Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Monster In Law
Ok here is the run down on how everything happened the week before my wedding. My fiance and I have been together for 4 years. His parents have always been very nice and supportive and very enjoyable to be around. I never knew there was a problem. Because they always said how they can't wait for me to be in the family and that they "love me so much".
Well a few months before the wedding his parents were trying to convience us to invite my fiance's long lost brother to our wedding. My finance kept saying no, polietely and they would just not stop asking. Then two weeks before the wedding his father had sent an email out to me and my fiance that said in a nut shell that "he would really like both of his boys there and have his family together".
Since I got this email sent to me I felt this was time for me to add my two cents. I asked my fiance if that would be alright with him and he had no problem with it. So I responded to the email. In my email, I was straight forward and to the point. I reminded them that our wedding was not the time or the place for my fiance and his brother to reconcile thier diffeneces. So I told them the finally answer was no he would not be invited and that this would be the last time we would have this conversation because in the weeks to come my fiance and I would be very busy with last minute wedding planning.
Well, then a few days later my fiance gets an email from his mother and it says that she will not be taking orders from some "white lady" and especially if she was younger. This was from the email: "I have another white girl telling me that part of my family is not welcomed in her house. To me that is pretty heavy and I wanted to say many choice words to her but I try very hard to put myself in her shoes and understand. I refuse, refuse, refuse to allow this to happen again. I have issues with "white people" telling me what I should do, because it makes me feel like they are talking down to me and making me feel like I am lower than them especially when they are younger than me. What ever happened to respect for your more mature parents. ENOUGH OF THIS ***."
So my fiance sent me the email so that I could see how she responded. As you would assume I was so upset. I immediately emailed her back and maybe shouldn't have but I did in anger. So that whole day past, my mother was with me that week and told me I should call off the wedding because she never realized my new in laws were so prejudice. By the way my family is white and his is hispanic. So we slept on it not knowing what would happen.
The next day my mother thought I should suck it up and just apologize to my fiance's mother since I was not very nice to her on the phone the day before. So I called and did the right thing by apologizing and reinforcing that we wanted them to come to the wedding, because they had threatened us with not coming at all. So I did the right thing, I apologized and she was very laxadasically with it and never apologized for ruining my week.
You can imagine how much stress this put on my fiance and I not to mention my immediate family as well. So the week went on and everything turned out okay, no more big blow ups during the weekend, but my fiance's mother and father were very standoffish.
I am not very happy with them at this point, I still do not feel like things are "normal" and I still feel like his mother has a problem with me being "white". And lately she makes comments on my facebook page like "are you sure you want me to be your mother-in-law". I just remove the comments and don't even respond, because I just want to keep the peace. But they don't call as much and my fiance does not call them as much either. I think this has put a little space between me and my fiance. He really didn't stand up for me during the whole incident he just kept quiet.
So now I just feel like I cannot trust his parents. I don't really care to have anything to do with them at this point, because they really hurt my feelings. I have told them that but I still don't think they understand. I don't even want to talk to them.
Tell me what you think and what my next step should be. I don't think things should remain like this our entire marriage we have a long life ahead of us.
AD
Re: Monster In Law
He really didn't stand up for me during the whole incident he just kept quiet.
Bingo! And there my dear is the REAL problem. If you and your H are not on the same page this will always be an issue and eventually you'll be leaving.
I agree with Magsugar13. If he doesn't defend you when someone insults you like that, it will always feel like you against the world. You can only take that for so long before you blow up.
Is this just his mother that feels this way or is it a large majority of his family that feels this way?
From your profile it shows you are newly married, and I know you don't want to give up on it the third week in. If it is just her, then you can find ways to deal with it. Evil as it is when someone stereotypes you as the "white lady" and thinks that your skin color is enough to disrespect you, she is your family now. To a point you have to deal with her. You might want to try and take the high road, bond with the rest of family, and kill her with kindness.
Check us out
The post was super long, and it seems to not matter. If you were having problems, and your H didn't stand up for you, I'm with Mags. You have a H problem, not a MIL problem.
Agreeing with pps. Also, you should never has sent those emails. Not the first or the second. And your FI should not have shown you the email from his mother. The problem is your H. He okayed you sending the first letter - he let you talk on his behalf when he should have stood up for himself and addressed his parents himself. He's also should not have shown you his mother's email. He should have addressed it directly with his mother himself, "Mother, I will not stand for you to talk about my wife like that." But he hasn't handled any of this properly. That's the problem you need to address.
He needs to handle his parents going forward.
Exactly what I was thinking.
All of this. If your husband feels distance with his parents because of this, he neesd to sit down with them and clear the air. You should be polite to them, but let your husband handle all major communication and planning from now on.
Your Husband should have been corresponding with your MIL, not you. It's not your place. Your MIL sounds like a 5 year old. Clearly she is prejudiced, and now you and DH will just have to handle that.
Does anyone else get the feeling that the estranged brother walked away from the family because his mother wouldn't respect his white wife/GF?