How do you deal with insufferable in laws?

This sounds like absolute hell. I’m sorry you’re going through it.

I’ve been in therapy for a very long time. I suggest talking to your therapist specifically about creating healthy boundaries. There are skills to learn that aid in situations like this.

I also suggest you talk to your therapist about how to tell your husband that this is affecting you a great deal. If necessary, get couples counseling.

Best of luck to you.

Thank you…. I appreciate the empathy. My husband isn’t a big fan of talking about these problems over and over again. He is a very matter-of-fact kind of dude. He has always been on my side and has never wavered when it comes to loyalty. I know none of this is his fault and he can’t help that his family is nuts. Mine is hardly perfect.

I have a hard time not doing “the right thing.” I know the right thing is to just go to these events and phony it up with them and come home and wash my mouth with Clorox. The other side of the coin is, why don’t I just do what the hell I want to do? They don’t make an effort with me or go out of their way, so why shouldn’t I be able to do the same thing? This is my conflict.

Sorry to hear about the strife, Harlequin. One thing I noticed in your original description is that I don’t see a lot of you talking to your husband. In-laws are only in-laws because you married someone. They are intrusive into your life because you are tied to them through your husband. I have a very old fashioned view of marriage. I married my wife because I love her and I put her before all others, including my own family. Thankfully I haven’t had the strife you are going through, but I have broken off relations with my own brother and his treatment of my wife was one of the reasons.
I would suggest talking to your husband. Tell him your concerns, what bothers you. Get his suggestions as to what can be done about it. He might not care about the tension because it isn’t directly hitting him and he doesn’t care about the family as much, but it is affecting you. That he should care about.
As for the inheritance, I have a really skeptical view of that sort of thing. If your family loves you and wants to leave you an inheritance when they die, great. If they want to lord it over you so that they can be annoying and manipulative, that is just wrong. And in the end, they might decide he just wasn’t subservient enough and cut him out of the inheritance altogether.

What do you all think about only attending events “for grandma” when my husband and myself are both invited? That would take these engagements down to once or twice a year.

Should I care about cousin in law’s baby shower? It isn’t as though we have much of a relationship anyway. My husband doesn’t care about the inheritance or the family or if I go to the events or not. Should I take his lead on this?

My husband says he prefers not to confront but do things subtly. I am a more “emotive” person. As in, he rarely talks to his mother after what she did to me and he does not talk to his brother much either. The difference between him and me is that he can go to an event and leave and it doesn’t affect him. He tells me that our absence is noted and that it shouldn’t be a surprise to his mother. Instead of yelling at her about what happened, he wants to “pay her back” slowly by not involving her in our lives except for the bare minimum, and he says when we have children she will not be deeply involved with that either.

What’s wrong with sending a gift and saying “Hey I will be unable to come to your party that day, but we would love to take you out to dinner sometime soon to celebrate.”

I have friends “reschedule” things with me all the time and I don’t go postal over it. Yikes.

It’s his family so it’s his responsibility to take care issues that arise because of them. It’s unfair of him to put you in this position. If he doesn’t get the inheritance it is his fault, not yours. You are not obligated to heal any issues with his family. You do not have to do anything you do not want to do.

It isn’t the marriage that’s the problem- just the baggage.

Agree with @tinyfaery

I don’t know how to say this more strongly.

Ask him to help you by presenting a united front to them. If he’s not willing to do that, then he is siding with them by default, and you will NEVER win, and it will never get better.

He needs to “man up” and protect you by helping you set appropriate boundaries!

Have a very frank talk with your husband. Let him know, in no uncertain terms, how much his family (give real examples) cause you pain, anxiety and grief. Let him know that you would prefer if he explain it to them, rather than you, because you are done. Then be done.

If you want, you could craft a letter(s) to one or more of them explaining why you are opting out of the family events. You don’t have to do this, but it might be cathartic for you. Just be kind, and polite, and truthful, but don’t go into the ugly details (they won’t believe they are like this, anyway).

Then stay away from all interactions with his family. Let your hubby know that it is OK for him to attend these events by himself if he wants to, and that you will support that and not give him any grief to for going (and then don’t give him any grief for going). Just don’t go, don’t interact, don’t engage, nothing.

If hubby doesn’t agree, or won’t go along with your decision, let him know that you want/need him to go to at least one counseling session with you. If he doesn’t, or balks, understand that he needs/wants his family’s approval/blessing, more than he wants to support you. Make your next decision based upon that information.

I have a situation like this going on in my family right now. The couple is getting a divorce, because the hubby liked his sucky mother more than he loved/respected his wife : (

Just as an alternative tactic, if you don’t want to burn the whole place down yet (which you’re totally entitled to do, it sounds pretty bad), maybe you could reset the situation a little bit and then, if possible, take control of how you interact with them? Make it more on your terms, but in a different way, so they aren’t so defensive.

My friendly, but odd (to me), in-laws have their own customs and strange traditions, which includes talking about people and discussing family most people involved had never met. They get together 6–10 holidays a year, every holiday was the same routine and no one had fun. At one point I was done and just stopped showing up, but it hurt people more than I intended. It also became a much bigger deal once I had kids to not participate with local family.

Anyway, some things that helped were mostly just having confidence and a plan going in. Little things like addressing the weirdness in a joking manner. (“I’m new to this whole <family name> gathering thing, show me how it’s done.”), joking about the oddness (“Explain it to the new guy, why exactly do we sit here and talk smack about all the family that isn’t here?”)... sometimes they have explanations, sometimes they’ve never looked at it, it’s just habit. I also started simply stating why I was there sometimes (“I’m just here for the food, I’ll get out of your way for the gossip.” or even “Why don’t you guys let me cook, alone, in the kitchen, while you hang in the living room this year?”) One year, I just served margaritas the whole time. Once I started participating, my suggestions were received a lot better, I could explain my traditions (“it’s great you guys get together for every, single, holiday, but my family mainly spent holidays recharging”), and absences weren’t taken as judgement.

Your in-law family has been doing those gatherings the same way since they were old enough to participate. They’ve been gossiping with those same women you see even longer. I hope you understand that they’re a little (or a lot) self conscious about it as well. They see what you see about them, they know their faults, but are hoping you don’t call them out in the same way your MIL did to you. When you’re not participating, or not happy there, they don’t see it as a result of their actions because everyone else involved knows how to get by, so they see it as your rejection of the things that are important to them. That’s not fair, or right, but it can inform how you interact and improve the situation. Basically, if you give them confidence you don’t hate them, they’ll stop hating on you, and lose the power to do any damage anyway.

It’s up to you how much you can handle, and my actual advice would be to move. There are a lot of awesome places to live, and your husband doesn’t sound enamored with the family life either. But, barring that, some sort of reconciliation on your terms might be better in the long term than scorched earth.

Gosh @funkdaddy’s excellent advice is very creative, and insightful.. If hubs isn’t up to supporting you, this is your best shot.

Desperate times with insufferable in-laws might call for desperate means. I’d kill them.