Ticked OffDIL: There’s a version of this story where your husband tells you about the crappy things his parents did, and then you get righteously angry on his behalf, and then he – worrying about your reaction or feeling as if he needs to help you process your feelings about his childhood – stops telling you stuff. That would be bad.

Your husband is in the process of learning something profound about himself and his parents. His openness and relief is a sign of how well he is incorporating this information. You don’t want your (completely understandable) feelings to take him away from the work he’s doing to become a less reactive parent and a self-actualised adult.

You feel protective of him because you love him, and this love is palpable in your letter. But your anger won’t undo what happened to him as a kid. So you are going to have to figure out a way to sublimate this information and incorporate it into your understanding of what kind of people your in-laws are.

It’s not easy. Feelings will well up from time to time, and you will probably want to talk some of them out with your husband. And he might have a hard time hearing them because he has had decades of knowing but perhaps not understanding these things about his family, and you’ve had only a few months of it. It’s okay to remind him that this is new to you and that you’re working on understanding it, too – while reiterating your support for him. You probably already have.

An important thing to pay attention to in the meantime: what are your in-laws like with your kids? Some grandparents have learned from their mistakes and want a do-over, which can be frustrating for their adult child, who wonders where that parent was when they were little. Some haven’t learned from the past, but space and time have mellowed them. “Cold but pleasant” is not a reason to cut them off, absent other issues, but if they are overly critical of your kids, that’s a different story. You will want to follow your husband’s lead about what type of relationship your family has with them.

Say your husband decides he wants to keep up these visits, but you’re finding it hard to be in the same room as them. Once you get past this initial phase of tumult, you don’t have to go every time. Let your husband take your kids and give you a break. And once your children get a little older and more invested in their own activities and schedules, the visit cadence and dynamic might change on its own.

A challenge for you: can these feelings be rechannelled into another emotion? The first one that comes to mind is pity. Think about it. It’s sad that your in-laws parented this way, because it means they were probably parented that way, too, in a cycle of disparagement and anxious attachment. And it’s sad they missed out on a better bond with their own child – one you get to experience, and one your husband is working to cultivate. Because that cycle stops with your husband, and your kids.