Family Matters
kacmoss
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
SIL? Am I wrong?
Ok so I have been with my husband for almost 12 years and married to him for almost 10. His only brother has never really liked me much, we are the same age and I have always included him, asked how he is, about his schooling, work, life in general, and never forget his birthday. One year he called H cell phone to wish him a Happy Birthday and at this point we lived on opposite ends of the state. H was taking a shower heard it ringing, "who's calling my phone" i answer "your brother" he says "answer it and tell him I can call him back if he wants." I answer it and explain H is in the shower and would be happy to return his call, he says is the cat around, I said he is on the floor but he is a cat and doesn't use the phone (yeah I found this odd) he says "well put it on speaker phone, I would rather talk to the cat than my brother's Satan wife" I had it on speaker because I was holding my cousins baby, H heard it and was mad. We let it go, thought why pick this battle, he may grow up in a few years.
At Christmas the year of my first child's very first Christmas we had just had a pipe burst in our basement, so our original plans to drive to my in laws were changed by the pipe needing fixed for us to have water, and cleaning up the mess. I extended an invitation for them to join us for Christmas Eve, and Christmas Day. They agreed to come and asked if BIL and his new girlfriend could accompany them, I said "sure we are all family" they arrive, while MIL & FIL are here BIL is nice, and easy to deal with (He has to have matured right, WRONG) On the way back from a dinner he states he and his girlfriend will be staying an extra day because H would obviously have an extra day off. I start to say something and my MIL says that's great. So trying to keep peace as my H doesn't care much for his parents anyways, I let it go. BIL makes a huge mess in our guest bath, starts going through my cabinets and closets, and then drives right through the yard rather than use our turn around leaving major ruts, because the yard is wet from rain. H informs me if this is the respect we get his brother is no longer allowed to stay at our house.
April arrives and I receive a Save the Date to my BIL wedding for early fall. I wasn't aware he was engaged. Call my MIL she thought we had been told, she apologized. It wasn't her fault, of course at this point we haven't announced we are expecting in October. August arrives and my Dr tells me we can't travel 6 hours to the wedding, I am measuring 4 weeks ahead and since I was early with the last baby he wasn't clearing me for travel. H says then "we don't go I am not driving alone and leaving you to care for a 15 month old, I won't take that risk." We call and apologize, SIL says its ok and she understands. We talk here and there, and about a year later she says "it was rude you missed our wedding, and need to force H to have a better friendship/relationship with his brother, that I (SIL) didn't want to marry an only child, and only children are bad" which I take offense to being one, not by choice my mother was unable to have more children and was upset for years over it. I tell her "I am still sorry about the wedding, and I cannot and will not force H to do anything he doesn't want to do, and that if BIL wants a better relationship he should call H and start working out their problems" As much as I would love to have everyone get along, you just can't make people get along.
More time passes and she is baby hungry for my kids all the time and we don't see them because we live 5 hours south of the in laws and BIL & SIL live 3 hours north west of them. She informs me one day my BIL doesn't like me because I am a "southerner" come again, because I was raised as a southerner and born there, and sound like one he doesn't like me. What does that have to do with if you can like or be friends with someone? She then apologizes for his reasoning, and wants to maintain our friendship as she is expecting and needs someone to talk to about this. After her miscarriage I talk to her a lot more. She got pregnant again the minute they said she could and manages to carry this one to term which I was excited to have a new nephew or niece in the family. I had to work the weekend of her shower because I was left out of the loop until a week before so I sent a huge gift basket with my MIL. Checked on her at least once a week the whole time, she is due the day we are to come home from vacation so I say we will try to make the 8 hour trip the next week to visit once she is home and rested. The week before we leave for vacation MIL tells me they scheduled a C-section 3 days into our vacation. So i get a text with baby info I send them Congratulations and I get a picture. We get home I check on them, and she gets short with me, how rude we didn't cancel the trip which was nonrefundable at that point and wasn't cheap (it was planned for 2 years) and drive 8 hours for the birth. I explain that I am sorry I wasn't aware she wanted us there we had agreed to visit a week later. Well since it would be 2 weeks after birth not a week she told us not to come. She won't talk to me now, and got really mad to discover I invited BIL's child from a previous relationship to visit for a day trip to a theme park with his mother and my MIL who was thrilled to get 3 of 4 grandkids at the same time for once. To be clear I had asked months ago if this was ok and my nephew's mother wanted to know when we might want to see him again.
Am I completely wrong in being upset and wanting to just not try any longer with my SIL? I hadn't seen the older nephew in 3 years because of their visitation agreement and for the past year I have made sure to send a card for Holidays, Birthdays, Anniversary and they don't even send a text or FB message saying Happy Birthday or anything. Am I completely missing something?
At Christmas the year of my first child's very first Christmas we had just had a pipe burst in our basement, so our original plans to drive to my in laws were changed by the pipe needing fixed for us to have water, and cleaning up the mess. I extended an invitation for them to join us for Christmas Eve, and Christmas Day. They agreed to come and asked if BIL and his new girlfriend could accompany them, I said "sure we are all family" they arrive, while MIL & FIL are here BIL is nice, and easy to deal with (He has to have matured right, WRONG) On the way back from a dinner he states he and his girlfriend will be staying an extra day because H would obviously have an extra day off. I start to say something and my MIL says that's great. So trying to keep peace as my H doesn't care much for his parents anyways, I let it go. BIL makes a huge mess in our guest bath, starts going through my cabinets and closets, and then drives right through the yard rather than use our turn around leaving major ruts, because the yard is wet from rain. H informs me if this is the respect we get his brother is no longer allowed to stay at our house.
April arrives and I receive a Save the Date to my BIL wedding for early fall. I wasn't aware he was engaged. Call my MIL she thought we had been told, she apologized. It wasn't her fault, of course at this point we haven't announced we are expecting in October. August arrives and my Dr tells me we can't travel 6 hours to the wedding, I am measuring 4 weeks ahead and since I was early with the last baby he wasn't clearing me for travel. H says then "we don't go I am not driving alone and leaving you to care for a 15 month old, I won't take that risk." We call and apologize, SIL says its ok and she understands. We talk here and there, and about a year later she says "it was rude you missed our wedding, and need to force H to have a better friendship/relationship with his brother, that I (SIL) didn't want to marry an only child, and only children are bad" which I take offense to being one, not by choice my mother was unable to have more children and was upset for years over it. I tell her "I am still sorry about the wedding, and I cannot and will not force H to do anything he doesn't want to do, and that if BIL wants a better relationship he should call H and start working out their problems" As much as I would love to have everyone get along, you just can't make people get along.
More time passes and she is baby hungry for my kids all the time and we don't see them because we live 5 hours south of the in laws and BIL & SIL live 3 hours north west of them. She informs me one day my BIL doesn't like me because I am a "southerner" come again, because I was raised as a southerner and born there, and sound like one he doesn't like me. What does that have to do with if you can like or be friends with someone? She then apologizes for his reasoning, and wants to maintain our friendship as she is expecting and needs someone to talk to about this. After her miscarriage I talk to her a lot more. She got pregnant again the minute they said she could and manages to carry this one to term which I was excited to have a new nephew or niece in the family. I had to work the weekend of her shower because I was left out of the loop until a week before so I sent a huge gift basket with my MIL. Checked on her at least once a week the whole time, she is due the day we are to come home from vacation so I say we will try to make the 8 hour trip the next week to visit once she is home and rested. The week before we leave for vacation MIL tells me they scheduled a C-section 3 days into our vacation. So i get a text with baby info I send them Congratulations and I get a picture. We get home I check on them, and she gets short with me, how rude we didn't cancel the trip which was nonrefundable at that point and wasn't cheap (it was planned for 2 years) and drive 8 hours for the birth. I explain that I am sorry I wasn't aware she wanted us there we had agreed to visit a week later. Well since it would be 2 weeks after birth not a week she told us not to come. She won't talk to me now, and got really mad to discover I invited BIL's child from a previous relationship to visit for a day trip to a theme park with his mother and my MIL who was thrilled to get 3 of 4 grandkids at the same time for once. To be clear I had asked months ago if this was ok and my nephew's mother wanted to know when we might want to see him again.
Am I completely wrong in being upset and wanting to just not try any longer with my SIL? I hadn't seen the older nephew in 3 years because of their visitation agreement and for the past year I have made sure to send a card for Holidays, Birthdays, Anniversary and they don't even send a text or FB message saying Happy Birthday or anything. Am I completely missing something?
Re: SIL? Am I wrong?
I would personally just avoid it and try not to let them push your buttons - not sure how old your BIL & SIL are but it sounds like they have a lot of growing up to do.
My H has a great saying "not my monkey's, not my circus" - I married into a bit of a crazy family and I LOVE that he avoids the drama as much as possible... if you have kids of your own you have enough to worry about so put their petty drama on the back burner!!!
I'm not going to sugarcoat this, but your SIL sounds like a royal, self entitled, self centered bitch.
Yea, I said it.
She clearly loves drama, as does your BIL from the sound of it. And your H should have shut that shit down the minute his brother disrespected you. Personally, I would avoid them. You're better off. It sucks for their child though because the child will suffer when they don't get to see their cousins. But that is not your problem. There's only so much you can try with a person before throwing in the towel when they do shit like this.
Sorry for your troubles.
Soooo...let me get this straight...according to SIL, you're a horrible person because you missed their wedding. Because you were very pregnant and your doctor forbade you to travel to protect your health and the baby's health.
But, then the world needs to revolve around the birth of her child?
I mean, I get it, it is disappointing...I'm sure for your H also...that you all couldn't be there for either their wedding or the birth of their first child together. But sometimes that is unfortunately just the way things work out. Rational people understand that these were both exceedingly good reasons you all couldn't be there. It's not like you all just couldn't be bothered because you were playing Parcheesi at the neighbor's house.
I agree with the other PPs that it sounds like she is just one of those people who thrives on being the "injured one", drama llama. You can't change who she or BIL is, you can only control your own reaction to them.
Plus, you've also kind of taught BIL that he can say or act however he wants towards you and it doesn't matter.
I'd back off, WAY off from them.
While the reasons are all 100% valid and she needs to realize that "life happens" (and yeah, I find it ironic that she's pissed at you for putting your pregnancy and baby first but now that it's her turn, she's expecting everyone to put HER child first) and people can't drop everything for her big life events - at the same time, I can see how she's sad that you've missed a lot of big stuff.
But that's the operative word here and where she's screwing up - she's 100% allowed to be sad that you've missed all this stuff. But to be MAD at you and to now refuse to see you- that's an immature and short-sighted reaction.
If no one is really enjoying themselves in the end, what's the point?? Focus on the people who you do like and where having a relaitonship with them isn't such an EFFORT.