I am having a hard time coping with a situation that occurred with my FIL on New Years Day. I am not sure where to even put this post, so maybe it needs to be moved? And I am hoping that writing this out and hearing what other women think about it will help me process this and do what I need to do to move beyond this and just get over it.
FIL flew down to visit us a for an unplanned visit for three days while he was in the US dealing with his wife’s fathers death. They live overseas and typically we only see them once a year. This visit was his second this year. The last visit wasn’t so great either, and I posted about it before.
But this visit was utterly horrible. He threatened me physically and for that he got thrown out of our house on New Years Day. I am going to try and write out what happened in the most concise way possible, but please forgive me in advance because this post is going to be long.
My FIL is a very intelligent talented artist. He is also an alcoholic. I’ve never felt that I was liked by him and he often says snarky disrespectful things to me, especially when he is drinking.
On New Years Eve, he had drank two bottles of wine by himself. ( My husband and I don’t drink, we bed share with our son and we just don’t want to drink at this point in our lives. )
So my FIL was slightly drunk and we had started talking about vacations and we discussed our plans to take our son back to my home state for a visit, and my FIL said that it would make no difference to our son, since his intelligence level was less than my FIL’s dog and our son wouldn’t remember anything anyway.
I took great exception to his comment, I fully disagree and there is no way on earth that his dog is smarter than our son. And I said this in the nicest way possible under the circumstances. But he insisted that his dog had a bigger vocabulary and greater intelligence level than our son. This is when I wisely excused my self from the table…I told him he was drunk and rude and I wasn’t going to listen to him. So I went upstairs to bed and tried unsuccessfully to read, I hardly slept that night, as I was fuming mad.
FIL then continued to argue with DH about it. He relentlessly insisted that his dog has a greater intelligence level than our son.
The next day things were tense, FIL was trying to act like nothing had happened and I just tried to keep busy and ignore his presence, I really didn’t even want to look at his face. Nothing was said all day about the night before.
I fixed dinner, while we were all eating my son kept wanting to play with the ice cubes that were keeping the shrimp cold, so my DH got him some chipped ice on a plate to explore while we all finished up eating. Me and my son were sitting across from my DH and FIL. I had been avoiding looking FIL all day but I noticed some strange facial expressions so I looked at him and he was giving my 18 month old this weird bugged eyed mean look, as if to say to my son, “you better stop doing that” I nonverbally tried to get my DH’s attention to what his dad was doing, but he didn’t notice. Right about then, my son made his noise for needing to potty (we EC) So we finished up dinner and my DH took my DS upstairs to potty while I cleaned up.
Pretty much as soon as he gets me alone, FIL comes over to me and I tell him to go find some place else to relax, go away and leave me alone. But instead he continues in the most condescending way possible, that he was “sorry that what he said upset me” He wasn’t sorry about what he said…just that what he said upset me. I told him, that his apology was BS. And he blew up. He rushed at me with his finger jabbing me in the face, backed me up against the kitchen counter from the dining room. Shouting in my face ‘shutupshutupshutupshutupshutup” Then I ran into the family and started yelling for my husband to get FIL out of house.
So my DH took him to a hotel and he stayed there until he left for NJ on Monday. On the way there he said to my DH that he had some choices to make in regards to me, and my DH told him that his choice was made a long time ago. And how disappointed he was in what his dad had done.
During the ride, FIL admitted to my DH what happened, but now FIL is minimizing it and not acknowledging what he did at all and blaming me saying that I said horrible nasty things about him and that I am essentially a raving lunatic . DH was there during the altercation and heard everything I said including me calling FIL’s apology BS and he knows I didn’t say anything nasty to him and told FIL that.
FIL’s wife sent my DH an email that essentially said how dare he pick my side over his dads and that I owe FIL an apology for all the horrible things I said and did to him. Obviously he didn’t tell her what really happened. My DH sent her a thoughtfully and carefully worded email that outlines what happened and her only reply was a curt thank you, so who knows what is going on with them know, and to be blunt I don’t care.
For me, this is going to be a cut off, since he will not acknowledge what he did, or accepts responsibility for it then there is no way I ever want to be around him again. I come from a family background of physical and verbal abuse where my boundaries where totally ignored and I simply do not put up with anyone violating my personal feelings of physical safety. It is a total deal breaker I don’t let people threaten me or physically intimidate me. Ever.
DH says his dad has never done anything like this before, but FIL has been estranged from his entire family for the past 20 years and noone knows why, and it's never been talked about, it some big family secret, so that makes me wonder a bit.
I would never ask my DH to cut off his dad, and I think he needs to have contact with him, but there will no contact with me or my son. Me and DH disagree about contact with my son, but my feelings are if I don’t feel safe around the man then why would I allow my son to be around him?
Well… that’s it in a nutshell, bless your heart if you read all this. I don’t know if this is a plea for advice, a venting rant, or what it is, but just getting it out there helps maybe? This past week has not been so great, my DS is extra clingy and needy and has been crying more than ever before and my energy level is super low and I feel crappy, my DH is wounded and I wish I could just make it all better for him.
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