u/MajesticTradition198

Dealing with MAGA in general is hard but has gotten increasingly hard to deal with family members who continue to support this administration. I’ve cut off most ties with my family who support MAGA, and the only family member I still talk to is my dad but I don’t see him and we only talk about baseball. Not that it makes much of a difference but he also isn’t outwardly spoken on it so it doesn’t come up in conversation and since losing my mom two years ago I just have continued that relationship with my dad because it was what she wanted and it’s within boundaries I can handle.

However with my husband’s family they’re the MAGA that I truly can’t stand. They have the t shirts, the stickers, bring it up in most conversations. Jokes are always about being “liberal” and they do bring up slurs. They’re very judgmental in public especially of pride stuff, which for me is truly the hardest part of being with them in public. I can’t stand the mentality or the behavior and I hate that it’s just written off as “being against their religion” rather than what it actually is which is “judgmental, hateful and gross”
My husband and I both have been very anti Trump and we do get a lot of guilt for being the ones in the family with that stance. Really because we are the one of the only ones in the family with that stance.

Now that I have a son, it is increasingly harder for me to have them around and it has shown. We only now see them one week out of the year and we used to do our best to see them more. I don’t ever speak with them on FaceTime and have left that up to my husband to maintain the relationship he has because I mentally just can’t do it anymore, but I still do have to manage the week out of the year which is coming up.

I guess what I’m asking is how do you navigate this while having an almost 2 year old son? I feel I have to respect my husband and his desire to maintain some sort of relationship but I do find it to be a true divide in morals and humanity and not the behavior I ever want my son to think is appropriate. If anything I want him to be someone who feels confident to call it what it is and be less like us to sort of walk on eggshells around it at points.

It’s easy for me to navigate my family but my in-laws I find it much harder and would appreciate any advice.

Divorcing my husband isn’t an option. Haven’t considered it but alot of feedback likes to allude to this. He actively tries his best to unlearn the gross behavior that surrounded him and has become increasingly vocal about things this last year when the topic is brought up. But he still loves his parents and I do understand that.

Thanks to anyone and everyone who takes the time to respond.

We’ve been together for 12 years and really have had an incredible relationship. We’ve moved out of states together, taken adventures and got married 2.5 years ago and shortly after had our son who is 18 months.

Our relationship has never really had issues aside from when it comes about his mom. She constantly pushes boundaries and my husband does nothing to stop her, or he doesn’t think it’s a big deal for the boundaries she has crossed.

The first one was having a first dance at my wedding after I looked her in the eyes and told her no. It wasn’t on my wedding itinerary. My husband and I didn’t have a dance but about an hour into the reception the DJ called them up for a first dance. I did leave about 1 minute in because I was in disbelief. A lot of people went after me and after calming down was able to go in and enjoy my night but it deeply bothered me that it was done.

The second was my pregnancy announcement. She told everyone immediately and announced it on Facebook after weeks of bothering me, I finally said she could because I didn’t want to cause a fight with my husband when his response was “what’s the big deal if she does” and didn’t want to further stress the baby.

The third instance was my baby shower. At the time I was planning a trip back to my hometown and was talking to her about how my friends wanted to throw me a baby shower that weekend. She loved the idea and wanted to help it come together. At the time, my mom was in the hospital in a coma, and she told me that she would take it off of my hands and throw the baby shower for me with the help of my friends. The thing was she never involved my friends, my friends were ignored actually. They didn’t tell me til the weekend of so I couldn’t do much to change that. They did ask me a theme and it was a cute set up but the baby shower definitely felt like a celebration of my husband and her becoming a grandma than it was about me becoming a mom. It really bummed me out.

4th was when the baby came. She came a week before I asked her too, which my husband said there was nothing we could really do about that, but that made me very annoyed. I had a very difficult delivery. I almost died. My son had to be resurrected when he was born and he was born with a broken clavicle and had to be under a blue light for 48 hours. Afterwards I had severe anxiety and didn’t really like when anybody held my baby, even my husband, so when they came to visit, it was really hard for me to have them hold him and this is when it started to really get painted as I was trying to be the person who kept the baby away from the Grandma.

But it was never about that? It was about dealing with postpartum and wanting to be accommodated the way I needed at the time. She also kissed the baby, even though I continuously advised her not to which made me want to keep the baby from her even more.

A month later I lost my mom suddenly. Which has been the hardest thing I’ve ever had to deal with.

Fast-forward to the summer where she came out to visit us to where we live for three months. Had an expectation to hang out all the time, to watch the baby, constantly telling me to go back to work and that’s why she came out. I never asked nor did my husband she just kind of told us she was coming up and had my father in law take a demotion at work which guilted us into saying yes. Having lost my mom I had no desire to entertain and be in their constant presence but got made out to be a villain for wanting space and not wanting to participate in surface level conversations everyday.
She also constantly kept telling me to be happy and strong because I had two boys to take care. I only have one son so I was confused by that one.

Since her leaving and going back home, I have very limited contact with her and I used to talk to her on the phone at least once every other week with regular text chats. I leave FaceTiming her grandson up to my husband, and she only is allowed to come up this year and visit for one week. My husband told me two weeks ago we’ll have to discuss our family trips location with her and that annoyed me because in the same sentence told me he took half his PTO for her visit, which is the longest time he’s ever taken off during the summer which is peak tourism. He didn’t and wasn’t able to take off that much time for our wedding or baby shower but somehow can for his mom visiting.

I come from a very toxic family myself but have been able to establish boundaries in those relationships for me to coexist with them. I get it thrown in my face a lot that his family is better and more supportive but I disagree when I have a mother in law who doesn’t make me comfortable as a mother or in her presence and uses her money to come across as “supportive” when it seems like a controlling aspect to me.

I currently am in therapy and going back to college to complete a double major in December of next year. As of right now I am a stay at home mom.

I know a lot of people are going to say divorce, divorce, divorce and as much as i have thought of that option, i want to do everything i can to save my marriage.

TL;DR does my husband have severe mommy issues or am i an overbearing new mom who has unrealistic boundaries.

I really struggle with my in laws, in fact it’s one of the only issues I have with my husband. Mainly, it’s my mother in law.

Backstory: I’ve been with my husband for 12 years, we’ve been married for 2 and a half of them. All the way up until our wedding I didn’t mind my mother in law. I definitely thought she was overbearing and a “little much” on the personality side. She definitely had controlling tendencies but none that really affected me in any personal way.

Fast forward to 3 days before our wedding when I tell her we won’t be having a first dance at the wedding. Wedding night came, I didn’t have a first dance but somewhere in there she was able to get the DJ to have a first dance with her son… it was a lot to handle and quite frankly really embarrassing on my end. Everyone on my side was really floored by it.

After that it kinda just snowballed with broken boundaries. I found out I was pregnant 3 weeks after my wedding. She was the one who announced it on social media. That one was tough for me, but I got told “she’s just excited to be a grandma”.

She took over my baby shower and made it seem like she was doing me a favor by not having me worry about it, but omitted my friends and mom from being in the process.

I told her I needed 3 weeks postpartum to myself, she booked her stay 2 weeks after my due date.

She demanded to hold the baby the entire time although I was struggling with postpartum depression and anxiety, a delivery where I and my baby almost died and made me seem crazy for not wanting anyone to hold my baby.

She kissed the baby repeatedly after being told not to.

She had a photographer hired so she could take selfies with the baby and not have anything planned for me or our little family.

She invited herself to where I lived for 3 months and tried to convince me I should work so she could watch the baby.

My husband doesn’t really have my back when it comes to boundaries. He thinks I’m the one who is overbearing and people have to “walk on eggshells” around me as a mom.

And I’m just like genuinely wondering am I crazy for not liking my mother in law anymore? Because I genuinely feel so much anxiety being around her.
I want things to be better for my son so I’m willing to hear anyone tell me where I could be wrong, but am I?

Ugh. Please advise