Wedding Forum - Keep trying or give up?...

Here is a rant about my partner's parents...

His mother is disabled and very mentally ill. He lives with her at the time being. She goes through phases where she loves me and I'm "like the daughter she never had" and then suddenly she hates me and repeat. At the moment I'm not "allowed" in their house, she talks bad about me to him and his brother and anyone else who will listen. Basically she's very unstable and is just upset about what to her is me taking her youngest son away. She won't have anything to do with the wedding, refused to come to the engagement party (at first she said it was on principle, then said it was because her sister was coming who she has a vendetta against for no real reason), and is refusing to come to the wedding too.

My fiancés dad is also refusing to have anything to do with us; he says it's because we're too young to marry (by the time we do I'll have turned 20 a few months earlier and he'll be nearly 20), but we believe really it's because his partner doesn't want him giving us any money and she's been trying to squeeze his sons out of his life for years now. Likewise he refused to come to the engagement party too despite his parents coming, his brother and his kid, and his partner's son who is good friends with my partner as they lived together for awhile at his dad's (what a funny situation!).

Obviously this is all pretty stressful and upsetting. My real question is: what should I personally do about this? Obviously there is time for things to get better and for them to come around as we don't marry until April. But I am frequently finding myself getting into arguments with his mum when I do see her and I also have depression and anxiety and I get really sad about his parents taking such a huge dislike to me all of a sudden and take it out on myself, which then upsets my partner more. I don't know whether I should leave them to it and hope they suddenly change their minds or keep reaching out to them and trying to make contact even though it keeps getting thrown back in my face. Both his parents and his dad's partner are very verbally abusive to and about me for no apparent reason and it's painful. Should I give up or keep trying to be the better person?

walk away from them hun .....

i know from personal experience with Mr lalas mother that you can only try for so long ...i was trying to get things right even though i had done nothing wrong but eventually i said "enough is enough ... i dont deserve to put self under all this stress ,i have done all i can " so i stopped and i feel so much better for it

Bless you, that's not very nice for you is it :( Has your h2b tried talking to them? I don't really know what to suggest, maybe have some space from the for a while? Just see your h2b and let him see his parents by himself? Hopefully theyll come round and decide to come to your wonderful day, if not, their loss! It sounds like you've made more than enough effort, and h2b should be thankful of that. surely he will understand that its all getting too much to cope with and that you need some space from them?

Hope things sort out xx

It sounds like your h2b family has a very unhealthy dynamic. Since future MIL2B is mentally ill there isn't much you can do to help your relationship with her until her health is better. As for FIL2B the dynamic seems set in relation to his children.
There is no magic wand you can wave to make things better and in fact a lot of your efforts to change the dynamic will probably backfire or possibly make things worse. I'm speaking from experience here, people don't change easily. It's much easier to be a positive example to others rather then trying to change them and their family dynamics.
I would suggest supporting your H2B. You can't change is family but you can help him and support his decisions regarding them.