Hello everyone, I have come here for advice before and you were all incredibly helpful, and I could really use some support again.
You can check my post history for the full story, but tl;dr: last year my wife (“Jenna”) and I had to make the decision to go no-contact with her whole family. Her sister (“Mary”, 30F) sexually assaulted me, in-laws defended her, and after some legal wrangling they finally left us alone. The situation wrecked my wife’s self-esteem and tested our relationship, but we made it through.
Jenna and I had our first daughter in February. She’s amazing and we’re doing great. We ended up moving away from Jenna’s home state (NY) to mine (MA) to be closer to my family, and they’ve been incredibly helpful with the baby. We have not seen Jenna’s family since cutting contact and blocking them everywhere, and we didn’t tell them about the baby.
Yesterday we received a letter in the mail from my MIL and FIL. No idea how they got our address. Apparently my FIL has been diagnosed with late-stage cancer and is being told he could be dead in weeks. In laws went on about how sorry they were for the way they handled the situation with Mary. They also apologized for the way they’ve treated my wife her whole life (again, check post history but basically Mary was the golden child and Jenna was an afterthought despite being super accomplished). They ended by saying they recently heard about the baby through the grapevine and want to meet their grandchild.
To me, the apology seemed genuine. They went into detail on what they did wrong, apologized and expressed remorse, and explained what they should have done differently. They said they hoped to earn our forgiveness with time and were willing to do family therapy to heal our relationship.
Jenna is not having it. She feels like it’s too little too late and doesn’t want to respond. She also suspects that they’re lying about FIL’s cancer and just want to pressure us into reconciliation so they can meet the baby. It seems ludicrous but I guess I wouldn’t put it past them.
I want to respect my wife’s feelings around this, but I’m worried that if the cancer is real, she may regret not taking this opportunity for reconciliation before he dies. I expressed this to her but she is adamant and I haven’t broached the topic since.
My instinct is to wait a few more days until the shock wears off to talk about it again. I just don’t know what the best way to approach it would be. I certainly don’t want to force my wife to do anything she doesn’t want to do, but I feel like she’s not thinking clearly about this right now. It also must be noted that our baby is still struggling with sleep and we’re both tired and emotional all the time, so I feel like this might be influencing how she feels about all this.
What should I do here? Should I try again or just let it be?
Tl;dr: In-laws are attempting to reconcile after claiming FIL was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Wife does not want to consider it but I am worried she will regret it later on.