SIL asking DH not to tell me baby's sex

[CharDee]

SIL is currently pregnant. She found out whilst she and her husband were away and she called DH to tell him but asked him not to tell me because she wanted to.

DH did tell me because I'd had a miscarriage a couple of weeks before and he didn't want it sprung on me but I pretended not to know and acted surprised when she told me. I am really happy for her and BIL and we've had non stop baby talk around her which has been hard but I've not shown her that it's upsetting me because this is her news and she's really excited as am I for her. She never wanted children as she was very career driven and said she couldn't take time off to have a baby but since getting married last year decided that she wanted to have children.

Before this miscarriage we had another one and ended up buying a really nice and quite expensive pram for the baby before I lost it. We've decided that we aren't going to have any more children so I have given this pram to SIL along with lots of other things. She doesn't know about the recent miscarriage but knew about the one before.

She has found out the sex of the baby and called DH this morning to say she wants to tell him but he can't tell me. DH said that she can just wait until we see her this week to tell us both because he's worried he'll slip up and she told him that she's only telling family so she won't be telling me. DH said that I was family and that he was a bit confused as to why she wouldn't tell me. So he's just said that it's up to her who she tells but he doesn't think it's fair to exclude me so if she's not telling me he doesn't want to know. There will be family events where everyone else there apart from me will know and SIL will definitely be talking about pregnancy and babies.

I think this is a bit of a control thing and for attention so I'm glad that DH hasn't engaged but I feel like she won't be too happy about this and might make a fuss about it when we see her this weekend. She has since text me and said that she's sure DH would have told me about the phone call and wants me to tell him he's being ridiculous.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to deal with this? The whole thing is ridiculous, she can tell who she wants yes but I think to just exclude me and say she doesn't see me as family is a bit mean!

Just gone back and read through all the updates and they are bonkers!! MIL getting involved... Jeez...what hard work they all sound. Tbh sounds like my SIL (although my MIL has mellowed somewhat over the years).

Top marks to your husband OP! He is a perfect example.

The absolute cheek of some people, atleast you have him and have eachothers back,I don't think I'd have been able to be as calm and collected as you've handled all of this and the conversations ( although I can imagine just a pinch of how you feel inside)

I'll channel this next time I find myself in a situation...albeit without the husband

She thinks the world revolves around her and her pregnancy. She will be worse when the baby is here. Good luck.

families who'd have them!!!

You are literally the person who is able to say at the time what others wish later they'd said! Your conversation with MIL was excellent.

I could really do with your brain!

I’d find that all so draining.

We have a family WhatsApp where we talk daily but it’s just casual stuff. I couldn’t deal with a family like that and I’m not surprised you’ve taken a step back. Do they not all have better things to do? Work? Social lives? Hobbies?

Pretty soon SIL will have the baby and once the newborn excitement fades she will realise that she isn’t all that important and hopefully get on with things. I wouldn’t babysit for her- bet she’d be a complete nightmare dramaqueen over every little thing.

Sorry if this has already been asked and I've missed it, how many DC do you have and are they the same sex?
Is it possible she is going to have the first granddaughter/grandson and this is something she is revelling? In no way does this justify her behaviour but she's sounds bonkers enough to think it matters/makes hers more special

Oh my goodness, what a drama your in-laws are creating! You are to be commended on remaining so polite throughout this saga. I wish you were my SIL, you sound so lovely and thoughtful. xx

“she has already asked if I could have the baby on one of my days off when she goes back to work “

Haha she has the audacity to ask you to provide free childcare for a baby that she doesn’t consider you close enough to tell the sex of?

Who cares anyway . The ‘surprise’ isn’t that massive, there are only 2 choices.

She is a GenderRevealZilla and a big over inflated bag of vacuous hot air.

She's one cheeky fucker. Wants you to have her kid one day a week but can't or won't tell you sex of the baby, purposely excluding you from family? Wish I could see her face when you say No. after all if you can't know the sex why would you be family enough to loom after the child, saving her a ton of money in the process. Over my dead body would be the answer from me.

Attention seekers and drama llamas are everywhere. Alas.

You poor thing. I seem to remember from a previous thread that you had friends who were very insensitive also to your losses.

Unfortunately some women use pregnancy as some weird kind of power trip. IME usually women who have very little achievement in their own right. Getting pregnant doesn’t require any great intellect or skill yet for some women i guess it’s maybe the first thing they feel they’ve ‘achieved.’
Tbh you’re best off keeping out of it all. You clearly have the better relationship (your dh sounds great) and don’t need to resort to game playing. And wtf would you want to be looking after her kid in the future? .... tell her in no uncertain terms that you’ve got better things to do with your time. Cheeky cow... sounds like she thinks she’s bestowing a great gift on you!

I can't get past that she actually is jealous/begrudges you the excitement shown when you were pregnant, compared to her, knowing full well that you had such a heartbreaking outcome.
Does she not have an ounce of common sense that when this happens in a family maybe, just maybe people curtail their reaction to such news just in case God forbid this happened again or God forgive even further people might be.. ya know.... trying to be sensitive to your feelings and not rub your nose in it. She'll want a brass band going past your house next with her sat triumphantly on top of a float dressed as Mother Earth.
What a piece of work, you are so dignified in comparison.

I've not hear from mil or SIL today but so called mil last night and asked her not to speak to me about it and made it clear that he was annoyed at SIL for her attitude towards me. He threw in the good enough for childcare but still not family point which mil said that he's just misunderstood what SIL has said can't believe she's taking her side. Well I can really but it's insane that she's sticking up for her.

MIL has never worked, FIL had a very, very good job and was able to put SIL and DH through private school and they have always had everything they could ever want. MiL seems to live to do things for DH and SIL as that is all she has ever done. She was a bit like this when I had DS but stepping back helped and we managed to create boundaries without actually having an awkward conversation.

SIL now has a very good job and is very intelligent just lacking in common sense and manners it would seem!

DH was a bit clueless about the "real world" when we met and but he was never snobby, entitled, bratty or rude to others which SIL is.

mil said that he's just misunderstood what SIL has said

I don’t see how else it can be interpreted?! Did she explain exactly what SIL meant?

If MIL has never worked, I presume she’ll be doing childcare instead?

I don't really see how anyone could have "misunderstood" what your SIL meant, what a stupid thing to say!
But of course your MIL will try to downplay it and smooth it over, anything to get back to a quiet life.

I don't see how it's relevant that mil 'never worked'. That's just a cheap dig at her, as if she wasn't doing anything valuable like, I don't know, bringing up your husband to be the lovely man you married. Or supporting her DH so he was able to earn lots of money, which has put your dh through private school!

It's natural to defend your child from outside criticism and to try and see the positives in their behaviour - that's what she is doing with your sil. It's not her fault that your sil is behaving badly.

It’s natural to defend your child from outside criticism and to try to see the positives in their behaviour - that’s what she is doing with your Sil. It’s not her fault that your sil is behaving badly.

I can’t agree with this. I would never let my DD’s treat my DIL in such an awful way. I would pull them up on it and so would they tell if I was being so rude. That’s why we get on and care for each other.

I am often astounded at the way people treat their in laws, it shows bad up bringing or just plain mean spirited behaviour.

Yes, of course you would tell your DD that she is being a total Berk. But to everyone else, you might make excuses or try to find reasons for their behaviour.
I'm just uncomfortable with the OP bringing her mils sah status into it, like she did something wrong. How mil and fil organised their family unit and the decisions they made to best benefit their children are not something the OP has a right to judge or criticise.

@IWannaSeeHowItEnds I wasn't criticising her choice to stay at home. Just saying that MiL gets very involved in everything and I think the reason for that is that her children have been her whole life and she hasn't been able to step back. She does tend to treat them like teenagers who will need her to come and help at any moment or that don't know what they're doing with their lives. Obviously DH ns SIL are very lucky to have had someone to be there for them all the time and to have had the start in life that they did have. But I think MIL was too protective over them and didn't give them enough independence.

MIL has judged me for going back to work. DH earns just enough for me to stay at home but I wanted to go back to work. She was very vocal about how I was shipping him off on someone else and how he was so young and she hated the thought of him being at nursery. When she saw the invoice for DS' nursery when he was a baby she suggested that she had him 5 days a week (I only worked 3 at the time) so that he would at least have a bond with someone

DH thankfully isn't as entitled as SIL but he definitely takes for granted things that he had when he was growing up.

If my sister behaved like that towards my brother's wife my mum would absolutely pull her up on it and would make sure everyone involved knew she didn't agree with the behaviour.

They sound exhausting CharDee.

DH and I have been together for 20 years (married for more than half of that) and I remember years ago when we were engaged and living together one of his sisters asked just him to a birthday dinner. Not me, because it was just ‘for family’. That has stayed with me and what I thought was a good relationship between us has never been the same since.

I don't defend her at all for criticising your choice to return to work. The bonding remark was a horrible thing to say to you. But I think in life there are some parents who are very hands on and involved (maybe too involved) and some parents who are less so and this is to do with personality rather than whether they are sahp or wohp.
We all do what we think is the best thing for our children, sometimes that works out well and other times not so much, but it's not fair for partners of grown children to judge the choices that were well intentioned.

@CharDee totally off the point but are you the same poster who had the incident at lunch with your friend's husband? Have you ever heard anything further from him or box wife?

@Ginger1982 yes that was me!

Saw them at a wedding recently. They came to the evening and we'd been there all day so I didn't even realise they were there until I'd spent a good hour on the dance floor! DH told me that Jack had said hello to everyone who was sat at the table he was at but ignored DH. He also bought a shot for everyone and left DH out. DH wasn't bothered and I had no idea anything was going on because I was too busy enjoying myself!