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Today has not gone well. We did our big family celebration yesterday, and have one get together to go with my daughter (dd) and son in law (sil) in a few days.

We have been arguing about this next get together for the majority of the afternoon/evening off and on.

In short - the last time we were all together at a larger family get together at our home, when dd and sil were leaving sil went to shake G5’s hand (my SO - together 8 yrs, living together 8 months), and G5 declined citing he was avoiding a lot of direct personal contact since he had COVID earlier in the summer (and was deathly ill!). Sil responded with "well f*CK you too, G5!", and G5 calmly responded that it was nothing personal, he didn’t mean anything by it, etc.

I was so stunned and there was so much other curfluffle going on with everyone leaving that I didn’t say anything and then they were gone. I have no idea if dd heard this exchange.

I think this is out of character for sil, and G5 is holding a grudge about it, and did not address it further at the time and has not addressed it with G5 since.

So, G5 advised me today he has an exit plan in place and that if he perceives any attitude or disrespect from sil, he’s going to say that he isn’t going to be talked to that way and he’s leaving (or sil is), then refined the plan further to just say he is going to be the one to leave.

I hate this plan. I could not communicate effectively to G5 that this is not a healthy dynamic. That if you’re going to bring it up you need to address it. Not drop it like a bomb on everyone and then leave me and dd to somehow deal with it and not be able to resolve it because one of the involved parties isn’t there (because G5 left).

He also thought I should have addressed it with dd and or sil. I think I spent a lot of time in therapy learning not to insert myself into other peoples disputes.

This devolved into me taking sil’s side and not supporting G5 (his feelings that he expressed), and me trying to offer suggestions for him to remove himself from the situation (go upstairs because he has a headache, for instance) without dropping this huge thing on everyone and not sticking around to help "clean up the mess".

THEN - he asks me if I want him to move out. I was like…wait…what??? This is the second time he has brought this up during a disagreement.

I said NO, I don’t, and asked him if he wanted to move out and he said if he was going to be expected to "take this abuse" it was going to be a deal breaker for him.

I said I was not expecting him to tolerate inappropriate behavior from sil, but either address it with him or otherwise deal with it in a way that doesn’t escalate the conflict.

He has now agreed to excuse himself for a headache, go upstairs, etc, but has said he isn’t going to "roll" for me again, whatever that means.

We spent a couple hours apart in the house, he went to the gym for while, I asked if I could say something and I told him it makes me anxious when his solution to every disagreement is to throw out moving out/ending the relationship. He has no recollection of saying this before, but he has.

And there was just so much more…but you get the gist.

He went to bed. I texted and said I loved him and wished the day had gone differently. He didn’t respond.

Am I completely off base here? I agree sil was out of line, but I don’t think his exit plan will be constructive to the situation.

We don’t have a lot of conflict otherwise.

Idk.

Feeling sad.

Sorry you're in that situation. Not sure that I have any advice for you. I can understand G5 not wanting to shake hands after having COVID. I have friends with long COVID issues and I can understand not wanting to be at-risk.

It is troubling that when you argue that G5 threatens to move out. Would he consider going to couples counseling with you to work on communication? It sounds like you'd rather he learned how to deal with situations like this rather than making threats. Sometimes we have to have difficult conversations we don't want to have in order to clear the air.

Hope things work out so you can see your family without problems.

Thanks, leafields.

Doubtful he would be open to any kind of counseling together, but I haven’t asked, in fairness.

I didn’t sleep much. He just got up and responded in kind when I said "morning" before he left the bedroom, but just with that short interaction I feel like he has gotten angrier vs time allowing things to cool down. Idk.

To add to the situation, my son is staying with us until tomorrow, so it’s not like we have free rein to discuss this further at any given time.

I continue to be bothered by the "moving out" being thrown in there. I’m not sure if that’s a defense mechanism on his part or if he’s serious. I’m also concerned because we rarely have conflict, and this was his go-to resolution. Makes me wonder if he’s regretting the decision to combine our households. He’s never verbalized regretting the decision otherwise.

He seems to feel that because I don’t agree with his "solution", that I am ok with sil talking to him that way (I’m not!), and the expectation is he is just supposed to "take it". He brought up more than once that it’s a "man thing", which I totally don’t get obviously. Maybe one of the menz can shed some light on that.

Not looking forward to today. I don’t feel like I can text him and ask how he’s doing today, and that’s really bothering me. I should always feel like I can at least reach out without it being some huge decision and carefully weighing my words. Maybe I’m overthinking it. We've never had an argument like this before. So maybe there’s some discomfort in that in and of itself.

Thanks for the support.

I’ve learned that many people have a mindset that if you disagree with them, you are against them. And if you don’t stand up for them, "it’s over between us".

Clearly SIL was wrong.

However there are two choices. He can let it go and move on or do what he’s doing and making it a BFD (big f’in deal).

I think you handled the situation as best you could and did not let it escalate. Not sure why it’s important to hang on to something stupid and insensitive that someone said but it’s not for us to understand. It’s his feelings and I respect it.

He didn’t want close contact and he didn’t get close contact. She said something unwarranted (IMO).

He’s upset you did not escalate the situation. He handled it perfectly. He didn’t need you. The issue is he perceived you as "not being on his side". You need to have a talk with him and explain you are on his side but you don’t need to insert yourself in situations where he handled it himself. And just b/c you don’t yell or attack someone doesn’t mean you don’t agree w/ him or support him.

I hope this helps you.

Thanks 1stWife.

You pretty much summed it up! For whatever reason it’s all or nothing for him on this topic and I’ve heard numerous times that if person xyz said that to me he would have abcdefg immediately, etc. I’ve tried explaining that we handle conflict differently, but he can’t see it or doesn’t want to or just flat out disagrees.

It’s frustrating. I did text and apologize for not acknowledging and recognizing when he said he needed to take a break from the convo and I kept pushing him to engage. Radio silence, but he may be sleeping in his den as I know he didn’t sleep much last night either. Or he may be ignoring me. Unclear at this time.

Either way my goal rn is to practice healthy skills as I know them to resolve this and not be codependent.

(he) said he isn’t going to "roll" for me again, whatever that means.

That means he's not going to roll over and acquiesce to your way of doing things when it's not what he feels is right.

I hate this plan. I could not communicate effectively to G5 that this is not a healthy dynamic. That if you’re going to bring it up you need to address it. Not drop it like a bomb on everyone and then leave me and dd to somehow deal with it and not be able to resolve it because one of the involved parties isn’t there (because G5 left).

He also thought I should have addressed it with dd and or sil. I think I spent a lot of time in therapy learning not to insert myself into other peoples disputes.

Gently, you're contradicting yourself. If you want to stay out of it, then stay all the way out of it and don't take on the task of fixing things if he chooses to leave. I'd give him my blessing to excuse himself if that's what he feels that he needs to do. He's trying to avoid an ugly scene with your family.

Either way my goal rn is to practice healthy skills as I know them to resolve this and not be codependent.

You can be codep with family, too, not just with your SO. Why are you worried more about what they think than about G5 feeling disrespected? Why should he be expected to stick around to clean up a mess that he didn't make? If he's your person and he did nothing wrong, then it's important to have his back. Be on his team.

JMO.

…and an update…

We had a follow up conversation. I’m either cancelling the get together with my daughter/son in law or I will be meeting them alone/spending time at the house alone.

He views this topic as the only thing he has asked for since moving in that he has stuck to his guns about and not let me "have my way". Probably true, but most topics are not a big deal and not things he truly cares about (he stated this as well).

I brought up the throwing out there about ending the relationship comment and he said, "I said IF we are going to fight like this all the time.". I pointed out this is ONE argument we’ve had, and already acknowledged I ignored his request/suggestion for a break during the conversation and I shouldn’t have.

He acknowledged he should have told me he didn’t want to spend one on one time with son in law when I asked him about the get together date.

We were supposed to go on a bit of a car trip tomorrow and he’s stated he doesn’t want to go because he doesn’t want to sit in the car with me for three hours and feel uncomfortable. We’ve had this out of town appointment for months, and now we will have to reschedule probably months from now again, but oh well.

Idk. It just sucks.

Do y’all have family members your SO refuses to be around? How do you navigate it?

I think you're 100% right to call him on jumping straight to talking about ending the relationship when he's mad. That's emotionally manipulative.

He seems to default to acquiescence to "keep the peace" without notifying you anywhere along the way that he is starting to feel "outvoted" about too many day-to-day decisions like all couples have to make.To me, that is sort of passive aggressive behavior, but was probably learned at home as a kid. It's also a recipe for troubles later.

My WH is so quiet natured that he never let me know how he felt outvoted on the purchase this farm for us to share. He told me to "go ahead " after I found it, since he knew we'd been searching for a year for a property he would approve of enough to invest jointly in it. We had been married only 4 years and he'd moved into MY house after the marriage. Where I was thinking we were moving ahead into more joint lives, I found out later he felt like he was being taken along a path he wasn't sure he wanted to commit to. (He had kept me waiting 4 years for a proposal, for the same reason.) I'd maybe want to back up a couple notches right about now.

You should not have to rearrange your plans b/c he’s behaving badly.

I would go to whatever events you want - with or without him.

Honestly this is being blown out of proportion. Someone said something they should not have. It was unacceptable IMO. He handled it.

You have apologized to him for not speaking up (which I don’t believe you needed to do).

Sorry your holidays have been impacted by this.

My two cents because of past experience with a spouse that never had my back. He allowed his family to treat me any way they felt like. Most were wonderful, thankfully. Some, not at all.

This is most definitely your circus and your monkeys. That is your daughter, and therefore by extension, her husband is YOUR family. It is not even your husband's place to correct them. He shouldn't have to. Imagine if you were in his shoes. His family was extremely disrespectful, (I think we can all agree somebody saying fuck you is that) and then he didn't correct his family and left you hanging. How would you feel? Then add onto that he expected you to "play nice" and come to more gatherings with that person. Not inserting yourself is when 2 people don't agree on something, and you stay out of it. However, someone blatantly disrespecting YOUR partner is not the same thing.

You apologized. Great. Now, what is your plan of action if your family disrespects him again?

He is perfectly within his right to set a boundary that he will leave if he is disrespected again, especially if you don't have his back and won't correct your family. I also want to add, when your family disrespects your partner, they blatantly disrespect YOU! Sit on that for a few minutes. Would you completely disrespect the partner of someone you respect? I know if someone said that to mine, I'd be so pissed and ready to regress to a physical solution that he wouldn't have to worry about handling the situation because he would have to drag me away before I did something I might regret. JS.

Now, take this with a grain of salt because I have my own experiences that may heavily influence my perspective. And, I apologize if I'm misunderstanding the situation you presented.

[This message edited by StillLivin at 3:24 AM, Sunday, December 29th]

Thanks to everyone for the different perspectives - it does really help!

To answer some of the questions and comments, clarify, etc:

I thought the situation was over. G5 responded in the moment and I thought it was finished. I asked him prior to setting up this holiday get together with the four of us about date, time, etc and he said NOTHING about being upset or not wanting to get together. Now I’m this position of needing to cancel or otherwise deal with it.

I don’t have an issue with G5 having an exit plan, I just don’t think it should blindside sil when he doesn’t know there is an issue (I’m assuming he isn’t aware, same as me, or he would have addressed it already) and then doesn’t give sil the opportunity to correct it right then and there because G5 leaves. I know G5 would not be ok with me, out of the blue, announcing he has done this thing 2 months ago that upset me so badly I can’t be in the room with him and then walking out the door without giving him the opportunity to address or discuss it at all. That to me is inflammatory behavior and not constructive. Excuse yourself for a headache and exit stage left to go to your den and watch tv? Sure thing. But this is from two MONTHS ago, and nothing has been said before now.

I did not say anything in the moment when it happened as I was quite shocked, G5 had handled it, and then they were gone. I also felt like his comment was a reflection of how G5’s actions were perceived and/or making him feel. G5 feels very much like StillLivin’ has expressed (and good to see you again!). I’m a little concerned that G5 may have shaken someone else’s hand as everyone was leaving, which sil observed, then felt singled out when G5 didn’t want to shake his hand. G5 cannot confirm this didn’t happen…but sometimes you get kind of roped into the shaking hands or hugging thing whether you want to be or not, and G5 was trying desperately to put some physical distance between himself and the group while everyone was exiting.

G5 asked me how I would feel in his shoes and I honestly don’t know because I generally don’t inspire those types of reactions from people - I get along easily with most people and G5 tends to be more abrasive with others (strangers and family alike). I am also not one to let conflict linger. I would have reached out to that person by now and said HEY - that upset me. I would not have wanted or expected G5 to intervene, but that’s just my style and not his and I don’t think either is right or wrong.

To answer the question regarding what would I do if it happened again - I would definitely say something in the moment. This was a first time offense, it all happened really fast, G5 addressed it, and then it was over, and I was chalking it up to a one off and a misunderstanding and had moved on from it. I was not aware G5 had not moved on. G5’s issue is that he wants an apology. I don’t even know if sil is aware that G5 is/was upset by this last interaction.

That issue aside, I now am in the position that I no longer feel comfortable bringing up things that I want to discuss or have issues with because he’s going to pull the ending the relationship card because he isn’t going to "fight for days". Well no kidding, who wants to do that? But he is also unwilling to say "Let shelf this discussion for a couple days and let things cool down". He will go to the gym or go upstairs and take a break from the conversation (which he needs), but then feels like we have to have a solution and can’t let things linger. I’ve also been given a one week time limit to bring things up. After the one week, it’s no longer fair game to bring up to him. (And yes, I pointed out that’s exactly what he’s doing in the situation with son in law) At one point during our disagreement he mentioned moving in with me may have been the dumbest financial decision he’s made and when asked if he regretted moving in with me he said, "yes, if we are going to fight for days like this.". Mind you, this is the first argument we’ve had since he moved in last April. Those statements have made me feel a lot of things, brought up lots of triggers from the ex, and I’m trying not to overreact because I’m pretty sure he was also triggered from experiences with his ex where they fought often. But it has made me feel insecure in the relationship, and sad that I no longer feel I can go to him with anything at any time.

I think I need to bring up that we need to work on our communication during a disagreement, and communication in general. When I tried to do this in the moment (perhaps that was bad timing) he immediately went to me blaming him for the situation because he didn’t tell me he didn’t want to get together when I asked him. I explained I wasn’t trying to assign blame, I was trying to set some guidelines in place for moving forward.

He did tell me I was controlling, and that was very much straight from my ex’s playbook. I don’t think you get to tell me that you don’t care about anything and to do what I want and then accuse me of being controlling because I do that. For the record, the last issue that he cited I "won" and therefore he needed to win this one was where to put our charging station for the iPads, etc. I pointed out that he asked me about the charging station. If he didn’t want my opinion and knew where he wanted to put it (and didn’t care what I thought)he should have just moved it there.

I should note I’m also chalking up some of this to that first year of living together who-the-hell-is-this-person stuff.

My lord this has gotten long and thanks to those that are still reading.

I think I’m going to call my daughter today and ask if she is aware of the last interaction our men had together. If not, I’m going to explain that it didn’t go well, state what happened, and say that G5 apologized in the moment and was/is upset that sil did not reciprocate the apology for his words. DD and I have an excellent relationship, and I’m going to bank on simple, open and honest communication for the win. Although, at some point in our argument G5 said he didn’t want me to say or do anything at this point, so idk…

What a cluster fuck.

Thanks. I finally finished my degree in Nutritional Science, so more free time. Yay me!

If it were me, I would talk to my kid and just express how inappropriate SIL's disrespect was and inform her that since he hasn't apologized, partner is still in his feelings about it all...and rightfully so.

Time will tell if your partner needs to become an ex partner or if he can improve on his communication skills. All the added details gives a little more clarity. Do NOT walk on eggshells, though. If you're afraid in your relationship, you're in the wrong relationship. Could you have handled it better, maybe. He has every right to set boundaries with SIL, but jumping straight to moving out and ending a relationship can't help the situation either. A lot of people can't react when they have a shock like that. I get it. But I also get his side too. I hope you can both find a resolution that meets in the middle. But you probably should address the situation with at least your daughter. I wouldn't even want to see SIL if he disrespected me (by disrespecting my partner) like that. And once I had time to cool off and could keep my hands to myself ( ), I'd definitely give him a tongue lashing for the profanity and disrespect. But that's me.

Toxic family can sure make holiday gatherings stressful huh?!

[This message edited by StillLivin at 6:01 PM, Sunday, December 29th]

I had missed the time lag between when the rude incident happened and your BF's response. Two weeks is a long time to brood, don't you think, without a peep? Could it be what we used to refer to as a "red herring?" In other words, not the deeper issue bothering him, but one he latched onto as "justification" for his ambivalence?

Blending families is famously awkward for many folks. I struggled for years feeling that I was "Super came lately" and not ever going to be respected in his family circle, especially after D-Day 1 when his sister advised him to go ahead and divorce me (since he'd cheated on me) because - get this - she "never liked me anyway." He actually repeated that to me when I asked what her reaction to him telling his family what he'd done! Blew me away. Since then, things never really healed but they're in another country so it's no longer a burning issue for me (Especially after D-Day 2!).

Still, it hurts. And during Christmas!

Thanks, everyone.

Superesse - it was two MONTHS!

StillLivin - congrats on your degree!!

Update: yesterday I told G5 my plan and wanted to confirm he was comfortable. I reiterated that I want him to feel supported and that I don’t condone what sil said to him.

G5 says, "Well, if you say that to DD it kind of puts you in an awkward position with her.". NO SHIT! That was my entire point during our argument the other day. But I was willing to do it and I think it would have been ok ultimately.

However, G5 says let’s think of some other possible scenarios… conveniently his car has an engine light on. He is going to be MIA from our get together today to deal with that. I’m going to let DD know ahead of time that he most likely won’t join our festivities. If he gets home while they are still here he will excuse himself for a headache.

I pointed out this is not going to achieve the desired result of an apology, and asked how that’s going to help the situation going forward.

He said he doesn’t think sil will apologize regardless (I have no opinion on that either way) and he just needs some time to cool off about it.

So…yeah. That’s where we are. He feels supported. I’m not lying to DD about why G5 isn’t there. After we had agreed on a plan he said, "Why didn’t the conversation go like this the other day?". I said I was wondering the same thing.

TBD on the other issues, but for now things have calmed down.

I definitely will not walk on eggshells, and would prefer if we clear the air about how our conversation made me feel. It will keep.

Thanks to everyone for your thoughts and feelings on the subject!

Just chiming in here that Sil's response seems over the top hostile, as if there is an undercurrent of anger issues. At the same time, it doesn't seem fair that your partner is expecting you somehow to manage the situation or supporting his exit strategy. ALso agree with the others that inserting the idea of moving out is emotional manipulation, whether intentional or not. As an infidelity survivor (who was abandoned) this seems like a trigger word.