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When your in-laws make you want beat your head against the wall
So, I'm mostly on the political forum, but I thought it can't hurt to post hear to see if I can get some advice. So far, the only advice I've gotten on this situation is Bible verses, which isn't overly helpful.
Here is a little backstory-but this is 8 years worth of backstory so there may be missing pieces. DH and I started dating when we were 14 years old. We were high school freshman at a little Christian school together. The Christian school was a very tight community with mostly the children of Dutch diary farmers that all went to the same church. DH fit that mold, while I didn't-I was a Catholic Mexican-European mutt. Our first four years together were fine. We went through high school. His family was pretty nice to me. I met his extended family-all cousins my age and started growing closer to them. DH has a little sister 2 years younger than him. At first we got along great. We would have sleep-overs when DH was at choir camp or whatever. I should mention that I also started going to their church more and thinking about converting after I turned 18 until about my senior year when I started studying Catholicism more on my own.
Then came college. DH decided to go to college about a 2 1/2 hour drive away at a big party state school. I decided to go to a small Bible college near our hometown.We did a lot of driving back and forth and came to a point where we were both on 100% the same page, and totally committed to our relationship. However, his family wasn't on the same page as us. His sister was 16 when he went to college and pretty much as soon as he left she started holding this weird grudge against me. There was tension, and I still don't know how or when it started. An example of the tension would be, when DH's family was going to have dinner, his sister would text him and say, "Mom says she's making dinner for the family. And btw family means a mom, dad, brother, and sister." During this time, I also converted back to Catholicism and DH started going to mass with me instead of the church his family went to.
After 2 years, DH decided to transfer back to our hometown and go to the local state school to be near me. We planned on getting married after college, so this made sense. This is also the year his sister went away to college. She decided to go to the Dutch church-affiliated college in Iowa. Before she left, his family decided to go on a big family vacation road trip. DH asked if I could come because we planned to get married in a few years and I had never met his family that lived in Iowa, which was our destination. His sister got really upset that I was going and insisted she wouldn't go unless she could bring a friend because DH got to bring a "friend." I tried taking her out to lunch before the trip to ease some tension, but the whole vacation turned into a big shit show. She was just awful to me, her friend was awful to me, she even got her mom to be awful to me, and it was just the most uncomfortable 10 days of my life. At one point, we were in a Vegas hotel room and she threw herself facedown on the floor kicking a screaming for us to get out because "we just don't understand." She left for Iowa and things continued to intensify, even while she was away.
After her 1st year of being away, DH proposed to me. His sister threw a fit and told him that she would never forgive him for not waiting 1 1/2 months until she was back in town to propose to me-which I have no idea why because she doesn't like me. She continued to be snarky and rude to me. As soon as we got engaged things went downhill with his parents too because they had this old fashioned expectation that my parents would pay 100% of the wedding and they could invite whomever they wanted. Their home became a tense hellhole that I wanted no part of. Even after his sister left again, she continued to be difficult whenever possible. The sad thing is that everyone in the family except her parents knew how difficult she was being. I was really close to DH's cousins at this point with 2 of them even as bridesmaids. I had asked the sister to be a BM too because that wasn't the hill I wanted to die on, but as soon as my BM's started talking shower and bachelorette dates, they were worrying about setting the sister off because she wouldn't be able to come. So they planned a really low key second bachelorette-just a movie night and snacks-so that she could be a part of it. That's just an example of some of the enabling everyone does for this girl.
Finally, the wedding came. She got home from Iowa about 2 weeks before the wedding. She was still difficult, and tried telling me that she didn't know if she was coming to the bachelorette party that was really more for her than me. She barely spoke to me at the wedding as well. Well, the next month she was getting ready to go back to Iowa. DH and I were planning to have housewarming party for our new apartment. I had mentioned it to her a few weeks earlier and expressed I hoped she would be in town when we had it-to be nice. So I sent out a message to our cousins on facebook with 2 weekends that worked for us, asking what worked for everyone else. 1 of the weekends the sister would be home, but the other she would be gone already. His sister flipped her shit. She texted DH and called me a bitch, she said that I had "blinded him", stole away her brother, was using my Catholic faith to manipulate him, that she had moved to Iowa to get away from me, and wasn't coming back because she couldn't stand anything about me. It was awful and we finally decided to call DH's parents for help. When his dad answered, he didn't even let DH finish explaining before attacking me for being Catholic, and the argument ended with DH's dad hanging up on him. His sister left back to Iowa to start beauty school the next week.
Since then, we've tried talking to his parents, and his dad screamed in my face that I'm a self-righteous, self-centered hypocrite that used my Catholic faith the manipulate DH so he wouldn't go to their church anymore. Every couple of months we get a text from his sister with some passive aggressive message about us not trying to change, when frankly, I didn't do anything to her. The only example she could give us of how horrible I am was one time on the road trip 3 years ago, I got in the shower without asking her if she wanted to take a shower. #sorrynotsorry? So last night, she randomly added me on instagram. I thought it was weird but accepted it. She immediately commented on a collage I had posted that morning for National Women's Day of a bunch of pictures of the women I'm close to (which are mostly DH's cousins). She commented "cute" with some emojis and then texted DH saying she hoped we were doing good. So we started talking about how maybe she would one day get past her negativity toward me. Halfway through the conversation DH's phone starts blowing up. His mom was sending him Bible verses and his dad started berating him and telling him that his sister had called crying because she wasn't in my Women's Day picture. He said that it's clear from that picture that I'm to blame, that it's sad that we can't just get over what his sister said, and that his whole family is going to have another sleepless night because of us. I'm just so over this drama. This morning his sister texted me accusing me of being the immature one because she's the one "trying." She said that I stole her brother and am trying to steal her family (I'm guessing she's meaning our cousins?) I told her that it was clear she hadn't changed and that I wasn't going to waste my time on this argument. His mom hates me, his dad hates me, and his sister hates me, and I really don't know what I did to deserve this. His extended family loves me and they feel like my in-laws more than my in-laws.
I guess this is a vent post, because why not? But if anyone has any advice, or can tell me where the line is to say enough-is-enough with his family...I'm all ears.
Re: When your in-laws make you want beat your head against the wall
Not your in laws.
And not his nasty sis.
Your problem is your H because at no time at all starting from the second you were engaged he never once had your back and he never once spoke up to his parents and told them once and for all to cut it out because what hurts you hurts him.
I have no idea how you are going to rectify this.
He has to be a team with you and he has to have your back. He is not a team with you and he hasn't got your back.
Here is what I suggest:
1-Marriage counseling with a counselor that more or less specializes in boys that need to cut the apron strings.
He needs to stand up for you and stand up to them and tell them to take a flying one at the moon
If he will not go to counseling with you eagerly and with the 100% intention of learning how to stand up to nasty people who hurt you, it will be worth nothing at all. There is no sense in his going unless he is committed fully to learning how to make a stand and stand up to them.
If he won't get counseling -- and if you won't (you too need it so that you can learn to stand up for your rights) -- I don't see much of a future for you and him and for your marriage.
The problem will escalate. There is already a riff between the 2 of you and it will only get wider and deeper.
Please -- you and he both -- fix this before a child enters the picture. it wil be a trillon percent worse once a kiddo is in the mix.
You can start by telling his sis where to go. That ought to be interesting.
Sorry you are going through this! Unfortunately, his parents and his sis sound like toxic people. Until they learn how to at least be civil to you, I would avoid them. I'm not saying your H should totally cut them out of his life, but he should keep his contact limited.
Your H needs to retrain them. If he/you all are visiting and negative things are said about you, he makes a statement that he will not tolerate his wife being spoken to like that and then you all get up and leave. Same with a phone call. Eventually they will learn, if they want a relationship with their son, they need to at least be civil and polite to his wife.
They may not like you and they may never like you, but they at least need to be pleasant to you. I know that's hard to face, but please don't take it to heart. Sometimes it's just like that. I personally think it's ridiculous to get all a-twitter over people who have the SAME religion, just different branches. Yet, wars have been started over Catholic vs. Protestant.
I probably should have led with this but, your H CHOSE to become Catholic and/or go to a Catholic church rather than staying Protestant. And he needs to OWN that choice, with his family, ALL DAY LONG. You didn't "turn him Catholic", he chose to become Catholic.
For example, I'm Protestant. I was in a long term relationship with a man for whom he and his family were devout Catholics. I chose to go to church with them instead of a Protestant church. If we had gotten married, I would have still gone to Mass with him and been fine with raising our children Catholic. However, I never in a million years would have become Catholic myself, because my beliefs are more closely aligned with Protestant beliefs. And everyone is going to have their own version of what is/isn't acceptable for them. For me, as long as the wide umbrella of "loving God and believing in Jesus Christ" was there, I didn't really care what church I went to.
In my case, unfortunately his mother was completely clueless and uneducated. Despite explaining it to her countless times, to this day I still don't think she understands that I was the same religion they are. "And, NO, I'm not refusing to have communion in your church because I don't want communion...I'm being respectful of the fact that I know I'm not allowed to have communion in a Catholic church if I am not specifically Catholic or Greek Orthodox." Had that little convo with her countless times also (rolling eyes).
Sheesh...what terrible people. I'd hate to see grandkids get into the mix of this -- telling them where it is at is one thing; they have to stop their rancor. I wouldn't want a kid mixed up in that donnybrook.
UPDATE because I'm frustrated again.
DH and I started counseling last weekend. I think it's going to be really hard but also really good. We didn't get much pre-marital counseling through the Catholic Church so I think it will help with a lot of things.
SIL has taken to posting things on Facebook all the time and tagging us in them. I think she gets praise and attention from her parents and then all our cousins who "I am stealing from her" like her posts and think she's being so nice to us. Then she'll FB message DH and proceed to say the same nasty things, just no one can see that. It's so frustrating and I'm trying my absolute hardest not to fall into her game and get defensive as she is trying to get everyone on her side. I know that we have the truth and I know my cousins love me and I see them all the time and they tell me that over and over. I know that the people who belong in our lives will be the people who don't let her tarnish their relationships with me. Sorry...just a vent because I needed to get it out and didn't want to annoy you all with another thread.