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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote]I told my in-laws repeatedly early in our marriage that my DH and I both had large families and had agreed that he handled all holidays/gifts/thank you notes etc for his side and I would for mine. They could not wrap their minds around this and for years I’d get passive aggressive texts about all this stuff. I just ignored and forwarded to him. Sometimes he handled stuff, sometimes he wouldn’t. Yeah, they got a lot of random last minute panic purchased Harry and David gift baskets from him over the years, instead of more personal gifts, but oh well. I know they thought badly of me but it had literally zero impact bon my day to day life.[/quote]

DH and I have been together nearly 30 years.  The first Christmas DH and I were together in the States (we met during an overseas posting and were living together before moving back to the US), I bought things for his family because I knew I'd be the 'bad girlfriend' if his relatives got nothing.  The second year, I decided I was done.  I told him that his choices were to buy gifts for his relatives or let them know we'd be making a donation in their name to charity and they should do the same rather than get anything for us.  He chose the donation route.

I'm sure you can imagine the blowback [b]I[/b] got for this. It was all part of a pattern where my ILs and DH's extended family expected me to conform to their ideas (sometimes patriarchal) of what an outside female should do to be included in [b]their [/b]family.  I dropped the rope.  I have my own family and friends and didn't [i]need [/i]them.  After we had kids, they extended an olive branch because DH was indifferent/disorganized and they did want to see him and the kids.  Of course, they have themselves to blame because DH was taught that the women do all that stuff and it wasn't important to him.

It's not been easy to navigate this with DH's family but I'm glad I've drawn the line.  I don't mind helping but I refuse to accept primary responsibility. I'm raising my kids differently but it's still hard because societal expectation are still very much gender based.  [/quote]

You sound awesome. Good decisions. [/quote]

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