Not to be able to forgive my Sister In-Law

I just want to thank you all for your messages. Every one. I have spoken in confidence to some close friends, but they have basically told me what they think I want to hear (lots of agreeing and feeling sorry for me), rather than what I need to hear which is that I need to stop being so silly and move on. It's a wonderful thing that's happening for both of us.

I know I really benefitted from having a close relationship with aunties and uncles and I want that for my baby. I've made the first step just now by contacting my SIL to share my excitement about her pregnancy and ask her advice. I hope this is the first step towards putting things right.

Thanks again :)

I did name change part way through.- sorry for the confusion guys.

I can imagine what 3 years of infertility must have been like, Congrats to you now.

However you're not the first woman pregnant YABU.

nixie002/ firsttime002 Did you namechange half way through the thread? :o Good luck with your pregnancy!

I think you are being a bit unfair to never forgive her. You say your operation carried a high risk of resulting in loss of fertility - so she if she knew about the op, she would be reasonable to think it was actually better she tell you beforehand than potentially have to tell you after you have just found out you definately cannot have children.

You can be annoyed with her though for not communicating any understanding of the fact the news might be difficult for you to hear (she may have thought it but not communicated it, or it may have not occured to her at all). I say annoyed (and temporarily so), rather than never forgiving her! Some people just don't understand, lucky them to have not been in that situation.

When I got pregnant with DC1 my Dsis was on her first round of IVF (having been told there was only a tiny chance of it working). I didn't want to have to tell her I was pregnant just after she had found out her IVF had not worked, I thought it better to tell her before she found out if the egg had taken or not. So I rang her to tell her, but didn't, as I found her in an emotional mess. Amazingly, miraculously, she got pregnant, and I was able to tell her I was too after she rang to tell me her fantastic news. Phew! It would have been a very very difficult situation otherwise.

Congratulations to you, I hope you can start enjoying being pregnant, and sharing your joy with your SIL, without looking back on the difficulties you had getting there.

Congratulations on your pregnancy :)

I'm sorry but I agree with the posters who have said YABabitU. I have relatives who are unable to have children, and I agonised over when to tell them I was pregnant. Maybe your SIL felt the same, but came to the same conclusion we did (if she didn't know about the operation): that there's really no ideal time, so you just have to do it whenever, and hope they're ok with it.

If she had done it maliciously then I'd understand your never being able to forgive her, but you admit that that's not the case. So at worst she's just been a bit thoughtless, nothing more. I also think YABU expecting her to ask your parents before telling you; if she had no idea about the op, why would it even cross her mind to ask?

When I went through infertility (4 years) the thing that hurt me most was people NOT telling me they were pregnant. Or not including me in the news or telling me in a special way with emails like ' I know this is the last thing you want to hear'. I HATED that. It made me feel like I was considered a bad spirit who wished ill on everyone's happiness. One close friend even chose not to invite me to her babyshower- even though EVERYONE else was invited. Her logic was that it was 'rubbing my face in it'. It was awful.

Hi firsttime
Firstly congratulations on your pregnancy :)

I think reaching out to your SIL would be a great idea especially as it sounds like you had a good relationship with her. As others have said yanbu to feel as you do but your SIL was not bu either. She didnt get pregnant to hurt you and although for you the timing could have been better there's not much she could have done about that either (would you have preferred she didn't say anything and you just saw her with a bump?)

Maybe it would help you to hear my SIL story. It's the other way round to yours I am the SIL who got pregnant. When I got pregnant my DH and I knew that telling my SIL would be hard, she has fertility probs and we were worried about upsetting her. We waited like most people until after our 12 week scan before saying anything then my DH met her on his own so she didn't have to face me as she found out. We made sure she was one of the first to know so no one srung it on her accidentally. We then gave her plenty of space.

Throughout my pregnancy she basically pretended it wasn't happening, she never asked about my DS or me and we had a few scary scans which she was aware of. Even when we saw her the few times I was the size of a house she ignored it.

She did come and see DS when he was born but my PIL were staying with her so it would have looked weird if she didn't, she sent flowers too. She also saw him when he was a couple of months old over Christmas and every time he cried her response was to say 'oh waaaa' in a really sarcastic tone.
DS is now 4 months and she hasn't seen him since or asked after him dispite the fact he is going into hospital for an op soon.

I was never very close to my SIL but we got along, now I'm actually starting to dislike her. I get that it must be hard for her but I feel she is cutting her nose to spite her face, she could have a wonderful relationship with her nephew, instead if it was up to me I'd never let her near any of us again. I won't say this of course because it would hurt my DH but she has some serious bridge building to do if she ever gets her head out her ass long enough to realise what she's missing.

Sorry that was longer than I thought it would be! but yes do reach out to SIL share your pregnancies and babies you will be glad of the support and so will she.

there may of been no right time to announce thier news. Things could of been very different for you both. So congratulations to you, and to her.

So you say you are unable to forgive her..... Where does that leave you all now?

Maybe she told you before because she was worried that it was worse to tell you afterwards if the surgery wasn't successful. Maybe she thought it was more respectful to you be honest with you than for you to find out she'd been holding back?

Look, you say it was a big op which could have resulted in loss of both ovaries..... Can you imagine her pregnancy announcement if THAT had happened? Poor woman can't do right for doing wrong!

It sounds from your OP as if there's a chance she didn't even know you were having the op that day - am I wrong there?

If that's the case, really you need to move on. If you know she would not have meant to be malicious, you should really let this go. The nicest people can make the most thoughtless gaffes... it's the intent that matters!

Congratulations on your pregnancy!!!!!

I completely feel for you and totally understand why you feel as you do towards your SIL.

Unfortunately though, when we are infertile, we tend to take as slights things which really weren't intended as such, and feel that the whole world is against us. You SIL is thoughtless, but probably not malicious. I imagine when you are pregnant that's all you can think about.

I hope your pregnancy goes well.

I was your SIL, pretty much, a few years ago. I knew my friend had been trying to conceive, I did worry about telling her I was pregnant, I chose how and when I told her- and with the benefit of hindsight I got it completely wrong. And I've never thought of myself as insensitive, but I judged it so, so badly, right down to the fact that I kept banging on about how fast I'd conceived, in my mind so that she'd understand that as I was getting older I didn't want to wait, and I never expected it to happen so quickly, but I just cringe looking back on it.

Luckily she now has two lovely dcs, it's all a long time ago, and we're good, but there was honestly no bad intention or even thoughtlessness, I just really got it wrong. I've learned a lot from mn, I just didn't know then.

It's very very difficult but I agree with the other posters that maybe she wouldn't have known when the time would have been right. As someone else has said, if your operation hadn't gone well, she would have felt even worse announcing her PG and would maybe have even felt guilty about being happy about it.

Congratulations though and I hope everything goes well for you. Don't let this damage your relationship with your SIL, you only have to read threads on here to know that sometimes those relationships are a little strained, so to have been previously close to her as you say you were, it would be a shame to lose that. Especially when you are now PG yourself and can talk about PG ups and downs together! Enjoy your PG.

Its very difficult but what timing would have been better? How would you have felt had your operation not been a success and she had have announced her pregnancy a week or so after that? Perhaps she needed some support.

Its a horrible feeling, my sil announced her pregnancy after I had been trying for years, I felt so horrible and wailed to my husband "but she doesn't even like children" , thankfully we both went on to have children but I'll never forget the feeling of irrational unfairness of it all.

Congratulations by the way.

First of all, congratulations on your pregnancy.

I think you have a foot on either side of the YABU/YANBU divide. YABU because whatever your fertility problems there will always be women around you becoming pregnant. (I say this as someone who went through many years of infertility and associated treatments). Also, you SIL may have shown extremely poor timing and insensitivity but hormones and excitment make us do things and say things that would, at other times, leave us like this . She may have just been so over the top with joy that she didn't think about your situation. On the other side of things, YANBU because you would expect someone that close to you to be more understanding and aware. I truly do understand the pain associated with infertility.

As mentioned above I think you need to see your SIL's actions as poor timing and motivated by a lack of thought (not through maliciousness). Concentrate on your own good news and don't dwell on what can't be changed. She was insensitive - let it go at that. Be happy for your own situation now and enjoy your pregnancy. Again, congratulations on your very happy news .

I think she was certainly pretty insensitive if she knew you were having surgery - it wouldn't have hurt her to wait for a week.

Congrats on your pregnancy

Thanks everyone. I needed that!

I mustn't forget what a wonderful thing is happening now. All the rubbish we went through is behind us now and when I'm sensible I know that no reasonable person would want to hurt us intentionally.

And you're right - it probably would have stung a bit whenever we got the news.

Wow! I should have come here ages ago. Would have saved myself a lot of heartache.

Hi takingiteasy,

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy for her and really excited to be an Aunty. I don't expect the world to revolve around me - in 3 years she certainly wasn't the first person we were close to, who had this news to share. It was just the timing that affected us so much - particularly as we'd made no secret of our infertility. I need my family - so to keep them all informed of what we were going through meant we had people close who we could talk to when it got tough.

I think you're all right. I am being unreasonable, and I think the reference to hormones is probably about right too. At the time I was having so many problems and so concerned with what I was experiencing maybe I just didn't process it right.

I guess that if this same thing happened to a friend, I would tell them to move on and that's what I should do. I want our children to have a friendship and that's not going to happen if I block it.

Maybe I should reach out to her and try to get back on track. I just hope it's not too late. Although I've not really told her how I felt (and I don't intend to) I'm sure she probably realises that the relationship had become distant the same was I did.

Congratulations on your pregnancy. That is wonderful news.

If you've always loved your SIL then there's no reason to think there was anything deliberately hurtful about her actions. The timing would feel very painful to you but not necessarily to others. You may not be able to forgive but I would really try not to dwell on this and concentrate on the good relationship you generally have.

Having a baby at a similar time could be a fantastic support to you both.

Forgiveness is a difficult thing, you want to be able to do it but it can be so hard to do when you are still able to completely feel what you felt at the time it happened. If you don't forgive her though, it will be you it hurts the most, even though it will still be difficult for others.

I think YAB a little U to think she shouldn't have told anyone about her pregnancy, and I think if you are honest with yourself you know it would have hurt whenever she said it. Maybe her timing could have been better but it still would have hurt.

No one can stop you feeling like you can't forgive, it's too personal for that, but you do have to do your best to al least forget, and I expect your wonderful pregnancy will be able to help with that.

I'm also currently dealing with infertility so understand where you are coming from. However, if your SIL didn't know about the operation then YABU.

As painful as it is for us, we can't expect everyone else to stop getting pregnant/announcing pregnancies.
If your operation had, god forbid, failed would you have expected her to keep quiet about her pregnancy?

It is so hard when you are dealing with infertility, I know I feel like everyone around me is currently falling pregnant at the drop of a hat and many an evening I sit at home sobbing, but I know I can't expect the world to stop turning for me.

Congratulations on your pregnancy.