I’m still the scarlet woman after 16 years.

[Bilbosnaggins]

I met dh 16 years ago when I was 30. He was 25 and had a girlfriend of 4/5 months at the time.

I met him on a Friday night at a gig, we chatted for a few hours. We swapped numbers. The next day, we arranged to meet again on the Monday. He finished things with the girlfriend the day after we met at the gig, telling her that he’d met someone else the night before and that he wanted to finish their relationship, which they did.

I had no clue about any of this, until we met up on the Monday and now dh told me that he had been briefly been seeing someone else, but that he’d ended things with her the day after we met. For what it’s worth, I’d also been dating someone for a couple of months, I broke that off too.

His sister did not take it well and 16 years and two children later, she still won’t be in the same room as me. She will literally up and leave her parents house when I walk in. Dh has had it out with her a few times over the years, but she just says he’s a cheater and he’s a bad as me. PIL have told her to grow up and stop being so ridiculous many, many times. As has her now husband, who is lovely and who we have a good relationship with.

She’d met dh previous girlfriend once, briefly, when they bumped into her. His parents had never met her, they were just seeing each other, it was 5 months when Dh was 25, not serious at all.

According to MIL, it was all very childish afterwards, with declarations of “you’ll always be a part of my kids lives!” on social media (her children were toddlers at the time and had never met Dh girlfriend). MIL tried her best to shut it all down at the time, telling her she was being ridiculous.

Dh hasn’t really had a relationship with her since as she was so awful about me. They’ve only really said hello at a couple of family funerals. We also lived 300 miles away from dh family until a few years ago when we moved to the area they are from.

Long story short, it’s my lovely father in law’s 80th birthday next week and all he wanted was to go away for a few days to a holiday cottage with all his family.

SIL will not go if I, the homewrecking scumbag is going.

I have offered not to go. I love my parents in law dearly, and dh can take the children. PIL won’t hear of me not being there. But SIL won’t listen.

I know she has issues of her own as just be before I met dh, her husband cheated on her with her friend and left her with two small children. I get it, I really do. Dh has tried to reason with her that seeing someone for a few months and breaking it off as soon as you’ve met someone else is in no way comparable to your husband having an affair and leaving you.

I just can’t believe something so stupid has ruined their family relationship for the last 16 years!

😂

She sounds mentally unwell.
It’s not just you she’s taken against. To be accusing her brother of cheating and posting on facebook he’s a cheater and saying this at his wedding is a slur on his character.
I wonder if holiday is chance for him to say that bluntly. Leave PIL/kids/dog/son in law in house and he says to her we are going for a coffee.
He bluntly says I was casually hooking up with her. She wasn’t my girlfriend or in a relationship. There was no overlap or cheating. It’s offensive you’d accuse me of that. Either we move forward and you stop this nonsense or I’m not having anything to do with you.

OP my hat is off to you. I hope your in laws get to make the lovely memories that they want to.

She sounds so difficult to be related to, let alone try to have a friendly relationship with. There is emotional immaturity - a huge scale - but this sounds even more like a serious delusion. Of course you can't address it with her when it needs professional intervention to begin to untangle.

I hope you continue to support her husband/ the kids because someday they may come out from under her thumb (maybe when they are teens) and need your family and those relationships.

Well done on having such a good conversation with your PILs, it's sad it had to be that way, but if you felt it was for the best, then it is.
I hope you have a relaxing week at home.

Was thinking perhaps your SIL has arrived from another Marvel multiverse in which her imagined story was true and she can't quite get over it.. (Yes I did see the new Spiderman film this week.)

I think I’d wrote up what happened (as you describe it here) and send it to parents in law, her and her husband. Detail what happened and add that you wonder if she misinterpreted what happened at the time. Say the woman was only here for a year, that dh called her and told her and shewished you both luck etc as it was a holiday fling not even exclusive dating.

Say you the family to be happy and enjoy one anothers company etc. Someone on here will phrase it far better than me but the aim is to allow her a way to say she misunderstood and backtrack. Saving face and resolving it for PIL.

Even if the story had been true in her alternate universe, she's had SIXTEEN YEARS to get over it. That's a lot of sequels.

No one is interested after all this time. There’s nothing anyone can say to her that hasn’t been said before.

Dh tried at the beginning, I tried a couple of years later when I invited her to our wedding.

Dh and PIL didn’t care if she came to the wedding or not, but I wanted to try and at least have a relationship with her at that point. I just can’t believe that all these years later she’s not over whatever she got into her head!

There was nothing ever for her to misinterpret. Dh never made out like the girl was a relationship to her. He told her everything when she started kicking off about it. Had they not bumped into her one day, she would never have known he was dating anyone before he met me and this situation would never even have happened!

PIL have told her to grow up countless times.

This isn’t something that consumes the whole family all the time. If she walks out of the house when I walk in, everyone just carries on as normal. It’s only got to me now as this trip was so important to FIL and I didn’t want this to mess it up for him.

As for when PIL pass away and they have to do funerals/legal stuff then that is there issue to sort out. You’d hope she will be able to act a bit more grown up in that situation and if she’s not, she’s not, there’s nothing anyone can do if she wanted to make a horrible situation even worse for a while. And someone mentioned that my children would want me at funerals - again, this isn’t about me. I would keep well away if she wanted me to. She may not like me but I would never, ever put stress on dh or SIL, however crazy she’s being, when it came to losing their parents.

I know when it’s best to step back in life and just try to help behind the scenes if it’s needed for the bigger picture. Their grandmother died recently, aged over 100, and I kept away from that funeral as it wasn’t the time or the place for any bad feeling.

There is no other back story to them. She’s not some sort of jealous, possessive older sister. She’s has no other reason to dislike me - she doesn’t even know me, she’s never actually spoken to me or spent any time with me.

I don’t know why she’s fixated on this, the only reason I can think of is she’s projecting her own marriage breakup on to dh (it was horrific, by all accounts, and she was treated terribly, with her ex making the divorce and custody process a living hell, so I do feel for her).

At least this hurdle was easy to sort out with a bit of proper communication with my parents in law. I am hoping that FIL gets the birthday he deserves and that he can enjoy his time away with eveyone. There is no bad feelings of being “left out” or anything on my part at all. It’s not about me, I’m happy to sit this one out and sit in my tidy, quiet house for a few days pleasing myself.

Had they not bumped into her one day, she would never have known he was dating anyone before he met me and this situation would never even have happened!

OP, None of this is your fault.
Also. If it hadn't been that excuse for her behaviour. She would have found another,

Just go and let everyone else get on with it. He wasn’t married, these things happen. 🙄

Yikes.

Very, very strange behaviour. It’s like she doesn’t want you to exist at all in any shape or form.

Apologies, I thought you still lived far away from her.

She's got a serious problem but I can't see it being very pleasant even if you don't go,if she won't speak to your husband. It sounds like you've done your best to build a relationship with her but enough is enough. If your parents in law want you to go, let her stay at home and sulk. I wouldn't feel guilty, she has a choice.

Sorry, but your FIL will not get the birthday he deserves. He invited everyone and wanted everyone there. Your SIL ruined that. My father, who was having chemotherapy for cancer at the time, had his 80th birthday ruined by family pulling similar stunts (how dare you invite x - we will only come if they are uninvited, etc,etc). In the end, the only resolution was to withdraw the invitation to the whole lot of them, because the whole thing had been poisoned by the vitriole. Even when it might have been his last birthday on earth, the selfish fuckers couldn’t help themselves. Of course you can’t have a nice time when you know hatred means more to someone than any feelings of love, care and affection.

I’m sorry but what a complete nut job.

What the silly woman doesn’t realise is how much she’s missing out too, and that includes having a good SIL like you 💐

That is utterly bizarre behaviour. The term home wrecker to me means someone who has broken up a long term relationship/marriage with dc involved. A four month relationship where the family hadn’t even met her….i mean there wasn’t really a home to wreck was there? It seems like she has some other vendetta against you because this is so unbelievably ridiculous it can’t be the genuine reason.

her ex making the divorce and custody process a living hell

So her anger and bitterness was directed at you and your husband because she was forced to have minimal interaction with her ex, handing over her children for his weekends and having to tolerate them come back happy with their dad.

It was easier for her to direct all of that to you two.

Omg could you - bit batshit but SIL has made it so - make contact with the woman your DH was dating? Explain how crazy it is and go for a coffee, take a pic and post to FB? I really feel SIL will have to eat shit if you’re friends with the ex?! Better yet invite get the MIL on board and “bump” into them?

My gosh - I am so sorry this is happening to you - this is beyond insane. F-her and go - have fun, be lovely and enjoy yourself

Of course this is not cheating! Cheating is only when you're stringing somebody along while having sex with somebody else or intending to have sex with somebody else.

What about doing a last-ditch attempt?

Dear sister-in-law,

I understand you're unhappy with how your brother and I met. It was and Is not cheating!

We are very fond of your dad, and we'd love to be at his 80th.

However, if you continue with this, it means that I won't be able to come, and neither will my husband, which will be a really unfortunate impact on your lovely dad!

Please can we draw a line under this for everyone's sake?

It's time to stop SIL dictating where you will and won't go. She needs to grow up and stop projecting her relationship issues onto you. Nobody else has a problem with the past but her.
Let her make an idiot of herself. She's wasting her own life on bitterness about something that was none of her business anyway.

Don't miss out on any events by putting her feelings first, she doens't deserve it. She is the one who is in the wrong.

You sound really lovely OP and well done for not making this about you. It is a shame your FIL cannot have everyone he loves around but they will love and respect you even more for being prepared to step back. Such a shame though🙁

100% go.
SIL sounds like she has deep scars from what happened to her. But this is in no way comparable to your situation and what happened. Her behaviour is quite unhinged. Has she kept in contact with the old girlfriend?

I think all you can do is tolerate her batshit behaviours and smile sweetly. But on no means remove yourself from the family. You’ve done nothing wrong.

You are not the scarlet woman.

You entered into a relationship with a man who was single after ending a relationship.

It makes me so sad, that you would contemplate not going to your FIL’s funeral who, from what you have described here, you have a lovely relationship with - because of SIL.

I think you are being very admirable and speaks a lot do your character about how you are managing this holiday, you are a lovely person.

But please, when the time comes, think about yourself, DH and your children, regarding the funeral.

I don’t see it that way. It’s her parents, not mine.

Yeah, she’s a twat. But I’m a grown up, I’m not going to start stamping my feet over holidays and funerals. My life is too short for that. I have no problem with stepping back from events.