Woman puts foot down: in-laws banned from seeing children after favoritism. AITA? + UPDATE
"AITA for banning my in laws from seeing my children and threatening my husband with divorce if he doesn’t agree?"
Ok_Hotel_4829
My mother in law has a total of 10 grandchildren. Mine are her least favorite and as long as the children were young and didn’t understand it was tolerable but now they suffer a lot and notice the favoritism and visiting the in laws has become an ordeal for my children especially when the other cousins are there.
Now I have decided to eliminate this anxiety from my children and forbid my in laws to ever be in my children’s lives again. Almost everyone on my husband’s family including my husband are calling me an ah and many are saying that I am an arrogant and hateful woman and that’s why I never was a favorite of my mother in law but see this is where I disagree.
It doesn’t matter if she likes me or not. If I am the arrogant one or she’s the selfish bitter cunt. It shouldn’t be taken out on the children and here’s an example of the train of thought that made me come to this conclusion:
I have a sister and a brother both married with kids. I hate my brother in law because he is an abusive ass and I love my sister in law. I LOVE ALL MY NIBLINGS. Because they are my family and didn’t choose their parents. In other words, my children are her grandchildren and her son’s children no matter who I am.
Now she is calling my husband crying every day about how I am forbidding her from seeing her grandchildren which is beyond me because why would she even care when she doesn’t like them? Because I finally said something?
My other reason is that I don’t want my children to resent their cousins for being treated better because it is botnthe cousins’ fault either that adults aren’t even pretending to be civil.
My husband said that “I have no right” and “He has the same amount of say to decide who meets his children” so I told him that fine, he could choose us or mommy and we could divorce.
I would make sure his mom to never see our children enforced legally because what started all of this is one of my sister in laws sending me chatlogs after chatlogs of his mother spewing hatred about my children, especially my daughter because she looks like me.
Aitah? Can I forbid my husband’s family to see our children even with him believing we could fix this in a less dramatic way? His mother is very willing to apologize and talk and she says that she loves our children very much. But for me that ship has sailed and sunken. My daughter does not want to see anyone from that side of the family.
Here were the top rated comments from readers after the OP's initial post:
Robbie_ShortBus
Huge gamble a relying on judge to specifically exclude these people from seeing your kids in a divorce. Have to accept that it’s possible they will see them more once you’re out of the picture.
Vegetable-Cod-2340
Yeah, the better plan would be to have the children see a child psychologist or therapist. Let the doctor tell a judge that those people are damaging to the mental health of the children. And even then it's still not a guarantee.
No_Back5221
As someone who grew up with a grandmother who was like this, don’t bring kids around her, we do notice the favoritism, we do resent our cousins who were favorites and the relationship can be damaged because of this adults actions.
Idk if it merits divorce but definitely low contact with them. I was about 7/8 when my grandmother told me I wasn’t supposed to be born, I told my mother and she let me choose to see her again, I didn’t see her much until I was a few years older.
She’s always hated the kids my mother had with one of her specific sons, my bio father, so the hatred for him transferred to us. Just keep your kids away from her, it’s not worth the pain and hurt of seeing her.
Ok_Hotel_4829 OP responded:
See that’s what I am talking about. I don’t want my children to learn to resent in this early age and the cousins are innocent in this but I understand that for a 7 yo she can’t understand who is behind what’s making her hurt. Just that she is hurt because of these people. I hate that for my children. To be isolated.
KLG999
Why doesn’t your husband explain to the kids why his parents treat them differently?
Five days later, the OP returned with an update.
Ok_Hotel_4829
Hi! So I got what I wanted in the end. My husband was reluctant to hear me out or the children. I told him what’s the point of even having a family if you already have a family.
What’s the point of trying to raise our children to have their own autonomy if we don’t listen to them when they say no? He of course called me dramatic. We invited his older brother and wife for dinner, the brother brought up the issue and I was very honest about what I wanted and what the children wanted.
The brother laughed it off as me always despising his mother and I was overreacting. My husband was nodding in agreement so I asked brother in law if he read the chats between his wife, his sister, his mom and his other sister in law (the one who ratted them out) and at first he denied it then he said yeah I did.
I asked him what he would have done if his mother, or mother in law wrote these things about his children and he just said Ha! She would never even dream of seeing them again. Not even if hell froze over.
So I asked then why my children? He looked at me then my husband (his brother) then he casually said, because I am a “real man” but your husband has always been a “pVssy” (I don’t talk in balls and pussies per usual, just retelling what he told me).
My husband was silent the whole time. I said well, I don’t have balls but your mother will never see my children again, not even if hell freezes over. So tell that to your brother or anyone for that matter.
My husband took our daughter out for a dinner and movie (a tradition of theirs) and he probably talked to her about her grandparents. She told him they don’t like her and she feels sad about it. She made it very clear she doesn’t want to talk to them.
She told him she already had grandparents (my folks) so that’s enough. When he got home he said that we don’t need to visit again. We will not accept any gifts from them and that he can visit them alone. I said thank you.
Here were the top rated comments from readers in response to the OP's post:
Duckie1986
Just one correction to what you wrote.
"I don’t have balls"
Sure you do, they just don't fit into pants. Ours get placed on our chest so there is less chaffing.
SmartQuokka
We have generational trauma for breakfast
"His mother is very willing to apologize and talk and she says that she loves our children very much."
Translation: You are threatening to take away my victims, i will do everything in my power to maintain access to them so i can keep hurting them.
paulinaiml
That jellyfish husband only took action when his pride was at stake. Glad AnoTher MaN spurred him into action because whatever OP said was falling on deaf ears.
Divayth--Fyr
Picture it clearly. Kids sitting around a table. You kids get cake and chocolate milk, but you other kids don't. They are sitting there, watching the other kids have their cake. They are lesser. They are ashamed. They are sad.
Grandma is getting some kind of sadistic thrill out of this. She sees the sadness and shame, and that's her dessert, that's her cake. She looks at those sad little faces and she likes that, she wants that to keep happening.
Every kid at that table is a victim. The ones who got cake and the ones who didn't. The whole twisted panorama of sick, disturbing lessons being learned. Grandma's own little Stanford Prison Experiment, with cake. Training future abusers and abused.
Picture it clearly, and then the father of those innocent souls says "meh, whatever". That father will take those kids to Grandma again. Absolutely guaranteed, first chance he gets. Nothing will interrupt this warped family dynamic.
Husband never got cake when he was a kid. Those sad little faces, wondering why they didn't deserve cake. The rage this creates is something that I cannot say here. But I can think it.
Curious_Solid1450
I still think she should post the screenshots 🤷🏽♀️ ruin ALL THEIR REPUTATIONS and I’d still divorce my husband.