Toxic relationships

[CrankyPantaloons]

I am at my wits end and am in need of some perspective. My husband has an enmeshed relationship with his family (whatever they say goes and any boundaries that may be set are met with tantrums and sulking), indeed it has been the route cause of a lot of conflict within our marriage and it is growing old. Recently during a visit with the wider in laws, one of my in laws dropped his bag of coke by accident and it was discovered, luckily by one of the adults, before one of my kids did (they are all under 10 years of age). I am enraged and to make things worse I have been told that under no circumstances am I to discuss it with them or anyone else. There are wider issues involved with this family but I simply don't know what to do for the best. Leave them (husband too) but then they will have unsupervised access to my kids (my husband has admitted to me that he was emotionally and physically abused by them when he was a child) or stick it our until they are grown and then get the hell out of Dodge!! He cannot be trusted to protect our kids (I have set boundaries with them and it has caused no end of drama) and I do believe they are in danger when around them (they have a number of large, aggressive dogs which have already bitten my husband). I can and am prepared to stick it our until they are grown (I am emotionally detached from them all) but how far do I push my husband to either step up or do I just call the authorities (the relative in question has their own kids) and get some professionals involved?

I don't actually know the answer. In a similar situation with some of my in laws, DH was 100% on board with protecting our DC and so while we, as a family, took some mild heat and eye rolling from other members of the family, it wasn't difficult to manage.

You do need to take a really good long hard look at how severe the real risk is vs where you are catastrophising because they really aren't nice people. If there is a REAL risk, then I think you have to go to the authorities if you can't trust your DH.

Thank you for your sage advice. I have lost the ability to assess this situation objectively as I don't know or trust if what my husband tells me is fully accurate (the whole truth). In fact I can't rely on him for any support over this or anything to do with his family. My family are not perfect but he has also made my family feel unwelcome so much so that they hardly visit, it is always me taking the kids to them (suits me just fine as he is an oppressive presence when we are all together).

Very difficult OP.
I can see why you want to be there to protect your children but you need to be aware of the fact you are also normalising this type of family life and upbringing. If you create some boundaries for yourself at least then you will teach your kids that life doesn’t have to be like that and they then may decide they don’t like spending much time up at the in-laws either. Equally your husband might be too lazy to take them himself very often without your support. I am not saying that is better than being there to protect them but it may be worth considering as they may grow up to have a more normal life away from that side of the family if they know there is an option.