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[quote=Anonymous]My FIL has a long history of being verbally abusive and even physically abusive in the past and I'm trying to figure out what to do.  I want to respect my husbands wishes on the matter and not overreact but nor do I want to underreact.

DH and I have been married almost 20 years.  The generally held opinion of him and his siblings is that their father is a complete A--HOLE and their mother is a saint.  FIL is a verbally abusive bully and an insensitive lout.  He is racist, misogynistic.  I have heard lots of crazy come out of his mouth but for whatever reason he tends to rein himself in when I'm around - but I know he was verbally abusive towards his wife and children when they were growing up and a few years ago starting to be seriously verbally abusive towords my MIL and even started throwing her stuff out on the lawn.  She moved moves in with us for about a month and I got here referrals to a number of divorce attorneys.  But she went back to him.

DH doesn't like to talk about the matter - when asked about physical abuse he said that his did would spank them and I know his father at least shoved MIL at some point.  I really feel like I should have a better idea but the are all so concerned about their Mom that they are not expansive.  All 3 put up with their Dad for the sake of their Mom.

DS is 5.5 yo and FIL adores him and the feeling is mutual.  I put up with it because it's what DH wants and FIL has been wonderful with DS.  Though we severely limit any time DS has alone with them and DC is not to be left alone with FIL under any circumstance.

But after thanksgiving dinner I found out that FIL swatted my son on the behind because he was dawdling - FIL mentioned it to us in passing and both he and MIL said it was nothing and when asked about it later DS said that Papa patted him on the bottom.  DH wants to ignore it as a one-off,  I said fine but insisted on asking FIL not to use any form of physical discipline with DSD ever again no matter how mild.

My DS is the first grandchild and our DN (DH's sister's) is about nine months younger then and has always played 2nd fiddle to DS.  They live 4-5 hrs away as opposed to 15-20 minutes so they see DS much more and have always been closer to us.  DH is definitely the favorite child too.  They constantly compare the two boys and the parenting and they are always found wanting - it's awful and I have spoken to them.  In addition SIL is going through a divorce and is under a lot of stress.  She and DN were staying at inlaws for Thanksgiving.  MIL just told me last night that FIL really yelled at DN on Saturday morning after Thanksgiving - he was supposed to be getting ready to go to out and DN wouldn't put down the iPad and was fighting with SIL - my MIL sad DN was "being awful" - and FIL was really yelling at the DN and then left on the planned breakfast outing by himself.  While he was gone SIL packed up and they left.  Apparently she is both mad at FIL for yelling but also concerned that they think she is a horrible parent and that DN is out of control.  I wanted to scream at my MIL and ask her what the she was doing while all this was going on,  but deemed that would be on protective at the moment and just matter-a-factly told her that if he ever yelled like that at DS like that, that DH would never let him see DS again.  ( I left my own opinion out of it for the moment.)

When I told DH about it later his reaction was predictable - anger at FIL and concern for DN and SIL, followed by threats concerning if he should ever do anything to DS and then a closed off resignation.

Part of me wants to shut the whole lot of them out of our lives, but then I think of poor SIL and my dear DN and I want to help them.  DH really just doesn't want to deal with it at all.  And I know he won't want to shut his mother out of our lives.

Oh and it doesn't help that it's almost Christmas and DH's brother and spouse arrive this weekend for a visit (they live overseas) and will be staying at FIL/MIL's for a few weeks. Making it hard to just ignore them while we figure this out.  Oh and BIL is going to be pissed when he hears about this and I don't relish dealing with his issues.  Again he holds his mother blameless.

I'm trying figure out what to do.  I feel sick about the whole thing.
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