Some bg: I've been on bbc for a few years now but it was only last june (after being in this group) that it sunk in that I needed to CO my IL to make us happy. DH/Duh was an alcoholic that basically stemmed from trying to please his family and never being good enough. We've always been compared to older more successful siblings and made to feel inferior in everything: career, money, education, life, status etc.. When we finally CO my ILs and BIL, DH sobered up completely, is earning 6 figures, I'm working full-time at a job I love earning more money than I ever have in my life and to be honest, we have never been better.
What drove us to CO: DH's drinking became dangerously scary. He got 3 dui's, totaled our car and the more I reached out to his family for help the worse everything got. My family lives overseas so I was alone essentially with 2 little ones under 2. I didn't realize that it was his family that was toxic because I needed help but in the end they helped me see it because they tried to split us up, offered to pay for flights to send me & our 2 LOs to the other side of the world and when my DUH ended up in jail for 5 weeks they refused to come help knowing that I couldn't afford the rent, food everything by myself. They wanted me to have nowhere to turn but leave the country (and their son). In the end my boss gave me a raise, my family lent me some money and a couple friends came and helped a couple weekends with some babysitting so I could afford to go to work.
The fact that ILs didn't help and only offered to split us up was enough for me to cut them off. DH hit rock bottom with everything that happened to him & amazingly enough has pulled himself up from having nothing to now running a successful business.
The peace our family needed in order to recover has been wonderful but now they are texting every couple of months to 'drop by'. They live 7 hours away. A couple months ago they wanted to stop by and I let them because DH wanted to and on the condition that we have a discussion about what happened and basically what all the new boundaries were.
FFW to now, ILs want to drop by again. Yesterday I said ok to a visit this weekend but today DH told me about them wanting to visit again the following day while I'm at work. When I found out about the second visit I sent them a pretty clear email standing my ground. Here it is:
MIL,
I was pretty pissed that they felt like they could circumvent me and my boundaries. It was kind of sneaky the way they did it. They emailed me about the first visit and didn't mention the second visit. DH actually told me about it today. I wonder if it was meant to be a secret and they thought DH wouldn't tell me?
I still have those angry feelings whenever I think about all the shit my ILs pulled so obviously I have not healed yet... I need more of a spine though, right?