I have major issues with the in-laws, all of which stem from things that happened when our oldest was a baby. We are not on speaking terms with SIL at all and the issues between us have spilled over to our relationship with MIL and FIL. Well, now SIL is pregnant and honestly I would like our kids to have a relationship with their cousin. I wish we could just deal with our issues with SIL for the kids' sake. But DH and I are having a really hard time with it. We have 3 kids and SIL doesn't even acknowledge their existence. She met LO2 twice (he is almost 3) and we never heard a single peep after LO3 was born. Radio silence. DH and I are both just so resentful that she puts her issues with us on faultless children and that she just does not care about them one iota. Obviously we will need to make the peace offering if we are ever to have any sort of relationship with her child but I just don't know how to get past the resentment and even more, DH has to be the one to make the first move so what can I say to him to get him to do it? He agrees that he wants our kids to know their cousin but so far has not done anything. He last spoke with MIL and was so frustrated from the conversation that he is less inclined to do anything.
Sorry this is so rambling. Just would love to hear any stories of mended relationships or tips. Anything, please!
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@skipra: do you think your SIL would be open to you helping her now (giving her hand me downs or registering or making freezer meals)? This could be a good time to try to mend the relationship if you focus on the present and future with her letting her know you are excited for her. Do you need to go through your DH or can you reach out to her directly?
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This is hard. Unfortunately, I think it is impossible to have relationship with a child if you do not have a relationship with that child's parents. For you guys, that means seeing if you can repair your relationship with SIL first and foremost. If you can't, because she doesn't want to, or your husband doesn't want to, or the issues are just too deep to overcome, I just don't think there's any way to have a relationship with her child, or for the cousins to be close. Something to think about - perhaps it's not that SIL doesn't/didn't care about your children, but that she wasn't ready to have a relationship with you guys, and just accepted that as part of that she couldn't have a relationship with your kids?
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@autumnleaves: well the major issue is between the two of us and she couldn't tolerate DH standing up for me so I don't think she would take kindly to me contacting her directly. I suppose I could attempt to make some peace via MIL though. It is just discouraging to me that every time I attempt any sort of contact with her I am ignored. If I send a text or email she responds to DH instead. I know, this makes me sound like I did something horrific but all I did was request they don't post photos of my kids on social media.
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@Madison43: I guess I have a hard time accepting her not acknowledging our kids because I have a sister and we have disagreements and will go without talking for a while but we always make a point to at least send birthday cards or gifts and Christmas presents to each other's kids. I know at a minimum we will be sending birthday cards for the child and that's all that I would expect from her but she doesn't even do that.
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My own sister didn't acknowledge my first child's birth until months down the line and she did so in sort of a self centered way. I didn't pick any fights and when she had her first baby she became much more relatable for me. I honestly feel like part of it was she's older and I had the first grand baby. And we aren't close but it kind of sucked to not hear a peep at all when I was congratulated by people I hadn't seen in years and strangers at the grocery store but not my own family, so I get it. Sort of cheesy but I just told myself that love multiplies, love does not divide, and I made it a point to try to love her and wait for her to be at the same place as me. We still aren't close but are closer than we were and it has been nice. It doesn't sound like we had the same level of issues (she didn't do anything malicious) but it stung and we did get past it, but I had to put my feelings aside for sure. Honestly sometimes I still feel like I do but I think it is worth it to have SOME relationship that is good.
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@skipra: Honestly I would air it all out! I did this with my SIL, MIL, and FIL and the moment I voiced my concerns, I released them. I really hold no resentment toward them now. I tried to use good communication techniques (I statements, non blaming, etc.) in order to help the relationship move forward, and not get stuck in old patterns. At other points I tried to let things be water under the bridge, but something inevitably would happen that would hurt me and then we'd be back to square one. So direct communication was a better solution.
Can I suggest the book Toxic In Laws? It was really helpful for me. Mostly good communication techniques for really flagrant boundary violators, but one really important point the author makes is that we are not "entitled" to a good relationship with ILs any more than we are entitled to a good relationship with anyone else we meet through a mutual acquaintance. So if you get rid of the expectation that there is such thing as a "normal" relationship one "should" have, and just accept what you have as being ok, then you can start to ask yourself how much energy are you willing to spend to make it better? If you knew their opinion of your family would never change, would you still put forth that effort? Maybe you would just so you can have a clear conscience about how you've acted, or maybe you would just let the relationship be what it is.
Also one more thing, consider letting go of this if it isn't important to your husband. I mean, if you want to personally pursue a relationship with any of these people, by all means go for it, but there's no need to pull DH into it. Either he wants a relationship with his own family or not, and there's not a lot you can do to control what he wants, so why fight it? You can always pursue your own personal relationship with these people without his input if it is important to you. If you try to engineer DH's relationships in any way it will just lead to resentment from DH and from his family. Not a good situation for you to be in.
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@Mrs. Sketchbook: thank you for your response. It really has given me a lot to think about. I will definitely check out that book. I do think I will be taking your advice to just let it go. Every time we have contact with them I know DH comes away hurt in some way. It is an excellent point that I need to just back away and let him deal with it as he chooses. I have pushed him to make plans on holidays and birthdays but they have even been rejecting that recently. I guess I just have to accept that forcing it for the sake of our kids having even the most basic relationship with DH's family is not worth the stress. Thanks for the outside perspective!
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I don't have resentment, but I just move on without them. If they want to make amends that's one thing, but I'm a big believer in people treating you the way you allow yourself to be treated. I may have dealt with people disrespecting me before children, but I will not have my kids witness someone disrespect me or their father. And I won't have them be exposed to family drama where people are being snide or rude or hurtful.
My PARENTS are the problem in my life and my kids interactions with them are highly orchestrated so that they have happy memories with them and don't get any of the crap. My parents keep it together because they want interactions with their grandkids but it's not like we spend a ton of time with them or leave them with our folks for any extended amount of time. And they know if they are rude DH and I will shut it down immediately.
If your SIL has no desire to have an interaction with your kids, I just wouldn't bother. Like why have that stress? I wouldn't be bitter about it, but just accept she's made a dumb decision and it's her/her family's loss. She sounds like she's holding onto to some ridiculous grudge and it's like whatever, be exhausting. I'm done.
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@gingerbebe: I agree.
You can't force people to do anything they don't want to do even if they are family.
T has 2 cousins that she rarely sees and I really don't care. We have such an awesome group of friends that are like family and extended family we enjoy so I'm not going to spend my time with people where there are deep seated resentment issues.
That said 5 years ago my sister and I barely spoke and now she's a close friend and we talk several time a week. It's great. But in that case we had a difficult childhood and still a difficult parent who is awful so much of our sibling bonding time was trying to survive without violent outbursts. It's hard to bond in a situation like that.
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@gingerbebe: thank you for your message. It's funny that we have this issue because once we had our oldest DH finally stood up to his sister because we refused to let it be ok for her tell us how we should parent our child. We won't allow our kids to see us being disrespected by family so now we are in this situation. I am just really sad that they will have a cousin so close in age and location but not even know them. It is my own projection though because my cousins were all much older and lived far away. I need to just get over it!
@youboots: good point about putting in the effort for healthy relationships. They do have other cousins and great friends. I need to focus on what we do have that is already awesome and just forget about the negative relationship. Thanks for pointing that out!
ETA I am happy for you that you have worked things out with your sister. In my family it's always blood is thicker than water and you just have to work things out. I have disagreements with my sisters and we have a good argument and cry and hug it out so I just don't understand how his family is dealing with such a stupid argument. I think that is why I'm having such a hard time getting over it. -
@skipra: I can see why this bothers you. I am most certainly not on team blood is thicker than water. I'm on team treat me and my family with respect and kindness and I will do the same. I don't have a lot of patience for family that act horribly and I feel zero obligation to make it work on my side or DHs with people just because we are technically family. Not like I'm saying that's what you need to do. But it works for me and I don't have any stress or regret about it. There are just too many other awesome people in our lives.
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FWIW I grew up with a ton of cousins and I barely talk to them or keep in touch with them as an adult. Why? Because our parents didn't get along. My parents never really gelled with my aunts and their husbands, so while THEIR kids are all super close, my brother and I aren't that close with our cousins. Any time we had trouble with our cousins it was always our fault or my parents fault and my brother and I were constantly harassed and teased. Again, no hard feelings now and we are friendly and civil at Thanksgiving, but they have never made an effort to be close to us or our kids and vice versa.
So don't think for one second your dynamics with our SIL won't bleed over to your kids, because it will. So if she won't be a POSITIVE influence on your family why bother???
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I used to really like my mil and sil in law until I became a mom and their options and advise drove me nuts. I had one pretty bad fight w my sil about how she was very vocal w parenting advise when she was not a parent herself yet. What helps me is keeping visits short, a few hours, forcusing on the kids and drinking during visits! I try to focus on this is for my husband and daughter.
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I agree that you can't make her feel a certain way and you don't need to force a relationship of she doesn't want it. Perhaps things will change once she has kids. I think if you aren't bothered by LO not having a relationship with their aunt then a cousin isn't different.
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Even though dh and I have been married almost 7 years and together almost 11, I think I'm just this past year really grasping how different our families were growing up and how completely differently our families communicated. I have a lot of resentment towards his mom and sister because of situations that came up after his father's death (his father was actually the source of a lot of this but it all bubbled up after he died, it's complicated!) some of which bothers dh too and some is just me. I also think dh handles it badly sometimes too and I try to influence him to help things resolve the way I think they should but ultimately it isn't my family dynamic, you know? I can't make his family act reasonably, all I can do is decide how I react and protect my kids from it when I think it's getting toxic. Like, dh tried to take a stand on something with his sister but she refused and now it's like completely brushed under the rug. Drives me bananas but as long as she is loving w lo when we're together what can I do?
So no advice, just commiseration really.
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