Carolyn Hax: Pick battles with difficult FIL

Dear Carolyn: My father-in-law is a classic jerk; he neglected and abused my husband throughout his childhood and teen years. By abuse I mean clobbering him with closed fists in anger until my husband was old enough to hit back. As adults we have little to do with him, and I’ve taken a laissez-faire approach to his belittling comments and creepy lifestyle.

That all went out the window, though, when I became a mother and he, a grandfather.

Because the baby was premature we asked everyone to get the CDC-recommended vaccine boosters and to respect our privacy in the hospital. However, he showed up while I was in recovery attempting to breastfeed, and did not leave or look away. He insisted the vaccines were pointless and took my baby out of my arms.

Weeks later, I agreed to bring the baby to a family gathering at his home. That day he informed us that his wife had bronchitis but was feeling better due to antibiotics. I refused to allow the baby in his home and my husband and I had a huge falling out over it.

His father then insisted on dropping by with a gift – three stuffed Disney princesses! One of the only things my father-in-law knows about me is that I’m a staunch feminist, as he teases me about it whenever he can. Disney princesses are a big NO for a newborn – why make her a consumer dimwit before she even decides she likes those characters?

My question for you: Can I limit her time around him knowing he is making a point of not respecting our rules and boundaries? – NYC

Of course, if she didn’t have a father and you didn’t have a husband.

But since those spaces are occupied by the son of this “classic jerk,” your only good options are the ones you come to both as co-parents and as husband and wife.

As a parent, you’ll want to throw his princesses back in his face. As a spouse, though, you have an important role in supporting your husband’s desire to solve this difficult father of his.

And as a human at the beginning of a looong road, you have a large personal stake in choosing battles wisely – as in, picking ones that still make sense decades from now. I respectfully submit that the political messages of toys she receives before she can crawl won’t make the cut.

You have a fragile baby, a scarred husband and an abusive grandpa. Fighting every battle is a luxury you can’t afford.

So, establish priorities. First, protect your child. Second, support your husband. Third, manage your father-in-law.

The seed of every good decision toward these priorities is in your marriage. You and your husband need to talkabout each of your goals with respect to his father. This is the long-range part of the conversation: “I want him in my life because he’s my dad,” or, “I’d prefer to have nothing to do with him, but you need this so I will rally, within limits.”

This is also where you talk about whether your husband will ever get what he wants from a person who may live to deny giving what people want.

Depending on the severity of your husband’s emotional scars, this reckoning might need a push from counseling.

Next you talk about where you can and can’t compromise, all through the lens of your child’s well-being. So are there peeing contests you can afford to let him win? Humoring him into complacency on trifles isn’t capitulation, it’s power.