Help! What do my and husband and I do about his revengeful parents?!?

Question

My in laws are very angry because my husband and I made the choice to keep my 8 year old step daughter away for a while. Several reasons : The mother in law smokes through the whole house and refuses to not smoke around her; The father in law has anger problems. My step daughter is currently seeing a Therapist due to problems with her biological mother. We have alot on our plate and feel this is best for our daughter right now. Ok here is where the problem is. His parents are doing hateful things. My mother in law took down all of her son's baby pictures. She also called us asking for random things back she gave to us years ago. They also changed our mailing address without telling us! How do we handle all of this? I know their hurting but this is making things worse. Any suggestions on what to do would be wonderful. Thanks!

Answer 1

Does your Mother-In-Law smoke in your house?  Could they come to your house to see their granddaughter?  

Answer 2

You can't beat yourself up for making a decision that is best for your child. It's too bad that the in-laws have to act so immature and do the things they're doing. I would think about having one conversation with them, whether it be through email, phone or whatever. Tell them that you want them in their grandchild's life, but you really need people that are a positive influence to her, and they are not expressing that at all. Tell them if or when they choose to behave and respect your decisions as the child's parents, then you will be more than happy to let them back in her life. Then it's your job to let it go. You can't make them behave the way you want them to, so you have to make the choice to move forward, with or without them and focus on what's really important, which is your step-daughter.

Answer 3

The pictures is no big deal.  The random things - OK, give them to her with a smile.

Did she change YOUR mailing address?  How - by turning in the cards at the post office?  If so, tell the post office about it - that may be something that the postal inspectors will want to follow up on, if only to put a little scare into them.

You could go for supervised visitation, say at a non-smoking restaurant.  Invite his parents there for lunch or dinner.  You could even offer to pay for dinner, within reason.  Let them know that you'll only pay for so much per plate for the two of them.  Most people aren't going to cause a scene in a crowded public place like a restaurant, so hopefully they won't get too cranky.

Answer 4

If they were really interested in seeing your daughter, they would do whatever was necessary to see her, whether it be not smoking, getting help for anger management, etc.

If she is in therapy, being around your in-laws could be detrimental to her recovery. Not only that, but this harassment by your MIL could also harm her. These little aggressive techniques speak to a very harmful personality in your mother in law. manipulative, without remorse, divisive. She may be capable of more desperate methods of attention-seeking. (google 'toxic family')

I think you need to have a straightforward conversation with your in-laws, the topic of conversation being "We will not tolerate this anymore." If things do not change, you may need to think about relocating your family to somewhere safer.