Reply to Husband's Parents very Clearly Love one Drandson, but not the Other

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[quote=Anonymous]So, first off, I've never liked my inlaws, and DH has his issues with them as well. They are very, very well to do and live in the DC area (same as we do). FIL works in a very high level government job, MIL is a long-retired doctor. Both tend to be rather frank and combative with everyone.

We have two sons, ages 15 and 14, and have always tried to give them a relationship with their grandparents even if me and DH have to, at times, struggle to deal with them ourselves. The problem is that MIL and FIL very clearly favor the 14 YO DS over the 15 YO DS.

Some examples:

* Buy 14 YO DS an XBox 1 for Christmas, buy 15 YO a T-Shirt they got from a recent overseas trip (I suspect FIL bought it for himself as it is an Adult XL, obviously too big for DS). Me and DH had to go out and buy DS 15 another present and leave it under the tree with their names on it.

* They are very critical of DS15's appearance. He is somewhat chunky - not medically overweight, but has a bit of a belly and not a flat stomach. DS14 is skinny as a whip. They will tell him its time to lay off the junkfood, and go out with both kids and some friends for 'ice cream' and buy DS14 ice cream and give DS15 a bag of fruit they packed from their home (After this trip DS15 came home and locked his door crying for an hour before letting us come in).

* They will incessantly compare DS15 to DS14 in both's company ("Oh, DS14 is so cute, maybe you could take some style tips off him DS15!") Nothing DS15 can do makes them praise him or give him any positive feedback. Its always that he's not smart enough, good looking enough, thin enough, or well behaved enough to be worthy of praise.

* They will invite DS14 to fun events while with both of them, and when DS15 says he wants to go as well, will tell him that they are sorry, that was an event for DS14 only. Most recently this was a week long vacation to Japan later this summer (we nixed this for either - we don't want either being alone with MIL/FIL for extended periods of time, let alone internationally!)

Anyway, I want to cut off all contact with them. Actually, I wanted to years ago, but caved because of pressure from DH and DS14. As you can imagine, DS14 loves his grandparents and thinks they cant do anything wrong, and DH doesn't, but I don't think he has the balls (sorry) to cut them out completely. But we have both talked to them very firmly about this, and it is clearly effecting DS15 every time he has to see them.

Whenever we bring it up to MIL/FIL, they brush it off and say they love both but that we shouldn't have had kids one year apart if we weren't prepared to have them be judged off each other.

I just need advice because I'm at my wit's end.[/quote]

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