Nords said:
They're all moved in and they're thrilled with their new life.
Glad for all of you that everything is satisfactory. Your thinly veiled summary reveals how hurtful this has been for you and your wife, though liberating at the same time. Sounds like it's time to move on, but your relationship with the folks will always be a bit worse for wear.
As you'll find out soon enough, this grandparent thing is more complicated that it might appear. The down-on-the-farm scenario where everyone lives in the same town and respects all boundaries and space seems rare, and often in my experience if you scratch the surface a whole bucket of co-dependency and enmeshment oozes to the surface. Still, some pull it off beautifully and my hat's off to them.
Then there are the older grandparents who can immediately adopt the benign, supportive-of-everything-for-everyone-always, smiling, Normal Rockwell scenario - seems to work best when the grandfolks are considerably older when the grandkids come along. Doubt I'll ever be that wise.
In my case, we dealt with having grandkids arrive when I was in peak career mode and not close to financial independence. I was receiving career opportunities like never before at about the time of granddaughter #1; kids' plans pretty fluid; everyone in cold, dark, northern climes. Yes, family trumps career in my big view, but there are lots of extenuating circumstances in such scenarios. Will the kids stay in one place even if we hunker down? Can I retire a couple years earlier if I take this higher paying job? Can I ignore job satisfaction 12 hours a day? What about my MIL who is widowed and isolated in Florida, refusing to move? You get the picture.
Not yet ready for the rocking chair, I followed the career trajectory which culminated in our being distant from the kids and grandkids. DW and I have loved the adventure, seen parts of the country in depth, being closer for MIL, and approaching FI. But we don't know our grandkids as well as we want to. Happily, all the relationships seem to be intact. Now comes the hard part easing into semi-retirement, seeing them plenty, and maybe relocating down the road if kids' locale provides survivable weather and lifestyle.
Anyhow, your PILs have made their choices. Your mission here is done. Enjoy your future visits with them, and enjoy saying goodbye each time realizing their happiness is not your responsibility, however much you might want to support them.
It's a tangled web.