“Dear Dr Charlotte
I’m a dad of two young children, and every summer we spend a chunk of our holiday at my in‑laws’ villa. On the surface, it’s a huge privilege — a beautiful place, no accommodation costs, and a chance for the kids to spend time with their grandparents. I am genuinely grateful for that. But the reality is more complicated, and I’m finding myself increasingly uneasy about these trips.
My father‑in‑law is a difficult man to describe. He’s generous, but it always seems to come with strings attached. When we’re at the villa, he likes to call the shots — what time we eat, how long we stay at the beach, even how the kids should play. It’s his house, his rules, and he makes sure everyone knows it. My wife tends to shrug it off as “just how he is,” and I understand that she grew up with this dynamic. But I didn’t, and I find myself tensing up the moment we arrive.
What’s been bothering me more recently is the way he treats our children differently based on gender. He’s indulgent and affectionate with our son — praising him, involving him, giving him little “jobs” to do. But with our daughter, he’s noticeably more dismissive. He corrects her more sharply, expects her to be quieter, and seems less patient when she wants attention or joins in. It’s subtle, but it’s consistent, and it makes me deeply uncomfortable.
I can see the impact on my wife too. Her dad has always treated his son and daughter differently, and being back in that environment seems to shrink her a little. She becomes quieter, more accommodating, almost like she’s slipping into an old role she never chose. I don’t think she fully realises how much our daughter is watching and absorbing all of this.
I don’t want to be ungrateful. I don’t want to create conflict or make my wife feel caught between me and her family. But I also don’t want my children growing up thinking this dynamic is normal. And I don’t want to keep spending our holidays walking on eggshells in someone else’s version of “family time.”
How do I navigate this without blowing things up? How do I protect my kids, support my wife, and still acknowledge the generosity of being invited to the villa in the first place?”
Dr Charlotte’s response: What a tricky situation. I can see that you have thought carefully about how to navigate this and have spent a lot of time observing what’s going on. It doesn’t sound like you have been reactive to your father-in-law’s behaviour and the situation hasn’t escalated at any point before. But, I get the impression that seeing the gendered treatment of your son and daughter is the last straw for you, and it’s not something you can let go in the same way as you’ve let go many times before.
There’s a lot to unpick here, but getting on the same page with your wife is the absolute priority as it means you can navigate this together. I can see from your letter that you’re feeling alone with this just now. You’ve tried to talk to her before and this hasn’t got very far. You haven’t said much about how communication usually is between the two of you, but your comment about her ‘shrinking’ around her Dad made me think that her apparent reluctance to talk is specific to this situation. With this in mind, it’s possible that talking about her Dad’s behaviour is upsetting for her. Helping her to talk about it will require some gentle persistence is on your part.
So what do I mean by gentle persistence? Let her know that you understand that it’s not something that she wants to talk about, but that it’s got to the point where some discussion is needed. It doesn’t have to be there and then, and she can take some time to prepare herself if she needs to. Reassure her that talking about it does not mean that you are immediately going to start confronting her Dad or to stop going to the villa. Explain that you understand that it’s difficult, and that the two of you need to be on the same page to do what’s right for your family.
I can see from you’re letter that you’d be thoughtful in how you would approach sharing your thoughts. Your observation, that your wife shrinks around her father shows your concern for her. It’s clear that you don’t see her as small and you don’t want her to be. That’s powerful, and I think hearing that would likely to be quite validating for her. Maybe she has always felt that but has never been able to articulate it. When we come across these kinds of issues in therapy, partner’s observations are often worth their weight in gold when making sense of tricky family dynamics. Trust that she will be able to take this on board as it’s clear that it’s coming from a good place.
When your wife has heard your reflections on how she is around her Dad, this will help her to understand your concerns around your daughter. The two of you can think through the options together. The most obvious would be to have a direct conversation with your father in law, and indicators that this would be a good idea would be receptiveness to feedback in the past. I very much doubt this is the case from your letter, but it’s perhaps not impossible.
If direct communication feels like it will be received as confrontation no matter how you approach it, you could try some gentle nudging. When he gives your son little jobs to do, you or your wife could playfully ask, “what job are we going to give to..?”. This models that you want to give both children equal opportunities and subtly addresses the discrepancy. You could try out different ways of subtly nudging things in the right direction, and over time you might find that he responds to some better than others.
The next set of options are really around damage limitation and buffering. This might involve spending a little less time at the villa or possibly making it clear that you’re going to take family time away while you’re there. I’d suggest framing this as “Now the children are getting older, we want to start taking them on day trips so they can start to understand the culture here”.
Maintain open communication with your children about anything that they notice in the interactions with their grandparents. If your daughter starts to notice that she gets treated differently, don’t dismiss this. Try and explain in an age appropriate way that when Grandad was young, girls and boys were treated differently, and he hasn’t caught up with how things are now. Remind her that in your family she will be always be treated as equal to her Brother, no matter what anyone else thinks.
As you will have seen from my response, there are no easy answers to situations like this. There’s one thing that is key though; that you and your wife manage this together. You can’t control your father‑in‑law’s behaviour, but you can shape the environment your children grow up in — and that starts with the two of you being aligned.
