Last night, I deleted my MIL and FIL from my FB page. I kept my SIL, BIL, and GPIL on, but for now all of my recent pictures are only viewable by me.
Short story is DH and I have felt like his parents have not respected us as adults for several years. We do not hear from them very much since we live several states away, but when we are in town, MIL tries to guilt trip us into spending more time with her. In July (there may be bg about this on here), she spent an hour at dinner complaining to my husband that we spend so much more time at my parents house and she hopes someday we will let her and FIL be a part of our kids' lives. (I was unaware of this conversation as it was mainly when I was getting food from the buffet or dealing with our kids). DH told her if she wants to be part of the kids' lives its her responsibility to make the effort. We will not force a r'ship that is not there. He said she needs to call more and she can talk to the kids. *Kids are 2 and 1. My 2 year old will ask to call my parents. MIL also picked this time to complain about a trip I made to homestate with just my kids and how I seemed annoyed (she showed up late BOTH days we saw her-- she picked the days/times). Once again, my DH reminded her that she was the one who showed up late and forced me to alter my plans, so yes, I probably was annoyed and within right.
Since July, I have had LC with her. There are 6 years of minor things that combined with a few big situations, have just made me very anxious when having to deal with her as I'm always on guard. My biggest issue with ILs is they do not accept any responsibility for their actions. We've literally had them apologize, only to follow up with "but when you were little...blah blah blah". We still rarely hear from them and when MIL does call, she doesn't talk to the kids. Whatever.
Last night, we had a VM from her and at the end she asked if we could take a family picture of the four of us and send it to her for her Christmas cards. Maybe in front of a Christmas tree....DH and I are both not okay with this. Two years ago, she took pictures from my FB page and created a card with them combined with pictures of her, FIL, SIL, and BIL. I was livid but she had already ordered them and after traveling 12 hours internationally while dealing with morning sickness, I did not have energy to fight that battle. Last year, she begged for family pictures and of course used one of all of us (yes I know, my fault there too).
DH calls and when she mentions it, he says we're not comfortabe wtih it. She immediately flips out. During their entire conversation, she interrupted him and was talking over him. He actually yelled at her a couple of times to let him talk. He stated that we will send out our own Christmas cards. She replied by listing a bunch of people that she knew we wouldn't send cards too because we don't have their addresses. [Some of the people I actually do send cards too because they are family, but the other people we have NO relationship with whatsoever]. She said they are HER friends and HER family and she wants them to have pictures of all of her family because she is so proud of him. DH pretty much said that its our choice as parents who receives pictures of our children and of us. She commented that FIL told her to just take a picture from my FB page and use that, but she wanted to ask first and be respectful because she knows it bothered us before. DH said that would have been blantantly disrespectful and he hopes that they can respect us as adults and also our children as people.
MIL commented that she knows its not just him who is uncomfortable with the picture thing but also "your wife" (yep, couldn't even use my name)....and I heard this part differently--I heard it as her blaming me for it, which I felt like they blame me for anything that we don't allow or include them. Ex: we stay at my parents house when we visit and it drives MIL crazy). They talked more and conclusion was she's supposed to send us a list of people she wants to receive cards and we will send them. **After talking to DH, I made it VERY clear that I will ONLY send to people that we both agree on. So, she may send a list of 20, but only 5 will receive cards. MIL also made some comment about us trying to cut them out of our lives-- which is not true.
After that fiasco, they chatted about regular things. She mentioned a vacation in the summer-- ILs and GMIL are trying to get their timeshares for the same time/place during the time of GMILs birthday so extended family could hopefully visit with her. GMIL and I share a birthday. MIL went on and on about celebrating GMILs birthday, and birthday party, and family visiting to celebrate, and she hopes we can visit because it should be just a few hours from us, etc etc. DH said "you know Steph's birthday is the same as GMILs". MIL's response "oh....yea.....right". [DH is military and there is almost no way he'd be off to go anyway and he knows the last way I'd want to spend my birthday is with ILs though I do love GMIL).
I was so mad last night that I felt like I was on fire. The first two years of our marriage, I did everything I could to be the good DIL. Over time, I've slowly dropped the rope because it didn't matter what I did. They've never been blatantly mean to me but the lack of respect is something I've tired of dealing with. We tried to encourage things we wanted like them not being late for every plan we have with them, by refusing to alter OUR plans to accommodate them. So, if they're an hour late, we still left when we said we would and they lost an hour with us. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to have much affect since we're so far away and only see them a few times a year.
Like I said, there is plenty of bg not here that has been one large build-up to this. I guess, in short, I've felt like MIL tries to compete with me for DH's attention, and now that we make visits there, she tries to compete with MY parents. Pretty sure she thnks my parents buy our love, which is completely untrue. Yes, they have given us small gifts and allow us to stay in their home, but more importantly, they make an effort to be part of our lives. I talk to my mom multiple times a week and my dad has recently started calling just to say hi. When I was pregnant and in Germany while DH was deployed, my parents had to hear from me daily or they worried. Reason being: I was extremely sick with the pregnancy (should have been hospitalized) and though I had a few friends, my parents were scared something would happen while I was alone in the apartment. I didn't hear from ILs for two months.
Anyway, last night I unfriended MIL and FIL from FB. At first DH thought I reacted in the spur of the moment and it would make things worse. But, I am tired of being disrespected and its obvious that they don't respect me. They put up with me because they know he'd choose me over them if he had to. I said my FB page is full of my thoughts, pictures, and things I'm willing to share with people who care about me and respect me. And, I feel neither of those from his parents. Especially knowing, that at least one of them thought it'd be okay to take a picture from MY page (which they've been spoken to twice about doing) to use for their own personal use. I don't mind them printing pictures and make a photo album for themself, but I am not comfortable with our memories being sent to other people.
So, did I overreact in deleting them? Moving on, what should I do? I already have minimal to no contact with MIL and I'm not sure the next time we'll be in homestate where seeing her would even be a possibility...maybe February. They are just not good for my soul...the anxiety and disrespect...its too much and I'm just done.