Toxic relatives causing issues in my relationship. What should I do?

[Anonymous]

This is a sticky family situation. My partner has a couple difficult relatives that I do my very best to tolerate. That all ended today. A lot of drama ended up coming out and I ended up getting emotionally and verbally abused by one of those relatives.

Long story short, one of the two relatives was our babysitter for our child. We had an issue because they didn't like it that I made a stop before picking our child up. I failed to see an issue. I still picked our child up at the normal time. This is what caused the escalation. I talked to my partner about it. I expressed my annoyance over what the relative had said and my partner called them about it to try to see why they said what they did. They gave an entirely different story saying I was rude to them when I came to pick up our child. That is completely false. I told my partner that. My partner said that if me and the relative couldn't work it out we'd simply find a new sitter. Well, that's what we ended up doing because the relative refused to talk. The relative then called the second relative and gave God knows what kind of lie to them. That relative then attacked me. I was verbally and emotionally abused and left feeling horrible and hurt. My partner borderline got mad at ME after this happened. They also did not leave with me and instead stayed with the problem causing relative which really hurt. I now feel like these problematic relatives are going to try to influence my partner to leave me. I am praying my partner doesn't believe their lies. This was such an unnecessary issue. I am still very hurt and my partner now won't even talk to me which hurts even more. I am being punished and for what? I am so unsure of what to do about this. I just want my relationship to be ok. I am fine with cutting out toxic relatives but I am not ok with cutting out my partner whom I love dearly over this.

Does anyone have any advice over this?

[petitedollbabee]

Well if it was your own family then the answer would be simple, cut them out. But it’s your partners family so that complicates it. You can’t exactly cut them out. So my only advice would be to gather evidence. Always record interactions. That way you can record conversations where they’re abusing you or gaslighting you, and later when they deny it or change the story to your partner and they try to make you out to be crazy, you can show your partner what was recorded and allow him to see for himself what’s going on. Otherwise you and his relatives are forcing him to choose between you, and thats not fair. It’s a “he said she said” situation and the only way around it is to have proof.

[Asker]

This was a fantastic solution. I am now going to record all conversations and in person interactions between me and this disgusting people. That way, as you said, it's no longer he said she said and I will have absolute, undeniable proof that THEY are the issues and I am being framed and my partner is being lied to.

I looked up the legal aspect of this as well. It's fine in my state. My state is a one party state. That means I am legally allowed to record any conversation I am a part of WITHOUT the other party knowing. So there. I am legally allowed to do this and I am.

I wish SO MUCH I wod have seen this coming and could have recorded the interaction that caused this because that was some major BS. I was completely betrayed and my partner took the bait and believed the lies and so did the other family member. The second the first family member called the second one, they believed every word they said instantly. They never even took the time to hear what I had to say. They immediately believed them, TOLD me they didn't care what I said or thought and was believing their own family over me, accused me of coming between family and completely lost their mind and attacked me. It was shocking and upsetting... especially when I knew the truth.

Then my partner basically calls me a bad person, says I caused trouble and made a whole issue between US over it. Didn't bother defending me. Didn't bother choosing to believe me. Just said I caused a scene and shouldn't have even though I was defending myself against a nasty verbal attack.

[Asker]

To this day, my partner is still salty with me over it. Anytime it gets brought up, he gets angry at me and says I am being a jerk towards the other family members that were involved and says that I need to be a mature and be nice to them and let go of the past. He doesn't understand how or why I would possibly be uncomfortable around these people now and no longer trust them. He thinks I just need to be friends with them and pretend like nothing happened and that really hurts. He says they have rights to our child. No they don't. He has had some fights with me over this and I have them recorded.

I am reluctantly being civil to the troublemakers but I am continuing to heavily document things and record interactions and conversations.

[Hellraiser1984]

You're right. If he's not willing to side with you then maybe he's not really in your side at all. I would never use a family member to babysit my kids. Too much chance of drama, plus people are usually a holes anyway. I don't see any problem with you making a stop. It wouldn't have bothered me. As long as it wasn't like a four hour trip to the mall. It was no big deal. They overreacted Because they may have issues with you.

[Asker]

Thank you. It was literally not a problem. I actually have consulted with other family members who are decent and they found this completely outrageous and even humorous. They immediately made fun of the former sitter for having to enlist the second family member and found it ridiculous that these two made such a scene over this and agreed I was very unfairly attacked.

I am very sad my partner is now acting cold towards me like WE have a problem.

[PaleDale]

Tell them to go fuck themselves?

[Asker]

I wish he would. I did.

[Ariesman81]

Let's switch it up.

You're a SAHM... your husband always arrives home at 6pm from work. But you find out last Friday he got done at 2pm and decided to go the bar for 4 hours instead of coming straight home. How would you feel?

[Asker]

Totally different. That would be 4 HOURS late in your situation. My situation was nothing like that. I was not even late. I was there at the usual pickup time. This relative was a worthless sitter anyhow for many reasons.

[Ariesman81]

No... he's not late. He came home at 6pm like usual.

[Asker]

So it was his usual time he'd always come home. The difference is? Only thing I'd be unhappy about is lying to me and not just telling me. This sitter was told. They knew. It was a very short trip. They were simply a lazy sitter who had no business even watching the child and this highlighted their desire to get rid of the kid. Totally different. I would also not appreciate him going to a bar because wow. What a worthless area to spend 4 hours of your time. I wasn't at a bar. I made a quick stop. That's all. There was no reason to be offended by it.

[Ariesman81]

Well, one could argue your priority was not to pick up your children right away. One could argue that you wanted more time away from your kid. But I get it, sometimes things are easier when kids aren't with.

[Asker]

It definitely wasn't that at all. I hate having to even work honestly. I'd love to be a stay at home mom and have more chances to do fun stuff with my kiddo. But life just does not work that way. A big reason I wanted to go ahead and stop without my kid? My air was out in my car and it was HOT AF. I wanted to avoid my kid being in that car any longer than necessary.