to out my back stabbing SIL?

[scuzy]

long story short ... SIL told me about a forum she visit frequently (not here) and I decided to look it up. found her online as her daughter was her avatar pic and started reading some of her threads. she was online there for years and read loads of threads giving out/mocking/being disrespectful to everyone (MIL, her BILs, my dp, me, my other sil ... basically all her dp's family).

I told them and since then there is bad feeling. was i right?

Thing is, your SIL slagging people off online was unpleasant, but noone knew. You finding out what she'd said and then telling people so that they would be hurt was downright nasty and cruel. So you come out of this worse, imo. You could have just had a quiet word with SIL and got an apology. Instead you detonated a family. Yuck.

I found my SIL on a website forum (not this one lol) and she was slagging me off for slagging her off!

So I told her mum and the bloke down the road and my dad and now we're all not speaking.

Was I out of order?

STOP IT NOW OP - or the internet will eat itself.

Oh the irony of coming onto an internet forum to bitch about this....

So you have caused a lot of hurt and upset through your nosiness. Yes, pat on back and a thumbs up to you OP.

SiL should have kept anonymity but frankly your behaviour is pretty abhorrent too.

This is exactly why I would never read my SILs threads on other parenting forums, it's like eavesdropping and then being upset about what you hear.

There's a big difference between wanting to see what the forum is like and looking through everything she has ever posted on it and then spreading gossip about it through the family.

You may as well admit you were out to cause trouble for her intentionally because you've already admitted you are glad you have caused all this bad feeling though out the entire family.

Otherwise you could have ignored it, spoken directly to her about it, or confided in your DH and let him decide whether to tell his family or not.

And it's not just her you have caused trouble for, it's the entire family. Her husband (your DH's brother?) will now have to chose between supporting his wife and appeasing his family. Her children will know something is going on and no matter what the reason they will just be upset that everyone is being nasty to their Mum. They won't thank you for this and think badly of her, it's you that they will blame and perhaps that will strain their relationship with your children. So all the cousins will lose out because you wanted to get one over on her.

What if they feel they can't visit anyone at Christmas now? Why should her children be excluded just because you wanted to expose her as a nasty piece of work while being one yourself? What if they do visit and the whole family ends up arguing? Your children and hers could be in the middle of that and no matter what you think, YOU will bear some/most of the responsibility for it.

Does your DH deserve to to fall out with his brother? Because that could happen.

And when the whole family are utterly sick of the entire situation you best hope they don't decide to shoot the messenger and blame you for sticking your nose in and not keeping your mouth shut about what you read.

She might be a liar but you sound like a trouble-causer who enjoys causing upset just for the sake of it.

There's a big difference between you overhearing someone talking about you and you deliberately seeking out posts by her and then tale-telling on any little thing she has said about someone else.

No matter what your SIL said on that other forum, she's still managing to come off as the better person when compared to the trouble you have caused for no good reason but to "make people know her for who she really is."

You were very unreasonable. I say things about my own mother on here and my MIL that I wouldn't say to their faces, the kind of thing I would have offloaded to RL friends in the days before the internet. Everyone occasionally thinks negative thoughts about some of the people around them and wants to air them. It is completely normal. You are a nasty stirring gossip.

It doesn't sound like either of you were very clever.

of course anything i say now doesnt matter as i am a low life snitch.

What I was thinking did rhyme to be fair

This has happened to me recently only in reverse (without the extent of nasty posts you write about), someone sent links to my posts to family. It was really horrible and I still don't know who it was or why they did it. Thankfully the family concerned was mature enough to call me and we talked it through.

If I saw someone I knew on here saying anything about people I knew I would either ignore it or contact that person myself and have a quiet off forum word explaining that I knew the family and mabe she sould be more careful. I think that would be the mature thing to do.

No good will come from stirring things up. Of course the internet is not completely anonymous but it's people like you, OP, who end up making a big drama out of things which are best dealt with a different way.

YABU to have got involved really as clearly it's not helped matters.
What good did you think would come from it?

she has apologised and deleted all her threads. i accepted her apology and did say i'm sorry for going online and saying what i said there.

dp and his bros though are still very upset.

i wonder what her dp thinks of what she said about him and his mother though?

granted i should have confronted her first. i still believe though that i was right to tell them. she was lying and she also was telling very personal things under a name that did not make her annonymous.

You were shit stirring and you know it. You would do much better to at least admit that to yourself.

I can understand that you were upset by what she said, but you should be judging her on the way she is when you are around her. We are all free to think what we like, it's the way we behave that matters.

She was stupid for making herself so identifiable, but as you had a conversation about forums anyway, you could have had another and told her you were upset by what you had seen. You were out of order to tell people before giving her the chance to get it removed and to give you her side of the story. Maybe she was justified in some of what she said, she won't have the same experience of the family as you do.

Why would you want to upset your dh anyway? I would have dealt with it myself and just told him the basics for the sake of family harmony, especially at this time of year.

But if you think you have done nothing wrong and you are not prepared to admit that you could have handled the situation much better than you did, then there's not much anyone else can do about it.

I would say that it already has come back to bite you on the bum because your actions have resulted in people feeling hurt, and you could have avoided it by dealing with it in a better way. You probably enjoy the drama when it's not about your feelings though.

Agree with many others on this thread, OP. I use the forums often to vent my spleen because I have been wound up by various family members. It doesn't mean that I love them any the less and I'm not there for them, it means I am venting my anger in a "safe" place and saying things I couldn't say to their face. It makes me feel better.

Take my MIL for example. She is in the early stages of dementia and driving us fucking nuts with her stupidity that I (because it always falls to me to sort it, like every other fucking thing in this family) have to sort her and FIL out all the time. Every little thing and it's "Quiettiger we have this problem, bleat, bleat bleat..." Often I really, really resent it.

HOWEVER - why would I hurt DH by saying "I resent your mother, she's a right silly cow and she drives me fucking nuts to the point I can only tolerate 30 minutes of her company" (which is true, BTW) when in actuality, she's quite a nice, well-meaning person and very well thought of by others. Instead, I vent anonymously, I feel better and I am then able to bite my tounge and be civil and kind to her.

You were shit stirring for the sake of it.

Scuzy I have a stirred SIL from hell too, you may think you've got away with it but it's just a matter of time before people suss you out. We are all nice to my SIL face but none of us trust her as far as we can throw her.

Stirring with your partners family is deeply unpleasant, it will backfire. Pat yourself on the back for now because you have no idea what they really think of what you did.

You can be fairly certain though their views will reflect the views posted here but they just won't be telling you to your face for a quiet life.

Well done.

i apologised

she apologised

we are all still in touch but everytime i see her i think of what she said about me and about people i truely care about.

yes i agree i dealt with it the wrong way

she has really upset us all with what she has said.

i think the only thing i did wrong was not approachin her first.

like i said we are all still carrying on as normal.

"i wonder what her dp thinks of what she said about him and his mother though?"

That is for them to sort out. Not you.

OP be careful what you wish for... so you caught her out. Big deal. i dont actually care if my SIL complains about me online. if it helps her, really what is the problem?

its not like i expect her to never complain about me to DB/her friends in RL. she is not a saint, neither am i.

but you are due some chickens coming home to roost.

You are carrying as normal? I don't believe it for a minute. You guys are being polite to each other for family sake.

got away with what???? we have all spoken about it since and all feel the same!!! and are just carrying on as normal for the kids sake. i am very close to dp's family my MIL is like my own.

"normal" as in visiting, having tea, meeting with the kids etc. but your right I am being polite to her for family sake.

as normal on the surface.

something said can never be unsaid.

It may not be talked about, but it will never be forgotten.

It's really unfortunate that it played out like that. But it's too late now. It's done.

She didn't upset everyone though, did she? You did. By telling them things you'd read after snooping.

And Quiet, I appreciate that dealing with someone with dementia is frustrating, but stupidity isn't a word I'd use. Someone I love very much has dementia and it's a heartbreaking, cruel disease.

she has really upset us all with what she has said.

She hasn't upset anyone, you did.

They weren't upset until you told them.

Don't worry I think they like family will have got the full measure of the sister in law. Blood is thicker than water, you should tread carefully. I'd say they have well and truly got your card marked.

By the way I think you have used the word "us" out of context in the above sentence.

and I do KNOW for certain what my dps' family think we have discussed it to lenght with dp's bros and sis telling her to take them all down and cop on!

It's one of those AIBU.