Cats

[Grace Hopper]

7 minutes ago, KrisTom said:

Yep— less drama. I also figure if he went with the kids, his mom and sister would end up caring for the kids, then that’d make me look bad. Did I mention I live next door to his parents? Seemed like an ok idea at the time (they moved in four months the after we did to the other house for sale). My husband also farms with his dad. Our lives are totally intermingled. You’d think my feelings would mean something, like why would a husband continue this trip? Nope. 

Good grief if you literally see them every day, no reason to vacation with them too! Does your nuclear family (just you, dh and kids) ever go on vacation without them?

[regentrude]

6 minutes ago, KrisTom said:

Yep— less drama. I also figure if he went with the kids, his mom and sister would end up caring for the kids, then that’d make me look bad. 

Why would that "make you look bad"? The kids have a father who can care for them just fine.

Seriously, why do you put up with, and cater to, this level of dysfunction, at your own expense? 

[Arcadia]

28 minutes ago, KrisTom said:

Yep— less drama. I also figure if he went with the kids, his mom and sister would end up caring for the kids, then that’d make me look bad. Did I mention I live next door to his parents? Seemed like an ok idea at the time (they moved in four months the after we did to the other house for sale). My husband also farms with his dad. Our lives are totally intermingled. You’d think my feelings would mean something, like why would a husband continue this trip? Nope. 

Your husband sound similar to my 81 year old FIL. He is brought up with the idea that child rearing is done by the women folks while the men are supposed to concentrate on earning the money for food and lodging.

My husband actually picked our marital homes as far as possible from his parents because they would call him for any minor tasks/issues. 
This pandemic is just adding on to existing issues for you. I’ll be looking at short term and long term plans for your marriage. My name was not on the mortgage (paid off) but is on the home title. I live in California which is a community property state anyway.
https://www.quickenloans.com/learn/community-property-states

“Which States Are Community Property States?

Community property states include: Arizona, California, Idaho, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Washington and Wisconsin. In these states, any assets acquired by spouses throughout their marriage is labeled as community property, regardless of who buys it.”

[Ting Tang]

1 hour ago, Grace Hopper said:

You are a grown woman! Decide for yourself! You don’t have to be rude about it, just calmly say you aren’t going. He can’t make you. 
 

When I’ve heard stories like this in the past, the husband wants the wife along so she can care for the kids while he…vacates. You deserve a vacation too. 
 

Also, his parents are complicit. You’ll get nowhere with them. 

Yeah, they know how I feel. If I’m ever dying from a terminal disease, some will get a list of grievances! 

[Ting Tang]

1 hour ago, Grace Hopper said:

Good grief if you literally see them every day, no reason to vacation with them too! Does your nuclear family (just you, dh and kids) ever go on vacation without them?

No. We’ve taken some smaller trips, but it always has to be squeezed in because this one is a fishing trip that takes prep. And the rest of summer is set aside for farming. Last year that was our only trip due to his mom’s illness. 

[Ting Tang]

1 hour ago, regentrude said:

Why would that "make you look bad"? The kids have a father who can care for them just fine.

Seriously, why do you put up with, and cater to, this level of dysfunction, at your own expense? 

I definitely shouldn’t. I have thought maybe it’d bother the family, but they’d give him the pass. 

[Ting Tang]

1 hour ago, KSera said:

Are your parents alive and do you see them?

My dad, barely alive. He is in and out of hospitals due to lingering health issues. A lot of my family is deceased, but my aunt and grandma live in a different part of the country now. They’d be very upset if they knew his attitude toward Covid. 

[chiguirre]

OP, now that you've clarified that you live on a farm in a multigenerational family, I think I need to modify my advice. It's not so easy to separate from that kind of family. It's not a question of getting a job to be financially independent and then splitting the assets. It's way more complex than that. Your kids have lived next door to their grandparents and gone on vacation with them their whole lives. That's not the typical American family relationship and it would be extremely difficult to try to extricate the five of you from it and just have visitation or even joint custody. It's a lot harder to divorce the whole multigenerational family than it is to split up a typical household. 

I've sort of BTDT with the living too close to dh's family, having them always around and having to vacation with them every.flipping.time. One way I dealt with that was by literally hiding out with a good book while dh took a turn watching the kids and hanging with his parents. Another was by encouraging dh to spend lots of quality time alone with his parents while I watched the kids (it looked like I was being super sweet when really I was royally sick of them.) Finally, try to find someone in his family you can be friends with if at all possible. It makes the enforced togetherness less unpleasant if you have someone who shares your interests. Eventually, I just got to the point that I wasn't going to take my fil's guff anymore. I started answering back when he said stoopid stuff. I expected a blow up, but actually it made the relationship less fraught. This may or may not work for you, proceed with caution.

I'm sorry to say that you probably aren't at the worst part of the multigenerational living thing yet. When your in-laws start needing care and financial assistance that will also be your dh's job along with any capable siblings that he has. My advice is to try to distance yourself from that extra, super fraught relationship. Your dh will be mighty sick of listening to his parents' complaints and it's best if you can just be his cheerleader without getting caught in the dysfunction quicksand yourself. 

If you can get yourself a part time job or a personal activity away from your family, it will help you cope better with all the enforced togetherness. Even a solitary walk for a half hour can make a big difference in being able to deal with constantly being around people, especially annoying people.

I hope you can find a way to carve out some personal space!

[Ting Tang]

7 minutes ago, chiguirre said:

OP, now that you've clarified that you live on a farm in a multigenerational family, I think I need to modify my advice. It's not so easy to separate from that kind of family. It's not a question of getting a job to be financially independent and then splitting the assets. It's way more complex than that. Your kids have lived next door to their grandparents and gone on vacation with them their whole lives. That's not the typical American family relationship and it would be extremely difficult to try to extricate the five of you from it and just have visitation or even joint custody. It's a lot harder to divorce the whole multigenerational family than it is to split up a typical household. 

I've sort of BTDT with the living too close to dh's family, having them always around and having to vacation with them every.flipping.time. One way I dealt with that was by literally hiding out with a good book while dh took a turn watching the kids and hanging with his parents. Another was by encouraging dh to spend lots of quality time alone with his parents while I watched the kids (it looked like I was being super sweet when really I was royally sick of them.) Finally, try to find someone in his family you can be friends with if at all possible. It makes the enforced togetherness less unpleasant if you have someone who shares your interests. Eventually, I just got to the point that I wasn't going to take my fil's guff anymore. I started answering back when he said stoopid stuff. I expected a blow up, but actually it made the relationship less fraught. This may or may not work for you, proceed with caution.

I'm sorry to say that you probably aren't at the worst part of the multigenerational living thing yet. When your in-laws start needing care and financial assistance that will also be your dh's job along with any capable siblings that he has. My advice is to try to distance yourself from that extra, super fraught relationship. Your dh will be mighty sick of listening to his parents' complaints and it's best if you can just be his cheerleader without getting caught in the dysfunction quicksand yourself. 

If you can get yourself a part time job or a personal activity away from your family, it will help you cope better with all the enforced togetherness. Even a solitary walk for a half hour can make a big difference in being able to deal with constantly being around people, especially annoying people.

I hope you can find a way to carve out some personal space!

We actually live in a subdivision… they farm crops… but yes, most of this still stands. 😔 He already has started to help with their medical needs. I’m sitting on my bed next to their dog…. The one I’d be friends with is not going on the vacation this summer. She is married to DHs brother, who actually respects his wife’s wishes! Even DHs sister’s husband has said he feels as I do about the vacation.  But I’m the bad one… but yes, I think cover things to get harder. I feel like I’m wasting my life away, being so upset. At this point, I’m not sure how I’m going to live in this house the next two days let alone the future. 

[Dianthus]

20 minutes ago, KrisTom said:

But I’m the bad one… but yes, I think cover things to get harder. I feel like I’m wasting my life away, being so upset. At this point, I’m not sure how I’m going to live in this house the next two days let alone the future. 

Don't be the bad one! Can you try to take the high road? Don't fight with dh, don't complain? Have you already tried that approach? Just refuse to engage.

In your situation, I would plan a separate trip for just your family. Doesn't have to be expensive or long, but something for just your family where you can mellow out and have fun. Maybe gift it to your dh? A surprise? Seems like it would be harder for him to reject it. Maybe you could have the kids help plan to surprise dad. That's what I would do, and it seems it would make the inlaw trip less miserable when you have something else to look forward to.

Where is the fishing trip?

[saraha]

1 hour ago, chiguirre said:

I'm sorry to say that you probably aren't at the worst part of the multigenerational living thing yet. When your in-laws start needing care and financial assistance that will also be your dh's job along with any capable siblings that he has. My

This is where we are at right now with the multigenerational farm thing and let me tell you it is a hot mess

[Faith-manor]

OP, I think you do need to find a job just for you to have money you can put away, and a break from this mess. Your husband is horribly disrespectful, and in my experience with friends whose husbands acted similarly and had the inlaws backing their sons' bad attitudes, it did NOT end well. In all three situations, the husbands blind sided their wives with divorce papers. None were prepared.

Having a job gives you time away from all of them and a financial way forward. I can tell you that in my state, you would not get anything. Those family farm situations are sacrosanct and usually tied up in such a nice, neat legal bow that it is never an asset split in divorce. So for your own sake, please begin looking for employment. Get your own bank account and do NOT put his name on it, make your bank password something he can't guess and keep it well hidden. When eligible, get a bank issued credit card, use it once or twice a month for small purchases, and pay off promptly so you can begin building a credit score.

The other thing about having that job is you have an outlet and can begin building some confidence. You may make friends through co-workers. You need to separate your identity from him and his family. It doesn't matter if this job is something in your field or the basis of a career. You can change jobs in the future. 

As for him, I would end all the wifey poo niceties. He treats you like crap, so I would begin treating him like a bad roommate. No cooking for him, no doing laundry for him, no sleeping with him in both the literal and non literal sense, no favors. Be cordial, but never open, and don't engage in conversation. If you absolutely have to go on the family vacation (you could easily get out of that though if you get a job right away because it won't come with vacation time to start), take some books, supervise your own kids, but do not get involved with him and his folks. Again, cordial, but formally aloof. You need to create a wall there so no one thinks you are going to engage in care giving for them.

He can either suck it up and live with the new you, or make a stink. Make a stink doesn't change anything. He can realize he has majorly screwed up his relationship with you - not likely - and change, accept the new status quo, or divorce you. No matter what though, you will be in a better place mentally and financially to handle it. And frankly, if he leaves all the medical care decisions about the kids to you, then go get them vaccinated and don't say anything. If the kids have reactions for a couple of days and he notices they don't feel well, say 'They don't feel well" and move on. If they tell him they are vaccinated, let him rant and rave, and you pretend it is nothing more than 'WA WA WA WA WA " and stare at your book or whatever it was you were doing. Then calmly look him in the face and tell him that if he wants a say in future medical decisions about the kids, he can take on x, y, z responsibilities for the kids including taking them to well child check ups and developing a relationship with their doctors/practitioners. Then walk away. Legally, you are within your rights to vaccinate them without his permission. I know of no state that says both parents have to sign off on a vaccine.  If you are however afraid he will physically abuse you if you do it, then that right there is the very best reason you have for beginning to set yourself up for the potential of the marriage not surviving. You should not live in fear and under constant duress, however, he isn't going to listen to reason so it falls to you to be brave, and begin changing the dependency on him.

Many, many hugs! This sucks and is hard. But you can do this.

[kbutton]

17 hours ago, KrisTom said:

The one I’d be friends with is not going on the vacation this summer. She is married to DHs brother, who actually respects his wife’s wishes! Even DHs sister’s husband has said he feels as I do about the vacation.  But I’m the bad one… but yes, I think cover things to get harder. I feel like I’m wasting my life away, being so upset. At this point, I’m not sure how I’m going to live in this house the next two days let alone the future. 

We don't live that close to relatives, but we had other forms of forced closeness, and DH's family is a hot mess. We have the only grandchildren in the family. We live close enough that my MIL can drive here out of the blue, but that has finally stopped. There are some issues around whether people are simply non-neurotypical vs. BPD, and I think the answer is that at least one person has BPD because they never learned how to live with being atypical, and neither did their primary caregiver. There is enough untreated ADHD going around to share with multiple families. DH tends to try to make things everyone's problem in the name of peace even with it's clearly going one direction (fun times being equally blamed for his mother being rude). It's taken a long time to turn it around. It's not fun. I am so sorry! 

I ended up being a foil for a lot of these characteristics, and I just didn't know that was going to happen. I was just treating people the way I wanted to be treated while the rest of the family would just literally ignore the crazy (as in pretending my MIL hadn't spoken at all). Sigh. I allowed her to be heard in her own family, but it backfired for me until very recently. 

I do think it's a good idea to get a counselor for you, but be sure to ditch anyone you don't click with in 2 sessions. 

We've gotten things to a basically workable point. I say basically because my DH would like to see his family more, but he doesn't have the executive function to plan well. That's not my problem. I do try to be sure that we aren't leaving a specific family member local to my MIL on the hook for things, but beyond that, I just sort of mention now and then that if he wants to see people, he needs to look at the calendar and make a plan.

I also have boundaries about how long we stay, what we do about meals, etc. My MIL can be nice to me for nearly 24 hours, sometimes a couple more, so we tend to leave around the 22-24 hour mark. I answer her in monosyllables whenever possible, try not to sit across from or next to her at meals, avoid eye contact, and try to stay out of the same room. I no longer help with dishes and such, which makes me feel rude, but it's just better that way. 

You do not have the play the assigned role. I had people kind of mad at me for not wanting to play it, and I think it was just because I hadn't found an authentic role to play. I had to give myself permission to be rude, and I had to find my own way. Others in the family just look at it like a big social experiment and laugh it off, but they live across the country and have tons of autonomy on coming and going (as in, they tend to be catered to because they can't come as often, even if they don't really include people in the plans). 

Anyway, feel free to carve out your own role. It's okay. The other SIL might be a good sounding board if she's willing to let you be you.