Hello to all of you.
It is very hard to condense 30 yrs of "in-law abuse" into a sentence or two, but hopefully some of you can relate and if you have found a way to cope/deal with it I'm all ears.
Basically, my spouse and I have stayed together for 30-plus yrs because of being witnesses, despite extreme differences of values and goals. Half-way thru the lives of our children we both discovered the fallacies of WTS and thankfully left this simultaneously. Nevertheless, the underlying problems have never been properly dealt with but rather have escalated.
The in-law problems are largely related to being witnesses, but also due to the fundamental value differences of the two families. The current problem is today when my spouse took our one daughter to visit family, they attacked my character and made false accusations in the presence of my spouse (who did not and never has come to my defense/support). Needless to say, my daughter was devastated and furious, called my cell-phone in a fury, and was heartbroken and crying.
I have often contemplated divorce because of the serious value difficulties in our marraige but have felt that staying together was always best for the childrens' stability. Now that my daughter has had this experience, I am concerned that it would be unwise to "send the message" to her that it is okay to just let yourself be abused in this way. I have tolerated this type of abuse but it has never before occurred in my childrens' presence. I'm not sure that divorce would be the "correct" action, but feel that I need to find some way to counteract this.
Perhaps because I was raised as a witness, I have been "conditioned" to accept derision and it seems easier to just silently ignore it. I do not want to overreact, and I do want her to know that this is often what goes on in life and that we just have to ignore alot of what others think, say and do.
Thank you in advance for all your thoughts.