An Open Letter to My In-Laws.

Okay, I want to start out by saying, I have two sets of In-laws. My husband’s parents split up when he was one and both got remarried. I’ll be writing about both “sets” because I have a lot id like to get off my chest for both, saving the best for last.

To my first set….the set I BELIEVE should be caring more than you do. You’re worthless. I said it. WORTH LESS….from what I’ve heard you were a shitty parent from the beginning and pawned your children off on people and frequently didn’t show up to pick your children up when it was your weekend with them, leaving them sitting outside holding their backpacks in tears. But, while I think you’re a crappy PARENT to begin with, I was really hoping you had turned into a more responsible and loving grandparent but alas…that’s not the case. You’re still as absent in my children’s lives as you were your own and I’m not sure why I held out for anything different. See, I don’t exactly care that you forget one grandchild’s birthday, or decided to pick up overtime on the other ones instead of coming…that doesn’t bug me. Don’t show up, we won’t miss you and I’d HATE to inconvenience your life. It’s the fact that my kids aren’t important to you. My kids…the beautiful humans I made, the humans that are your flesh and blood are forgettable…disposable…and you don’t even care. I remember we tried getting ahold of you for MONTHS, well I didn’t, but your son did because for some reason he thinks you deserve to be in our children’s lives and for some reason he just keeps trying with you. I don’t get it, but I don’t fight it because in the end, you’re his mother so I let it go. We literally tried for months to come and see you so that you could see the girls and you wouldn’t respond to us or let us know your schedule so you could see the kids. In the last message in this string of texts my husband text you to tell you that our youngest baby needed physical therapy, you sent a text back alright….but it wasn’t a response to her being in PT…no. it was a text about you complaining about something completely irrelevant to what he sent you. Your son tried to give you the benefit of the doubt and said “maybe the message didn’t go through…sometimes my messages do that.” And maybe they do, but I know this time that you DID get that message because I heard you playing the “concerned and troubled grandma” at Christmas about how your “baby” needed physical therapy. FYI that pissed me off….one: you certainly didn’t care when we text you. Two: that’s not your story to tell…it’s ours, who said we wanted that blasted to the WHOLE family that there’s something “wrong” with our baby? We had barely any time to process it…which leads me to reason number three: I don’t appreciate you using MY baby as a reason for you to get attention and to try to make everyone think you’re such an amazing grandma. It takes ZERO effort to be a decent human being…quite literally zero. If you’d start being a decent grandma, you wouldn’t have to fake it so there’s that…Literally if I could completely remove you from our lives I’d do it, no problem. You see the kids once a year…maybe twice if we can come to thanksgiving and you claim to love them…YOU CANT LOVE PEOPLE YOU’VE SEEN 6 TIMES IN THE LAST 5 YEARS!! If you did love them you’d ask to see them, check on them, call to talk to them…but you don’t. We don’t hear from you literally ever. So, you can stop telling them that you love them because I’m certainly not going to make them tell you that they love you. They don’t know you and I’m not into the whole “telling strangers that you love them” crap. It creates issues. Not going to happen. While we’re at it, I thought I’d let you know when I post pictures of the kids online I block both you and your husband from seeing them because if you can’t make the time to see them in person you’re not going to see them online either. ALSO, I didn’t send you an invite to your grand-daughter’s birthday next month because it’s a waste of time and an invite, I’m sure you won’t remember it anyway.

Now to the next “set,” where do I even begin? Both of you are just amazing and when I refer to “in-laws” when talking to people, you guys are who I’m talking about, to me you are the IN-LAWS. You invite us over, you message us about the kids, and you even got a last minute invite to one of the kid’s parties last year and you STILL came down and drove the thirty minutes in the rain and tornado warnings just to see the birthday girl. (my father in law was sick…but my mother in law…my husband’s step mom, drove it by herself because it was that Important to her) I can never put into words how grateful I am for you both of you, ESPECIALLY “R.” You don’t have to love my kids as much as you do and as hard as you do. You go BEYOND for birthdays, Christmas, Easter, you name it and you spoil my kids with more love than I could imagine. They aren’t your blood but you treat them and love them as if they were. You are a GODSEND. My oldest literally comes home telling me how much she loves you and how you play with her and read her stories, my heart literally bursts when she talks about you. You BOTH make up for the major lack of love, caring, and commitment from the other “set” and I’ll never be able to express how much you both mean to me. My kids will never feel the void of a missing grandparent because combined with my parents, my children have both sets of grandparents on both sides. I love love LOVE you both and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to repay you or show my appreciation for you. I mean I’m writing this, but are you going to see it? Probably not, which means I’m going to have to write you a letter or something. I don’t have as much to say about you because everything about you both is positive and nothing but love. So, I guess I’ll just finish this off with saying “Thank You.” Thank you for loving me, accepting me into your family, loving my husband, loving my children, being a part of their lives, making a lasting and positive impression on my kids and for just flat out loving them. I love you both.

#open #letter #inlaws #family