Problems with FIL and MIL

[OrangeAndPistachio]

I'll try to keep this brief. My Fil was emotionally abusive towards my husband , he asked him to keep secrets from his mum during his childhood and at one point left his mum for a year saying he needed to find himself. He found himself with other women , not really a surprise. Fil also knew that my husband was being severely bullied (physically) by an older sibling and did nothing to stop it. My husband wants nothing to do with his dad.

Fil has returned to the family home and mil has forgiven him. The problem now is that whenever mil comes to our home all we hear is 'dad sends his love' and 'dad would love to see the grandchildren , it's breaking my heart that you're keeping them apart'. Etc. My husband has requested that this stops and that he has no wish to see his dad and given reasons but it continues.

It came to a head yesterday when the moment mil walks in she passes on love from fil. My husband says firmer than ever that he doesn't want these messages that they must stop. Mil then says , that she may as well go home if he doesn't want to be reminded of his dad and that he'll have to talk to him eventually and that they're (husband and fil) both as stubborn as each other.

It's an absolute shit show and I'm sick of it , dh is sick of it. He wants a relationship with his mum but not like this. Imo his mum is as bad as his dad for speaking like this. It's so manipulative.

Has anyone tackled this type of thing before?

And I would not write an email to his mother for her abusive H also to read. It will backfire on your H.

I'll be completely honest and say that until yesterday I didn't realise how complicit mil was in the messed up dynamic. I'd always seen her as gentle but the way she spoke so easily about leaving our home if dh wouldn't play along really opened my eyes. Perhaps dh feels the same. He's very quiet today so I'm not delving too much into how he's feeling about his mum. He'll tell me when he's ready.

I'll mention therapy to him and I will definitely read that thread.

I do appreciate all of your posts , I wasn't sure if my anger towards mil was reactionary or justified. I want to support my husband properly through this.

I don’t think he will get the result he wants from that email and I’d worry about the effect on him. He should stick to setting boundaries. I wouldn’t try to get his mum to see the truth without doing some work with a therapist first to help him cope when she inevitably fails to react the way he needs.

@cakeandteaandcake I agree , but it's the one thing he's sure of right now unfortunately. He's going to do it.

I've tried taking the kids out and giving them space to talk properly about this but I'd arrive home and discover that they got chatting about baking and the weather. It seems I can't push him that direction at all.

The nice and good natured people who are underlying dysfunctional are so difficult to deal with because they have a softer side and probably a lot of good qualities which can be confusing but the dysfunctional behaviour is equally as harmful.

I think there are two analogies that really helped me to deal with the cognitive dissonance you go through with these types of families.

The first is the rubrics cube model of personality, we all have red (bad) cube faces, green (good) cube faces and amber (middle of the road) cube faces as people as personalities are complex like a rubrics cube the question is how many and how bad the red sides are versus the green and yellow. Dysfunctional families are full of the red side of the rubix cubes (control, power, enmeshed versions of love, codependency poses as love, poor boundaries, mistreating others, selfish entitled behaviour etc) and they have much fewer green and amber parts to personality. The good sides do not make up for the bad sides so you need to see the cube as a whole and not separate out the faces of the cube.

The second analogy I found helpful is that over time personality becomes fixed and it becomes a person’s true nature. You should not be putting yourself in front of very harmful, damaging people any sooner than you would walk into a caged male gorilla. You need to accept people’s nature as they are and build the correct type of cage required for the relationship.

Don’t take it personally anymore than you would take the nature of a gorilla personally. The gorilla will harm you if it suits its agenda and so will the dysfunctional person.

I would try to encourage him to write it but not send it. She’s not going to suddenly be able to see his point of view unfortunately.

@Lisapieces thank you , those are fantastic analogies! I know this thread isn't directly about me , but I'm lc with a particular family member for all of the reasons you mention. I see them yearly and only when their company is heavily diluted. I think this is why I'm so pissed off that my sunny Saturday was shat all over with toxic behaviour.

My husband is different in that I'm more decisive and he needs a lot of space to reflect. He's also afraid of confrontation and sees it all as negative because of his childhood.

I've spoken to him about the email and he's said that he doesn't care if his dad sees it. He just wants to get it all out there and will accept the consequences.

@OrangeAndPistachio

The problem isn't his dad seeing the words he 'says', it's that sending it in writing will allow him to break it down and parse it to his own advantage with no one saying "No, that's not what it says".

If he speaks to his mother it will be a private conversation between the two of them and she will have time to absorb what he says without 'the devil whispering in her ear' contradicting what he says.

Perhaps a compromise might be that he writes down what he has to say, prints it out, and then hands it to her to read during the coffee. Then he takes it back and they can either discuss it or not, as either of them chooses. But she must NOT take it home. She must have his words only in her head, no piece of paper for his father to tear his words to shreds. He'll interrogate her, but chances are there will be things DH says that she will not repeat to him.

The main thing is that DH would have 'gotten to her first' and that usually makes the strongest impression. Chances are his mum and dad would read any email together, with him getting in his 'comments' when the email is fresh.

I might also suggest that this take place in your home if there is the least chance that his father will show up at the coffee 'date'. But you and the DC should not be there when it happens. It needs to be DH and Mum all by themselves. Take the DC somewhere for the day, a friend's or relative's house, until he calls and tells you to come home.

I agree with the others ghat he should not write the email but if he does its not the end of the world. He is not going to get a good response from MIL no matter how he tries or how he delivers the message. She is tied to the father mentally and morally so she won’t let OP’s DH’s complaints through to her as that would destabilize her primary relationship which is with her husband.

Encourage him to write it all down if he feels up to it. And also, as pp said, encourage him to read or give it to her in the home. But probably he isn’t ready for that and will find reasons not to do it in a face to face manner. Deep down he knows she will blow him iff and he can’t face letting her let him down face to face. Lobbing an email at her enables him to live in hope that she would care if she only knew for a little longer.

@AcrossthePond55 I agree with everything you've said , I will try again to get dh to meet with his mum but I fear that he's made up his mind.

One of the other factors that I've not yet mentioned is religion. Mil is Christian and prides herself on forgiveness , she's very black and white about it. Forgiveness = good and standing your ground = bad. She seems unable to understand that doing what's right for you is also something to consider , and that you can forgive but still be allowed to detach.

I think perhaps my husband knows how this will end , and wants to send the email so that he can get it all down then move on.

Unfortunately your MIL cares far more for her scummy husband than she does for your husband.

Some women are like that, men first at any cost.
MN is full of threads from OP's proclaiming their adoration of their children while in relationships with toxic scum that any decent mother wouldn't have near their children.
Yet they defend and persist with them.
It is a form of convenient self delusion.
Their children are not the most important thing in their lives...by a long shot, men are.

Your husband has toxic parents.
His mother is as bad as his father.

This is often the case, like finding like.
Perhaps the women are more discreet about their toxicity, but it is self serving and there all the same.

His mother's focus is to keep his father happy.
That is her mission when she visits.
That it causes your husband pain and distress doesn't matter.

Your preference to keep her away from your home and family is a good idea.

She doesn't have your family's best interests at heart.

Your husbands childhood sounds horrific.
God help him.

Check out Cloud and Tompkins “Boundaries “ it is a pretty well respected book (though from a Christian perspective) that helps people draw boundaries and say no to toxic relationships. I think they have some interesting things about such commonly misused concepts like forgiveness and reconciliation. Your MIL wont read it, as her goal is to maintain the status quo, but your dh might benefit, if you see what I mean, because it speaks her language so prepares him to have the argument.

No email or conversation is going to help. MIL will use an email to show people and cry about how mean her son is.

Your MIL thinks that because she forgave FIL, everyone else should forget.

His offences against your husband were different and he hasn't shown remorse or anything.

Your MIL and FIL come as a pair. She is his enabler. That's not going to stop. She's weaponized forgiveness and uses religion to get her family into line. She doesn't get that forgive doesn't mean forget or that people can still choose not to have relationships with people who have wronged them.

MIL and FIL are both toxic.

Ah the all forgiving Christian 🙄, have met a few of those in my day.
Extremely thick skinned and lecturing on the subject of those getting over their pain, and forgiving everyone, as the good Lord advises.

Surprisingly thin skinned and unforgiving when it comes to their tiniest slighting by anyone however.🤔

My friends mother was one of those.
Preaching away at everyone until it actually affected herself.

So tedious.

@Streaaa that's the one!

@pikkumyy77 thank you for the recommendation. I'll take a look.

His mother's focus is to keep his father happy.

Of course. Make sure he doesn't leave her again....

I have an exercise book I write in when I need to offload something that has happened in my life. I can let out all my hurt, pain and anger that way.

cheaper than therapy, which I've done anyway, some of them are useless

Afterwards. sometimes reading it over again, I tear it up or burn it - in a safe place - it's very healing.

Could this be an idea for your DH OP? In order to get his thoughts in order before sending off an email? (I'd probably send by mistake before finishing!).

You sound like a lovely family.

@suburberphobe hopefully that's an option for him. He took himself off for a bit this afternoon and he's clearly deep in thought today , I'll ask what he thinks when he mentions it again. I'm painfully aware that his family have a habit of overloading him emotionally so I'm trying very hard to handle this with care.

I fully expect him to send the email though.

I'm Christian too. And I believe in forgiveness IF it comes from the heart, not just lip service to make someone else (his mother) happy. If it is not in your DH to forgive his father (and I don't blame him), then that's all there is to it. If DH can't or doesn't feel the need to, that is between your DH and God (if he is a person of Faith). There is one person in my life that I simply cannot forgive for their actions. But I also believe that God understands why.

BUT whilst I believe in forgiveness, I don't believe that forgiving someone means that you have to allow them back into your life. Forgiveness doesn't always equal reconciliation. I don't believe a loving God would want anyone to be subjected to a person who has 'done them wrong' or has abused them (verbally, physically, etc), even if they have asked for and been given forgiveness.

People will say that forgiving someone 'frees you'. But I don't believe that forgiveness always completely 'frees' the victim. There are some hurts that are too deep to truly heal completely. When that happens perhaps we can forgive that person and even let the anger go, but since we still carry the wounds they inflicted there is no need for us to 'admit them' into our lives. In those cases, if the person is sincere in wanting forgiveness and to 'make amends' then they need prove their 'good intentions' by abiding by our wishes and leaving us alone. But it's very rare that a 'wrong-doer' does that.

I believe seeking forgiveness without accountability is a form of manipulation.

I was raised Catholic and agree on forgiveness. I forgive my abusive exh , and I wish him no harm , but that doesn't mean I want him anywhere near me.

There is manipulation aplenty here. We've heard it all lately. Mil is getting old and would love to see reconciliation , now that bil has died it should change everyone's perspective etc. No one is addressing the issue though , which is that dh was abused as a child and nobody is sorry or holding themselves accountable. He is expected to drop it because "its in the past' according to mil. They seem unable and unwilling to understand how that has shaped my husband as a person and that makes me angry.

Your poor DH. What a nightmare family. Something I heard once is - we all tend to polarise our parents. So, as with your DH, if one parent is spectacularly bad, we are likely to attach ourselves emotionally to the other, hoping for that love and support. His mother has been a bad parent as well as his father, but he is probably desperate to maintain a fiction of a nice relationship with her, in spite of her flaws and failings as a mother. So as not to traumatise him further, perhaps he can go lower contact? He can tell his mother firmly that he is never going to have a relationship with his DF and will stay NC. Therefore he won't tolerate messages from him or about him, he doesn't want to know. I wouldn't normally say this, but could you back him up by tackling Mil yourself by telling her in no uncertain terms that the boundary is no discussion of Fil, and if she breaks the boundary, she goes home?

@GreenCandleWax I'd love to back him up , but I will check with him first. I did politely but firmly tell fil to shut up once when he said something racist. Dh was happy about that , but I'm feeling the need to tread more carefully where mil is concerned.

His email idea is a good one. It’ll help him process everything clearly seeing it in black and white. He needs to be prepared that it may he shared perhaps more widely ie FIL but also other family members ( I speak from experience). It’s also harder for them to say at a later date should things change ( ie FIL leaves again) that they didn’t know everything that went on and that ‘he should have told them’. It puts the blame firmly back with the abusers - what they then choose to do with it he will have no control over put he needs to pass the weight he’s carrying back to where it belongs. Mil is trying to rewrite history . EMDR therapy is excellent for complex PTSD which your husband almost certainly has. I’m not a therapist but I have experience of something very similar. Sending love.

Hopefully he gets something positive from sending the email. My prediction is that mil will show it to fil and any discussion will be based around them having done their best and that it's time to move on. I hear an awful lot of platitudes from mil and fil so more of the same will probably follow.

I find it all very triggering as I spent years getting mentally well again after divorcing my abusive exh. All of this pretending that there isn't a gigantic elephant in the room when mil visits puts me on edge. My natural instinct is to tell people when they're saying lots of words but not actually addressing something properly , which I know is not helpful to dh right now. He needs patience because he's been through a lot and he's still in the thick of it. I think that's the main reason I made this thread actually , I want to do right by my husband.

It is clear how much you want to support your husband and it’s lovely to see x I’m sure he is getting a huge amount of strength right now from you. One thing I’d possibly suggest is that he writes his email but prints it and posts it - recorded delivery. An email is easy for them to forward on or corrupt / alter, whereas a printed letter makes it more difficult ( they’d have to scan or copy or physically show others which makes it harder for them to blag/lie).