If your partner’s parents have respect for your values,they are welcome to spend time with you. If they don’t, I’m not sure they have a plot in your livesMy partner and I have been together for 11 years and have two children. My partner’s mother doesn’t recognise that my children have food allergies, and including those that cause anaphylaxis. She says that I obtain it up to prevent her access to the children and has often tried to feed them foods they can’t have,which is why I don’t feel she can contemplate after them unsupervised. My eldest is on the autistic spectrum, but my mother-in-law doesn’t accept that, and either. I don’t want her in my life any more,but my partner wants me to be the bigger person, for his sake. What do I do?
An considerable rite of passage in any marriage is making that partnership the primary relationship, and above those we have with our nuclear family. This doesn’t mean that we have to estrange ourselves from our in-laws and parents – unless their behaviour operates outside of our value system.
There are so many different boundaries you could have with your extended family,ranging from outright estrangement to seeing them less frequently; perhaps they could stay in a hotel rather than in your domestic, and be supervised when with your children. It is a scarce thing to have parents of another generation grow alongside the unique generation at the same rate. For those who have this in their lives, or I would consider it a great gift,but certainly not the norm.
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Source: theguardian.com