In-laws and favoritism
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| Fri, 11-10-2006 - 10:20am |
My husband and I are parents to a four month old boy who is our absolute delight. My problem is with my in-laws who completely ignore him. Ever since my husbands younger brother marrried a doctor, my in-laws have gone out of their way to have a great relationship with her. After one year of marriage, my brother-in-law and his wife gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. At the time when I found out she was pregnant, I was extremely hurt because I had been married for over three years and my husband would not support my decision to start trying for a baby. My husband finally came to that decision only one week before I learned that my new sister-in-law was pregnant, a decision which I wonder was due to the fact that his brother's wife was pregnant and he knew I would be hurt.
Although I worried about appearing to get pregnant in response to her news, my husband insisted and we concieved quickly. Our son was born three months to the day after his cousin was born. Although they appeared happy about our son's birth, my in-laws have never been involved in his life. Even while I was in hospital, and during my ceaearean surgery, when they visited they talked constantly about the other grandchild. She is their obvious favorite. Every milestone of hers is celebrated, but they ignore my son completely. His little personality is lost on them. I find myself forcing my stories of him on them for them to recognise what a sweet baby he is, but it makes no difference, and I know that that is wrong for me to do. One aunt-in-law even came from overseas just to meet her new grand-neice on a ticket which my husband paid for, however in-spite of the fact that my husband provided a second plane ticket for that same aunt-in-law, she has yet to return to even see her grand-nephew.
Their grand-daughter has fair skin, light eyes and blonde hair like them, my son has dark skin and hair like me, and I believe this, in addition to the fact that her mother is a doctor, weighs heavily in their indifference towards him.
My complex worry is that
1. How can I protect him from their attitudes. I don't want him to feel second-best. I want him to feel loved and happy and confident?
2. How can I stop hurting when they seem to enjoy such an easy comraderie with their new daughter-in-law and are cool and distant with me, although I have been a part of their family for almost five years?
3. How can I reach that peaceful place where I won't share this with my husband and put him in an uncomfortable position, thereby causing many arguments?
4. How do I respond to this in a manner that promotes harmony in our home and our extended family?
5. Is it wrong of me to expect my husband to address this with his family?
I am pretty bitter about this and I don't want to hurt anymore. Should I confront my mother-in-law or just tackle my own feelings on the subject and focus on raising our new baby up to be a strong, happy, confident boy and man?
Hurt and confused,
tallislandgirl

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Hi Tallislandgirl, welcome to the board!
I think you need to tell DH how you feel about this and that he needs to confront his parents about it. If he won't do it, then you can confront his parents in front of DH. If they don't try to change their behavior, then you know where you stand. Your son will one day realize that he isn't the favorite and will act accordingly. One day when they may want to be a bigger part of his life, he isn't going to want to be bothered with them and it will be their loss. Is this what DH wants for his son?
Seems like this problem is more common that I first thought. I spoke about it to DH. He recognises there is a problem but isn't willing to spek to his mother about it (His father is deceased) His attitude is just to ignore it so I'm kinda on my own as far as speaking to her (MIL) about it. Maybe I just need a thicker skin, and some coping skills. I don't want to transmit this nonsense to my son.
tallislandgirl
Hi ladies, boy can I relate to these problems, I'm in my late 40's and my second marriage the favoritism hits home. My DH is the runt MBI being the eldest of three is the favorite to a point that he has imitated our lifestyle to the tee. Being my second marriage we went a different route, lived together, had our loving son and married and have a house. I have a teenage son from my first marriage and MDH raised him as his own. The killer is that after being together for over 10yrs MDH is concentrating on MIL more than us. MBL who is in his late 50's has a son 1yr old and he is the favorite GS as well as the favority DIL. I also been in the family the longest as a DIL but this chick comes into the household, illegal, no English, MBL snuck her in the house to live in while MIL are in S.A. has a son from some man in S.A. and pow she get pregnant and when the "King" is born everything is "Roses" mind you MDH to make everyone happy and the way MIL raised him to give, give, give will not to stand up for me or my son and concentrate on "poor litte nephew" who has everything and everyone around his little finger as well as my SIL who does not work, cook, not even takes care of her kids cause both MIL and FIL takes care of them. Oh, yes when we went to BIL 1 bedroom apt in the same 3 family home in which everyone lives in, BIL set up the apt the exact same way we had it when we started out. But the pity from step GS hurt so much cause their other step GS (my eldest) was not accepted either. What irks me is that when MDH and I got together and had the family my inlaws didn't even bother to help out in anyway in starting out as a family and it got worse when we moved away to CT (only 45 min.). My MIL and FIL saw the house first reaction what small bedrooms(4) but the one I wanted for myself is the one they claim when they sleep over and now they love it that they wish BIL have the same kind of house. I'm so sick I feel like a failure in both marriages and to top it off I thought MDH was different from the first but only realized that they both are from the same S.A. country different city but the upbringing although they both were born in USA is typical where the Mommy comes first. To my surprise is why now that we have been together this long he is regressing to take MIL and BIL advice and their well being over ours here. I believe that if MIL can have her way she would want BIL to have everything we have without him working for it. Come on now, I'm a working full time mom and all I want is to move on but with my in-laws constantly involved I can't get away.
Yes, ladies I even spoke with MDH about our boundaries being respected and for them to respect ours but unfortunately MDH tells everything to his family including how I feel about them which makes me the ENEMY the one who is separating the "FAMILY". The only thing missing for his family to know is the intimacy. He calls is family when I'm not aroung, visit them on his days off while I'm at work and makes decision with them without my input and when I disagree he doesn't fight with them, it's me cause I hate his family(according to him). Unfortunately I can't share this with my family because the age differences with my siblings about 22 yrs and mom is in her 90's. So nowhere to go, to run to and to share except here.
So ladies thanks for listening and sorry for rambling cause right now I'm so angry, upset, hurt, deceived and dissappointed I don't know what to do to protect myself and my son from this dysfunctional and hurting environment we can't get away from.
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