Ever have a major problem......with your in-laws?

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punisherthunder said:
Not to continue this saga, but things have gotten slightly worse.

MIL texted my wife such vicious messages over the weekend. The worst of which was
“I hope you one day have a daughter who breaks your heart as much as you’ve broken mine so you know what it feels like”.

We move this Friday and I sign the lease at 3pm. I chose 3pm because of the Holy Hour, so I’m hoping it helps us. But this situation has gotten so wild.

However, my wife has a major interview today, so here’s hoping…:o
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I’ve been following your thread and I saw this…good for you. You are moving on and not becoming paralyzed by your in-laws.

Even if it’s just baby steps…you are moving forward.

You cannot control how others behave. You can only control your own behavior and how you handle it.
Ignoring it and becoming disengaged is the best option.

Your wife does need to handle her parents but you need to support her and love her as much as you can.
Listen and talk to her. Give her advice. Support her choices.

I’m sorry about your little dog. Could you call the vet and see what options there might be? Just a thought.
Tell them you’ve hit some financial difficulties and would like to hear some options about what to do.

But, you definitely need to get out from under their thumb. Never borrow money from them…for any reason.

Hubby and I have a great relationship with both my parents and his father (his mother is another story but we are loving at a distance) but even with great relationships…we totally stop at borrowing money.

Neither of us think it’s healthy to have that kind of obligation with family members. Too much can go wrong.
 
Ooooh!

Forgot to say…loads of prayers for your wife’s interview. I hope it goes well.

👍
 
Sorry for your family troubles. I agree with the other posters who say you need to get them out of your life.

At my wife’s behest, we moved five states away from my her mother, into the state I grew up in. And when MY mother started getting intrusive, I essentially fired her. (later on, I hired her back… as a temp LOL)
 
I agree with the others who have said that you need to step away from your in-laws for a while. I also agree with not borrowing money from your in-laws or parents. We have a hard and fast rule about not borrowing money from my family. I borrowed a few hundred dollars from them years ago and they were awful about it. Never borrowed money from them again.
 
I’m almost certain it’s about control. They don’t want her out of their reach, even if it is 25 miles away.

Up to this point, things have never really been an issue with them. They are very plain, milquetoast type of people. Never a cross word, no yelling, everything was always completely rational and kindhearted. This aggressiveness surprises me. They even stooped to having my wife’s 94 year old grandmother call her and tell her she was making a mistake. It was obvious she’s been put up to the phone call by the MIL.

My parents however, have been saints. Calm, behind any tough move we are making. We eat off tv trays at our apartment and since we dont’ have a dining table, my parents went out and bought us a used one, along with a used washer and dryer since we don’t have one. They even bought a nice red oriental carpet to cover the hardwood floors in the bedroom. All of that was never asked of them, they just did it because they know we are hurting.
 
punisherthunder said:
Not to continue this saga, but things have gotten slightly worse.

MIL texted my wife such vicious messages over the weekend. The worst of which was
“I hope you one day have a daughter who breaks your heart as much as you’ve broken mine so you know what it feels like”.

We move this Friday and I sign the lease at 3pm. I chose 3pm because of the Holy Hour, so I’m hoping it helps us. But this situation has gotten so wild.

However, my wife has a major interview today, so here’s hoping…:o
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Congrats on signing the lease. And good luck on that interview as well.
 
Thank you all for the kind words. It really means a lot in this great time of need. :o

My wife applied at a rather large middle/high school and there are 2 open English teacher spots and exactly 12 applicants. My wife has a BA and MA in English Literature, proficient in sign language, and can coach cheerleading, plus 10 years of teaching experience. She said her interview went very well in her mind, so that helped boost her confidence a great deal.

Unfortunately the MIL is using the grandmother to call my wife and “fish” for information since my wife isn’t speaking to her mother. Her whole family is Church of God and they are laying on the urgency of forgiveness bit quite heavy. How we need to remind ourselves of being Christian (not Catholic) and that we need to forgive.

Forgiveness is coming at some point, but not right now. My wife got worked up after that phone call late last night. Everything is so up and down emotionally that I’m about finished. I even found myself too tired and lazy to say the Rosary the other night or attend Adoration. In packing for our move, I did find my long lost St. Sebastian medal which my wife gave me for Confirmation as he is my patron saint. That’s helped me some. Sorry if this is all ranting, but it’s astonishing that someone’s life can go from picture perfect to absolute slime in less than 30 days…
 
It’s this whole Protestant guilt trip thing. To follow the narrative, they are calling us out as bad Catholics for not automatically forgiving them, despite that they sent more texts blaming everything on my wife.

You see, they’re using our religion against us by commanding we forgive them…therefore they are absolved of all bad behavior.
 
That’s terrible.
Yes, you went from finding a place-stressful.
Then to packing and moving-stressful.
Then worrying about your little dog-stressful.
Then inlaws are making it about them -stressful.
Then your wife has an interview-stressful.
Then the inlaws and family are making you feel guilty for not forgiving them asap.–stressful.

Forgiveness is not something you can turn on and off like a switch -you both need to heal from all these changes so you can feel the forgiveness and a bit of time will aslo help the others to feel repentant for what they did.

Right now you have a lot on your plate, so take care of yourself and your wife, and work towards forgiving them when things are calmer for all.
 
mommy_k said:
That’s terrible.
Yes, you went from finding a place-stressful.
Then to packing and moving-stressful.
Then worrying about your little dog-stressful.
Then inlaws are making it about them -stressful.
Then your wife has an interview-stressful.
Then the inlaws and family are making you feel guilty for not forgiving them asap.–stressful.

Forgiveness is not something you can turn on and off like a switch -you both need to heal from all these changes so you can feel the forgiveness and a bit of time will aslo help the others to feel repentant for what they did.

Right now you have a lot on your plate, so take care of yourself and your wife, and work towards forgiving them when things are calmer for all.
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Thank you for the kinds word and summarizing the situation like you did. It is very stressful. The worst is getting the 94 year old grandmother to call us and reprimand us and tell us that we must forgive. The forgiveness will come but not right now. Not when the behavior is so hostile and continues on a daily basis.

It will be a solid month at least, maybe two, before things could slowly be reconciled. What they have done the past few days is just reprehensible. The stone cold aggressiveness of it all, surprises me.

But I am still praying.
 
punisherthunder said:
Ever have a major problem with your in-laws?

Long.story.short. We toured our rental house after the landlord made repairs. My in-laws ventured to see it and were awful. They screamed, yelled, stomped, the floor and made both my wife and the realtor cry. For those outside my narrative, my wife got fired last month and we are being evicted after next week…

Point is, right now I hate them. They own a house of all things but it’s in a bad part of town and right next to an adult bookstore! :eek: And they want us to move there and not 30 miles away into the country. We need stability, especially my wife after all she’s been through. On the plus, she did receive her Masters Degree in Literature today!

But have you ever had a major problem with in-laws who behave like children and lie? I don’t know what to do.
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You are not married to your in-laws. You ARE married to your wife. Your first loyalty is to her and her first loyalty is to you. You are both adults. Where you live is NONE of their business to determine.

I would question where your wife’s head is in regard to this. If she thinks this is “normal” frankly her normal meter is severely broken.

My MIL and SFIL (step-FIL) are okay. My FIL is kind of a jerk. Hubby handles it by keeping FIL at arm’s length (his choice). I support Hubby.
 
My wife interviewed for a job. There are 12 total applicants (including her) and there are only 2 spots open. She said that she thinks she interviewed well and a decision will be made in roughly 2 weeks from now. She was turned down for another job this morning, but we didn’t hold much stock in that job either.

As for things on the MIL/FIL front, well since they had a spare key to our house that we’ve been evicted from, the lender needs their set of keys too that they were given as a spare in case we accidentally locked ourselves out of the house. We are starting to move tomorrow (again I chose a Friday @ 3pm as the best time to move and to sign a lease), so we have to have all key sets returned or face a fine. My wife is having to meet them face to face today since last Thursday’s meltdown. I’ve told her that I could go get them and such, but she refuses and says she needs to tell them that we are moving on from them. However I still reckon things will go wrong.

I pray so hard about her getting a job soon that I’m almost prayed out (if such a thing exists)…
 
punisherthunder said:
My wife interviewed for a job. There are 12 total applicants (including her) and there are only 2 spots open. She said that she thinks she interviewed well and a decision will be made in roughly 2 weeks from now. She was turned down for another job this morning, but we didn’t hold much stock in that job either.

As for things on the MIL/FIL front, well since they had a spare key to our house that we’ve been evicted from, the lender needs their set of keys too that they were given as a spare in case we accidentally locked ourselves out of the house. We are starting to move tomorrow (again I chose a Friday @ 3pm as the best time to move and to sign a lease), so we have to have all key sets returned or face a fine. My wife is having to meet them face to face today since last Thursday’s meltdown. I’ve told her that I could go get them and such, but she refuses and says she needs to tell them that we are moving on from them. However I still reckon things will go wrong.

I pray so hard about her getting a job soon that I’m almost prayed out (if such a thing exists)…
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Even if she does the talking, you should probably go with her. Even if you just wait in the car.
 
punisherthunder said:
But have you ever had a major problem with in-laws who behave like children and lie? I don’t know what to do.
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I didn’t have any problems with my in-laws until I met them. After that, it was all downhill. My advice is distance. Some of the most stress-free times of our early marriage were when we cut ties with them for 3, 6 or even 9 months. It was bliss. I’m sure that a lot of what is going on in your situation is them wanting control (with mine it was control, trying to ruin our lives, split up our marriage, thievery and worse, but now that it’s just my MIL, it’s back to mostly just control). If you can’t set boundaries they’ll continue to try to walk all over you. I pray your wife has siblings so you’re not the only ones saddled with taking care of them when they get older.
 
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