The In-Laws Out-Laws Thing

My Family: I happen to live closer to my in-laws, all of them, than I do my own family, any of them. My family all lives out of state. My in-laws all live down the road from me and I see them several times per week. The close proximity of the in-laws is coincidental. The out-of-state family thing is ok with me and not a big deal. I am not close to my own family and I have never had a close mother/daughter relationship so that is fine. She started to want to get close to me after I got married and of course after the birth of her grandkids, the latter of which is understandable. So the family thing gets tricky for me. My parents also do not like my in-laws, for reasons different than mine. My kids stay overnight frequently with all of my in-laws, which I have no problem at all with - I respect all of my extended family and I would like my kids to as well. (Side point here, I could totally go for some tomatoes and fresh mozzarella - yummy).

The In-Laws: I have two sister-in-laws, his two younger sisters, and my husband's parents who are my in-laws. I have had a problem with my in-laws almost from the beginning (notice I say "I have had a problem" - everyone I am sure, would say they are all fine - I am the strange one). I think I could say from before the beginning I have had the problem. I guess most people could say they do and if you do not, you are fortunate. I have thought for years that the problem with my in-laws stemmed from me. I became overweight for a few years and I thought that the reason they didn't like me was because I was fat. I really believed this and I just knew that if I were to lose weight, my in-laws would like me. They have never really liked me.

One Time: I remember one particularly embarrassing moment when my husband had basically had enough of that scenario (me wondering why they didn't like me and if it had to do with self-image). So we were at the dinner table and he straight out asked them if they liked me. I wanted to crawl under the dinner table and pretend I did not exist, ever. I had an out-of-body experience where I thought it almost was not happening, but it was.

The one sister-in-law who can just walk away while you are still talking to her, or completely ignore her while she and you are still both standing there, slid her chair away from the table and made her escape. The other sister-in-law, my husband's youngest sister, stayed because I guess she was the most caught, and said, as though I was not still in the room, "Ya, I sort of like Sharon, she's ok." Now I was choking. This was early on in our marriage and I really didn't know her that well and neither had I given her any reason to strongly dislike me. She did not know me either. How do you walk away from that with a face left on your face? Aw now that was rough. I remember it as clear as day and that was about twelve years ago.

Effects: It is not good to remember things that are not healthy for me but I do it all of the time. This has been bad in my marriage. My husband also tells me how it is not good to remember every little bad thing, which of course I do not do (remember every bad thing) but I do remember a lot of bad stuff and the effects are not good. It is just a big pain the way things are with the in-laws.