He’s Corrupting His Grandchildren
My father-in-law has a history of testing boundaries. He loves to talk about “corrupting” his grandchildren and telling them they don’t have to listen to their parents, etc.
A few years ago, he fed my first child “little tastes” of food when he had explicitly been told not to because she was too young. As a result, I now hover like a helicopter every time he, or pretty much anyone for that matter, holds my baby.
We went to Christmas dinner at my sister-in-law’s house, and my father-in-law had my baby. I was trying to keep an eye on my two-year-old and also get a bite to eat for myself. Somehow, I lost track of him and the baby at one point, and when I found them, they were in the kitchen.
I am stressing out, so I figure the best route is direct. I point blank ask him if he has fed my baby anything. His reaction was SO awful. He snarks back with “What, are you gonna smell his breath to check?”
I don’t like playing his games and I can’t be sure that he is teasing, so I take my baby back and return to my seat. When I look up, my father-in-law is putting his coat on and screaming at me, “WELL, IF YOU’RE GOING TO BE A RUDE IDIOT LIKE THAT, YOU CAN JUST STAY THE HECK AWAY FROM MY HOUSE AND MY FAMILY!”
And he storms out. Obviously, this got everyone’s attention, so they ask what happened. Most people seemed to be a bit more on my side, but I don’t know how they really felt because he wasn’t actually around to influence them or make anyone feel the need to voice their support of him.
I did, however, get a lot of “He was just kidding, you know how he is” type things, as well as “I think both of you could have reacted better,” etc. Luckily, I have a wonderful husband, He doesn’t like that there was drama, but he actively has my back on this.
He spoke up in my defense immediately, and he privately spoke to his mother about it at the first available opportunity. He feels that his father has put us in a bad situation. When my father-in-law says or does things that we find inappropriate, especially regarding our children, my options are limited.
Speak up for myself and risk disrespecting him, or let it go and let him get away with his nonsense. My husband thinks I probably did what was best for the situation. Most of his family lets his father do and say whatever he wants all the time.
My husband has always butted heads with his father, but their relationship has improved significantly since adulthood. We aren’t sure where this leaves us just yet. I’ve suggested accepting the ban on coming to his house, rather than a full no contact situation.
We would still see each other at other family get-togethers, but my husband isn’t ready to go that far yet. He says we also won’t accept a rug sweep where everyone just pretends nothing happened, so we need to have some kind of sit-down discussion about the situation.
Sadly, knowing my father-in-law, an actual apology is completely out of the question, so we aren’t setting our bar very high. I think I’m going to request that this discussion take place at a neutral location. We’ll see how it goes. Story credit: Reddit / farmfil