

@WhichEllie I’m not too sure of the dynamic between the brothers. Mine is more easy going the other likes expensive things and money.

@Rainbow03 I grew up in an abusive household, no money, lots of violence etc. Fought my way out and went to a v good uni, where I met now DH, who came from a storybook family - happily married parents, several houses, luxury hols etc. I hoped they would be a second chance family for me, but we’ve never clicked. I inadvertently offended MiL left right and centre when I was planning a wedding (at 22, with no family around me) because there’s apparently Ways that People Like Them Do Weddings, but nobody had shown me the manual 😅 tried to explain how anxious I get when mother figures disapprove and got an uncomprehending look back and ‘but I’m not your mother?’ They’re aware, from DH, of my childhood, with social services and police involvement, but they haven’t been able to process it at all. My achievements are significant even without the background, but because we haven’t clicked, there’s no recognition of the scale or significance of them.

BiL’s many girlfriends, on the other hand, who are all off the back pages of Hello, are constantly effused over 🤪

There may be some truth to what another poster said above that a lot of these dynamics will have been set in motion before you came onto the scene. BIL is def the golden child in our extended family and gets a much easier time.

I guess my point is to say I do understand where you’re coming from and it used to bother me more when I was younger. But then I thought, do I really share my ILs values? And I realised that I don’t - for them, money and corporate jobs are success; for me, being a loving and accessible parent is success. And if I don’t share their values, why on earth do I care if they don’t recognise mine? Just because they don’t, it doesn’t negate them, or make them any less valid.

So your ILs can't be your second chance family and that’s a bit shit. Now you need to get your big girl pants on and push them out of your head - you don’t need their validation, your validation of yourself is enough. Focus on your nuclear unit and creating the family you wish you’d had, so you correct the generational failings you’ve experienced. You don’t need their pride - how can they be proud when they’ve had jack shit to do with it - you’re the one who’s done the hard work and you’re the one who gets to feel pride in how far you’ve come and how much better your children’s childhoods will be as a result 💐

@PeopleHearingWithoutListening that sounds like a journey. Some people are just so lucky when they have good starts in life and have no comprehension of how hard others have been. I often wonder how I’ve got to my age (40) but then I spent half my life in a fog. I did achieve a degree and masters and that was mainly so I didn’t have to return home. Then when straight into an abusive marriage, again probably rushed so I didn’t have to return home.

I do feel I’ve wasted my life. I’ve not actually used my masters and have a job in a minimum wage industry . I’ve spent my life trying to navigate the world. I find it challenging,
that and the way my body responds to things. I used to suffer terrible anxiety, that’s gone now. It’s been such a difficult journey and now I suffer with chronic fatigue, I’ve literally worn myself out. I was told it was from living in constant stress.