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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Well, it sort of is her fault, though, since she mixed up the letters. I mean, MIL's fault, too, but none of this would have happened if OP hadn't sent MIL the other note and book.

Why not try calling her from a different phone, with a phone number they won't recognize, and giving a real and heartfelt apology. (I am PP from last comment who doesn't think MIL is that bad, just hurt.)[/quote]

I agree. I don't understand how if you know MIL and FIL had a bitter divorce and MIL is big on loyalty and holds a grudge for decades that you accidentally switch the notes. That's like knowing your mother and her brother haven't spoken for years over who knows what and you "accidentally" seat them together at your wedding.  WTF.  You may think it is childish, immature etc, BUT it isn't your fight to fight or your place to force forgiveness when forgiveness isn't yours to give.  I don't know why MIL and FIL divorce was bitter and you can always argue that there are two sides to every story BUT I can think of lots of situations that it would be difficult to forgive my DH, abandonment, abuse, infidelity, divorcing me after asking me to sacrifice something  major, like career, and then beggaring me rather than paying a decent amount of child support and alimony while he remarried my ex-best friend who was the other woman (yes, I watch too many Lifetime movies).  I'm not saying any of those things happened between MIL and FIL but I know that there are situations in life that people find very hard to forgive and I don't think anyone would like someone minimizing that pain and hurt, especially if they haven't been through it themselves, and are  saying "suck it up butter cup". My family is dysfunctional, though not to extent of your DH's family. I had a biological father that abandoned me and came back into my life 30 years later and a step dad that raised me that ended up divorcing my mom after lots of arguing, differences on parenting, infidelity on his part and so on.  If someone that has never had any of that happen told me to get over it, I would have had some choice words to say to them.  I have slowly repaired those relationships and it has been a combination of hearing others that have gone thru something similar explain their thinking on forgiveness and having my biological dad and step dad take responsibility for their actions and ask for forgiveness.  My husband has never tried to get involved in trying to repair those relationships, he gave me space to do what I felt best and support in my decisions.

So that brings me to the next point of why you were putting yourself in the middle of crazy.  It is up to your DH to decide what he wants his relationships to be with his parents, not yours.  if his parents directly disrespect you and you are standing up for yourself or something where you need to protect your children then in is about the relationship between you and them and I expect your husband to support you.  Anything else is for your husband to deal with his parents.  You may not agree with MIL, but you need to fall on your sword on this one and call, send a homing pigeon, send a message via your husband's  brother that you are sorry, you take responsibility and explain why you felt the need to get involved because clearly strengthening the relationship with the FIL was more about something you needed than DH.  Is your dad not in the picture or you lost a close relative recently why you felt you wanted to have his involvement more in your kid's life?  Because honestly not every grandparent is involved in their grandkids life for a variety of reasons and sometimes you have to appreciate what you have instead of trying to change/mold a person or relationship into what you wish it could be.[/quote]
What post did you read? Where in OPD's post did anybody say anything about making somebody forget is nobody said anything about making mother-in-law forgive father-in-law she can not like him until the cows come home. But you don't just stop speaking to your job as a speaking to their other parent.
And just because it is OP's  husband's dad doesn't mean she's not involved. that's an emotional landscape and emotional habit and psychological dynamic that affect the entire family. Healthy people don't ignore that kind of mess.[/quote]

Umm I was reading between the line from Op's post.  Basically everyone was living with the status quo but she felt the need to get involved to push Dh's father to show more of an interest than he was showing in the grandchild when her husband had not expressed a need for a closer relationship either for him or the kids ... all for a family that OP sees as dysfunctional and she doesn't get along with them or really respect them.  I also sensed from the comparison with FIL not being angry versus MIL reaction's she is siding with FIL not only on this matter but any past transgressions as well.  Whatever went down 20 years ago, OP is clearly expecting MIL to get over her mafia like obsession with loyalty and that means MIL would have to forgive FIL enough that she can feel it is okay for the kids to love him equally to her even if he did something that makes her feel that he doesn't deserve it.  The fact that OP lobbed the equivalent of a grenade in the MIL backyard and said oopsie, when she doesn't appear to get along with any of them makes me question her motives.   I highlighted some of the key text from OP's post below.

[quote=Anonymous]My husband has tried to stay neutral and [b]while he has a better relationship with his mother, he does talk on the phone occasionally to his father, though that's pretty much the extent of their relationship. [/b]  [b][u]I have never had a good relationship with any of his family and think they are a highly dysfunctional bunch. [/u] [/b]They live in Oregon so we rarely see them ([b]we see MIL once a year and see FIL once every 5 years)[/b].

Here is the issue:  we had some professional family photos taken and I thought it would be nice to make these into a photo book.  I wanted to send a copy of the book to all the grandparents.  The problem is that I mixed up the cards and MIL got the card that said "dear dad" and FIL got the card that said "dear mom."  [b]FIL didn't really care--he was confused but not bothered.[/b]

[b]However, MIL was clearly highly upset and insulted by the fact that the card indicated that my husband had a relationship with his father, because for the past 15 years my husband assured his mother that he had basically no relationship with him (which is true, besides quarterly phone calls)[/b].  [b][u]I wanted to send the photo books to get his family more interested in our child, especially FIL, who shows next to no interest in his only grandchild. [/u] [/b]

[/quote][/quote]
OMG...all this cause she sent some pics of grand kids..ok[/quote]

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