# In-Laws: Need Advice Please!



## Timmar317 (Aug 16, 2011)

I am going to give as much information as possible, as I am hoping to get some really good advice and opinions. Thanks in advance to anyone who reads! 

Let me start from the beginning. I met my husband's family a couple of weeks before we got engaged at a family birthday gathering. They weren't overly friendly, but they weren't at all rude.

When we got engaged, my husband informed me that his mother thought we were moving too quickly... I had never wanted to spend money on a wedding, and to avoid family drama we planned a quick wedding (one month after our engagement). From the beginning he told me his mother was manipulative and controlling, and clearly this marriage wasn't starting out the way SHE wanted it too. My husband is the youngest of ten children, and has been previously married. Apparently they all liked his ex-wife, but think she was very weak (She must have bent to all of his mother's desires). I am very independent and strong-willed, as my own mother knows, and NO ONE will hold me back from what I want. 

On the other side, my mother was and has been consistently supportive of our beautiful love. We spend a lot of time with her, and she is always pleasant and loves my husband like her own son. 

A week after the engagement, we chose to have my mother meet his parents before our upcoming small family wedding. My husband planned a nice lunch at a restaurant for the meeting. My mom was thrilled to meet them. Let me interject here that his father is AMAZING. Very very sweet. This is mostly about my mother-in-law. From the time she walked in that restaurant, she was ANGRY. She refused to eat... (like a 5 year old?). The entire meal was so unpleasant, as she glared at us, and made disrespectful comments to my husband about how he needed to call his aunts and uncles to explain "our situation" because she wasn't going. It was like I was 16 and he had knocked up. We are independent adults and perfectly capable of making adult decisions.

The horrible encounter left my mom in tears. She was excited to meet her new family and let them know how happy she was to have Tim as a son-in-law, and everyone left feeling defeated. My mom then of course has the discussion with me regarding "If you marry him, you're marrying into that family." I discussed my concerns with him, he promised we would have our own family, and reassured me our lives would be seperete from them. I could tell he was very hurt at the way his mom acted, but certainly not surprised. She called later, and he told her she was not to treat his future wife and mother-in-law that way, and told her that he wanted none of his family to celebrate our marriage. We then decided to elope to our church, with only our mom.

I suppose this reaction hurt her deeply, and of course she, and the rest of the family place blame on me for making him act that way.

I had become Facebook friends with his sister in law. He had told me she had been good friends with his ex-wife, but they hadn't spoken in over a year, and she'd probably want to become best friends with me. We chatted a few times, talked about going to Starbucks. I really looked forward to having this new family! A week before we got married, the sister in law posted on Facebook that she was hanging out with her "BFF", my husband's ex-wife. She wanted to make sure I saw it, and deleted me three days later. (She's in her 30s, really?) At this point, I became angry that a family member would disrespect my husband. After the divorce, they had all promised they were on his side and would want nothing to do with his ex-wife. I felt like this action was disrespectful to my husband and our marriage.

For about 3 months after we got married, communication between my husband and his family was limited. We still got invited to all the family get-togethers, but polite declines by my husband let to guilt-trip manipulative e-mails from his mother. It was horrible. I am just so thankful she's not my mother.

Finally, on father's day, he decided to go to the family get together. I refused to go, but sent some baked goods. He claims everything went fine. 

I sent e-mails apologizing for not being able to make it. His father responded sweetly, and his mother coldly.

A couple of weeks ago, I agreed to go with him to pick up some tires at his parent's house (they live about 30 minutes from us). I did this for him. I am a christian and consider myself loving and forgiving. I love my husband very much, and I know how hard it is for him to be torn. I figured this may be a good opportunity to let them spend a little bit of time with me.

When we first got there, she acted like I didn't even exist. Finally my husband went outside with his father to get the tires, and she was forced to speak with me. She did nothing but insult and degrade me. She asked me questions, and when I answered she would respond with "Oh." She is one of those people who thinks she is better than everyone, and on top of that her son is Godlike and no one is good enough for him, especially not me. *sigh* I left so defeated, cried for hours, it took a few days for me to move past it. 

While there, his parents gave us a couple of gifts his brother had left for our wedding. I sent him an e-mail thanking him. No response. They seriously ALL hate me...

This weekend, my husband wanted to invite them to look at the house we are considering buying. I told him NO! I don't want to hear her complain and ruin all of my dreams.

My husband is an amazing man, we truly believe we are soulmates. His family is the only thing that ever causes tension between us, and he truly doesn't know how to deal with it.

On one end I feel like I shouldn't let them have any power to cause stress in our marriage or to change any plans I have for my life (because clearly that show them that they are winning) but at the other end, I feel like I don't deserve the way they disrespect my husband and treat me.

Sadly, I feel like I can't start a family with my husband until his mother dies. I don't want her to have that kind of power over me, but I also don't want to live a miserable life and subject my children to that negativity.

Obviously she is going to pass away sometime during our marriage. I don't want that day to come and there be guilt for my husband, or hard feeling between us and his family, but I don't think I deserve the disrespect, and I will never be comfortable with the big family get-togethers. I want quaint holidays with my little family, as I was raised. Apparently they aren't okay with this.

The anxiety of the holidays coming up consumes me. He says "I wish you could love my family like I love yours." But the difference is, they haven't welcomed me AT ALL, not even given the chance to get to know me. (((

I think this covers the basics... hope you can follow. :/


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## tamara24 (Jul 14, 2010)

I know this is tough. I have also been through it. My husband and I were engaged at 22 and married at 23. His mother and aunt informed him he was marrying into a hillbilly family. They did not even know me. They would call and invite my hubby to dinner and he would go. I never wanted him to have to choose between his family and me. The week before my wedding, his mother tells me that she does not feel like I included her in the wedding. I stood firm and in front of my husband and told her that it was hard to include someone that had made no bones about the fact I was a hillbilly and she never tried to talk to me to get to know me. She was mad. She did show up for the wedding wearing black. 

My hubby and I have been married eighteen years now. I never make him choose and he is welcome to see them at any point. I do go over and she informs me what I do wrong and what I could do better but I look at the fact her hubby left her without so much as a warning because she made him totally miserable. She will not give me any advice on how to keep my marraige.

My hubby did listen to her when she informed him that since I was a stay at home mom, it was my job to handle the house, the laundry,the bills, groceries, and two special needs kids. And anything else that popped up because he worked. It nearly ruined our marraige and he missed out on a relationship with his kids. 

My advice to you is this. His aunt has now stated I am the best thing that ever happened to her nephew. I killed her with kindness. Invited her over for dinner, included her in all the holidays as she is alone. Asked for a couple of recipes, asked for advice with my last two years of college. His mom has come around but I have learned to set limits. When she is rude I call her on it now. I used to keep quiet as my granny will smack me silly if she thought I was disrespectful to my MIL. But recently I had surgery and got home Friday and she was here on Monday. After the fourth day of me sitting on the couch and napping between washing clothes,making every meal, and doing things for her, she turns around and says is this what you do when my son is working? I stated, Yep, I sit here on my keester all day, eat bon bons and watch the pool boy. Normally, I would have just said no. My sister in law who everybody dislikes started this and I felt she was really rude as she gets just plain nasty. But I find that my MIL prefers to spend more time at our house than my BIL because she can't stand the dealing with my SIL. Since my MIl is manipulative,controlling, and lies, I make sure if it is something important I say it in front of my hubby. If she is rude as she informed my son we had to get rid of his dog as we did not need any more animals(we have two dogs), I just looked at my son and stated you will keep your dog. This is our family and mommy and daddy will make those decisions that involve our home and until we tell you different, no onbe elses opinion matters. That shut her up. What I am trying to convey is basically, let her make her silly remarks until she is just rude. Walk away when you can. But when she is being rude and continuing, you need to put her in her place. You can always say, listen, you have made no attempt to get to know me or my family and I choose not to be disrespectful of you because you are my husbands mother and I don't want him to have to choose or take sides between us. All I ask is that even if you dislike me, that you respect the fact I am your son's wife. Do not let her cross your boundries. She will either come around or she won't. That is her choice. Your choice is that you don't make the hubby choose. Never make him feel bad about going to see his parents and always try to join him evn if you have to grit your teeth the entire time. The more she sees she is not going to come between you(like you not going to family events), she will give up. Once you get the general, the rest of the family will fall in line. Also remember, the hubby is just caught in the middle. No matter how he chooses, he will hurt somebody. So by giving him a guilt free oppurtunity to see his family, he will start seeing how his mom treats you more ands he will decide if he wants to keep her toxicicity in his life. Just keep the high road! Hope this helps!


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## Timmar317 (Aug 16, 2011)

18 years! Congratulations! And thank you for taking the time to respond and give me hope!

They have to have a HUGE family party for every occasion, holidays, birthdays, etc. I want quiet holidays at home with my husband... is there any way to cut out these big parties? Or is wrong of me to ask my husband that we don't ever attend those?

I see what you're saying, if he goes, and I don't. she gets what she wants... but seriously, do all of my holidays have to be ruined?


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## 4sure (Aug 8, 2010)

Sweet Timmar, my advice take one MIL moment at a time. Deal with it as it comes.
I've been married almost 16 years, and yeah have had my share of the MIL moments.
NEVER allow her to believe she has put a wedge between you and her son. When you are around her, be positive, joyfull, very much in love, playful and affectionate with her son.

My MIL has pulled some doozies in her time. At the beginning I would cry, and allow it to effect me. Now I feel sorry for her. She is hateful. Every now and then she will still say or do something, but now it really doesn't bother me at all.

I would often ask my H if he was adopted, I swear I don't see how my H could have come from her.


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## tamara24 (Jul 14, 2010)

You and your hubby are your own family so you get to decide together which occasions you want to go to together. My hubby and I would trade off holidays.If we spend Christmas with my family this year, then next year we spend it with his. When the kids came along, my kids came. First then we decided together how we wanted to do the holidays. Major events such a MIL's bday or baptism we are always there. Sit down with the hubby and try to do a little planning so he has time to say mom, this year we are. Not coming over for Thanksgiving. We are spending it with her family,but we will be spending Christmas Day with you. One year, mymy mom had Thanksgiving at noon and then we went to his parents at dinner. It is all about working together as a team. NEVER let MIL think she is under your skin, this will fuel the fire.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Timmar317 (Aug 16, 2011)

Thank you. You're right. I have been giving her exactly what she wanted. My hubby is caught in the middle and today he told me he will not give up his lifelong family relationships (which I have never asked him to do), then alluded to divorce (scares me that that is even an option in his mind, but that's another story). I have taken the liberty of inviting his parents to our house for dinner this weekend. They obliged. I can have them here on my turf so they can have more of a chance to get to know me.


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