To expect my SIL to keep her aggressive cat away during Xmas?

But OP's SIL is focusing on the fact that she is single and therefore 'nobody's priority' to ensure that she and her cat are actually treated as top priority on Christmas Day, with their needs put above the needs of OP's children not to be scratched by an aggressive cat.

Nobody thinks that all single women behave in this emotionally unstable way. OP's MIL sounds exactly the same (crying because someone else wore the same colour outfit as her at OP's wedding) and she is married with children. It seems to be a family trait and I assume that SIL would probably behave the same way even if she had a partner but no children.

The cat is the only honest one here. It does NOT want to be away from its territory and fights back when it's away.

I would just laugh in their faces at this stage TBH. Life is too short to be ruled by a cat and its batshit owner and her enablers anymore.

Why is MIL calling to tell you this? This is all just emotional blackmail and if your SIL can't deal with the fact that you and children won't be going to your IL's on Christmas Day, she doesn't sound capable of actually living independently.

She can still spend Christmas Day with her parents and her cat, with the cat being free to roam anywhere it wants. As she doesn't care about her cat scratching your kids, she obviously doesn't care much about them at all, so why is their absence such a deal breaker, enough to bring on an emotional crisis?

they both need therapy. Let them do it. Let them realise how utterly, completely and totally batshit this arrangement is.

Ironic that by being left alone at home the cat is probably going to have the best Christmas ever, by not being dragged about everywhere.

This is appalling behaviour on the part of your SIL. How can she put a bloody cat over the safety of her own toddler nieces/nephews? Disgraceful! Aren't the grandparents shocked? They should damn be
I own two cats and even though they are sweet and friendly I would NEVER take them to someone else's house. Cats aren't socially portable like dogs. Dogs love people, cats love their own territory and should be left there - or a cattery when really necessary.

And what does your DH think of all this?

The more I read the more I realise it's definitely a DH problem.

It’ll be massively damaging to the psyche of many singles reading this that are not like this

Taking offence to this will depend where you are as a person. There are many many people now making the active choice to be single, it's a preference. So another way of looking at it is to actually feel sorry for the person who is attempting to insult/thinks that being single is in itself an insult. They are the people who have limited their own freedom by believing that you have to be in a relationship with a man to be happy.
So don't get insulted by it, feel sorry for them.

I get how people are taking offence to the "no wonder she;s single" which isn't a nice way of putting it. But what I take from it is that the SIL struggles to form human relationships, and thinks her relationship with her cat is just the same as a relationship with another person of either sex. 99% of people think this is absolutely batshit crazy, and if she can't see that, this may explain why she is struggling to make bonds with other people.

Hear hear, once again I agree with your posts on this @Bellyblueboy I keep seeing more of the “no wonder she’s single” type posts and it’s utterly depressing.

It’ll be massively damaging to the psyche of many singles reading this that are not like this SIL.

I’m not single currently but have been most of my adult life.

What is it with people who think pets are equivalent to human babies????? Your SIL is nuts, you need to keep firm.

Your in laws sound totally batshit. I can't believe MIL set off at what - 10 o'clock at night ? To go on a two and a half hour journey . She's making her daughter worse by enabling her.

Quite frankly the behaviour of your inlaws is weird and a totally unhealthy dynamic for your children to be exposed to.

Your DH needs to grow a pair and tell his sister that a cat is not a child and she is actively being cruel to her poor cat treating it like one. Cats like their own space, peace and quiet and familiar comforts.

You don't say how old your children are but what happens when they are old enough to say they don't want to go if the cat's there or start sobbing on the way to PILs ( having learnt this behaviour from observing Auntie Fruit Loop on countless occasions) because they are scared of the cat ?

oops was so cross I quoted the wrong person😂😂

As I have said upstream - being single isn’t an indication of a personality flaw. Some horrendously flawed and toxic people are in relationships.

If we applied your theory to society there would be no spousal abuse, no toxic mother in laws, no horrific step parents. No abusive parents. Because the world would fit u to two camps. The perfect Peter’s and penoloes who find partners and the car crash horrors who stay single.

I hate that threads about one woman behaving badly who happens to be single focuses on the fact that she is single!!!!

Society just hates single women.

How incredibly stressful for you!

Time to put your foot down DH can go but you’ll stay at home to keep the toddlers safe and have a lovely peaceful cat free Christmas.

The more you share about your in-laws OP, the more disturbing it all sounds. These are not normal, proportionate reactions to life for adults.

It is manipulative of MIL to tell you she is off to comfort crying SIL. If she mentions it again I would say "i feel awful, we wont come. I cant have sil so upset. We will see you weekend before"

i wouldn't be going

But @juiceboxjuggle you know that on the day, the cat will be roaming freely don’t you?

I would be getting Covid again. Fuck that shit.

How old is SIL? has she ever considered the fact she's hysterical and full of self pity maybe is the reason she's single, she sounds exhausting!

Your dh is not ‘rational’ - it isn’t rational to let crazy emotionally unstable sister and mum to rule your life. I had a little bit of this, I said no and made it clear to dh that while I’m not irrationally unstable, he lives with me and definitely doesn’t want to pander to everyone else at my expense, he won’t find peace at home if he takes that path.

I adore cats which is why I have 3 of them right now. I have been scratched a few times over my many years. typically in freak incidents where a cat got suddenly surprised. Even though I am around my cats all the time, some of those scratches have gotten infected, which means really unpleasant antibiotics. I would be furious if a young child had to take something like metronidazole for doing nothing more than behaving like a child.

your husband doesn’t get to insist you and the children join an unsafe situation. You can insist on a different plan, like everyone meets at a restaurant where cats are not allowed.

Not only would I want my children far away from The Cat, I’d want them quite far away from the lunatic in-law dynamics. It might be OK while they’re very small but as they grow up they’ll be witnessing some deeply unhealthy, fucked-up dynamics. SIL/MIL are unhinged and FIL enables them, as does your DH. I mean, non-negotiable?!

No it's not. They're very small children. Wearing trousers doesn't mean anything & nor does staying away from a cat that scratches.

Amongst the adults you might feel the cat is being prioritised, but the barely just not toddlers won't think that.

Treating a cat like a baby is cruel. Cats have different needs to people. This cat sounds extremely distressed. And your inlaws are nuts and its not hard to understand why SIL is single 😆