- Pregnancy
- Baby & Toddler
- Parents
- Getting Pregnant
- Baby Names
- Product Reviews
-
Registry
- Community
-
More
Want a personalized experience?
Download the free app
Toddlers: 12 - 24 Months
IL drama about Christmas...already...opinions please
DH and I are hosting Christmas Eve at our house. I sent out an email inviting everyone and saying we're hosting from 11-4:00 (after that we're going to dinner with my family). We also did this because SIL and MIL have been 1-2 hours late to things the last 3 years at every gathering, so we figured this would get people there on time. Here is the response I got from FIL today:
Hi Erin,
Thanks for your note. I will do my best to comply with your constraints. Let me know if Christmas Eve becomes too much of a burden.
Regards.
Apparently the whole family has called DH and is "offended" by the timetable, and wants and open door even where people can come and go ALL DAY as they please. WTF people? And they all know DH and I are going through a really rough patch, and we are now arguing about this. (Edit: neither FIL or MIL have hosted a single family gathering for any holiday since the day I met DH). My thoughts: if you want it YOUR way, YOU host it.
What would your response be to this email, if any?
This discussion has been closed.
Re: IL drama about Christmas...already...opinions please
Well, as you and DH are arguing about it, that tells me that he isn't backing you up on this issue. he wants to give them an open door.
Is his family a part of the issues you two are having?
~Benjamin Franklin
DS dx with celiac disease 5/28/10
Yes, he isn't backing me up. Whenever his family doesn't agree with something he folds. They also treat me like cr@p. And honestly, they are pretty weird people just in general. Harvard PhD's that think they know it all. FIL let DH live with him when he was 15 and FIL travelled 90% of the time internationally, leaving DH alone all the time to drink and party, which I honestly think is a HUGE reason he's an alcoholic. SIL is a drama queen, too, hurt by FIL/MIL's divorce, on tons of meds and in therapy and constantly trying to overstep her bounds and create drama.
Honestly, if they disappeared we'd have an amazing marriage. They are 95% of what we fight about. It's so sad. I didn't know them before DH and I got married, but he's wanted them to be a huge part of our lives since then. If I had a FFFC left from yesterday I'd probably say I wouldn't have married DH if I'd known this were what I was marrying into.
DD #1 passed away in January 2011 at 14 days old due to congenital heart disease
DD#2 lost in January 2012 at 23 weeks due to anhydramnios caused by a placental abruption
As this seems to be kind of "The" issue in your marriage, I don't know what to say. A part of me says I'd just cancel it all together. Let the fallout happen, and go see you family as planned.
I don't know how you've dealt w/ this issue in the past, but I have to wonder if action (the cancelling of plans) might be something to make your DH realize how serious this is to you.
~Benjamin Franklin
DS dx with celiac disease 5/28/10
Your response to the email should be "Hope to see you there!"
DH's response to the phone calls should be "This is when we're available, because we're spending the morning together with Noah and then going out with Erin's parents, who also want to see us. If you don't want to come during a specific time frame, then I guess we'll see you____ (insert Christmas Day, New Years, whenever your next GTG is)."
And Erin, seriously? How can you be married to someone who allows their family to treat you like crap? YOU are his family now. I went through something similar with DH and his family, and we moved to get away from them. They are now super polite and kind, because they know that bad-mouthing/disrespecting me won't go over. I hope you and your DH can work things out, but I also really hope that you aren't just staying in a marriage with an alcoholic who doesn't prioritize you, for the wrong reasons
This. Erin, sometimes you say things that make me want to smack you, but other times I just want to sit you down and talk to you like a small child and then give you a big hug. If your husband is honestly putting his parents and sister before you, then you need to step back and ask yourself if you really want to keep dealing with it. If he wants to just cave and let them have their open-door visitation that day, let him. Then at the time you originally planned to take Noah to your family's house, leave. Pack the boy up and walk out. If your husband wants to come with you, he can tell his family to head out. If he wants to stay and entertain his folks, let him, and then I'd seriously consider what that means to your marriage.
Mes Petit Choux
I can't go back to yesterday - because I was a different person then. ~ Alice
I'd say heck with it and just cancel and take the kids to my parent's house or do something that I would like to do. If your H wants to wait around for them all day then he can do just that and he can be the one to prepare the food and clean the house. Now, I know this probably wouldn't be the healthiest thing for your marriage, but I don't know what advice I can give there besides seek counseling. The fact that he lets them treat you like crap and puts their wishes and desires before yours is not good at all.
This. In fact I did this last year. DH's family had a hissy fit that DS and I weren't coming over until DH got off work so I said fine, we aren't coming at all. I wrote my MIL and told her that in light of her rather childish reaction to waiting until her son was off work to come over that her grandson and I would not be coming.
Ladies, I have to say I completely and wholeheartedly agree with you. DH DOES NOT stand up to his family for me. First off, it's so sad that they act the way they do. But I'd be able to deal with it if my own husband didn't just cave to them.
LO's birthday: SIL INSISTED on having it at her house because it was her 4th of July party. She had wet hair when the party started and spent the first hour of it getting ready! Then she got sloppy, was holding LO and started running around with him. I yelled out for her to stop and FIL went off on me. I cried the whole way home....90 minutes home. DH booked a vacation with them without me 2 weeks later. He constantly and consistently chooses them over me.
Honestly, I blow up at him: hence our fight last week. I feel like I cannot take this anymore, but then I think of the alternative. Is my marriage really worth giving up because we don't see eye-to-eye on Christmas Eve? Should I just cave? I keep saying, it's not worth ending your marriage. But the huge issue is DH choosing me over his family. Honestly, it makes me feel like it's dictatorship: not a marriage. DH has even gone so far as to ask me to go into my corporate office (I work at home) once a week so he can have his family over (during the day!). I haven't shared a lot of this because I know it's flameful. I feel so stuck, so upset, and I used to be this happy amazing person and have turned into an unhappy roll-over-and-take-it overlooked spouse.
I know some of you have lost a lot of respect for me based on situations in my life. Please know that I DO feel the same as you, I just haven't made the decision to walk out on it yet. Then I'd be splitting my time with LO and IL's (who are bananas) would be around him without me, and I feel like it would have a negative impact on him in the long run like it did on DH. UGH.
Literally, I've asked DH to tell them if they want it their way to host it themselves, but he refuses to cancel it. And trust me, they are the types that will show up no matter what I say. I can go spend the night at my dad's, but really????? I won't be forced out of my own home for these idiots.
I would still cancel and take your child somewhere else. HE can host his parents all by himself. I wouldn't call it being forced out of your home but more spending the holiday as you please.
Please stop placing the blame on yourself and your ILs. If your marriage was to dissolve it was because YOUR H let it happen not because of what you did.
To be perfectly honest, I wouldn't put up with this for the rest of my life and I would throw him out and change the locks. You know perfectly well this isn't over Christmas Eve, this is him not upholding his marriage vows he made to you to put you first.
I have to agree with these ladies
This is a little off topic, but if your biggest concern is them being around LO without you, then start documenting reasons you don't want them around now. You can get a court order saying they can't have any unsupervised visits with him. You can even get an order saying they aren't allowed to be around him without you. A good friend just did this.
I'm sorry if this has already been said, I would just hate for you to be stuck and miserableness when there is a legitimate fix to it all.
Have you two considered couples therapy to deal with all of the issues? It might help.
You are a drama queen.
I'm starting to think your ILs and husband are the sane ones.
Can I just tell you something? My mother stayed married to someone she shouldn't, and its going on 27 years now. It's total and utter crap, and it makes me SO upset and SO frustrated. As someone who loves her, I would much rather have seen her leave my father and be happy than spend the rest of her life miserable. As a child who grew up in a home with two parents who were miserable, who were always fighting and having issues, I can say with certainty, that it would have been a million times better for me to live with one stable, capable parent than two unhappy ones. And honestly, the excuses about being afraid of losing custody, being afraid of how the divorce would affect me and my sister, etc, etc, just piss me off. My life would have been so much better if she'd left. And I know your DH is a good dad, but regardless, if you're unhappy in your marriage then you are both going to be unhappy in your lives, and this will affect your LO. BTW, one of the major issues in my parents' marriage was my father's mother, and the power she had over him. He consistently put her above the rest of us, and it was ridiculous. I'm not saying this of your ILs, but that woman is pure evil, and the fact that my father let her call the shots for so long was inexcusable and ridiculous.
Your DH isn't even really part of this marriage anymore, honestly. It's like you're his girlfriend, not his wife. And not even a girlfriend he cares about very much. I'm sorry to be blunt, I'm not trying to hurt you, I just read your posts and they make me want to bash my head against a wall because I'm SO frustrated for you. I know I'm an e-stranger and nothing I say will make any difference, so I'm not even sure why I'm typing this, but I just feel like I need to tell you that if you leave your DH, it will be okay. Better than okay. I can't remember if you were married before this or just engaged, but you don't need to stay in this relationship to prove anything. You're young, you're hot, you can find someone better, and show your son what a real marriage is supposed to look like. Otherwise he may grow up treating women like garbage, just like your DH
Lastly, it is not your ILs fault that your DH is an alcoholic. Maybe it was their fault when he was a teen, but he is now an adult and needs to take responsibility for himself. My mother, my whole life, has made excuses for my father because he never knew his dad and was raised by a horrible woman. But regardless, there comes a time when everyone needs to man up, overcome their childhood, and become the person THEY want to be. And that includes you.
I'm sure I have way overstepped my bounds here, and I'm sorry about that, but your life makes me sad and I want better for you
First I would talk to your dh and tell him as your husband he should back you up. While my dh and i are not always on the same page about things, he would never allow his family to treat me badly.
Then I would respond with something along the lines of - Thank you for getting back to me so quickly. xmas eve is no burden at all, we are looking forward to it and I know Ds is really looking forward to seeing his grandpa and grandma.
And leave it at that. if they can not make the time to see your ds, it is their loss. No sense in making any more issues that already seem to be present.
I completely agree with this. You can get advice, you can get flamed, but ultimately it is up to you. You are in an abusive relationship... he is clearly emotionally abusive toward you and treats you like a second class citizen. If you had more respect for yourself, you would take your son and leave. If you can't muster up the respect to do it to make your own life better, do it for your son... this is not a healthy environment, nor is it appropriate for him to grow up thinking that it is okay to treat women the way his father does.
ITA with mandolyn. The issue is respect. I would not tolerate DH allowing his family to behave that way towards me. You & your DH have your own family unit, should be making decisions together and backing each other up.
Agree 100%. Stop making excuses for him as to why he treats you like crap. It's not the ILs fault. It's his.
A fight over Christmas Eve is a symptom of a bigger problem.
Thank you ladies for all your advice. I ask for advice on here even if I think I'll get flamed because I really value your opinions. I honestly prefer to get YOUR advice than my friends because you are not biased and all of us (bumpies) come from such different backgrounds.
Calins: thank you for sharing your mom's story. You did NOT overstep your bounds. It was really awesome of you to feel comfortable telling me that. It is helpful. I agree with you: lately I've been thinking that this is not going to work if the issues with IL's don't change, and every day/month/year I waste is that less of my life I'll have being happy if/when things with DH end. I really hope the best for your mom. I know you have mentioned her situation, and I think she was trying to leave him sometime ago (my bumpie memory is a bit hazy-??).
Mandolyn and AfterAll, I DO agree with you. I used to get offended at IL's, but I've become so indifferent to them that I'm now focusing on the issue within my marriage, which is that DH doesn't put me first.
I have to say: there are a ton of good things I don't put on here at risk of being an AW: he is an AMAZING dad, does more than his fair share of parenting, works very hard, has quit drinking when it became an issue in our marriage, takes LO to daycare every single morning and gets me coffee on the way home, supports my side-job of my antique business by yardsaling with me on weekends....etc....SO, this is just a very hard decision on whether to give up all the good things about our marrigage for this one VERY large sticking point.
Again, I really appreciate your advice. I know that each of you took time to type out responses to help me, and even the frankest of advice is very much appreciated. I really think highly of most of you ladies, which is why I've stuck around despite frequent flaming, to share in your lives and ask you for advice when I need it.
We have a little drama here, too. Now with 3 little ones, I refuse to hop planes and drive around making everyone happy. Your parents love and support you and want to be with you? Why not open CHristmas Eve up to an all day event and include your parents? That way his family can "ooze" as we call it here on their time table and your parents aren't left out. We open our home up and invite my parents (not local), MIL (local) and FIL and his wife (not so local) for all holidays here.
Then it's up to everyone else to decide if they want to be grown up and visit with us and if they don't it's on them, not us. THis works beautifully and while MIL is bent out of shape and pouts if/when she comes, she is local and if she were so inclined, could visit at other times.
As all pps said, you have a lot on your plate. I think possibly you hosting is opening a can of worms. If your marriage can limp along through this, I strongly urge you to take nothing more on your plate. Don't open your home and marriage up to their toxicity, and let your DH handle the communication and interaction. It sounds like everyone would be better off if your H were to take a vacation a year with them and save you the strain of being around them. When you stop initiating and inviting, they have no more fodder. If they miss your DS and complain to DH, let them invite you all over, or have DH arrange a day for them to come over, but let him deal. Seems like he's kinda skating along like an air hockey puck allowing you to take the onus of pleasing them and just kinda bumping around so he isn't actually involved or engaged with either you or his family.
Well, I'll be the voice of dissent. There are TWO PEOPLE in your marriage. The problems are not 100% his. You are a part of what is wrong, and you have to do some work to fix it, too. I have no idea, really, of all of your past dramas, but if you've been enabling this type of behavior for years, you share some of the blame for things being the way that they are.
FWIW, I've seen posts on here where you seem to have SO little respect for your husband. I would NEVER talk about my husband like that--saying his life was a waste, failure, etc before you met him and then your influence turned things around. If he feels demeaned, no wonder he's defensive and maybe takes a stand on random issues, like his family or Christmas Eve.
If the problem here was just Christmas Eve, I would say that your husband should handle it with his own family, not you, starting with sending the email about the hours, and any follow up negotiations that need to take place. If he's not willing to do that, then you just make your own plans for you and your son, and your husband chooses whether he goes with you or caters to his family. And then you chose how you react to that choice.
If you're not willing to change the enabling, and the indulging in the drama, he's probably not going to change, either. You are both in this marriage and you are both responsible to at least some extent for the current state of affairs. Unless you're both willing to change, and I think you need the help of a counselor or outside party to do so, it's not going to get any better and you'll be posting more of the same next week, next year, etc.
I'm glad I didn't offend you.
To answer your question about my mom, she was trying to leave and set up a separation, but then she got really sick so now she's kind of stuck
If we had a house we'd let her come live with us, but it just isn't possible. It's very frustrating and sad.
Sorry to hear you have drama also. It's so hard to deal with with just one LO, I can't imagine with 3 LO's. And I DO have to LOL at the term "ooze"...I may have to start using that one when it comes to IL's.
I'm going to have to eat humble pie and say I see your point. I DO lack some of the respect I need to have for him. FWIW, some of the things on here I am just venting and don't actually say to him. Honestly, him not being able to stand up to IL's makes me have less respect for him. I totally own up to that. And I agree with OP's that I'm contributing to the issue by staying and putting up with it. He's suck a good dad, it's sad that we have had these two super sticky issues: 1. Alcoholism 2. Family, both of which he both does and doesn't have control over. I think in the end it's going to be how he acts going forward with IL's. He quit drinking for the sake of our LO and our marriage, now I need him to put me and our little family unit first.
Calins, here is what I was trying to say:
I am so sorry to hear that. That is so sad that after all those years she was so close to leaving and is stuck. Is she going to be okay? T&P for her, and thank you again for sharing her story.
Erin, I really agree with the bolded part. Your DH is abusive. I think one thing that's hard for a lot of people to realize is that abusive people aren't necessarily 100% bad. They can have great qualities and even reasons as to why they are the way they are. It doesn't change the fact that they're abusive though.
My dad was/is emotionally abusive to me, my mom and my younger sister and it has caused so many issues for me that I'm really only beginning to work through. My mom is still with him and I have a lot of issues with her as well because of it, the most difficult for me to deal with is how angry I am at her for not protecting my sister and I. I understand that she felt she couldn't leave, but I'm still very angry about it and working on how to deal with that.
My dad is now getting help for depression (I doubt he'll ever admit that the way he acted towards us was abusive) and his attitude is much better, but I'm still not sure if it's just too little too late.
I highly recommend trying some counseling and deciding from there if this is something that can be fixed. Your relationship with DH is going to be Noah's example of what a normal relationship should be. It's so hard to realize as an adult that you had a bad example growing up and pretty much everything you learned about how to act is highly ineffective. You need to relearn how to relate to everyone from acquaintances to loved ones, even yourself. It's not quick and it's not easy.
::hugs::
This.
Wow, Robbie, I am so sorry you went through that. It's so sad how people can affect their LO's. Thank you for sharing your story. I hope you can continue to work through your issues. DH and SIL went through a lot of issues with a really bad situation/divorce of MIL/FIL and they are both still suffering the repurcussions.
Thank you for all the advice. We've actually done counseling sporadically for a few months here and there but we really need to devote more time to it. The hard part is it dredges up things and makes it worse at the beginning (I can only hope it gets better??), so it's almost a double-edged sword. But I am hoping it can benefit in the long run. We REALLY need a strong support network, which I expressed when DH stopped drinking, but unfortunately we have just the opposite with him family. I just thank God my family is very neutral, loving and supportive.
Thanks agian for sharing your story-It means a lot. E-hugz back to you