In summary, my husband hasn't exactly had a good relationship with his parents growing up (there was abuse in the household growing up). My husband has tried to make peace with them before we met, then again after marriage. We feel we have tried everything to get along with them. We have forgiven, tried to set boundaries, which they don't want to respect, and my MIL has clearly told us that there are no boundaries in a family, they wouldn't get counseling with us, we have tried being polite and kind, etc. I don't know what we haven't tried over the years we have been married with all the emotional stress of being associated with them. Eventually we gave up on them respecting any boundary because to them, boundaries don't exist.
When our daughter was born, we had allowed his parents to come over to our home and visit and same for my family. All they wanted to do was hold their new grandbaby, of course. It hurts my husband a lot when he hears that his parents don't ask how he is doing - they only ask how "their grandbaby" is doing. Later on, if they wanted to hold our daughter and they asked me and I would shrug it off and say, "Not right now./Maybe in a minute./She's fine where she is right now." then they would ask my husband to hold her instead so they could hope for a "yes" and then they'd act disappointed when it was a "no" because I said "no." When we lived nearer by (thankfully we are a few hours away now), if they hadn't seen her in a day or two, it was a day or two too long. With my husband's past history of how it was growing up with his parents, they did not have babysitting priveleges whatsoever and they never understood why, which doesn't make sense to us.
They do have other grandchildren and there are a couple of their granddaughters (they are fully grown) that we have gotten to know personally and they refuse to call their grandparents by "grandma" and "grandpa" because they have been hurt so bad by them and when they grew older, my in-laws didn't want anything to do with them and that hurt them that their own grandparents never wanted to be a part of their life, but my in-laws still expect to see their grandbaby. I mean, why should we allow my in-laws to see our daughter when they don't even want to see their other granddaughters? They don't even ask about them. However, my in-laws expect to see their great grandchild from one of their granddaughters that they don't speak to. That granddaughter sends her son with her mom and stays away so her son can see his great-grandma and grandpa so that they can possibly have a relationship. They seem to be asking about their great grandson less and less the older he grows. I am afraid of my in-laws wanting to be a part of our daughter's life when she's a child and then when she's older, them hurting her by shutting her out completely. That seems to be a pattern with their other grandchildren and should we put a stop to that before it happens to our daughter, too? We feel that we have been doing our best to allow our daughter to have a relationship with her paternal grandparents.
We have not been talking to them much since we moved away, changed our numbers, etc. but they have been bothering my parents and other family members for phone numbers and other information. My husband and I know the relationship with them is toxic because they are manipulative, if confronted about an issue they call him a "bully", if he does something that they don't approve of they try and make him feel guilty about it, etc.
I suppose the last thing we want to do is cut family out of our lives and we have tried everything to keep from doing so, and they have left us worn out and willing to consider giving up completely unless by some miracle they change and/or want to try and sit down and work this all out. My husband feels we have given them enough chances, and I am beginning to think he is right, but I'm a bit hesitant for him to cut his parents out of his life since I don't want him to regret it, although after all the hurt he has gone through I am not sure he will have that much regret. Although, what do you all think? When is it time to cut the grandparents out? How do we handle our daughters first birthday when my in-laws figure out they weren't invited, but my parents were (it gives me a headache already)? Is there anything else we haven't thought of that we could try to help there be peace when my in-laws are in the equation? Or does this sound like this is it and it's time to cut them off?