'WIBTA if I told my wife's dead husband's parents to stop coming to see our daughter?' UPDATED
"WIBTA if I told my wife's dead husband's parents to stop coming to see our daughter?"
I have been married married my wife for about two years now and we had our daughter a year ago. Now, my wife was married before, she got married pretty young, but her husband died. I knew all of this and have been just fine with it. Until now.
See, she's still pretty close to her dead husband's parents.
And they were excited for the birth of our child. FYI, they only had the one son, no other children at all.
They have been coming over to our place about once a week. It was fine at first, but it's gotten kind of suffocating. They have visited us more time than either her parent, or my.parents. They have even stayed over our house at times. Something I wouldn't even like even if they were my own parents.
Another thing... they talk about their dead son.. a lot. Which is usually fine, but they have made some comments that make me uncomfortable.
They even said my daughter kind of looks like him, and his mom even said "Oh, if she's this cure, imagine how cute your kids would have been, if only..." when talking to my wife. She was gonna say more, but I think she realized what she was about to say, I was right there.
I want to be amicable, and I knew that there was gonna be some moments like this, but it's starting to make me feel uncomfortable.
Here's what people had to say to OP:
NTA.....they are clinging to you guys in the wake of losing thier son, but there needs to be boundaries in place. It begins with a conversation with your wife and working in unison.. What does she say?
throwaway_4833k OP responded:
My wife thinks it's fine. She says she sees them the same as her own parents.
Good luck sir. This feels like a touchy situation especially since you two don't seem to be on the exact same page and she likely isn't "over" her former husband like you'd hope.
You say in other comments that our wife sees them as family, as extra parents (to her)/grandparents to your kid. You can't just unanimously tell them to GTFO and never come back. It would help if you had a serious conversation with your wife, possibly with a therapist as a mediator.
You need to get over yourself. Oh no! There might be EXTRA people in your daughters life that might LOVE her. Oh no! What a tragedy!
throwaway_4833k OP responded:
So just because they love my daughter, I have to cater to them every week?
4 days later OP provided this update:
So, I had a talk with my wife about her parents, and like clockwork, they actually came this week too, i am actually writing this after they left and had a talk with my wife.
I told my wife that the frequency of these visits are becoming too much, and their comments are bothering me. My wife really didn't realize how the comments sounded until i explained them to her.
I told her i don't mind them coming over from now and then, but that I want to spend time with her and our daughter when I am not tired from work.
She promised me she would talk to them and would make sure they gave us our space and that they would stop with the comments. She also apologized for not saying anything and that while she still loves her dead husband, she loves me and would never treat me as anything less than her husband and father of her daughter.
So yeah, I think things turned out OK. Also, i gotta vent on something that kept popping up: The child is MY BIOLOGICAL DAUGHTER. Some of you can't read.
Here's what people had to say to OP after the update:
"while she still loves her dead husband." I just don't like how this sounds....
throwaway_4833k OP responded:
It's part of the deal when dating a widow. They never broke up, divorced, or stopped loving each other. I'm not gonna pretend it's pleasant hearing this kind of stuff, but I've accepted a long time ago.
I think you have handled this very well. And the fact that you still will allow them to visit your child speaks volumes about your character. I lost my only brother the month following his wedding. We are still very close to his widow over a decade later.
Should she remarry and have children with another man, I hope that new family will still have room in their hearts to allow us to be a part of it, no matter how small.
Anyone else concerned that the people who keep visiting their dead son's widow and her child with another man WEEKLY might not be terribly receptive to being talked to about boundaries and nuclear family time?
They didn't get a chance to have grandchildren, and that is so sad. But it doesn't give them the right to disrupt OP's family time.
OP, you need to discuss the actual frequency you are comfortable with, blackout days and times, and what to do when they inevitably show up uninvited. Your wife needs to be comfortable telling them it's not a good time for a visit and turn them away.
Good luck OP, I sincerely hope the former in-laws are receptive to your reasonable and still very accomodating requests, it's absolutely not on that they were inadvertently establishing a dynamic in which you were some proxy donor and your daughter was near enough a surrogate for a life that unfortunately never substantiated for them.