Hello!
I hope to find some advice or word or wisdom on my situation with parents and husband. This is the first time I have no idea what to do.
My husband and I have 2 kids, we moved to a different country a dozen years ago, but my parents are still back in our home country, basically half way across the world. My in-laws live in a town close to us, but are not  really relevant to my problem, neither is my mother.

I’ve had two years in a row of bad experience with my father’s wife treating me and my children awfully. She has always been full of abusive criticism towards me, at best – had sarcastic remarks, trying to show how I did not turn out good enough for such a great person she considers my father to be. For 20 years I stepped on my own throat trying not to get into arguments with her for the sake of keeping an ok relationship with my father.

When the kids were 1 and almost 3 my husband and I we took them to my father’s place for few weeks, where after a few days of playing a nice and charming granny my father’s wife started picking at my older son, saying he is too skinny and not developing well, not talking as well as he should be, throwing tantrums – and clearly has developmental issues. Later he will turn out to be one of the kids who start talking after 3 but in full sentences, at the age of 7 he speaks 2 languages fluently and learns Spanish at school. He goes to a good public school and a few extracurricular activities so obviously – no psychological issues . And he did have pretty bad terrible twos, but having an adult yelling that the child is clearly sick – would not help. My reasonings about age-appropriate behavior, starting to talk late for bilingual kids – would not work.
She would say I know nothing, refuse to accept that my child has issues, think I’m smarted than everyone else and then made it extremely personal to me. My father was present but never interfered and then left the room.
Within  a year after we left I did not bring this up thinking that maybe the fact she does not know how to deal with little kids (her own mother took care of her own son a lot!) had to do with this, and it was a hot summer, and she may be going through her menopause… and what not. I told my husband about this, he did not contribute much thought, empathy, or moral support, saying something “oh, that’s just the way it is. try not to provoke her”.

But in a year – exactly same thing happened. Twice. And in front of my husband, who was mumbling something while my father’s wife was yelling that my son’s an autist and need to see a psychotherapist, that I make things worse and ruining his life by refusing to see the obvious, that I wouldn’t have had this problem if he was… baptized. All this time my son was right there, listening to her. I was standing there choking on my anger and just telling her like a broken record to stop talking like this immediately. Again, she made it all personal, going on about how ungrateful I am, how I try to be above everyone else, but she know that clearly I am a miserable woman, and everybody says I look worse than her, and how I should be grateful to her for everything she has done for my father and our family (she was a housewife, who my father kept on payroll for the sake of future pension benefits accumulation… I lived with my mother after their divorce…) .
my father never said a word and then escaped the room quietly.
My husband never firmly told her to stop talking about me like that. Or even not firmly.
Again, after this all three of them pretended like nothing happened. Father’s wife was avoiding me for a coupe of days, and then started to talk to me as usual.
But something broke inside me that time, and soon I started calling them less and less frequently.
And then I noticed they actually never would call me (I took initiative for the past dozen years), not even for my birthday, or my kids’ birthday. I took one attempt to talk over this situation with my father and explain that his wife’s behavior is unacceptable, and not even his wife can talk to my children like this, especially when they hear it, and can not yell at me anymore, and especially – not in front of my kids. And that he acted like a coward, but there’s no way I will tolerate any more of the psychotic outbursts. To which my father  replied that I am ungrateful, immature and everything I have in my life I owe to his wife (my father did pay for my first university education, but obviously.. he was the one who earned the money).
Ever since I heard that… nonsense I lost the last “why” on talking to father at all. I do send him pictures of grandchildren from time to time, but he wouldn’t pick up the phone if I call to wish him Happy birthday, for instance.
And I have no idea what is going on here, to be honest – it’s like his wife is talking to her own voices in her head, and father is too afraid of making her upset for some reason… Or maybe they deliberately provoked this situation so now they can be victims and complain about me to the rest of friends and family…

And here is something just as bad for me – now that the kids have grown older my husband wants to go to my father’s town and bring them with. I am very direct and straight with him saying I do not want to do this and will not do this, until I have some guarantees that they understand they can not treat me and my children like that. My husband was there, saw and hear everything himself – but is now switching between victim blaming and gaslighting (“well, you should have not started to argue with her”, “well, all families have their problems – nothing really bad happened”).
I emphasize that last 2 times were really bad and painful for me, I got stressed up to the point I threw up and  had stomach aches for a few days. He does not see a problem here (“well, you’re the one who takes it too close to the heart”). And his main point is that our kids should not lose connection with their grandparent, should know who they are etc. To which I ask him to count how many times “grandparents” actually called/facetimed their kids, took the initiative of talking to them let along reading a book or telling a story  (zero times). I have never stood between father and my kids, he just never bother to even facetime with them!
My husband says that’s the way my parents are, I  have to accept it, learn to be more acceptable and flexible around them etc. And my eyes are popping out, because I don’t see why I should take 16 hour flight with kids to go to place I’m hated and not respected at just for the sake of 2 immature adults calling themselves my family – but who never spared 5 minutes for virtual communication with their grandkids.
Now I also heard him talk to them (facetime), they’re inviting him to come anyway because “family is family”, even if he has to come on his own with our kids.
I barely keep my poker face, but I am furious inside. I know my husband does not owe me anything, and he does not have to stop talking to my parents because of me… but I still feel like he is betraying me and will completely stab me in the back if he goes alone.
I have absolutely no idea what is happening in my life now, and why.
I have 2 clear thoughts though circulating in my head all the time:
1) That my husband feels like my father’s and his wife’s feelings are important enough to take a step closer to them. But my feelings and wellbeing is not important enough to tell them “hey, listen, Alex did take it seriously  last time, and was stressed and sick for days. If you want to restore good relationship with her it is important not to attack our kids or her again”.
2) If I find myself in a situation when my husband of a dozen years keeps doing what I specifically ask him not to do – I must have been doing something to give a sign it’s ok to treat me like this. And I don’t know what it is.

And I don’t know where to head now with this grandparents question between me and my husband. What can I do to avoid the trip? What can I tell him to make clear neither my health nor peace of mind are expandable? Last time we talked about this – I almost felt like telling him we should start seeing other people if we can not come to an agreement here, and if he’s clearly not interested in being a team with me anymore (but that would probably sound like a manipulation, and I have no intention of manipulating or punishing anyone.)

Thank you!