Pastypop Posted July 2, 2013 Posted July 2, 2013 I'm in a bit of a pickle and need some insight. My husband and I got married 20 years ago against the wishes of our families. His family doesn't like me and my family doesn't like him. As you can guess, we have pretty much been on our own and handled our issues since. When we had children, the real ugliness really came out. Every year, my M-I-L expects us to drive our children to her house 8 hours away, drop them off and go back the next week and pick them up. This is quite expensive and time consuming however, in order to keep the perceived peace, I schedule a week into the calendar in-between all the kids summer camps. This year, one of my know it all b-I-l's decided that we would have a surprise Birthday Party for her at the end of July. So I scheduled that in instead of the weekly visit. This will only be for three days due to my kids schedule. On Monday, she called my husband with a guilt trip over the kids not coming up over the summer. He offered to bring them right up instead of telling her we are bringing them up for her surprise birthday. I am also sure she has complained to other family members about not bringing the kids up and of course, they have probably went along bad mouthing me too. If I send then up this week, I won't my have the money to pay for my son's school tuition as it will go for travel costs instead. Also, I don't want to give in because I don't her to start calling him laying guilt trips on him so that he wasted all our vacation time and money running kids up to her house. I was told by my husband that kids could only attend one camp next summer so our calendar remains open. I absolutely wil not do that until the kids are too old to go to camp. I told my son that next time he talks to her to her about the surprise party because I'm tired of being the bad guy. Does anyone else have any thoughts on how to handle this drama?
JustAReformedGirl Posted July 2, 2013 Posted July 2, 2013 Honestly, I wouldn't put up with all that garbage. You two got married twenty years ago! Both your family and his need to come to terms with that. It's not about what they want; if you two are happy together, then who are they to judge? Frankly, I would stop giving in to the guilt trips; you were sending your kids there for a surprise visit; in order for it to remain as such, you'll just need to bear some of the indignity of your MIL whining. Also, where is your husband's back bone in all this? He knew you'd send the kids for the surprise visit; why couldn't he just stick to the plan, instead of caving? By caving constantly, he's just enabling her spoiled brat behaviour. Given her attitude toward you, she should be happy you allow your kids to see her at all. I say shake things up a bit; you're the mother of her grandchildren; if she accepts those kids, she needs to start accepting you. If she can't do that, I would cut contact with her until she gets the message. You don't owe her, or any of the other in-laws, anything. Not when they're acting like this.
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