HI all! long time lurker, occasional commenter.
To keep this short, my BIL and SIL have a very strained relationship with my PILs. Think ELC except for very rare family events. At this point it is very Cold War like and fault can be pretty equally assigned to both sides. It is not my relationship to talk about so I don't really want to delve into the dynamics more than I have to to get an answer to my question.
DH and I maintain relationships with each of them. In the past I am ashamed to say that we have engaged way too much, tried to bridge the gap and help them reunite, participated in the perpetuation of drama and had been intentional/unintentional flying monkeys for each side. We have grown as adults since then and now we pretty much deflect any conversation that gets brought up about the other side. Bean dip and adapting a "Not my Circus, not my monkeys," stance has mostly worked for us.
Except for the rare family events that I mentioned above. The tension is thiiiiick and again very Cold War esque. They refuse to talk to each other about their issues which on the surface is not my business. I can handle it (the tension,) when it isn't at my house...but it happened at my child's birthday party. I couldn't quite pinpoint it in the moment when I had my hostess hat on but the CBFs and silence led to a weird tension that has absolutely no place in my home or at my child's birthday party. He was little enough that he didn't pick up on it but I know my older nephews do and I think it is totally inappropriate for multiple damaging reasons. I am fierce about my nest...I want it to be a comfortable loving place for not only my children (most importantly,) but my extended family. (In a healthy, come visit for coffee sort of way.)
This is not the penance I want to pay for enraging in the drama before we had kids. If I'm being totally honest I still am holding resentment towards each side for turning my house into a battleground for their weird relationship. But I'm kinda stuck between a rock and a hard place when it comes to moving forward because all of them involve my husband or I jumping back in to their circus.
I have The Power of Positive Confrontation: The Skills You Need to Know to Handle Conflicts at Work, at Home and in Life ready to be picked up from the library. This is a book from the sticky that I think is most applicable but I'm wondering if anybody has experience with this....How do you handle soured relationships between other people when you legitimately care about each side?
What my confrontational side wants to do is yell "shit or get off of the pot!" Are you guys cutting each other off or what? Can we stop pretending?!" At least then the rest of the extended family would have a frame work for operating with them. There are several adult siblings that make up DH's family and it is blended which complicates matters further.
Is an email saying "Look, not in my house guys, You are equally welcome into my home but if you can't set aside your negative feelings about each other for your grandson's/nephew's 4th birthday then perhaps we should celebrate separately?" my only option? This is not ideal but in order to have a relationship with both parties is this what my DH and I will have to do?
So, DWIL can you point me to any resources that you have found helpful? Any real life examples or posts you could point me to?
I know this isn't really nom worthy and might be small potatoes compared to what others are going through... but I'm really looking for the healthiest way to deal with this moving forward.
Thanks- sorry it got kinda long!