practical advice for daily dealing with problem in-laws

[kage_ar]

You cannot change your husband, you cannot change his family. You CAN change yourself and how you react to his family.

Don’t react. Crazyness and chaos FEEDS on reaction. Practice saying in a bland voice, “Oh, that is nice” and giving your BEST Stepford Wives smile. Turn into a broken record, don’t react, be calm. Don’t over apologize or make excuses, just say “we will be unable to attend” or if they want to visit “that weekend will not work for us, maybe next time”.

If you can do this with consistancy, you will see that they will begin to go look elsewhere for drama.

Pray for them, every day.

 

[RWMorris]

You cannot change your husband, you cannot change his family. You CAN change yourself and how you react to his family.

Don’t react. Crazyness and chaos FEEDS on reaction. Practice saying in a bland voice, “Oh, that is nice” and giving your BEST Stepford Wives smile. Turn into a broken record, don’t react, be calm. Don’t over apologize or make excuses, just say “we will be unable to attend” or if they want to visit “that weekend will not work for us, maybe next time”.

If you can do this with consistancy, you will see that they will begin to go look elsewhere for drama.

Pray for them, every day.

Second this. My in-laws seemed crazy to me until I finally let everything they say run in one ear and out the other.
If I were you, I wouldn’t allow visits for a while. I also personally wouldn’t go around such folks, just let your husband go around them. You say you live four hours away so it should be pretty easy to avoid them, and also avoid phone conversations.
And who cares what they say about you, anyway? Your husband has stayed with you, not them. Just let him handle his relations with them and you stay out of it.

 

[Rob_s_Wife]

I am not co-dependent. the problem is when they get involved.
YOU are the one in charge of who gets involved in YOUR life.

He has distanced himself. We go to visit them because HE WANTS TO. And I do not let him go alone because of the way they treat him
um there’s a contradiction.
you can’t distance AND visit
And he’s a big boy now.
**he does not need you to defend him from family he’s spent more years dealing with than you have way before you came along and a situation he knowingly goes to visit **

our marriage is fine. It is difficult because of his personal problems with his timidity. His job is the same way. Our finances is because of his timidity. He needs an assertiveness class. I agree he needs therapy, but I am not going to bully him into it either!
**OR you could let him be and love him just the way he is. A quiet, overly forgiving fellow? **

I dont want to end the marriage
No one said to end the marriage. Least of all me.
–I am CATHOLIC–what happened to trying to be a CHRISTIAN ?
How chirsitan is it to knowlingly enter a situation you know is not healthy or will lead you to unchristian behavior?! (You did state you have to repeatedly go to confession because of your dealings with them.)
Sometimes the most christian thing one can do is let go and let God.
and yard sales are not what we need–as if there is anything worth selling??? ($20 worth of knickknacks for 3 days work? I am disabled–did that get skipped in the posts too?)
it appears you have a computer…tv? other electronics? furniture?
and being disabled doesn’t mean you can’t work or go to school to get a decent job with benefits.

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either way, you are NOT entitled to any of their money.
a loan wouldn’t help you either.
**people with no money and very little income can’t afford the additional expense of loan payment. **

I wanted advice on how to handle this in a loving christian way,
and you got it
forget it, I got enough advice before this degenerated —and degenerates further into a ‘hate-the-husband’ diatribe of ‘divorce-the-abuser’ feminism.
what?! no one did that at all
**apparently some words struck a sore spot? **

 

[Ravyn_Guiliani]

thanks to everyone who did not try to highjack this thread with their own agendas.
S-I-L has pretty much crossed the line with husband tonight also, so the avoidance advice will be easier to apply.
He might have an absurdly long fuse but he does have one apparently.
God Bless, especially those who undersood what I was asking and did not try to put words in my mouth or misanalyze my motives.
Mods can close this now.