In Law Trouble- Sorry So Long!

My suggestion is to ask your hubby's parents to watch your kids for the night, and go out to dinner with your BIL and SIL. At a restaurant they're less likely to lose their cool, and you may be able to have an open discussion about whatever it is that is bugging them.

Since your MIL and FIL know that there's tension between their kids, they should be willing to help out of a nite so that you all can work on your family relationships.

**Added: My mother comes from a family of 8 kids, but over the years has drifted very far from 2 of her siblings, to the point that 1 of them no longer speaks to her. I REALLY miss knowing the kids of these siblings, as they are my COUSINS and I feel like I have missed out on the chance to be close to my own family because our parents were childish by holding grudges, never having open communication, and in general failing to nurture their relationships. Years later most of us have found eachother on Facebook, but it's so sad that we missed out on so many years of knowing eachother due to our parents' inability to straighten out misunderstandings and to right any wrongs. If not for you, perhaps for your kids you can work things out so that they may be close with their aunt and uncle, and any potential cousins who may come along.**

So call them. If you cannot afford $20 for 2 hours worth of a sitter, can you trade baby sitting with a friend? Meet in a neutral place.. like a coffee shop or a park. Take some cold drinks and just speak with them.

Hear what they have to say and be done with it.

Don't let them control you.

Say, "We really want to talk, but we can't come out, the budget doesn't allow a sitter right now-not that I have to defend our budget or schedule, so come PLEASE come over for a snack and drinks so we can all manage it. I hope we can both sacrifice and make this happen."

If she pulls an " they cant' come see us because she's using the kids to control things" response, call her on it!

Email her that you're aware the whole family is harboring the big secret offense you and your husband are guilty of and doing that is WAY more controlling and creepy than having kids to consider, and tell them you're ready to talk when they are, they can call or come over any time-and point out that it's every bit as fair to ask them to call and come over as them demanding you call them or come out to see them-tell them to grow up. Leave it at that. CC you mother in law so she knows you did try.

Tell them they can all come stage and intervention in YOUR HOME, you don't need to go out and take a beating. They sound like massive creeps. People without kids (especially thoughtless ones) are totally out of tune with how much more difficult it is to meet up and stay on top of every little gossipy thing when you have a full house.

Can you invite them to your place and talk over dinner? that way the children will be taken care of and with the children there that will control the tone of the conversation? The conversation does need to happen the longer you avoid it the more tension it will add over NOTHING! They seem to not understand that the flow and priorities of your family have changed, So maybe you need to explain that to them in a lovingly way and if they get it good! if they dont' just ask them to respect it and you guys will be fine.

I had a rift between me and my sister and time without talking made the issue even bigger as well as people being brought into the conversation by her and by the time she was ready to communicate she asked me to involve other sisters and brothers and family friends. I told her hell to the naw in a nice nasty way and told her she was making a circus of the situation and she wld either respect my stand or keep it moving! needless to say she and i have just kept it moving. In my personal experience if i could have changed the convo I would not have been so emotional and invited her over to explain to her that my life has changed for the better and so has some of my decison making processes and it's not up to her to understand it (bcause it my life not her's)just respect it. That is what families do unless you are making bad decisions that will harm.

I agree with the other posts. Arrange to meet with them someplace where they aren't as likely to make a huge scene, and where you can leave early if things do get heated.
You might also remind them that the phone line runs both ways--to say, "If you cared, you'd call us," is silly if they also aren't calling you! So if they aren't calling you, either, does that mean THEY don't care? It really sounds like it's a misunderstanding or a minor issue that's gotten out of hand. Sometimes we tend to be disappointed in family over little things that wouldn't bother us at all if it was the same situation with a friend.
I think talking with them could clear it up, assuming they are normally reasonable people.
If things work out, then in the future, if you start feeling a disconnect with them, you might give them a call just to chat, or send a card or something so they know you're still thinking of them, even if you can't "hang out" with them all the time. Keeping in touch is just part of being a family. :-)
If things don't work out, and/or you and your husband decide the fight isn't worth it, then keeping your distance may work out.
But keep in mind that you may change your minds later in life, so you might not want to "burn bridges" so to speak... and running from or ignoring the problem doesn't always make it go away or make it any easier to deal with later--and could make it worse in the long run!
Personally, if it were my sister-in-law, I'd ask to meet her for coffee or lunch somewhere without the husbands, and just try and connect. If she's really the problem, then becoming friends with her might solve it. If she is just the scapegoat, she might be able to give you some insight into why her husband is angry at yours, and you can go from there.
Ultimately, though, you and your husband will have to weigh the pros and cons and decide whether you want to try and work things out and keep in touch with his family (or part of his family) or not.

Oh my dear, we could be married into the same family!!! My husband is the baby of three and for the longest time, he was the "good" child. He always called the siblings and parents. We always drove to see everyone else. When his mom would EMAIL TELLING US Thanksgiving would be at the BIL's house and then the BIL's wife would freak out 4 weeks before and say, "No it isn't" we were the ones who always stepped up to make his parents happy even though the one year we had just had a baby and another year, we were in the middle of renovations.

6 years ago, my BIL moved in with their aunt and his wife, son, and stepdaughter moved to another state "so the kids could grow up with their cousins". That was slap in the face #1 to my husband because when we lived just 40 minutes from them, we always drove to them and it was never a priority for our kids to be friends. By this point we had moved out of state but we were shocked when he said that.

Now my in-laws have moved to within a couple of hours of his wife "to help her". Her daughter from her first marriage is challenged so we believe that part of their issue is they feel sorry for her because of that. (His mom has said that before.) We are also wondering if they aren't secretly divorced and the parents feel bad about that. It's all speculation but regardless, his parents obviously favor his brother and his wife always talking about what a wonderful father he is (um, he lives over 5 hours away from his son!!!). They call his brother's son (his dad has accidently left messages on OUR machine for our nephew) yet they never talk to our kids. The icing with hubby's parents was when we accidentally found out they had passed his grandfather's piano on to the wife. They had promised that to us since the time our oldest wasn't even 2 years old yet. My MIL always said she saw potential in him to play it and my husband is the only musician amongst their kids. My MIL said she "didn't remember saying that" and proceeded to get angry with my husband when he got upset. We value things that were our grandparents and his parents have given us nothing that could connect my husband to his grandparents yet the list the wife has is LONG.

This is just a short list. I could honestly write a book about his family and when the parents aren't of this earth anymore, I think I will. In the meantime, we try to be civil but my husband doesn't go out of his way to call his parents anymore. It has been 6 years since he has spoken to his brother. He decided one day to stop calling and see how long it took his brother to call him. Like I said, that was 6 years ago. His parents blame us...we aren't being understanding of what they go through with the stepdaughter or whatever. I told his dad one day they would be shocked at the stories if I ever told them, not only of how they have treated us over the years but things they have said about the parents! He just shook his head and blew me off. One day I might just still tell his mother the things the wife has said about her over the years.

The wife became a complete B earlier this year posting a picture of their family back when my husband was with an ex-girlfriend and titled it "The Family". When we asked her to take it down, she refused and freaked out on us. She ended up blocking us. Now we are expecting our 4th son and have decided to go with a boy's name that his brother originally liked. It was one the two of us fell in love with along with him, but the wife hated it. They are done having children but made it clear if we ever used the name, they would NOT be happy. Like I said, he's our 4th. We have NO relation with them. Neither of us could care less if they get mad. We are using the name. Oh well.

Sorry for the book. Like I said, I could absolutely write more. If your husband and you are ok with distancing yourself, trust me, it gets easier over time. It makes me sad things have turned out the way they are, but I will not allow my family to be treated the way we have been for so many years. My husband feels the same way and being it's HIS family, I left that ball in his court and HE was the one who said he was done being the better person. HE was the one who backed off the phone calls. The thing is, you have to be okay with the snowball affect such as you have seen with the parents. We have even seen it stumble over into some of the cousins even. We just can't let ourselves get wrapped up in the drama. It isn't healthy.

If your husband doesn't want anything to do with them than don't bother with them. That is unless they want to pay a sitter to watch your kids for the night. Even then I personally wouldn't go. I don't see a point to wasting my time just to have someone wave their finger at me, screaming about things I didn't know I did. I agree with your husband, forget them.

Join the crowd. My problem however is with a sister who had a stroke and an aneurysm. Then later I got cancer. We are fine basically. However, her family chose not to tell anyone about her until she turned out to be fine. I ran to the hospital to see her. On the other hand, I got uterine cancer, prepared my family (who knew how it would turn out- and again thank God I am fine and healthy now) told my family and a war began. I feel too like I started it. Because I told my sister, she was rather rude, as though I had decided to get cancer and upstage her somehow, never called me or came to see me in the hospital, and minimized the whole thing and as far as we can tell included a brother who told me I was making too much of this 'cancer' thing. So here i am sad and feeling like it was my fault. I told my mom, she told my other sister, my other sister wrote her a note that she should defend me and voila, I was not invited to her son's birthday (the sister who had the stroke has three sons), or any of the other family things. And my other sister hasn't been invited either. One of my brothers is remaining neutral or something.So did I answer this. Yes, others go through some weird things, and I do think it's possible to say no, let it go it's not the right time, but you cannot predict other people's reactions. I thought I was going to have an entire family that supported me (and we are a big group when getting along) and yet my sister got sides going (she sent my other sister's email to everyone she could think of-which truthfully is cyber bullying so to speak) and we are all at odds. Until her children grow and mature, or she changes (no predicting after a stroke) or she realizes families are important, we will continue the way we are. I sent her a birthday card and a mother's day card which she did not ackowledge. The only theory is that she didn't like being upstaged so in the meantime we wait it out. How sad that people have to be so petty.
Well, enough about you. You are teachers. I am an assistant and am busy all the time. I was just admonished by an old friend about how I don't call or visit or whatever enough. I would gladly tell your inlaws, there IS NO TIME. Teaching is full time, preparation is full time and family is full time. These people need to grow up. Hopefully they will. In the meantime like me, we really don't know exactly why we are being treated like this, but hang in there, perhaps we will have an answer down the road.

oh, I am so sorry you are going through this. I have had 10 years of tug of war with my In Laws. I firmly believe that certain people like drama and these people will manipulate and suck in everyone they can. Your SIL seems like this type. She has everyone seeing motives on your behalf that are not true, and no matter what you do they will not see the truth. YOU DID NOTHING WRONG. Phones go 2 ways, and if they had an issue they should have called and talked to you about it. Why did they wait so long for you to call before mentioning it to anyone? I firmly think that Communication is so important and so many people do how.

I think a family meeting could benifit a clearing of the air and a realization of people's true motives so everyone knows everyone's expectations; however, we have one on a yearly basis and I will always be the bad guy so they have not done us any good at all.

Your husband is done with them and this is his family, he knows them best. Having him go to a "meeting" right now might make things worse he neds to cool down. In the long run I feel that if after the meeting he still feel like that is it we are done then it is his call.

I am trying so hard not pregidize your issue with mine; however, it is in my experiense if they see negitive they will see negitive no matter how hard you try. If you want to get more details from me email me and I will give more details and examples for you.

I'll bet your in-laws perceive that some legitimate need of theirs is going unmet by current family dynamics, and perhaps are not clear enough about it to say what it is, or what can reasonably be done about it. This is a common human condition, which unfortunately often results in mind-reading and projecting confused or ugly motives onto others. Since you're not there participating in the conversation, you don't have the opportunity to moderate their misapprehensions.

I hope you'll check out a practical and effective communication technique called Non-Violent Communication. You can learn a simple, 4-step process that will help you talk to anyone compassionately and respectfully, so that you don't add to any existing negativity. You can help everyone concerned become more clear their own needs, and help tease actual, legitimate feelings and needs apart from all the ideas we have that get expressed as "should" and "oughts". You can learn how to make clear and unbiased observations that will support, rather than undermine, further communication. And you can state your feelings and needs in a way that allows the other person to hear them without feeling attacked or overwhelmed, and becoming defensive.

Non-Violent Communication is a win-win process, and can be effective even when used by only one person in a relationship. If this interests you, you can google the term for books, classes, summaries and examples. My husband and I have both learned these techniques (just from reading the basic book) and find them transformative in communicating with others, and even in understanding ourselves better. Good stuff! My best to you all.