'AITA for threatening divorce if my husband wants his mother to see our kids?' UPDATED
"AITA for threatening divorce if my husband wants his mother to see our kids?"
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 from ever being in my children’s lives again. Almost everyone in my husband’s family, including my husband, is calling me an a%#$ole, and many are saying that I am an arrogant and hateful woman and that’s why I was never 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 if 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 a^#, 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 not the 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, and I would make sure his mom never sees our children enforced legally.
What started all of this is one of my sisters-in-law sending me chat logs after chat logs of his mother spewing hatred about my children, especially my daughter, because she looks like me.
AITA? Can I forbid my husband’s family from seeing 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 sunk. My daughter does not want to see anyone from that side of the family.
Here are the top comments:
Robbie_ShortBus says:
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.
MaxtheCookie says:
Send the chat logs to your husband and tell that they are one of the reasons she will not be seeing you kids.
celticmusebooks says:
Can you give some SPECIFIC examples of how she "hates" your children? Seems if she hated them she'd welcome you saying she doesn't ever have to see them again. DO be aware that you will have no say in how much contact your in laws have with the kids while your husband has his visitation time.
Unless these chatlogs actually include tangible threats of physical harm the courts will not restrict who you husband and the kids spend time with during his custody time. You and your husband sound like you need to get some marriage counselling to get on the same page OR to help navigate co parenting as divorced parents.
OP responded:
You would think that wouldn’t you? That she would be over the moon that she doesn’t have to have them in her life. But my guess is that she enjoys the mistreatment. She loves showing obvious favoritism and see their reaction.
Like when she calls them fat or my daughter a giraffe or when she “forgets” to buy them gifts when everyone else gets one or pushes them out of pictures with her other grandkids. Smelly, dirty, snotty etc.
Away-Understanding34 says:
If he has seen the chat logs where his mother bashed his kids and he is still defending her, then he's a lost cause. What has he said about that? Is he going to let her trash them to their faces? You are doing the right thing in protecting your kids. He's failing as a father and husband.
5 days later OP came back with this update:
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 “p$s%y.”
My husband was silent the whole time. I said well, I don’t have ba#$s 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 them she 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's what people had to say to OP after the udpate:
Wow, what a bombshell. Good for you. I hope your husband sees this as the wake up call it is, after hearing it straight from his brother’s mouth.
What does he plan to do to earn back the respect of you and your children? He was willing to let his family abuse you and them, his own children, and the only thing that changed his mind was finding out they knew he had no spine.
Frankly, it would be hard to continue loving someone so weak who wouldn’t support our kids. I mean, I am sure he has some good qualities, but it sounds like he is dead weight dragging the rest of you down.
We have talked about couples counseling and we take it from there.
Sounds like brother is the Golden Child and your hubby is the Scapegoat. He may have the real therapy need.
He is. He is very successful businessman and self made multimillionaire so he is even more of a favorite now