PIL and weird boundaries - am I right being uncomfortable?

[detestedDIL]

Does all this ring alarm bells for you about boundaries?

Have been married to DH for 12 years, together for 20. PIL started out fairly friendly but distant, and have got progressively less welcoming, more excluding, and more aggressively unpleasant towards me. FIL is very arrogant, entitled and misogynistic in an old school tie/ bulldoggish kind of way. MIL is terribly grateful for the attention he bestows upon her, and is inclined to use him to enforce things where someone might (resonably) say no. FIL very aggressively enforces what MIL would like, talks over any objections and isn't above a bit of aggressive shouting to make sure he's won.

MIL tries to be way, way too close to my DH and individual grandkids. MIL has always had weird boundaries, being overly close with DH and frustrated/angry that her daughter (SIL) has kept her distance since her teens. She kisses DH and grandkids all on the lips (including my 50 year old DH, ugh), treats them like dolls dressing them up, feeds them by hand, is suffocatingly physically close. Always wants them on her lap, always has an arm around one or more of them. Always wants time with them alone, away from the gaze of other adults. Was incensed when DH started organising his own doctor and dentist visits as a 30 year old. Wanted to go in and change his pyjamas and give him a bed bath when he was 44 and had covid when we were staying at their house, and got really angry with me when I repeatedly suggested he could do that himself and she should really probably try not to catch covid. She then crowed about having done it anyway expressly against my wishes when I went out, saying that DH is her son and she'll do what she likes.

FIL aggressively enforces her "right" to such closeness, and has been aggressive towards me since DS9 was a baby because I've repeatedly stonewalled/ grey-rocked any suggestions that MIL should have time alone with DS, and have never held him in place so MIL could kiss him on the lips (in fact I've always made sure he's nowhere near her when this seems likely).

One of SIL's children (aged 13) is persona non grata because he's challenged MIL's boundaries and the rudeness of FIL's enforcing. MIL no longer kisses this child on the lips, nor seeks physical closeness with him, interestingly. He stays out of her way at family gatherings. The other GC (including the 17 year old) are still very much enmeshed with her, all over her like puppies, and she lights up when they're around.

DH has multi-year parts of his childhood that he has blanked out, where he can remember literally nothing. He is too frightened of his father's response to tell his mother not to kiss him on the lips. Over the years she's said things like "It's to show he's all mine" to me, after she's ostentatiously smooched him. DH finds it intrusive but is too afraid of his father to ever tell her to stop.

MIL and FIL are very aggressive towards me because I don't allow DS9 to have unsupervised time with them: they've recently banned me from their house. DS9 goes to visit them with DH for a couple of hours at a time, when we visit their city once or twice a year. I have told DH that it will be divorce proceedings the instant that he ever allows DS9 to go off with MIL unsupervised. DH agrees that the attitudes are strange, and so far has successfully enforced zero time for DS9 alone with MIL or FIL.

This all comes across as very unhealthy, right?

Generally I try not to dwell on it all too much, but I know that at some point they will be demanding that DS9 visit them alone, and I really don't want that to happen. I also know that DH is likely to be unable to stand up to his father if FIL decides to force the issue.

Same. This is not, and never has been, normal or widespread practice AFAIK.

Agree with everyone else, OP. Your DS will lose nothing if he never sees these weirdos again - and who knows, going no contact may even encourage your DH to follow suit, though it sounds like he’ll definitely need professional support to fully break ties with them.

Your MIL forcing inappropriate intimacy on her relatives is a bizarre and disgusting form of control. Deep down she knows it’s unwanted but does it anyway, to assert her will and dominance. Bed bathing a 44 year old man, against his and his partner’s wishes, is sickening. It’s more important to protect your child from this craziness than to facilitate a relationship with abusive unpleasant people just because they’re blood relations.

Your dh needs therapy. He was raised in an abusive home. He finds it hard to challenge and that is understandable.
Your in laws are vile. Stand firm and explain to your dh that his childhood was not normal.
I would also ban them from your home.
Be glad you don’t have to see them but protect your child.

Sounds like your husband could do with some counselling to have an external opinion on the weirdness/absence of normal boundaries and some support in standing up for himself. Otherwise it will probably all come flooding out when his parents die

no my point was my own dm was horrified by it, she was born in the 1930s
so whatever age - some are ok with it, and some are not

This rings huge alarm bells OP, from my professional background I think there’s some serious psychological problems at best and at worst some form of abuse has gone on here for different members of the family.
Personally i would not allow your DS to see them unless you are there as you know your DH can’t hold boundaries: ideally I’d stop all contact but I can see why that’s hard.

Wanted to go in and change his pyjamas and give him a bed bath when he was 44

What the actual f have I just read?!

I would emigrate to fiji. Wtf. Battttshittt.

(Sorry. Not helpful! I'm too gobsmacked )

Sorry - but the intervention you need to impose is with your DH. He needs to go no contact and get some therapy. And there is no reason on earth why a child HAS to have a relationship facilitated with grandparents when they are so obviously borderline incestuous and utterly inappropriate.

In fact I would be telling DH that you are already in divorce territory because he needs to do all this anyway and thereby deny PILs access to your DS at all. It sounds as though SIL could benefit from doing the same.

Some families kiss on the lips, probably most don't. We never did it would be a hug and maybe a peck on the cheek, but I know families who always kiss on the lips, I assume it's just a quick kiss not a snog. To jump from that to incest is a bit of a reach. MIL and FIL both sound rather over bearing and MIL a bit overly affectionate to DS DGCs but I would say better that than the other way. You for some reason 'protecting' your DS from his GM seems a bit much really, do you really think she's a sexual predator who abused her son and wants to abuse her GS?

@AnonyMumAuDHD if we divorce, what's to stop DH from having his parents round here all the time and them becoming primary carers for DS while DH works? That's the main reason I'm trying to tread a bit softly here rather htan leap in all guns blazing...

Also, everyone is focusing on MIL, but granddad being aggressive and forceful would be enough on its own for me to severely reduce contact, if not stop altogether. No kid needs to be subject to that especially if FIL is pandered to.

@chirrupybird I genuinely don't know. On balance of probability she's just overly affectionate with boundary issues and FIL is just a bit of a sh*t, but the thing is I genuinely don't know. The dissociative amnesia in DH and the reaction to SIL and nephew distancing themselves does make me wonder a bit.

Why are you trying to facilitate a relationship between your son and PIL? None of you, including your SIL, like them and you are even considering going to therapy because of them. Why do you want your child mixed up in that? Their refusal to have you stay seems like a free pass to be honest, you don't need to make up excuses not to see them as you are not welcome. If you are not welcome, none of you go. I would be using this as an advantage and to put even further distance between your family and them. I would say eventually your husband will relent on the time alone rule with your DS because he can't say no to them amd has trouble enforcing his own boundaries. You have to travel to see them, or invite them to stay with you as they don't live close...well just stop! Try and quiet quit! Phone calls and face time only, just be permenantly 'busy'!

Why on earth are facilitating a relationship between them and DS? Just tell them by text that you don't like the way they behave so you and DS won't be seeing them again. And support DH who is probably traumatised after an abusive childhood.

This.

Sorry, but dh resorts to ‘their rules’ at their house, so agree boundaries you insist on will fail.

Not suggesting you actually divorce - but you need to tell DH that it is concerning you enough that you are considering it unless he seeks help - and yes, you can get an injunction to deny your PIL access in the grounds you cite if you needed to. They have no legal right of access in the UK to grandchildren.

Can you speak to your sil as to why they’ve taken that action?

I’m also born in the 1960’s it’s absolutely not normal. I don’t know anyone who does this. I have certainly never done it , and no parent or grandparent has kissed me on the lips.

well perhaps it is not an age thing

Jesus wept. Father in law is a tyrant, mother in law kisses son on lips then says to OP "It's to show he's all mine".

These people are wildly disfunctional, he's aggressive, she's manipulative and bananas. Her lip kissing is not about love, it's about territory marking. Maybe not incestuous but absolutely rotten to the core.

OP - are you thinking of divorcing your DH imminently? If not your children will be older should you separate but by staying in contact with these GRIM people now you are visiting their assholery on children who are vulnerable. Vulnerable like your DH was when they fucked him up so much he blocked out large parts of his childhood.

There were people like your in laws in my childhood and they got away with what they did by being OBJECTIONABLE, inappropriate, shocking all the good people into cow towing.

I regret every fucking minute I was subjected to those bastards.

If you put up with this you will regret it.

Edited to add - my uncle used to kiss me on the lips. It was only a peck, not a snog, but my goodness, I'm 60 and can still feel those kisses on my lips and feel sick thinking about it.

Both of your PIL are abusive, @detestedDIL

Forcing unwanted physical contact on others is abusive, I think it could constitute sexual abuse.

Shouting and making unreasonable 'demands' of people is verbal abuse and coercive control.

Your husband is still suffering from the abusive childhood he experienced.

You are not required to facilitate a relationship between these people and your DS, in fact, legally you are required to protect him from it.

I would be going NC with them completely, which would benefit all three of you. What are they like with your DS and you during the Zoom calls?!

What happens when FIL shouts at you? How does DH react? What does MIL do when this happens? All sounds very weird.

The fact that her own son has mentally blanked out whole years of his own childhood, is terrified of his bullying father even at 50, and refuses to discuss the lip-kissing thing in relation to himself (even though he acknowledges she should not be allowed to force it on his child), suggests some kind of deep trauma/abuse. Not necessarily sexual in nature, but enough to mentally fuck up his head for a lifetime.

Forcing unwanted intimacy is nothing to do with affection, it’s to do with control. ‘Look what I can do to you even if you don’t want it’. And is easy to cover with the plausible deniability of ‘it’s because I love you so much’, meaning anyone who pushes back can be deemed cold and hurtful, and be punished for their resistance.

If by ‘better that than the other way’ you mean the alternative is to be emotionally distant and unaffectionate, I’d say neither of these are normal or healthy ways of parenting, and cause equal - and serious - damage to children.

Gross. Regardless of his reasons your husband is spineless in the face of his toxic parents. I would not trust any of them with the welfare of my children.

You've said very little about what your DH makes of it all. If he's happy or accepting of the way they treat him and his DC, if he reluctantly puts up with it as it's "their" way, or if he wishes you'd embrace their way as well and be a big happy (kissy) family.

The lip kissing is odd, but probably only happens once or twice per visit? The shouting is unpleasant. But I'd probably tolerate an annual or twice annual visit if that was all it was. (Likely I'd frequently have "a cold sore coming on, or a cold starting, best to keep distance).

What do you (and DH) think the amnesiac childhood periods means? Does he or you ever talk to SIL about them?

My stepdads family are lip kissers and my family are very much not that tactile so it was a mind boggling mix, I hated being kissed on the lips by adults though. Obviously not my boyfriends or now husband but yeah, family kissing on lips is odd especially as adults. I just stopped allowing it by going for a hug instead and never an issue, that's the difference.

Your PIL are weird and unhealthy, and the irony is your MIL is crowing about her perceived closeness with her son when his abiding memory of her will he the discomfort of having his feeling squashed and physical recoiling from being kissed on the mouth. What a narcissistic pair.