Need To Find Some Balance

Dear friends

My relationship with PILs has never been smooth since our marriage. It has been primarily because of our religious and cultural differences, that both PILs and my FOO have never been adaptable or acceptable to each other's way of life.
Even though I have been very strict and explicit about drawing a clear boundary to my FOO; thus their irritation won't affect our new family, but my H hasn't been great at that. He has always let his mother dictate everything about us.
She interfered about our life style, food, parenting etc..etc... and she has been very strict and too nosy on them.
I have been very much adjusting, and compromising a lot for a smooth journey, but I realized my mistakes after having compromised almost everything about myself/mylife only to hear criticisms from their end.
In fact, there were no appreciation from my H for all my compromises, and in fact, he has always been travelling on the edge, fearing what would be the next issue.

After reaching my tolerance level, I stood up for myself and volunteered to set some clear boundaries for PILs. I requested H to take care of them, but he miserably failed again. This time, he showed all his anger on me and the kids for being assertive; to which PILs fueled the fire.

Our marriage life was a big roller coaster ride, where I had to struggle both at home and office to survive against all odds.
We had problems like H stopped spending for the family, but shared all his income with his FOO to please them. He was made to feel guilt for marrying me; thus he had to pay a compensation for that.
H stopped giving physical comfort or emotional support to the family, because MIL often got hurt seeing that.
H often blocked our progressive plans like kids school admission, investments etc..etc..because he had a hard time convincing his FOO for them.
But I continued to stand against them, and did what I thought was right at that time. My career gave me the needful courage to fight this, and my FOO stood by me in this long battle.

Life has changed for good when H learnt my way of life, and stopped wasting his time in protesting. In fact, I too have stopped expecting ANYTHING from H, rather found a plan B in many thing that he was supposed to join hands with us. And in fact, I was happy by then.
Which gave him clear signals as to what would be next should our marriage continue to go like this.

One fine day, when we have almost reached our 10th anniversary my H decided to cut all ties with his FOOs following an issue with their family.
This was the first time he has decided to stand by me, though he showed great progress in the recent past unlike before.
In fact, my FOO has influenced me a lot to give an ultimatum to my H to cut ties with his FOO, else he and his family wouldn't let me live peacefully.
My FOO has become my support and they often give me advises like this. I eventually let them influence since my H failed to be with me, but they filled the gap.

Those were the days when my brain stopped functioning properly, but only fought for survival.
It seemed everything was right, when your only focus was to survive the battle.

Life has changed upside down since the past 1 year.
I've got back my affectionate husband after a decade, and the marriage is now blossoming.
Kids see a different father, who always think and act for the family only.

Slowly we are moving at the right direction by distancing every extended family (including mine) by putting up a clear boundary for us.
My FOO is heart-broken though, but I can't let them interfere if their interference is against my H or our happy unity.
Though they protested initially, played blame game, and made us feel guilt for all we have received from them, we were clear by not letting their interference affect our hard earned happy marriage. However, they are cool now. They have slowly accepted and understood that we are on our own now.
We are nevertheless having a great bond with them anyways!

Last week, when I had an open discussion I learnt how sad my H about cutting complete ties with his FOO.
He fully accepted the fact that how they were strongly interfering, and how he was unable to protect us from them in the past.
But he has no plan of how to stand by us or stop them now should we decide to reunite with them.
He only says, we reunite but better be watch out. Not knowing how?

I can't be happy if my H is unhappy. Obviously my H can't be happy by completely staying away from his old parents and siblings.
But how to work on bringing a balance here?

If we volunteer to go back to them,
- They will protest, put all blame game for the bitter past, demand etc..etc..
- They would immediately accept H and kids, but not me
- H and I would obviously fight, and H would hinder our way of life in so many ways using his position as husband and dad ( past experience)
- If things go wrong, and our marriage get disturbed, my FOO would immediately get to know it (they live closely). The issue is, they would blame me for everything, given the fact that I've drawn a clear boundary for them as well.

I am sailing in two boats, having one leg with so much guilt that my H had to cut ties with his FOO because of me... and another leg by thinking how much I will have to lose from this happy union after joining with FOO.

Is there anyway where I could find some balance without losing anything....?????

 

This is my only fear, the most biggest fear as I age old.

One hand, I don't want to disturb this hard earned peace in the family. Leave alone our happiness, this peace and calmness matter a lot. I can sell anything for this.
On the other hand, this guilt. Time in and again, someone or the other, be it on the TV or social media or somewhere.... people are forced to feel guilt for their choices.
Cutting ties with old parents, not sharing your wealth with your old parents, not allowing grand-kids to be with old parents etc..etc.. is considered a huge sin regardless of your background.
And one relative, who has no idea of our past commented as if we are being too arrogant that we should tread carefully since we too have children.
He was like, if you separate a son from his mom, then God can separate your own son from you one day... And that can shook any mother.
I am introspecting now a days... whether I was too harsh? Whether I could have tolerated a bit more etc..etc..

As you rightly said, it was not me, not my FOO that made my H cut all ties with his FOO.
Standing on my ground and staying assertive when it comes to my rights/my life is not wrong. I did only that, and the rest was my H's choice.
He can't expect me to tolerate all these nonsense all my life.
It was his mistake that he could have handled this issue a little better than cutting complete ties, but this was what he could do back then.

Nevertheless, he didn't come to me or complaint that he is sad. But he didn't even act so.
But during one such conversation it just came from his mouth, that he expect a patch up and an initiative from our end.
But again, as I fear they may feel as if they were right always.

Sometimes i feel like, if they too feel the need to patch up (since they erred), I could accept them as who they are and be open to start everything from the scratch - 0f course with loads of care!
But going after them when they have no intention of worrying or thinking about our past wouldn't change anything.

 

Thanks everyone for your responses here.

In fact, I have almost agreed with my H to visit PILs with family on the pretext of Diwali visit. Then my DD became sick (food poisoning) a day after Diwali; hence we postponed the visit. Thankfully both my H and I got busy with work in the following week and almost forgot our plan to visit PILs.
Now I think it was a great decision not to visit PILs in hurry before sorting things out from our end.

Yes, H is sad. But he should sort out his emotions clearly.
He is sad, not because he had to stay away from his folks... BUT because his folks have been so cruel, and nasty to the family he created. His family has been very poisonous to interact closely.
Yes, it is indeed a very sad thing. But there is nothing to feel guilt, than accepting the reality.
Currently he is sad, and he feels guilt for none of his mistakes. His guilt contaminates the hard earned peace in the family, because it is contagious. He makes me also feel guilt for staying away from PILs to live happily.
Our media and society fuel the fire with their useless teachings.

After reading your response, I am now clear. Correct me if I am wrong!
If the relationship is ruined, then it is about the 2 parties that are involved in it. So, it also takes the same 2 to fix whatever it is broken, and tread carefully down the lane.
In our case, there is no interest from PILs side to patch up with us. There is no 3rd party involved on behalf of them to amend things either.
They are happy, at least apparently with their other children.
They don't seem to be worried or missed their son or grand kids.

Now that, if we go back and patch up voluntarily, there is a risk that they would (including BILs and co-sisters) put the whole blame on us (specially on me) and make me the culprit for whatever happened in the past.
This way, I would be forced to accept or do certain things against my will to continue the relationship.
If not, it can further damage the existing bond. Either way, it is not what we want.

There is a tiny chance that PILs and others can accept H and kids, by explicitly leaving me behind. This happened earlier, and I don't want to take that risk again.
Because you can't force someone to love you!

Now that I start opening my eyes.
There is nothing that should make us guilt for distancing ourselves and family away from nasty people who caused problems all your life.
You have been victimized before you chose to stand up and protect yourself.
In fact, those nasty people should feel guilt, and do things to patch up if the relationship to survive.
If not, it is also good.
I should convince my H accordingly