AITA for Responding to My In-Laws Excluding Me From Family Brunches and Dinners?

Cultural Considerations in Family Dynamics

Family interactions are often guided by cultural and normative standards. In certain Middle Eastern cultures, the family is seen as a unit that prioritizes the family over the in-law. This might explain some of the behavior, but it in no way makes continually shutting out a host in their own home understandable. Better communication and understanding and to help bridge the cultural divide in multicultural/ blended families will be men based in scientific research.

Communication Breakdown

That absence of communication deepened the division. The lack of communication on the part of his wife who failed to either inform him about the dinner or help him with his feelings about the previous calls would indicate a breakdown in partnership communication. Strong relationships are unbalanced – in favor of both people advocating for the other, especially in family dynamics. Then the wife called her rude, boring, buzzkill, which only heightened the drama, moving what should be a focus from the actual issue.

Although the zinger, “Oh, there’s a talking trashcan,” was charged with emotion, it was a response to his long-suffering experience being treated somewhat like a talking garbage can. That being said, the incident devolving into name-calling was not the best way to approach the actual underlying problems.

Setting Boundaries and Protecting Well-Being

Not going to brunch and talking to his in-laws as little as possible was a way for him to set the boundaries he needed. According to Very ell Mind, setting boundaries is a normal reaction to toxic dynamics. But boundaries should be set calmly and never used to fan the flames of conflict. Hi silent pull back and mean responses were perfectly understandable but perhaps robbed this conversation of any real chance of going anywhere.

Folks were shocked by the behavior of the man’s in-laws, and they strongly felt that his wife was also disrespecting him too much

That man had every right to be frustrated, and his exclusion, for most part disrespectedhis purity of relationship that he shared with her wife, her family & others. Now, while it was an overreaction, it was still an overreaction driven by years of having his concerns discounted. From here, they need to communicate honestly with his wife and establish boundaries with her family if they care to restore a sense of trust and respect. If these dynamics are not addressed or remedied, the relationship may always be in trouble.