I don’t know if I am making too much of this or not. SO I am turning to you for genital advice. To understand my situation I haven’t to give you a little background info.
I was not my MIL and SIL pick for a wife for my husband. I was a newly divorced young mother when my husband and I first got together. My husband had dated a friend of my SIL and then was engaged to another woman that my MIL really liked. While those relationship went down hill I THINK that they always hoped that that he would patch things up with one of them when I and my son came along. When we started getting serous my MIL tried to set him up with other people when he came to see them in hopes of breaking us up. My Husband is a VERY devoted family man and that was one of the things that attracted me to him. Marring me was one of the only things he did agents the wished of his family. My MIL and SIL were even taking best with the family AT OUR WEDDING about how long it would be until we got a divorce.
We have been married for 6 and a half years and have added to our family with our daughter. A beautiful, lovely, charming child that everyone (including the in laws) love. After her birth while things with my in laws have gotten better there are a few things that is going on that still that are bothering me and I am not sure if I am just over reacting.
Over Christmas we went and spent the holidays with my in laws. While having a family dinner at his SIL house she invited her friend (The one he dated but I didn’t know she was THE friend) and her little boy over for a family dinner. He tolled me after words that that was the friend he sue to date and was I know with her being there. I didn’t really know what to say. 1- it was all said and done and really to late to be upset about it any way. And 2- I don’t know how to take it. When it was just family time His SIL and MIL talked a lot about only this friend. What she was doing....where she was living. About her divorce and the kinda guys she is dating now. It make me very uncomfortably but I just sat there because I didn’t want to upset everyone over the holidays.
My husband is taking our daughter to see his family on Friday for a week. Our son (Not his bio son but my husband is the only father the boy knows) has summer school and I am stay behind with him because of that. My MIL called me (by mistake. She was trying to call her friend) today. We talked about how my husband grand parents were doing and a little about there plains for the up coming week. My MIL thanked me for letting my husband and daughter come down to see them. I never know what to say when she thanks me for “letting” them come to see them. Even though our road has been a hard one I have never said no, and would never say no to my husband and daughter spending time with them. They are family, and I would NEVER just cut them out. I don't feel like I am letting them do anything. Also, during the convo she let it slip that my SIL friend (The one he dated for a while) would be joining them for a fathers days dinner at my SIL house.
I am a little bothered by this. I don’t understand WHY the friend has to be involved in family events. I will be the very first person to admit that my husband and I come from VERY different families, and in the past both our lack of understanding has cause upset.
So now that we are right down to it my question is in 2 parts. What the heck do I say when my MIL says thank you for “letting” my husband come see them? Am I over reacting to the friend always being around? Should I talk to my Husband about my feelings on everything or just shut up and let it slide?
You should always be able to talk to your husband about anything. Tell him how you feel. Ask him how he can work things out...see if he agrees to coming monday instead of on Fathers day. GL
"letting" him come is a general term to me. He wanted to go to his families house and you let him... so you are "letting" him go.
As for the girl. One she is in his past. You are his present and his future. I understand the feelings you are having though. I would talk to him about it. Its nothing wrong doing on your end or his so there is no reason as to why you shouldn't be able to talk to him about it. Who knows maybe he is feeling the same things as you are. I know if I hadn't seen on of my ex's for a long time and then my family started inviting him over no matter what the reason behind it was, I would be uncomfortable about it. After you talk to him and share your feelings then its up to him with what he does with it. Hopefully he will talk to his family and let them know this is the last time he would like to see her at family events. If its a gathering with family and other friends are there, that could be understandable...but just family I wouldn't like it and Im not the jealous type either.
Maybe your husband can spend Father's Day at home, and arrive at his mom's house on Monday.
i would talk to your husband and see how he feels about it. i dont know if i would be ok with her being there. it seems like she is trying to set something up. but i could be wrong. i think you trust your husband and know that he will not act on any of his mothers shady plans.
Your in-laws remind me of my MIL (now passed on). She loved to "push buttons", try to make people feel bad or insecure. She did a number on her kids growing up, so much so that my husband left at age 18 and never really went back (moved 1/2 way across the country and only visited once every few years). However, I didn't care what she said to me. Comments about how wonderful his ex-wife was, comments about how we shouldn't have children because my DH was getting too old, comments about how she would never come visit if we had a child...I can go on. I had no reason to care about her comments. Instead I let them all roll off my back, and had a good laugh with DH about what she might try next to break us up. After our son was born, I went out of my way to bring him to visit her (1800 mile trip one way) even when DH could not come. She was so touched that we became great friends. She ended up sharing things about her regrets in life that she had never shared with anyone.
So in summary:
Talk openly with your husband about her comments, but not in a negative or mean way.
Keep your sense of humor.
Disarm her but giving the opposite response to what MIL expects (when my MIL said how wonderful DH's ex-wife was, I agreed with her)
Be confident in your relationship with your DH...if you are not then figure out why (my DH still has coffee with his ex 1x/month, doesn't bother me).
i would be a little concerned about the "friend" being always around...but at the same time i would talk to hubby about it, rather than torture myself with "what ifs". as long as the two of YOU are on the same page, he understands how it makes you feel and is sensitive to it, i see zero issue. let them be that way. it won't affect your marriage. to me i feel like you guys should get his mom's schemes out in the open, become a team, and know that she will never succeed.
as far as how to react when she "thanks" you...sheesh. i think probably that's how THEY treat others so they assume that you are the same way with him. just smile and say, "i respect my husband. i don't dictate what he can and can't do." and leave it at that.
i agree with someone else that said have him arrive AFTER the father's day dinner thing... HE needs to tell HIS FAMILY that he doesn't wish to see "the friend" everytime he comes home for a visit, and that he doesn't wish to disrupt plans that they already have, so he'll just plan to arrive the following day. maybe then, MIL will get the point... i went through this with my MIL waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back in the day(1998) when dh and i just begun to date, she had his ex-gf "staying with her" for a few weeks, conveniently over our college winter break, when he found out she was there(by phone right before he left school), he told his mom to get her out of there before he got home. that was really the only time he stood up to her, it's been a ROUGH 15 years, he finally drew a line in the sand about many many issues a few months ago - it's up to your HUSBAND to draw the boundary lines - good luck!
Talk to your husband, you need him by your side. It might be time for him to stand up to his family ad tell then to stop (if he agrees that they are trying to set him up, he does know them best.). My husband had to do this with his family, mostly his mother. I wasn't her idea of who he should have been with. She kept bringing up girls he had known growing up, new girls who'd joined their church that were single. I picked up the on the single girl talk when I was with him when we were down there and still just dating. I told him that I thought it was a little odd that she had mentioned "so-and-so" that "sweet girl" who just happens to be single more times then I though was just casual. He then realized and admitted that she'd been bringing up girls he had known in high school and that he should go say "hi" while he was there. The thing is my husband didn't "click" until I brought it up and when we put his "private" conversations with Mom-in-law and my nervous paranoia (yes, I thought I might have been reading to much into it too) we realized that it was sketchy. The way he handled it was he asked if she realized how it looked for her to bring these girls up so often in conversation. She said she hadn't realized, she was just speaking to him about them the way she had been when he was single. She'd lapsed into a pattern of behavior she had developed over the years. She hadn't or didn't want to accept that I wasn't going anywhere. Once he told her that I was here to stay things got better.
You're the one he wants, you're the one he chose.Trust him, but he can't help you if he doesn't know it hurts you. Tell him how it makes you feel that they keep placing this girl in his path. Let him know that you trust him, but you just can't help not trusting them. After 6 years and a baby, if this is really an attempt in their part to still try and break you two apart, that seems really nasty to me. He needs to find out if that's what they are really trying to do. It could be that this girl is such a good friend of the Sis-in-law that she feels like a part of the family, especially if she has no family of her own. But like I said, he can't help you if he doesn't know how you feel.
