Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I had no idea how dysfunctional my in-laws were when I got married. That all came out later.

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+1
Or actually, right before we got married. My parents live overseas and they only got to meet my in-laws right before our engagement. The night my dad met DH's family he pulled me aside and said we needed to talk first thing in the morning. Then he told me to get out asap. Should've listened to him as my in-laws are disrespectful and dependent on us.

I have found decreasing my relationship with my in laws helps my marriage (I'm the wife)

Anonymous wrote:My in laws are very micro aggressive. They made fun of my son's name, brought their own food to my baby shower. Complete whackos.

After coming home with our first newborn child my MIL had just flown up from North Carolina to "see the baby". She kept threatening to take the baby back to her hotel with her so we could "get some rest." I was breastfeeding and in shock having just given birth less than 24 hours before, I kept telling her no. She would not give it a rest. I wish I had called the cops and said this woman is threatening to steal my child becauce it was just the first of many boundary-breaking incidents.

Sorry, OP. My in laws are extremely toxic, too. It sucks. I really wanted a close relationship with my hypothetical in laws when I would daydream about getting married one day but that's not how things shook out.

It started getting weird shortly after we were married and the relationship with my inlaws went off the rails once we had a baby.

OP, while I’m lucky enough to have great in laws, I do have news that may comfort you, but doesn’t bode well for women like me, whose in laws are lovely..

There was a massive 26 year long study done that found marriages where a woman was NOT close with her in laws were much less likely to end in divorce!

From an article about that study:

A 26-year longitudinal study found that when a husband reported having a close relationship with his wife's parents, the couple's risk of divorce decreased by 20 percent. Conversely, when a wife reported having a close relationship with her husband's parents, the couple's risk of divorce increased by 20 percent.


So long as your parents are friendly to your husband, your situation actually bodes well for the longevity of your marriage. Weird, no?

I didn’t realize how dysfunctional my ILs were until several years into the marriage, my ILs felt I was close enough to divulge family secrets. Turned out that paternal grandfather had affairs, both MIL and FIL had been estranged from their only siblings for years, maternal Jewish grandmother had been left in an orphanage with nuns as a child, etc. You would never know it because they only bragged about the family accomplishments. The animosity towards siblings has especially carried over to DH’s relationship with his brother. Parents set them up as rivals, always competing instead of forging brotherly bonds.

Anonymous wrote:I had no idea how dysfunctional my in-laws were when I got married. That all came out later.

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