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My inlaw/dil dance

Started by confusedbyinlaws, December 17, 2013, 09:48:40 AM

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Pen

I agree. There's no point in being miserable because of a gathering of people you don't care about, but if it was meaningful to your DH it might be worth the effort for his sake. If there is anything positive about a situation I will try to find it. I can't see my DF without seeing my SM. I have one SS who is very kind, so I focus on her and my dad and try to ignore my rude SM. I put up with my rude DIL so I can see DS. And so on.

It would be sad to miss out on a good experience with the people I care about just because of one or two barbs thrown by people I don't care about.

Respect ... is appreciation of the separateness of the other person, of the ways in which he or she is unique.
-- Annie Gottlieb

DixieDarling

You have a wonderful attitude Pen. I like your outlook.

confusedbyinlaws

Pen,  As far as my husband is concerned, he is fine visiting his parents by himself and doesn't think I need to put myself back into that situation if I don't want to.    It's actually more relaxing for him to visit without me.  My BIL and family live near my inlaws now and I am missing seeing them but they will come out here for a visit at some point.  I could go visit BIL and family and not visit inlaws but that just seems like too big of a slap in the face to them.  Going to visit the inlaws would mean sitting in their house with just them and my husband and I and playing cards and putting up with my MIL scrutinizing my appearance and commenting both positive and negatively about what she sees, trying hard to compliment me while occasionally blurting out insults quite the opposite of the compliments.  I just don't have the tolerance for it any more.  I could be in a room with them if I had to, but I don't see myself traveling to the other side of the country to spend a miserable several days with them.

Stilllearning

Confused, since your family lives close to your ILs why do you feel you have to spend all of your time with them?  Why don't you spend say the first and last nights there and the in between nights with your other relatives.  I would not feel it was a slap in the face if you did that to me.  If you limit your exposure two things might happen.  First is that the barbs would hurt less because you have time away to heal in between incidents.  Second is that you may find, over time, that your IL's attitudes and personalities mellow.  I truly believe that we never stop learning and changing and the only way to know if a change has occurred is to chance further pain.  This is what we do for family.....extend second chances.

My FIL died about three years into my now 34 year marriage and my MIL remarried someone who threw barbs all the time.  It was difficult to deal with him for the 18 years they were married.  I was honestly happy when he died (as was my DH).  Every family has issues just like every marriage has bumpy times.  How we handle those issues is what makes families stronger or breaks them apart.   
Your mind is a garden your thoughts are the seeds
You can grow flowers or you can grow weeds.
Author unknown

confusedbyinlaws

Stilllearning,  It is not my family who lives close to inlaws, it is my husband's brother.  Although I haven't had a falling out with my husband's brother, we have never been close.  He used to come visit here a couple of times per year but he would run off doing this or that with my husband and his parents and I didn't usually end up spending much time with him.  I like him well enough, but he hasn't been a big part of my life.  He has recently remarried and his wife seems very nice but I barely know her and I haven't met their children who are not 18 months and a newborn  Although I would be open to them visiting or visiting them, I don't find myself missing them really.
The thing is that I am just a really bad fit with my husband's family and after trying to address the issues with them for the second time a few years ago, I realized that they have never had much concern about my feelings and never treated my much like family.  They are great to my husband and kids and I appreciate that about them, but if I ever spoke up about anything I was feeling that wasn't positive they just blew me off and showed very little concern over my pain. I know it's my pain and not for them to try to fix.  This is not a bumpy time.  The entire relationship has been bumpy.  I don't feel like it's breaking my family apart, because frankly they don't feel much like family to me.  My reaction to them is the big part of the problem, but I grew up in a family where people got angry with each other and eventually talked about it and reached an understanding.  I am not saying it's healthy to wait until you are angry to talk about things, but I think it's worse to completely deny that there are problems of 30 years.  There is no talking to them about anything like that.... there response is just ignore it or get mad and through it back on me. 
Stilllearning, I just don't understand maintaining a relationship with someone who you would later be honestly happy when they died other than he was married to your MIL.  If you could have spent time with MIL without her husband I am sure you would have opted for that. I have that choice.  I can spend time with the people who are important to me without having to endure my inlaws at this point

confusedbyinlaws

Also I won't be happy when my inlaws pass away because people I care about, care about them, but that still doesn't mean I want to spend time with them at this point

Stilllearning

Confused, I guess I could have asked my MIL when her husband would be gone so that we could visit although they were both retired and I never saw her without him.  I also guess I could have invited just her to come and visit me without him but I would have had to ask her pointedly to leave him at home.  Neither of these were polite options.  I guess I could have made my DH visit without me but he really did not like the man either and without me there to calm my DH down things would have been worse. 

I was sad for my MIL when he died.  I went and stayed with her for a week helping her get things together.  It was during that week that we discovered that he had credit cards that were maxed out that he had hidden from my MIL.  I spent that week trying to keep my MIL from hating the man I had disliked for years.  Yes, I was glad he was gone before he could do further financial damage to my MIL.  Oh well.

I apologize for misreading your first post!  I thought you had relatives who lived close to your MIL.  That being said, aren't there people between your house and hers "on the other side of the country" that you would really love to see? 
Your mind is a garden your thoughts are the seeds
You can grow flowers or you can grow weeds.
Author unknown

confusedbyinlaws

Stilllearning,  They (inlaws) live in the East and we live in the West.  My husband has flown out there once or twice per year in the past two years since they moved. It would take too many days to drive out there.  I don't know anyone else in that area but my husband's family  By not going,  I have only missed out on visiting his brother and family.   There are people between our house and theirs I would love to see, and there is no reason I couldn't spend the money for an airline ticket to fly to see them while my husband visits his parents.  I have close girlfriends who have moved away or that I have moved away from that I haven't had the chance to see in years that I would love to visit.  It would be a good idea to go and visit someone I look forward to seeing instead.  Not visiting my inlaws hasn't kept me from seeing anyone I am dying to see.  Not joining my husband for his visits actually could provide an opportunity to see someone I really want to see.  All these years, it's been about me doing something I don't want to do just to keep everyone else happy and I think it's ok to do what makes me happy now.  I don't like that they say they want me to visit and don't like that they might be hurt by the fact that I don't go with my husband, and don't like the guilt I feel about that, but I am so tired of doing things out of guilt.  And how could it be good for anyone for me to go and fake it when I don't have good feelings toward them.    I realize that I played my part in screwing up this relationship, but now after 30 years and all of these bad feelings and very little confidence in them behaving any differently and me reacting any differently, I just simply can't move forward and pretend it's all ok.   

Stilllearning

I live on the east coast.....you could come visit me!!
Your mind is a garden your thoughts are the seeds
You can grow flowers or you can grow weeds.
Author unknown

Pen

I understand, CBI. Spend your time and money on travel that is rewarding for you. Both are not always easy to come by, at least for me.

Respect ... is appreciation of the separateness of the other person, of the ways in which he or she is unique.
-- Annie Gottlieb

confusedbyinlaws

Stilllearning,  Thanks for the offer  :).  Since my inlaws don't know you, I could get away with visiting you without feeling like I have to visit them.  Funny I'd rather visit an almost complete stranger than my inlaws.  I feel bad for feeling that way but it's the way I feel.