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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I would not allow my children to watch someone disrespect me without me defending myself. They are learning how to handle it when someone disrespects them, from watching me. So I wouldn't care if he's nice to them if he's mean to me. He has to be nice to me too. "Not coping well with aging and/or retiring" is NOT anywhere near an excuse for being mean to anyone. [/quote]

NP. This post is something to heed, OP, for BOTH you and your DH.

Talk to DH about what this PP is pointing out: If you and DH keep allowing FIL to do this to you, the kids eventually will pick up on it and you and DH are allowing them to witness a terrible example. If your kids are young now, and you and DH [i](do you get it? I keep saying: You AND DH!)[/i] may think, "Oh, they're so young, they don't notice it." But that's why the time to end this is sooner, not later. Please do not let your belief in "kids should have a relationship with grandparents" make you endure this, because your kids will grow up thinking there's something normal about mom letting granddad behave like this toward her.

So for your kids' sake if not your own, your DH and you need to get this sorted, now. I wonder if your DH truly understands how much this wounds and angers and undermines you. You said he knows, but I think maybe you need a serious talk alone with DH, and don't do it right after FIL has been a jerk to you, but have that talk at a calm time with no kids around. DH and you should script out what he (his dad, his to handle!) will say the next time it happens and what you will say if it happens when DH is not around. And then you and DH have very consistent responses every time. I would absolutely want DH to tell dad point blank, "This is part of a pattern that has gone on for years. We have more than noticed it, it has become your regular interaction with DW. And it needs to stop or we will have to reduce our visits her and yours to us. If you cannot see and hear what you're doing, and cannot acknowledge that you do it ONLY toward DW, that's your issue and not ours." Yes, DH will have to threaten (and then follow through on!) reduced visits.

MIL knows but maybe she is scared of FIL turning his ire onto her. Still, she should speak up. I do not want to advocate taking HER visits away because of FIL but DH needs to tell his mom separately, without FIL around, that this is now likely to happen if FIL continues. MIL should be told that you and DH do not want the kids being part of the larger family if that means watching their mother belittled and insulted repeatedly.

It's the slow drip, drip, drip of contempt and constant "opinions" -- really, veiled hatred -- that FIL will try to claim is "Just my personal opinion and she can't handle it! She's too sensitive, she hates ME" blah blah. Be prepared for that, OP! And your DH has to be prepared for it and not blindsided by that kind of "It's just my opinion, I have a right to my opinion" tactic. [/quote]

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