thank you for the responses everyone. it helped me to think through this current dilemma and to consider how to move forward in the future(hopefully this will get resolved.)
for those wanting the juice I will give you some without the unnecessary details, it seems like I did not emphasize how manipulative and toxic they can be; I had the conversation more or less mapped out in my head. of course as soon as began to explain the situation and how I had been wronged over the last several months (prepared to say "I ll consider your apology..."), Nope, got turned around on me and I was the one to blame! I was not quick enough to turn it around but still kept my focus on that he was trying to put me in the middle of their fight and just firmly said no I won't get involved (hey, involving me in their fights is the good part of this situation :o (/sarcasm/sad but true))
sorry to those who thought i sounded like a dick earlier, i can see that now, as if I am some dick who doesnt let some old grandma give her grand kids candy or something. its more like someone who is on disability (and doesn't need to be..) takes 20-30 pills a day and could ....let the kids get to her pills, pass out if too comfortable, go into a blind rage for little to no reason, become very passive aggressive when she knows she can get away with it, they insult us when the opportunity strikes, just leave the kids to do whatever if left alone with them, the kids can NEVER visit them because they could have an entire season of Hoarders...definately not an exhaustive list but it is exhausting. when you are physically exhausted from watching little kids but combine that with listening to anything your parents might do or say exhausts mentally also, it is just too much.
thanks again everyone.
I figured there was something like this behind it. Been there, have the tee-shirt and the horrible psychological scarring and lots of therapy to boot! ;)
Big hugs for dealing with all that.
Would like to recommended a few books if you're interested in reading up on how to deal with toxic family:
Susan Forward's
Emotional Blackmail and
Toxic Parents. Stellar and eyeopening books. Some of the biggest takeaways are that you have a right to decide how you interact with people - even parents - and walk away to protect yourself or your spouse/children. And you don't have to justify or get drawn into excuses, who is "right" or whatever. "No" is a complete sentence. You don't owe them anything more than that if you've already explained what your boundaries are.
Another interesting read is
Stop Walking On Eggshells by Paul Mason I believe. It deals with people with borderline personality disorder, but it applies well to family members that have a blatant disregard for boundaries and make wild demands and basically act like spoiled brat children.
I had to distance myself almost to the point of cut off with my own mother but she realized she was destroying our relationship and we're in a much better place now.
Unfortunately with the inlaws, we had to cut them off completely for 2 years, only reconnecting when FIL had a serious medical condition (and he later passed away).
We tried to keep in contact with MIL but she couldn't last very long before she started her awful behavior again, and she's back in cut off with the husband thinking it's permanent this time. He sends her a card for her birthday now. Used to send mother's day cards, but last year she mailed it back with a ranting stupid mess written inside it and also started leaving bizarre rants on voicemail so she's probably going to not get anything this year as he's pretty much done. She outright lies, threatens to kill herself, offers to crawl on her hands and knees if he only would speak to her and lots of fake crying and blubbering and then switches over to screaming and cursing. She accuses him of being greedy and selfish when that's exactly the behavior she has been called on many times (called "projecting" in psych speak). Sigh. She loves to claim everyone else hates her
for no reason (oh, there are TONS of reasons!) and he's all she has and she doesn't know what she did... even after being told a half dozen times exactly what she did and what was expected from her. She pretends those convos never happened since that would mean admitting she did something wrong. And she is NEVER wrong. So she blew up her relationship because she can't stop being a nasty biatch who lies and demands worship and doesn't understand boundaries.
So yeah. Lots of experience with crazy. And we tried so hard in the early years with both sides of parents. One fortunately did have the ability to come around. The other is just a ball of nasty/crazy and better left alone, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. In fact, the husband has become a much nicer, happier, healthier person since removing her toxic influence from our life.
So that's another thing to think about; what are you getting from your relationship with your parents? If there is any good there, then keep trying if possible, but if there is nothing but crazy and you're getting PTSD from the phone ringing or the doorbell... might be a good idea to think about putting some more distance in the relationship.