Anonymous wrote:
OP, you sound great. But I grew up with alcoholic parents and have a lot of dysfunctional relatives and truly you will drive yourself crazy if you let them have so much of this headspace.

One thing that *might* help is if you do something like see if you can schedule a regular call or Skype session with your MIL...and or SIL. Like, every other Thursday night the cousins will Skype or something. Very, very clear definitions of when you will call.

But really, just to calibrate your sense of normalcy -- I have never once, not once called my SIL just to chat. She's not my sister, we live states apart, we're not friends, why would I call her for anything? Her brother, who has a relationship with her, can call her. I think it's great when some people are better friends with their IL's but, honestly, your reactions and your frequency of communication sound totally sane and fine. The big lesson here is that YOU CANNOT MAKE THEM HAPPY. There is literally no level of communication that would make them not complain about you in some way. Literally, none. They are going to complain about you because they are unhappy people and they need a scapegoat. You are an IL so you are an easier target. That's just the way it's going to be. Please, please try not to let it eat you up.

Anonymous wrote:OP, I have a cousin who has sent me allcaps irate messages on FB because I didn't reply to his "Hi" in Messenger sometimes. Or even just an emoticon. Seriously. I get hundreds of email messages a day, dozens of personal things, plus FB...and you're pissed off that I didn't reply back to your smiley wink?

Not coincidentally, he is also an alcoholic. He gets lonely at night and maybe he sees I'm on FB and takes it personally, like I'm personally snubbing him when he says hi to me in a room or something.

My SIL also deactivated her FB account because she was so furious at me for "liking" some but not all of her pictuers. I kid you not. She apparently had some very detailed sense of an algorithm for why I would like some but not others...she thought I never liked ones with just her in it, usually only liked ones with my older nephew, who knows. She just went ballistic about it one day. (She also does not talk to me now for other reasons....and she struggles with English and has borderline personality disorder or something...truly unstable.)

Anyway, I share all this stuff to say that some people are totally nuts about FB. I have ADD and can't even remember half of the texts I get once a few more come in. There's no way I'm replying to every "hi" I get randomly with no other context. And if that sends people off the deep end, that can't be on me.

I hope you can let this go. Your husband sounds AWESOME. Please don't feel like you need to adjust yourself to these people. They've got a sick dynamic as a family. Your DH is wise to steer clear. You do, too.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Gosh, I don't know. Do you want to have a relationship with these people? They've shown their true colors and they are difficult people who view things through a narrow lens. You are going to always be bending over to meet their needs and placate them.

Their attack of you was unprovoked and undeserved. Personally I'm with your husband on blocking them and keeping them separate. He grew up with them and he understands the family dynamics much more than you or an anonymous forum.

OP here- Do I want a relationship with them? Yes, because it's important to my husband and I think it's wrong to deny my daughter access to half of her family. They have caused a lot of stress to us over the years (for example, SIL complained 3-4 times in January to DH that I never call her, and so I picked up the phone and called her. Left a voice message of "hey, would love to catch up! etc". She never called me back), which is why I'm very frustrated with this latest episode. I just want to live my life and have a friendly relationship with family. My family sure isn't perfect, but they're not difficult to get along with, but the in-laws are just drama drama drama all the time and it is exhausting.

I certainly appreciate all the kind words from everyone on here, and to the PP who asked, yes, I've thanked DH for being so awesome to me about this. He managed to break out of all this crap through years and years of therapy, but the rest of the family don't seem to understand how they're impacting others. They think they're normal and I'm cold and arrogant, and I just need to beef up my coping skills and not take this personally.

Anonymous wrote:Gosh, I don't know. Do you want to have a relationship with these people? They've shown their true colors and they are difficult people who view things through a narrow lens. You are going to always be bending over to meet their needs and placate them.

Their attack of you was unprovoked and undeserved. Personally I'm with your husband on blocking them and keeping them separate. He grew up with them and he understands the family dynamics much more than you or an anonymous forum.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a bit hard to give advice on. That's partially because your post is so darned long. But the larger issue is that despite your post's length, there just seems to be something missing here. The way you tell the story, DH's family is just impossibly insane. I think we need to understand more of their perspective to even give you advice.

To be clear, I'm not saying they are right and you are wrong. It is just that this story is so insanely one-sided right now that there has to be some underlying thing missing that would cause three people to all come to the same apparently-batshit-crazy conclusion.

OP here. Yes, you're right, there is more (which is why my post was so very, very long). MIL has been married a number of times to abusive men, so the kids were all subjected to that when they were growing up (MIL has 5 kids). I have another BIL who has threatened suicide and we had to block phone contact with him (we do see him when we're in town) because he was calling in the middle of the night and leaving screaming voicemails, etc. (he's the twin brother of the BIL in my original post). DH and I both hate the thought of going through this again with more of his siblings.

So the family dynamic is very dysfunctional, but they, to their credit, know it, and are (I thought) very much trying to get back to a normal place. So I've been trying to work with that and be open to building relationships...and then this happens.

Anonymous wrote:This is a bit hard to give advice on. That's partially because your post is so darned long. But the larger issue is that despite your post's length, there just seems to be something missing here. The way you tell the story, DH's family is just impossibly insane. I think we need to understand more of their perspective to even give you advice.

To be clear, I'm not saying they are right and you are wrong. It is just that this story is so insanely one-sided right now that there has to be some underlying thing missing that would cause three people to all come to the same apparently-batshit-crazy conclusion.

Anonymous wrote:Read the book or go to a meeting of Adult Children of Alcoholics. It will explain so much of this weird behavior.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would back the heck off after this. Take a break. Let DH give his family members a "What the heck? My wife does the best she can, she sends you photos, talks with you on the phone, now this? Are you crazy? She talks with you more than she talks to some of her closest friends for crying out loud. You are out of line, and you owe my wife an apology." See what they say to DH when he puts them on the spot for their behavior. If the apologize, great.

If not, just stop contact for awhile--not DH, but you. Continuing their normal level of contact isn't how you would respond to anyone else treating you this way, right? Don't get on the phone when DH calls, let DH be the one to send baby photos, don't arrange the beach house visit if that couple is the one who acted like this, possibly block them on Facebook for now.

Back off and let them realize how good they had it. Think about what you actually want based on this new information after several weeks and go from there.

This gets my vote. You need to stay in the realm of the sane.