I MADE MY HUSBAND CHOOSE ME OR HIS PARENTS

Amanda*, 46, gave her husband a seemingly impossible ultimatum

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I first met my husband's family when I was 27, a few months after we got together. At first, they were really happy and smiley - possibly a bit over-the-top friendly, but my husband seemed tense.

After one of our early meetings, he asked if I liked them, then said, "They're not as nice as they make out, you know.' Over time, I found out exactly what he meant and after more than a decade of è increasingly toxic behaviour, I told my husband he had to make a choice - me or them.

Thankfully, he chose me and eight years ago severed ties completely. I've never been happier.

For me, alarm bells first started to ring about a year into our relationship. My husband's mum would often be late - once by two hours when we hosted Christmas dinner or would suddenly change plans.

I would call it being awkward for awkward's sake, but as we only saw them once a month, we didn’t let it bother us. When we asked them if they wanted to contribute to our wedding in April 2008, my mum offered us £1,000 out of the blue - while my in-laws said they had spent enough on their son all his life and they didn’t want to do it any more.

ODD BEHAVIOUR

It was when we had my daughter in 2012 that their odd behaviour went into overdrive. They suddenly wanted to be completely invested in our lives and it became suffocating.

They wanted to see their granddaughter whenever they liked and would get angry if we said no – even if a visit clashed with her bedtime routine. When I went back to work as a nurse, they helped out with childcare but that fizzled out after four months, when they said they didn’t want to be tied down in their retirement.

They then started accusing us of keeping their granddaughter from them, which was so far from the truth.