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Dear Carolyn: For several years we lived close to my husband’s parents. They had moved 2,000 miles away from our shared hometown to be closer to us. They did not ask us. They just did it. They also have a second home, so they were not on top of us, but having them nearby was a source of contention between my husband and me. They spoke often about wanting to help with our young kids, but they almost never actually did, except on very few occasions.
My husband has always refused to confront them about anything and never wants to hurt their feelings. They are lovely and generous people, but he protects his mom and chooses her feelings over mine. He says I am unreasonable and mean. We then moved back to where we both grew up. His parents have visited frequently over the years and reconnected with some of their old friends.
They have just announced they are going to buy a home near to us, again. They say all the same things they said before. They want to have a home base near us and help, etc. I am very angry. Part of the reason for moving back was for our kids to spend some time with my family, whom they only saw a couple of times a year before. I think it is unfair for my husband’s parents to keep following us, uninvited.
The whole idea of moving to be near your kids seems like a ridiculous concept to me. Again, they say how wonderful it will be to be close and how they will help but I know this will not be the case. I asked my husband to tell them it would make things difficult for me, since I already have to deal with my own divorced family tensions here, but he will not. I feel like they are almost trespassing on my family’s turf and time. I cannot even imagine how they would not see that. Am I being unreasonable?
Angry: If you have cause to dislike your in-laws, like if they criticize you or show up unannounced or undermine you as a parent or call constant attention to themselves (or pick your item from the family dysfunction menu), then I get your visceral frustration. Otherwise, the only foul I can call on your in-laws is their making and breaking vague promises to help with your kids.
It is annoying but hardly justifies a mission to “confront” these “lovely” people. Babysit for us, or else! If your outrage stems solely from the help that never materializes then: 1. Please know they are pretty typical grandparents, as plenty opt out of the harder work. Yours just have unusual means to remove geographic obstacles. 2. A little reframing can be magic. “They are here to love us not babysit” makes a fine mantra. The “help!” phase of child rearing is fleeting anyway, except of course when you are in it.
It appears, though, your fury is more general than that, over their building a life on a concept of closeness you find “ridiculous” after you just moved back to be closer to your own family. And having more anger than consistency is a theme. Your in-laws are not “on top of us” but they are “trespassing” and their projected involvement “will not be the case.” Okay…
Again, if they mistreat you, then I get it. Otherwise, you have given your husband cause to see you as “unreasonable and mean,” not to mention dismissive of what he wants, assuming he is thrilled to keep the grandkids and generous grandparents within easy driving distance (yet still willing to move away). To be fair, his calling you these things is not helpful. The compassionate move is to ease pain instead of lash out at it.
I would say your real problem here is a marital one, not an in-law one, if indeed your husband backs his mom over you, but that is only true if your positions are reasonably backable. Resenting your in-laws for not wanting to live 2,000 miles from their son and his family does not, to my mind, meet that standard, when you say yourself they are not crowding you and have friends and other places to be.
So I have written my way to this: Maybe the problem is not your in-laws, or geography, or your marriage, but instead your pain. Maybe your pain is easier to feel in anger form. And maybe anger is easier to express at your in-laws, who sit at a safe distance from the very core of your being, than at your tense divorced family, who now occupy it.
That is a lot of speculation. But even if I am way off I would suggest therapy regardless. Your letter radiates anger at things beyond your control and your marriage seems a little crisp at the edges. Lessons in healthy detachment from other stuff rarely go to waste. When you approach your life as choices you make, like whom you spend time with, how often, for how long, instead of choices made at you, so much anger melts away.
Source link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2023/08/27/carolyn-hax-parents-moving-closer-uninvited/