DH & I need advice. Background been married 12 years, together 17. Started to set some boundaries after a bad Christmas visit with IL when we had 3 small children but have mostly been doormats with his family which includes mother, older sister (SIL) & older brother (BIL). Have been lurking DWIL since Dec. 2014 & learning a lot. Only posted once before but changed screenames that isn't so obvious.
Found my HTDO after (at the time) DuH (he's at process of losing u) was pissy to me at a weekend that I was visiting hometown with dying grandma in hospice. He was pissy because he was trying to coordinate visiting his family during our visit. This is beginning of Dec. Well after a sleepless night (literally did not sleep the whole night) of anger realizing it wasn't just his family that was the problem all these years but his made me realize I had found my HTDO. He saw a therapist, we have been reading books from sticky, working on de-enmeshing.
More asshatery occurred after Christmas where MIL blew up at DH for not visiting long enough. DH has told both MIL & SIL he needs some space because he is figuring things out and blowing up at him after Christmas was not acceptable. MIL &/or SIL were used to visiting our house every 4-6 weeks. Well we haven't seen them since New Years and they haven't stayed over at our house since beginning of Nov. & they are having a meltdown. We had our 1st FM-his brother telling DH mom is sad and when is he going to stop playing this game. Basically just suck it up and make mom happy. She is so sad she can't see the grandkids.
Ok if you are still with me thank you. We were supposed to see them this past weekend because aunt was visiting our town. Plans changed and we didn't bend our plans so BIL then MIL backed out last minute. No big deal,their choice, we still went to visit aunt and had a nice visit. I feel stupid writing this because I feel like I know what I'm going to hear. DH's gotten silence for 3 weeks from SIL (before silence she was calling at least 1-3 times a day) after he set some boundaries with her (she wanted to visit when he was going to be at work which is not cool also she wasn't telling him a specific day just a week timeframe). It's hard because we thought we should call soon and see if they would want to come visit either this weekend or next when we are available but then we realized this is probably a BAD idea. Their behavior hasn't changed, they haven't really apologized, or given space like DH had asked. Having FM made us mad. I might have been ready for visit but now we know MIL is venting to BIL. It's just so ingrained in us to follow suit, comply, and keep the peace. I'm uneasy because I know that the week SIL wanted to visit is coming up.
So I guess our question is what do we do now? I feel like calling would be like chasing them and rewarding their bad behavior. I would like to think his SIL & MIL will be trainable and accepting of our new normal and have a relationship with them. I'm hoping BIL will be understanding that we have to keep our new boundaries to protect our marriage and family. I would hate for him to be collateral damage. I love his little family (wife & ds). I guess we don't know what to do now. Do we try to salvage relationship & see if they want to visit or not? To be honest I'm scared of the BSC I've read about here happening to us.
editted to add paragraphs