I came from a toxic family and my in laws were more like family than i imagined was possible. The weirdest part was how they knew my wife, their own daughter, was the outlier in their family, cold and manipulative. She married me to get away from them. I eventually learned our marriage was a lie. My FIL and MIL treated me and their two grandchildren with warmth love and respect. And they are the ones that taught me what family will do for the family. I loved the time with them when the kids and i would stay with them while my wife would go out shopping all day or go on work related trips. They were both very mentally and emotionally supportive recognizing what i went through to make sure the kids had a safe happy life despite their mother’s indifference, that they felt loved by me and their grandparents. My MIL and FIL would sit and talk for hours and we would all take turns watching and playing with the kids while the other two talked. One day my MIL pushed the conversation farther than usual and we ended up having a conversation that left me with silent tears when she told me she knew that her daughter was completely uninterested in being a wife or mother and that she as my MIL and my FIL worried that i would eventually seek affection elsewhere or simply leave and that would result in the kids being in a broken home. And that the two of them would never let that happen and that they had a solution if i was willing and devoted enough to hear them out. She called my FIL back in and suggested she watch the kids and we go for a drive. As he drove my FIL was quiet for a few miles then sort of blurted out that he hoped i knew how much he and his wife loved me and respected me as if i were their own. He ended up almost apologetic as he told me that he and my MIL had considered talking to me long before the wedding and warning me about their own daughter’s true nature. Then he told me that he wanted me to stop thinking that my wife would ever change, that they were pretty sure that i had deluded myself that maybe marriage or motherhood would make a difference but that it was never going to change her. I felt so awkward and defeated breaking down in front of him but he was very supportive and told me that they (he and my MIL) had a plan and wanted to make sure that the kids and i were happy despite their daughter. He asked me to simply trust them as if i was their own and that their devotion was to me and the kids. He even made me promise to listen to and trust them in the coming days, that everything was about the welfare of me and the kids. I guess he read my mind, because he looked at me strangely, then just kept his eyes fixed on the road and a rigid grip on the steering wheel and was angry, saying that he knew what i must be thinking, but that they had accepted that there was nothing anyone could do about their daughter, that they had put rhat behind them as parents and made the choice to save who they could.. I swore I would listen and trust.
