How do I approach this?

This is long as most of these stories go but I wanted to paint a clear picture of what is going on and get some solid advice on how to proceed with this. I am considering no contact because I’m reaching a point in therapy where I am discovering these people are becoming very bad for my well being and my husband too.

I never had the warmest introduction to dh’s family. I remember visiting his parents when we first met and they would not say hello or smile or engage in conversation with me. And often mil would not even look at me or speak to me. She hardly ever tried to chat with me when I visited and I visited often at that time. At the time DH told me that they are just socially awkward. It made me feel so unwelcome because they would communicate with him and I would try to jump in on the conversation but would never be acknowledged, and I eventually stopped wanting to go there because of it. This was very unusual behaviour for me since I grew up with fairly cheerful people and we smile at each other and are genuinely interested to hear how each other are doing or what is new, and we take an interest in new people who are visiting for the first time. I sort of missed this red flag but also ignored it.

Shortly after this we found out that his family was keeping a big secret from DH, that involved gaslighting and manipulating both of us, leading to destroying his trust in them and he almost went nc. Because at the time I thought this was too great of a loss for him, I encouraged him to hear them out. He chose to remain in contact which was not an issue for me and it seemed everything was great and I was always there to support him. Nothing really changed in regards to my relationship with mil or any of his family. His relationship did not exactly improve either. It has never recovered from this and I don’t think it will. DH went through a very bad time which affected me too and it caused a lot of turmoil in our relationship. It was a hard thing to get through and it still is.

I started noticing mil took an interest in me when I was pregnant with my first baby but prior to that we did not have much of a relationship. She wanted to put together a “meet the baby” party to invite all of her friends and coworkers I didn’t know to meet and hold my baby. Fortunately, it didn’t happen, perhaps to my obvious lack of enthusiasm. I also told DH I was not going to be up for that and he was in agreement so maybe he said something to her but never told me. When we bought our first house she gifted us money and had me sign for it; we accepted not thinking anything of it. But weeks later in privacy she tried to encourage my DH to have something legally written up for a “separation agreement” since she gave money and you never know if our relationship might fail. DH told me about this and I told him I was offended considering DH has history of debt and I did not, and I did not ask to sign for this gift to begin with but I had to because of the house I was buying with him. We would have been fine without the gift, however she has financial ties to DH and gave the gift so suddenly felt like she could insert herself. When I was pregnant she was really interested in how I was feeling. But in person it still did not feel genuine. When we got married there was some drama with his family members who were very much in the wrong and mil defended them and yelled at my DH for being upset. He has since went LC/nc with the particular family members and not mil but mil pushes the relationship with everyone. The entire family also made us feel bad for our choices in our wedding and my mil even tried to tell me I don’t need a wedding dress. When we had our first baby, mil and inlaws started acting possessive and it was becoming evident to me that all they cared about was the relationship with lo. One day when I was out, I ran into mil at an event and had lo (3mo) in the stroller. She came to me and said she was going to “borrow lo” and took off with the stroller without giving me a second to think about it. I followed with annoyance and mil introduced lo to random people and did not even bother to introduce me. Prior to this, she told me I could “drop lo off so they could get used to lo” while I was exclusively breastfeeding and they did not invite me to visit. Other members of the family would grab lo out of my hands and try to do things that their own baby liked, thinking it would settle lo when all lo wanted was me. It had a significant contribution to my ppa. Mil was quick to tell me lo was not getting enough milk from breastfeeding (see comments I’ve made on other posts). Mil had been told repeatedly not to kiss baby and would still get caught kissing baby or get caught kissing baby’s head and then would say she was kissing the air above the head, and this was DH dealing with this and mil not respecting it. Mil also stuck her fingers in lo’s mouth to feel for teeth after knowing this boundary. This to me was enough confirmation that they were not interested in having a relationship with me and they are only interested in one with lo. Mil also seems very keen on playing mom.

As time went on I have acted as if nothing is wrong but asked dh to set boundaries. We have tried times of talking things out but we get one-sided explanations instead of accountability, snippy responses, and nobody asks how we feel. Things have been rocky with that as mil does not always respect them and has dh has done okay with this, but he also tries to spare mil feelings which makes it hard. He is not gentle with his rules in person but he beats around the bush when it comes to saying no because he says she will “get pissy”. It does upset me that he tries to spare her feelings but lets me be upset. It’s seriously affecting us both but he tends to blame me for bringing up the issues rather than confronting it. For example, recently, mil has been coming on very strong with wanting to visit on a weekly basis, when in reality we only visit once per month max or ideally every 6-8 weeks, if that. I find this overwhelming since I already planned an additional special event for dh extended family since they weren’t able to attend the original one that we planned. And now mil is trying to see us every week. It’s too much but he won’t say no to her immediately because she gets “pissy” (his words). Saying “no” includes a back and forth conversation of “maybe” “oh that time probably won’t work but let me check” etc. and it’s not him checking with me. He doesn’t want to visit and won’t just say no. He messages back and forth until he finally has to say no.

I know there is a long history of manipulation and abuse here. I know that mil and family are emotionally immature. Hell I am married to one of the family members and he is not always the easiest to disagree with because he did not learn how to resolve and that makes being with him hard and lonely. We’ve also been through a lot and I’m sad he doesn’t really have anyone else truly looking out for him without their own agenda. I’ve witnessed mil guilt trip dh and refuse to follow our boundaries and now she even refuses to communicate with me regarding visiting the kids even though she has been told many times that she can make plans with me. What I think is happening is that she is erasing me. I’ve felt erased from day one. And maybe that’s crazy, but my intuition is telling me something is very wrong here. I have been doing therapy for years working on how to get through this and I am getting to the point where I don’t know what to think. There are so many things that I think would be unhealthy for my children’s future with them being involved any more than they are.

I saw a recent post about grandparents acting entitled and it was exactly what I feel is up but also there is all this other stuff that makes me think it’s also some other stuff going on?

Does anyone have a similar story of feeling erased. And how did you handle it?

Also if you chose to go nc, did you allow your husband to go with your children under similar circumstances? I’m just thinking that they would love me to be absent from any visitation.