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My wife hates my parents
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Anonymous
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She's certainly allowed to hate them, but unless they are actually dangerous or horribly disruptive in a room full of people...
they deserve the birthday invite. Actually, the exception would be if they treat her horribly - OP, I'd look into why she hates them. Does it say more about them, or about her |
Anonymous
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You wife and your children are your family now and should be your primary concern.
You stated yourself your wife's concerns are legit; hence, be direct with your parents and tell them the trutth and let them decide if its worth it to them to make changes to see their only grandchildren. |
Anonymous
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I have to side with your wife. I dislike my MIL so much that I cut her off and told my husband that HE had to initiate contact if she wanted to see the kids. I am not holding the kids back from her; I'm just refusing to be the messenger.
One of the PPs said to take the kids to your parents while your wife took a mini-vaca. I agree. perfect solution! I believe that if people upset you on an emotional level, you need to cut them out of your life. If you're fine with visiting them, then you take on that responsibility. Your wife shouldn't have to suffer. |
Anonymous
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Growing up my mom cut us from my grandparents (her MIL and FIL), they hated her and she hated them, they were very cruel to her also, even spread rumors that my mom was crazy and to be committed, while my mom simply was depressed.
BUT I resented that I never really got to get close to my grand parents later, I guess I thought I had missed out. It is something to think about. |
Anonymous
Same situation here, different details. We were cut off from our paternal grandma. She was a horrible person to my dad and she is definitly crazy. However, the few times I saw her, she was kind to me. As an adult I know that the way grandparents behave is NOT the same as the way they behaved as parents. I always felt cheated as to not have those grandparents it seemed everyone else had. I still feel sad about it. My grandmother is dying right now and I have no emotional connection and it just does not feel right to me. I think my parents in their effort to protect us, made a mistake. On a side note, I can't stand my MIL and my FIL is mentally checked out. They NEVER visit our son, even though they live 20min away, they have no interest in him. They came over the other night for the first time since June and my son acted like he did not know them and behaved "shy" burying his head in my legs and refusing to hug them. THis really hurt my husband. I would love to just cut them off and be done with them forever and ever, but like another poster said, I love my husband too much to do that to him and because of my own personal experience, I will let my children draw their own conclusions about their grandparents, I will not color their opinions with my own. |
Anonymous
I have a slightly different perspective - my mom's parents were pretty distant when I was growing up, and I saw them just a handful of times despite her efforts. Her parents were cruel people, but despite this, my mother still made the effort. When I was older, I unfortunately had the chance to experience first hand what they were really like, and I cut them off myself. Kids don't always miss relatives they don't see - I was happy with the loving family I did have and don't recall wondering where the other grandparents were. OP, you mention that there are some safety issues...that could be something that's just non-negotiable for your wife, I know I would have a hard time being around someone I feared would put my child in danger. |
Anonymous
| My grandparents were awful to us growing up. Mean and hurtful. I wish my parents had cut them off. I would be a mentally healthier person. |
Anonymous
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This is tough. It is hard to cut off grandparents from their grandkids, even when that may be necessary. We're struggling with this with my MIL, who is mentally ill.
We try to do things to maintain a connection while keeping her at a distance. We do maintain some regular phone contact, so my DS can talk on the phone with her. We also have a family picture book (Who Loves Baby book) with her picture as well as of other family members, so we can look at her and talk about her without actually seeing her.  And we collect artwork and photos from daycare and send her packages of this every few months so she feels connected. In terms of visits, we strictly limit and control the duration - no more than 48 hours. We have some safety concerns, so have an agreement that she is not allowed to babysit. This hurts her feelings, but our child's safety is more important. I agree with some of the others that if your DW has safety concerns, and you want to visit without her, you need to sit down and discuss with her everything you'll do to address those concerns, e.g. agree that you won't go out and leave them with your parents, you'll do childproofing of their house when you get there, or whatever it is you need to do to ensure that she will not worry. (I would worry the entire weekend if DH took DS to see MIL without me.)
Good luck to you. |
Anonymous
I do not want my children influenced by my own mean, aggressive mother. She can be nice to them all she wants and give them presents all she wants and it won't negate the bad effect of them having to see her treat me like s*** right in front of them or call me a bad mother right in front of them. I don't want my kids growing up thinking it is okay to be aggressive, rude and just plain mean -- to anyone. And I don't think it's healthy for them to have a mother who allows herself to be treated like crap -- by anyone. You may think you missed out on something but you may have missed out on something that would have turned you into a damaged person, so count yourself lucky. |
Anonymous
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You clearly don't want to cut off your parents so I think your wife has to compromise with you on this one. She does not have to participate, e.g. you could visit them without her, but why does she have the final say on who can see the children? Parenting is a joint operation. If they are with you I assume they are safe so if you are around when your parents are there how can there be a safety concern.
Of course your parents should abide by the same rule regarding how they interact with the children as everyone else -- no sitting in th front seat of the car, no giving them food you don't want them to have, etc. If your parents are willing to follow your rules and you are there I think your wife should be flexible. |
Anonymous
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I hate my in-laws. They are very rude to me and are openly resentful of me and also of my brother-in-law, so its not just me. However, they love my son to pieces and are relatively good grandparents. (My brother-in-law and I joke that its like they see the people their kids married as the evil but necessary means by which to obtain grandkids.) As much as it pains me, I want my son to be able to get to know them and to be able to form his own opinions about them some day.
We have a far from perfect system, but basically my DH has agreed that I do not need to make trips out to see them anymore. He will take DS for a few days and I get a few days to myself. (DH gets more vacation time than me, so that is the excuse that we use.) When they come to visit us, DH has total responsibility for getting ready for their visit-- cleaning the house, planning meals, entertaining them, etc. If I want to spend the day at the mall, I do it. If I want to have dinner with a girlfriend, that's the way it goes. Prior to that, it was causing tension because when they came out, I would bust my butt to clean, cook, and entertain, and in return they would just make rude comments about things they thought were wrong with the house and with my mothering abilities. I hated that I put so much work into their visits and got nothing in return, not even a lousy thanks. The visits would leave me in tears. Now, I try to put no work into their visits and try to avoid them as much as possible when they are here. It is not ideal, but has cut down on some tension in our marriage. |
Anonymous
| Do you and your wife agree on the problems with your parents? If not, you might want to sit down with someone neutral to discuss them. Having grown up with them, you might see some things as normal that your wife does not. Or perhaps she doesn't understand the family dynamic very well. It took me a long time to understand my DH's family, particularly to see how messed up they are, even though he told me about it. Kind of the opposite situation from you. We limit contact with MIL, although it is more by her choice than ours. (She has no interest in our kids or us.) |
Anonymous
Great post! I think this is a very healthy way to deal with this issue. |
Anonymous
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Really, some in laws are just not healthy to be around. Maybe that is her point. You are wise to side with your wife, as she and your children are your "adult family". I've seen husbands bend over backwards for the IL's trying to please them, which can be an impossible task. Sometimes it's just a no win situation. You can't choose your family, but you chose your wife. For a reason. Thank God. |
Anonymous
| This is the OP. Thank you, ladies, for all of your feedback. I wish I could go into specifics, but I can't. Not sure if my wife is on here or some friends as well. But suffice it to say, they are not alcoholics/drugs anything like that, more general safety concerns like driving unsafely, not taking safety into account in general, acouple absent minded near serious incidents, not a real healthy environment, not supporting any of our decisions in how we are raising our kids, egging on poor behavior. We've had significant yelling convos before. I actually think they dislike and don't respect my wife as much as she does them. I have to work through this. I value what all of you had to say. Thanks for taking the time. |