How do I let go of my anger toward in-laws?

A Reddit user (38F) struggles with feelings of anger and hurt over her in-laws (65F, 65M) spending more time with her sister-in-law’s family than with her own.

Despite no apparent conflict, she feels her 6-year-old son is missing out on valuable bonding with his grandparents. She seeks advice on how to let go of these emotions and move forward. Read the full story below.

‘ How do I let go of my anger toward in-laws?’

My husband (38M) and I (38F) have been married 9 years and have one child (6M). Husband’s sister and her husband (33F, 40M) have two girls (7f, 3f). My husband’s parents (65f, 65m) spend more time with the sister’s family than with us.

Sister’s family lives about 45 mins away from us. grandparents live about a five hour drive away. I don’t know why this is and at this point I don’t think knowing will make a difference. Maybe we are boring, maybe they are uncomfortable at our house. There are no indications of bad feelings, we all get along and have fun together.

What I am looking for advice on is how do I accept it and let go instead of being angry and hurt? I am sad my son doesn’t get as much time with them. He loves them so much.

Here’s what Redditors had to say:

ConfusedAt63 −  There is nothing you can do but it won’t take very long at all and your kid won’t have any time or interest in them. Kids notice who makes the effort.

They may not show it or say anything until much later and people are always surprised that kids remember their childhood and stop paying attention to people who blew them off when they were kids and rightfully so.

When it happens, just remind them how many times they declined invitations to spend time with your kids and just how seldom they even bothered to come visit your kids. Put forth the exact same level of interest in their lives as they do towards yours. Frankly, you probably are not really missing much.

SithLard −  What’s your husband’s opinion on this?

decaturbob −  – have you like tried to voice your opinions to your inlaws that they are neglecting their other grandchild? At least get that on the record as it makes ignoring them going forward a lot easier. – btw, you have a husband issue who can not get this taken care of if you haven;t noticed.

justbrowzingthru −  Grandparents are team girl mom/team girl grandma.

OkAtmosphere1705 −  Maybe your husband was breaking their balls when he was a kid and they make him pay this. At the same time they have 3 grand.children. You have 1/3 of theirs. So you do the math, they allocate 2/3 in their house and 1/3 in your house.

I you wanna invert this, you’ll need to heat that uterus and make …. 3 more kids to have 2/3 of the total grand children. But it is just a hypothesis, the kids cost is yours.

iSoReddit −  It doesn’t sound like you’ve talked to your husband about this so I’d start there

Letting go of unbalanced relationships with family can be challenging, especially when it impacts your child. How would you handle feelings of exclusion while maintaining family harmony? Share your advice or experiences below!