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?

Surely forgiveness requires contrition? At any rate no one is owed forgiveness from those they have abused.

And even if your DH chose to forgive, as pp said upthread—that does not imply reconciliation. At best it could eliminate the need for revenge or reprisal. But some argue that forgiveness just resets the relationship back to nothing. Nothing owed and nothing wanted.

So your FIL is a racist adulterer who was abusive to your DH when he was a child but your MIL thinks that you should all forgive and forget?

They sound like a completely toxic pair. Your MIL may have forgiven your FIL but she has no right to use emotional blackmail on your DH.

@thepariscrimefiles in a nutshell , yes. He's an absolute prick. He never liked me because he tried to get me to join in with a 'joke' at mil's expense when dh was in the bathroom and I shut him down and told dh word for word what had been said later on.

My DH and I are in a similar situation. His mum and dad were both psychically and mentally abusive throughout his childhood and adulthood until he had enough money to move out. They still talk to him like absolute crap and he isn't allowed to express any feelings or opinions. We've been together 6 years and I've been around them a handful of times and they're so toxic, draining and bitter. When I was pregnant we acknowledged that these people weren't the type of people we wanted influencing our child's life so we agreed it would be an arms length kind of relationship, we would always be present and no sleep overs etc. (although the fact they've been in our house twice in 5 years, I doubt they would have even made an effort anyway). Just before our baby was born his mother threatened something and carried out that threat that basically affects my child's future (can't go into detail as it would be outing). We agreed that someone like that does not deserve to be around our child. These people have done nothing to try and fix this situation or even try to have a relationship with their grandchild. My husband's grandmother (his mum's mum) is like your MIL, constantly saying how sad it is that they don't see the baby and how we basically should just be the bigger person etc. We told her that for our relationship to work with her all she has to do is basically not mention this situation or push for us to put aside our feelings. We found out she was sending pictures to her daughter of our child and warned her not to do this again or she can't be trusted to be in the child's life because she is disrespecting our boundaries and upsetting my husband as he already feels she is taking his mum's side. She did it again and happily walked out of our child's life when she literally seen our baby every single day. It honestly must be so hurtful for our husbands to come from people who treat them this way and the people who are around it don't even have their back! I think good on him doing the email, it might make him feel better getting it off his chest, but we all know they'll deny everything as these people always do 🙄 x

@PenguinLover24 I'm sorry that your husband is going through this , it's so draining isn't it?

That family dynamic where everyone is buzzing around trying to please the abuser/abusers makes me feel physically sick and children should absolutely be protected from it.

Hopefully dh will have dealt with his mum by the next visit. As it stands though I don't want her here.

My husband opened up about the situation a little more today. I mentioned his mum's change of attitude when he told her firmly about not passing messages on , and he said that when he was a kid she snapped at him often and after a while he stopped sharing his thoughts and opinions. He's seriously considering cutting contact with her. He also admitted that his his mum and dad are similar and it's taken me a while to see the extent of that because his mum has mellowed a lot as she's aged.