I have been married for 3 years to DH, have a 2 yo DD, and a LO on the way. We live 2.5 hrs away from my family, and about 20 mins away from my IL. In the past my MOO has made a lot of fuss about any time she hears we spend with IL, saying things like "you're choosing them over us. Guess they're your real family". All of this came to a point in a huge fight during my mom's birthday dinner. The problem was ignited when my AOO's chihuahua snapped or bit my DD. DH was the only one who saw what happened as it was under the table before dinner. But DD was crying, and when my DH stated that "that beast but DD" my mother freaked out, calmed him a liar, said he should have been paying attention to DD, and said he has always hated the dog ( he does dislike it because it constantly snap at his ankles, and no one ever stops it). My DH wanted to leave because he did not appreciate being called a liar and his parenting questioned. Him announcing that we were leaving made my mom hysterical, yelling things like he never respected her and turning to me "you can't let him do this". I backed him up and we left, during which there was a lot of yelling, and my SF threatening my DH after we were in our car because my DH yelled at my MOO to let go of the car door so we could leave. Afterwards, my mom reached out to me, but I told her she had to fix things with my DH. Essentially when she spoke to him, she was still passive aggressive, but listened to his side of the story ( how what she was doing was offensive and instigated the fight, which he tried to avoid), but she never offered an apology, and we agree that he does not owe her an apology ( even though she wanted one for him "disrespecting her in her own house"). DH feels like my FOO has held a grudge against him since before the fight, and though he has told me that DD and I are welcome to go see my FOO, he says that he will not be seeing them again. With the holidays coming up, my DH has stated that he absolutely will not attend any at my FOO. He has a large family that mostly celebrate within the nuclear families, except for a Polyanna Christmas party on December 23 (which is his parents' wedding anniversary). I know a lot of BS will come from my family once I let them know that we will no longer be attending holiday celebrations with them, since we have spent every Christmas and Thanksgiving with them since we were married. They will say that my DH is overreacting, and since they are sweep it under the rug kind of people, I anticipate them not bringing up anything and just assuming that we'll be there until I inform them otherwise. I'm sympathetic to my MOO, since my DD is her only grandchild, but I believe it is more important to spend time together with my nuclear family than appeasing my MOO. Any advice on how I should approach my FOO?
