Parents 66M/61F wanted me 30M to miss my wife's 31F grandfather's funeral. Now we are at a crossroads regarding Mother's Day and family boundaries
TL;DR: My parents (who are also my bosses/landlords) pressured me into staying home from my wife's grandfather's funeral in another country to help with family chores, despite my brother saying he had it covered. Now my wife feels like an outsider, and Mother’s Day is causing a standoff.
First time posting here. Never really thought I'd have to, but here we are. Sorry its so long but I felt that there was a lot of context needed for what I was trying to say.
My wife and I are at a loss with my parents after they tried to control what we do
My wife and I have been married for 3 years and been together for 5. We have had little hiccups along the way but we're very solid in our own relationship. The main issue we seem to come back to time and again is my parents and more specifically my mom and what we perceive as them trying to control us or put themselves at the front of what we do. This is probably not helped by our current family arrangements.
For context, I work for my family's business where my parents are my boss and we live on their property as we finish building our house which should be finished sometime this summer.
The core issue is that my wife and I are both feeling that my parents view her more as an "outside party" rather than a member of our immediate family. Nothing super concrete in terms of recurring comments or instances where this happened but more of a passive vibe we get sometimes when talking or hanging out with them.
So recently my wife's grandfather suddenly died of old age. Unfortunately he also lived in a different country (we live in the US). My wife and her dad were going back to the funeral as her mom and sister were unable to go due to current circumstances. Both her dad and my wife wanted me to go as well to be a good stable neutral party of support and because I have been unable to go see their country yet.
Because this was all unplanned we had very little time to discuss what all needed to be done or what would be the best course of action. However, I was ready to do whatever I needed to do for my wife.
Unfortunately, the timing fell at a critical time for my parents and family at large due to three factors.
* My wife and I had already planned and paid for a 2 week trip to Japan happening at the end of the month and I had already asked my parents for that time off
* My dad broke his neck only a month before and is in need of a lot of special care and mom cannot take care of all of the house and yard and everything
* My sister was moving the weekend of the funeral and she needed to use my truck and my brother and I were going to help her move the heavy furniture.
So when I explained the situation about my wife's grandfather dying and us needing to go back for the funeral, I expected to have a discussion about what could be done, but after a lengthy back and forth, they seemed to shut down any ideas or compromises I had.
They made many arguments against the idea of me going.
* It's a lot of money to fly down there
* They don't need me to go with them. How was I going to help by being there?
* Why can't my wife's family go, why do I need to go?
* Who would help my sister move and use the truck?
* They needed me there to help should dad need it
* I'm taking too much time off due to the 2 week trip to Japan (even if I already cleared it with my coworker/brother)
The only argument of any merit was the one where I asked for time off but I would only have to miss either a half day, or a day and a half of work. After talking it over with my brother (who also works at the family business) he said it wasn't a problem to take the time and that he would be fine moving my sister with her boyfriend's help. So all in all I could be available for the funeral.
However, my parents were unmoving in their conversation and while in the end they said that it was my choice and I had to do what I had to do, the implication was that they would be put out if I didn't just go along with what they wanted. They said they were just looking at it rationally and what made the most sense for everyone.
In the end my wife and her dad went to the funeral alone and I stayed back to help with things here.
I love my parents and they genuinely try to love us any way they can. I've seen them do and go beyond to help their kids. They gave us a place to stay why my wife and I are building our house and they took my sister and her kids in when they needed a temp space to live among many other ways they supported all of us.
But, I know they are also flawed people. My wife and I feel that their insensitivity to the circumstance and reason for the trip were a disrespect to my wife and her family and shows how my wife isn't treated as a part of my family. This is compounded even further by how my wife and I helped my parents when dad broke his neck a month ago and we aren’t feeling the same help and support back.
I don't want to choose sides in a way that creates a rift, but I also need to protect my marriage and ensure my wife feels valued. I’ve realized that being "different" is okay, but the lack of equality between the two families is becoming a major hurdle.
My wife doesn't want to see them until they apologize for how they handled the situation and the disrespect she feels. That normal wouldn't be a problem, I could find time to talk with my parents and see if we can’t come to an understanding. But, with mother's day just around the corner it's a little more delicate and I don't want to disrupt the whole event over this. To be clear my wife is just not ready to pretend everything is ok. She is not withholding mother's day out of spite. She also says that she doesn't want to see them because she's afraid all the attention will be on the trip and funeral and doesn't want to go through it all again so soon.
I understand where she's coming from but think maybe her way of going about it might not be very good. My brother is saying that it's not right to withhold mother's day over the issue and we can work it out after. He also said that it feeds fuel to the rift and gives my parents ammo for why they're the victim in all this.
I don't know how to proceed but I think I'm looking to get some different perspectives on the situation. My wife and I both want to resolve this, but are finding it harder and harder to let go of these things that keep happening.
How do I talk to my parents to let them know what they did hurt us and not make it a personal attack right on the eve of mother's day?