Would you say my MIL is treating me like this because she doesn’t like me?

[Simplefoke]

I’ve just been away for the weekend with my partner, daughter, his parents and his brother and gf and 2 kids. I was apprehensive because I’m pretty sure his parents don’t like me.

Ive felt this because they don’t greet me if we go over, they have never offered me a drink or asked how I am or started a single conversation with me. When I talk I get one word answers. They were flat when we told them about the baby. They’ve offered no support when she came. They never asked how I was during the pregnancy. Offered no support when he moved in to time. They bought her a box of wet wipes for her first birthday and that was it. Everything we say like we buying some thing or going somewhere it’s met with you don’t need that or you don’t need to go there. They treat the other son’s family completely the opposite. When they go over for example she has bought them their favourite drinks. It can’t be me that just feeling that this isn’t right??

The weekend away was the worst experience of my life. The mum offered everyone a drink then got to me and put the drinks down. They don’t talk to me. Spent the entire time with the other son’s family. Me and my partner and DD couldn’t just stand around with them as we have a younger kid who needs different entertainment (we were at a theme park type place). Instead of splitting their time to spend some with us and with the toddler they spent it with the others 100%. I’ve never been away with them all and never been to this place before. I’ve never felt more uncomfortable and unwelcome in my life. I just left them to it and spent the time alone with my dd. Didn’t end up eating with them. Was just alone, it was so awful. They make constant digs and comments about my upbringing and my life before my partner. They have said before that my partner doesn’t know my situation because he came from a good family etc. I was in an abusive relationship previously for 12 years but I got out. They make constant comments like it was my fault and I’m just trouble basically.

What would you do in this situation??? I’m pretty sure I’m not just being awkward and making it up. I can just feel the dislike from them. Should I just cut all contact?

@DelphiniumBlue thanks. I think I’ve normalised that you have to earn being liked when it’s something that should just happen and we are all worthy despite our differences. I just don’t trust that my feelings are right or if my own trauma is taking over. When I’m with them I literally turn into a wreck, I don’t know what to say, I stutter or turn mute. I do know that when I’m with nice people I’m totally different.

Your dh might be upset if you put your foot down and refuse to visit the ILs again, but I bet he won’t be anywhere near as upset as you are.

Your mental health and well being is so important op, especially when you have a little one dependent on you. You owe it to your dc to put some boundaries in place. They shouldn’t be watching their dm being abused. You’ve already left one abusive situation - this one might not be as bad, but that isn’t a reason to accept it as your lot. (You know the sandwich metaphor? )

Read back over your posts and see where the gaslighting is altering your reality - of course you’re not responsible for your abuse. But you are vulnerable. That’s something to work on.

Have a look at out of the FOG (fear obligation guilt)

@Simplefoke
Oh your poor DP.
I would read the books and then it's up to you if you want to discuss it with DP then do it carefully. They have been very, very conditioned within this family and it will need careful handling as they are very into the FOG - Fear, Obligation, Guilt.

OP you have posted about this before and been given the same advice. Nothing has changed though and nothing will, yet you keep on repeating the same old patterns. Your inlaws are horrible people and nothing you say or do will alter that. Your partner has been brought up as the scapegoat and trained to expect this treatment from a very young child. His mother sounds like a narcissist and his father most likely her enabler.
Do not visit again, go NC and keep your children safe from your toxic inlaws. If your husband must visit them he can do so on his own.

@Theothername I have just thought it was me making it up because I’m sensitive. I mean could I be that unlucky to find myself in yet another abusive situation????

This.

@Seaoftroubles honestly I’ve just not been convinced that it was true. Perhaps it was me giving off a bad vibe…then perhaps so I’ve heard she may be ND herself so I should give her the benefit of the doubt. But it’s just getting worse so I do need to act now and listen.

I cut all contact with my in laws after a weekend like the one you've just described. Like you, I'm older than my partner (2 years) and have been previously married. Also had a 'unusual' (crap) childhood being dragged around the world by my narcissistic parents.

Also like you my in laws - mainly my father in law - were extremely judgemental about all of the above. Also couldn't understand that not everyone has the same upbringing and also blamed me for it! I was in my early 40s when this bullshit started and I didn't hesitate for a second to go full no contact with them. The fact there wasn't going to be any grandchildren (boo hoo for them) and I live 200 miles away made it a lot easier.

Partner's mother died unexpectedly a few months ago, and father in law has now suddenly 'seen the light' about me - aka he's panicking about the future as my partner is an only child - and 'now understands' me and 'partner should have explained my background to him' - he fucking did, you old fool on day one and you didn't listen! After a decade of no contact I'm now supposed to take pity and play nice with him. Not going to happen!

If your husband isn't willing to stick up for yourself and your child you are going to have to do it yourself. Go full no contact immediately and have nothing more to do with his horrible family.

Even the children of the DIL are affected. They won’t let them play with other children because they are all naughty and their
children are so perfect. They are so young and already judgmental. I’ve initiated so many play dates but they always turn me down. I was starting to wonder what was wrong with my oldest daughter but I realise it’s the parents views. The poor kids have no friends and they now don’t even want any.

@FreeRider we live 10 mins away unfortunately.

@Simplefoke But like you said, they never come to your husband's place anyway. He can still go and visit them (he'd be so stupid to but it's his funeral) but he doesn't get to take your child and you don't have to be there either.

@FreeRider yeah that is a blessing that they don’t come to visit. But then it would have been nice to have a nice family but that boat has sailed now. I don’t know how he doesn’t get upset that they don’t visit him.

@Simplefoke you are worth more, stop going to see them, they’re obviously on some weird kick with brother being golden child, your Dh being the scapegoat. The way they treated him as a baby is awful, I wouldn’t be around them. Just cut contact, you’ve tried, they’ve failed.

@Simplefoke l really hope you do act now. This has been going on too long and you risk damage being done to your children if you keep interacting with this vile family.
Your children will soon start to realise that they ( and you) are being treated differently to their cousins and their SIL.
The best thing you can do for your mental health and your kids future is to stay away from them. I realise your husband may find it hard to understand, as he has been well trained to accept his role in the family set up, but he is free to still pop in and see them if he wishes. Hopefully eventually he will see the light too.

@Seaoftroubles I will act, I have to because I can’t be around them, they make me feel so worthless and it does feed into the narrative I’ve carried since childhood. I’m trying so hard to work on that narrative. I’m 5 or so years post my abusive marriage and they put me right back in the thick of these self loathing feelings. It’s bloody awful.

I don’t ever want to be sitting in the toilets again like this weekend. I’m ashamed that this happened. I’ve let so much happen in my bid to just be accepted. I start to feel like perhaps I’m just not a nice person because it keeps happening to me.

There you go again, @Simplefoke. You really need to work on your self-esteem and sense of self — you seem to be deriving far too much of it from other people’s opinion of you, and getting terribly upset when that opinion is a negative one. And yet you can’t stop trying to change said opinion by acting in ways designed to make them like you and resenting them when they don’t. It’s a vicious circle.

They don’t like you. They’d rather their son wasn’t with you. It’s not the end of the world. You need to come to terms with that.

Did his parents’ lack of enthusiasm for you show itself before the relationship became serious? I ask because, if so, and given your obvious longing for a family who accepts you, I wonder why you committed to a partner with an unenthusiastic family, especially when that partner appears unable to make your interactions with them more bearable?

This. Also you are doing all of the above at the expense of your childs emotional wellbeing! Stop subjecting her to these awful awful people as it is hugely damaging to her own self esteem and mental health.

@DeadMabelle I know what you are saying. It’s something I’m trying to change. I’ve been like it my whole life. Starting with
my mum and then my then husband. It feels shit to watch the rest all having a great time and not being part of it.

I didn’t notice it much until I fell pregnant the first time and miscarried. The mum said it was for the best. When I was pregnant the second time it just got worse. I suppose I always felt it with the way they made comments but I’ve always thought that I’m just over sensitive and it’s me. It’s just getting too obvious now.

DeadMabelle nailed it here and this poster's response in quote marks is worth repeating:

Simplefoke · Today 09:12

@CrunchyCarrot that’s the point I’m learning. No matter how nice I am, how much I reach out or try and persuade them I’m nice, they don’t like me and that’s that. Apologising to my partner won’t make me a member of the inner family. I get the feeling I’m never going to be part of this. Which makes me sad as I never had it growing up either. It’s very hurtful. These people are really not very nice to behave like this. I never could.

"Bluntly, there’s your problem, OP. You’re trying to be ‘nice’ with the intention of persuading a family who don’t like you to include you as a ‘member of the inner family. All that’s doing, probably, is showing them that, however unpleasant they are, you’ll just keep accepting that, and this appears to be true in that, despite the fact that these don’t sound like nice people, you’re still desperate to be accepted by them — why?

And then you resent the situation because what you want isn’t happening, and you clearly hope that continuing to be ‘nice’ will somehow someday make something different happen.

Have you ever had any therapy? Because it strikes me that there’s a pattern — you say you weren’t part of a loving ‘inner family’ growing up, then were in an abusive relationship for twelve years, then you get together with someone who doesn’t seem very attuned to your needs, and who ranks ‘low’ in his family, whom you describe as ‘dysfunctional’."

Please take heed of the above.

I also note without much surprise that you are a people pleaser. This behaviour often comes about from wanting to please a difficult or emotionally absent parent. People pleasing does you no favours OP, its a problem that needs addressing in therapy. Your parents let you down abjectly and taught you a lot of damaging lessons about relationships, they set you up good and proper to tacitly accept being mistreated and abused because that was all they knew too. They had a choice when it came to you and they chose to repeat the same old shit that was done to them.

@DeadMabelle I wouldn’t say I have a longing for a family. I have a longing I suppose to just fit in and be accepted and for people to stop being so judgmental. My partner is lovely despite this issue. At the beginning I didn’t really see the problem. I didn’t see this dynamic.

@AttilaTheMeerkat what is the correct healthy way to behave in this current situation as it is? I just want to cut ties and ignore them all now. But is that petty?

op I read through all your replies I if I was you I would not have contact with them . If your partner wants to see them on occasion then let him be , but do not put your children through that as they will feel the rejection and will suffer with it . Chances are you partner was never their favourite anyway being ND and you being older it is something they won’t accept . They are wrong to behave that way . But you have a choice to remove yourself and your children from that hateful behaviour and you should do it . Hugs that sound like the weekend from hell .