If your In Laws were awful, did you forgive them?

[Anonymous]

"Forgive" is unimportant. Be courteous. No need to discuss specific words with your husband. Be pleasant to them. Pleasant isn't hard. That's all that's needed. Don't make his life more difficult than it needs to be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For me forgiveness was not for them but for myself. Forgiveness for me was letting go but not forgetting. I didn't go back to having a relationship with the in-laws but it means I can be around them a few times a year. I don't put any effort into the relationship. I am superficial with them. However visits are cordial and pleasant. This was after MIL not being nice for a few years, not just a once off insult.

I think without an apology I wouldn't be running into having a relationship with her. Your husband simply wants life to be easier for him. Also she is probably harassing him to get you to get over it. That's what happened with me. MIL was in the background saying I was holding a grudge and should just get over it. Yeah no.

I think it depends on the circumstances, if its a once off that's completely different to ongoing unkindness.

This pretty much describes my relationship with my in laws as well. There were several years of horrible behavior and now I just tolerate them for very short visits 3x a year and put zero other effort in. We have no relationship outside of those visits.

[Anonymous]

Lol no. I have wildly, insanely abusive ILs to the point I qualify for a restraining order. The officiant at our wedding was so horrified at the behavior they would have been thrown out had my mother (too soft) not intervened. I absolutely would have them tossed.

My goal is to be neutral. I don't want to think of them or hear about them. They are banned from our home and we will never have holidays or events with them ever again.

Life is too short to waste actively hating them. Unfortunately, DH has spent most of his life enmeshed and abused so constant vigilance on that front.

Forgiveness the way the DH is wanting is asking OP to sweep it under the rug so they can do whatever awful or unkind thing over and over again without any consequences or protest.

[Anonymous]

No.

My MIL once criticized me and I called her out on it and she freaked out! She wasn’t used to anyone calling out her BS and was appalled I had the nerve. She cried and cried even harder when DH took my side. In the end I apologized that my actions upset her, but she never got over it. Ten years later she still loves to bring it up as one of the most upsetting moments of her life. I love that I have that much power over her. But alas, her behavior never changed so it wasn’t even worth it.

[Anonymous]

I don't think forgiveness is an important thing since there's no way to reliably define it. That being said, every day, I think about how happy I am my MIL is dead and I never have to deal with her again.

I do see my husband having to deal with his degenerate brother, so he's still dealing with the fallout from his mother's lack of caring and lack of effort at parenting.

I'm especially glad we don't have to make any effort with her on Christmas.

[Anonymous]

I have decided to try not to care about my SIL. I don’t care enough to be mad or to forgive. Takes too much energy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would not forgive but if the issue is not ongoing (meaning she is no longer doing this or other hurtful things) I would try to drop it or forget about it in terms of our day to day lives.

My MIL was awful to me when I had my baby. I don’t know what the deal was but she made fun of me, got angry with me over tiny things, made unreasonable demand on me when I was immediately postpartum, and done other very hurtful things. It was especially hurtful because it was a hard time fir me anyway and she was not only not supportive but became a major source of stress.

She’s never apologized but her behavior did stop eventually. I will never be close to her and I feel that she showed me something important about her personality, and her true feelings about me, during that time. But when I see her now I barely think of it, and I can be perfectly cordial. I was even quite kind to her when my FIL died. It can be hard at first, but being the bigger person really does feel good sometimes. It can feel powerful, like “I know you’re horrid but I choose not to be bothered by it.”

Interesting- I got along fine with both in-laws before kids but my MIL was a nightmare for a while when my oldest was born (first grandchild). I think she was devastated that her expectations for being a grandmother were so far from reality- mostly because of her own health and limitations but why not blame the DIL instead! Really inappropriate stuff that would make your jaw drop. I knew she had some mental health issues before that but I guess I’d never really disagreed with her about something important so I had never gotten the full force of what that could look like. My husband was included in some of the nastiness and really really hurt. Our relationship has never recovered and is a shadow of what it was before. MIL doesn’t ever apologize to anyone for anything so neither of us really spent time trying to pursue that. I think we basically had to adjust the terms of how she is included in our life and unfortunately my FIL is collateral damage there, who’s very sad for my husband. But she is a generally a nice and interested grandmother so we do some short visits, photos etc.

PP here and I think this is not that uncommon. My own mom was also really weird when my DC was born and I realized at the time, even as I was very hurt by their behavior, that they were both going through something difficult in terms of how they saw themselves and what it meant for them. Like yours, I think my MIL had very specific and probably not realistic expectations for what it would be like to be a grandparent. I also strongly suspect that she was very jealous and somewhat angry that I had a girl, as she had always wanted to have one and only had boys, This doesn't justify her behavior at all -- I almost can't talk about it because I had PPD and thinking about specific indigents is actually triggering for me because I was already in such a low place and the stuff she said and did to me back then were almost shocking. One think I will say is that she, on numerous occasions, tried to pry the baby from my arms when I was holding her, once when I was nursing. I was actually afraid she might try to take my daughter and not give her back at some point, and I'm not sure of the degree to which this was my own hormones/PPD and how much of it was real based on her behavior. It was a really tough time.

And yes, we'll never be close. Like yours, she'll never apologize. I think she sees herself ad the perpetual victim whose woes always trump everyone else's. Like to her, the idea that I could ever struggle or have a challenge that required support from my family is laughable. Love, support, and kindness only flows one way with her, and it's in her direction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would not forgive but if the issue is not ongoing (meaning she is no longer doing this or other hurtful things) I would try to drop it or forget about it in terms of our day to day lives.

My MIL was awful to me when I had my baby. I don’t know what the deal was but she made fun of me, got angry with me over tiny things, made unreasonable demand on me when I was immediately postpartum, and done other very hurtful things. It was especially hurtful because it was a hard time fir me anyway and she was not only not supportive but became a major source of stress.

She’s never apologized but her behavior did stop eventually. I will never be close to her and I feel that she showed me something important about her personality, and her true feelings about me, during that time. But when I see her now I barely think of it, and I can be perfectly cordial. I was even quite kind to her when my FIL died. It can be hard at first, but being the bigger person really does feel good sometimes. It can feel powerful, like “I know you’re horrid but I choose not to be bothered by it.”

Interesting- I got along fine with both in-laws before kids but my MIL was a nightmare for a while when my oldest was born (first grandchild). I think she was devastated that her expectations for being a grandmother were so far from reality- mostly because of her own health and limitations but why not blame the DIL instead! Really inappropriate stuff that would make your jaw drop. I knew she had some mental health issues before that but I guess I’d never really disagreed with her about something important so I had never gotten the full force of what that could look like. My husband was included in some of the nastiness and really really hurt. Our relationship has never recovered and is a shadow of what it was before. MIL doesn’t ever apologize to anyone for anything so neither of us really spent time trying to pursue that. I think we basically had to adjust the terms of how she is included in our life and unfortunately my FIL is collateral damage there, who’s very sad for my husband. But she is a generally a nice and interested grandmother so we do some short visits, photos etc.

PP here and I think this is not that uncommon. My own mom was also really weird when my DC was born and I realized at the time, even as I was very hurt by their behavior, that they were both going through something difficult in terms of how they saw themselves and what it meant for them. Like yours, I think my MIL had very specific and probably not realistic expectations for what it would be like to be a grandparent. I also strongly suspect that she was very jealous and somewhat angry that I had a girl, as she had always wanted to have one and only had boys, This doesn't justify her behavior at all -- I almost can't talk about it because I had PPD and thinking about specific indigents is actually triggering for me because I was already in such a low place and the stuff she said and did to me back then were almost shocking. One think I will say is that she, on numerous occasions, tried to pry the baby from my arms when I was holding her, once when I was nursing. I was actually afraid she might try to take my daughter and not give her back at some point, and I'm not sure of the degree to which this was my own hormones/PPD and how much of it was real based on her behavior. It was a really tough time.

And yes, we'll never be close. Like yours, she'll never apologize. I think she sees herself ad the perpetual victim whose woes always trump everyone else's. Like to her, the idea that I could ever struggle or have a challenge that required support from my family is laughable. Love, support, and kindness only flows one way with her, and it's in her direction.

I’m so sorry you went through this. I bet it’s more common than people think; it was a total change in our relationship that was hard because my DH and I had already been together for many years by the time we had kids. She intellectually knew that she didn’t get to make choices for our child but could not handle not being in control and did some really dumb things. I do think she was some what trying to get my DH to divorce me so he would move closer since she was very angry about us not living in their city. But I didn’t really think she would kidnap my kid or anything like that despite also doing the grabbing at the baby thing. Thankfully it didn’t work at all and my DH shut it down pretty effectively and we now have an understanding. But it’s really sad. We have only seen them for a couple short visits during the pandemic, no idea what our new normal will be like.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"Forgive" is unimportant. Be courteous. No need to discuss specific words with your husband. Be pleasant to them. Pleasant isn't hard. That's all that's needed. Don't make his life more difficult than it needs to be.

Disagree. Pleasant can be extremely difficult when someone has behaved so very poorly toward you. I’m seeing my own horrible, narcissistic MIL tomorrow, so I am reading this thread for inspiration. I aim for grey rocking, but I’m still so angry at her that it’s incredibly hard to be pleasant in her presence.

[Anonymous]

My MIL was horrible to me, and a lot of what she said and did most people would find unforgiveable. However, after I had a child everything changed. She was good to DC, and I wanted DC to have a grandma in his life, and although we don't really like each other much, she stopped saying and doing awful things to me. So she hasn't apologized and I'm sure she never will, but it really hasn't mattered. I've forgiven her and gotten over it, and while I don't spend more time with her than I have to, I make sure my son has a relationship with her. He's happy, she's happy, I'm left alone. That's a win in this situation.

[Anonymous]

I unfortunately have an incredibly short emotional rope this Christmas having suffered a devastating loss before the holidays. My MIL was less than kind to me today and I had no interest in engaging with her after that. It'll probably be 6 months until we see them again so not something I'm motivated to acknowledge.

[Anonymous]

My MIL was pretty terrible to me for many, many years. It took about 20 years to get better. No, no apology snd I don’t want one. There wasn’t one specific thing, just really awful behavior for many years. In hindsight, I matured too and learned how to deal with her. DH got better with the situation too.

I think time helped. I put in a lot more boundaries. She backed off. We both got older. Honestly, her health declined to a point where she no longer visited and stayed with us. Trips there are short and we don’t stay there. The kids are teens and she doesn’t understand them at all. The other thing that helped is she thinks I am a good mother and acknowledges that constantly. That goes much farther than any apology. I understand she didn’t have it easy as a single mom and was probably over protective of DH in the early years. So we both have some mutual respect that we didn’t 20 years ago.

[Anonymous]

Yes, but I am still somewhat traumatized and kind of sad.They recently both died, and their abject indifference and disgust for me, based entirely on my ethnic status (they were extremely unapologetic racists, zenophobes, elititist misanthropes) still weighs heavy. Just under 40 years of it.

It's important to break that cycle of this behavior as normalized the way some families do..." It's just what they knew in their time, where they come from, etc." It should'nt have been put up with.

[Anonymous]

My MIL said some of the meanest things I’ve ever heard on the day I first met her. That was 22 years ago. I decided that day that I would build a wall around myself and never let her in. I’m pleasant with her when I need to be but mostly ignore her and move about my life. We just spent Christmas with her. It was fine. I exchange pleasantries with her and nothing else. It’s sad to see how everyone around her, including her children, do the same.

[Anonymous]

Yes. But I wasn’t always the best either and appreciate being given a second chance. My ILs used to be bat shit crazy. Now, FIL aid pretty normal and a wonderful Grandfather to our kids. MIL is still kind of out there, but she is such a loving Grandma that it’s worth it to put things in the past and move on.