To ask if there is any way to handle this differently?

[NothingIsAsBadAsItSeems]

It's a very long story so please bare with me and I don't want to drip feed

My SIL is lovely but has had a very hard life and as a result refuses to go any where near my DH. She won't be in the same room as him and refused to allow him to attend her wedding or any family get together that her and my brother wish to attend (DH, quite unfortunately, looks similar in build and looks to her very abusive ex).

For the last three years this has meant that if my parents or my brother host a family get together DH either can't attend or does attend resulting in a lot of tension and a very upset SIL. If we are hosting one then either only my brother attends or he makes an excuse not to attend. I've no idea whether or not she is seeking help dealing with her past but I hope she is

Is it unreasonable to want to attend family gatherings with my DH without worrying about how it will affect SIL? Or to not have my mum or brother asking if I wouldn't mind just bringing DS with me? Or asking me which weekends my DH is working so that they can plan a meet up for when he is?

SIL doesn't have any close family and seems to be thrilled that she's been taken into the fold and is mothered constantly by my mum . Any family gatherings that SIL doesn't attend DH is allowed to attend. I'm starting to feel pushed out of my own family, if that makes sense, since I'm not happy leaving DH behind every time there is a family event

DH says he doesn't mind and would rather not attend if attending is going to cause SIL stress. Thinking about it since my brother got married I've attended fewer and fewer family events and have made a lot more effort to do things with my PILs.

• I'm not entirely sure this is the right place for my thread. If not I'll ask for it to be moved.

SIL needs to get a grip and get to know your DH

In that case, start planning next Christmas now. Make absolutely 100% certain that everyone knows you are going and so is your dh. Don't let anyone say a month beforehand "oh it will be hard for sil, maybe you had better not come".

It will be interesting to see whether she decides to stay at home on her own, or whether she is willing to make an effort to overcome this.

I think Mrsdevere has a very valid point by the way.

Sometimes things are very, very difficult to face. But sometimes you just have to get on with it.

But is there no room for compromise?

Why not rent the cottage for a week and split the times -- your DB/SIL go for a few days, you go for a few days.

Look, your SIL is mentally ill. It sucks you have to deal with that but you cannot simply force a mentally ill person to be normal. You have no idea what her treatment is, for all you know she is getting treatment but it's just progressing slowly.

Imagine she had some other kind of mental illness that meant she couldn't tolerate large gatherings. Would you still insist on big family holidays or respect the fact her illness changes things?

There is a very particular trauma that comes with being on the receiving end of extreme violence, particularly sexual violence. It is absolutely horrific, the panic and anxiety, and it can take a long time to get rid of.

I think your sister has the right idea, it's naff but what can you do?

Everyone saying to stop pandering, how do you do that without completely alienating the DB and causing a huge family rift?

Dreamingbohemian your points are good ones, but how is it 'thinking long-term' to exclude a family member (and possibly a grandchild if he looks like his dad) on the basis of his physical appearance seemingly forever? Total avoidance would be a short-term strategy, for someone you won't have to have much to do with. If a person who looked like my ex showed up at a conference, I might give them a wide berth. Fine, two days and I'd never have to see him again. With a colleague in a small department, that doesn't work. Even if dude turned out to have the same not very common hobbies as the ex, I'd still need to deal for my own sake as much as his. It would work even less well if the 'offending' lookalike was part of OH's family.

I didn't get a chance to go and hide, I had to keep living 'normally' and interacting with people in semi-normal ways, including people who would defend my ex to me and make me out to be the 'rude' one for trying to explain why I didn't want to be his friend. Then I moved away and had to interact normally with people who didn't know my history, because I wasn't out about it for a good few years. No allowances made there, I just had to get on with it. Sometimes I resented that. But to be honest, I often wonder if I'd have achieved anything - including the ability to leave the house, do a job, have friendships in which I'm not the other person's charity case - if the initial situation had been different.

My point is, yes we should assume that OP's SIL is telling the truth, but that doesn't mean letting the current situation continue until she or OP's husband die of old age. It isn't helping her, as she has no chance to practice using any defence but hiding.

So dreaming, would you be happy to not spend Christmas day with your parents because your sil didn't like you?

Basically she is driving a wedge between the op and her family, which isn't fair.

If she was asking the op to stay away from her own (i.e. the sil's) family, that would be different, maybe .

Horrible situation for all involved here, it's strange but not unbelievable. Horrific abuse does happen and we shouldn't need all the gory details to show a little empathy.

You SIL needs help, what kind of life is it to live with such fear an panic? Not being able to face your DH is probably just the tip of the ice berg.

Talk to your parents first if you are having trouble talking about it with your DB. Come from an angle of wanting to help SIL because things cannot continue like this for her or you and your DH.

It sort of feels when SIL is there I'm not really welcome in my own family at times
It's not totally about your DH then, is it? Do you think she's also managing to poison your family against you? Even alone you appear to have been ousted. .
As several people have already mentioned; it sounds like there's something else apart from what they've agreed to let you know. How bloody unfair.

How bizarre, you can't carry on like this.

Floggingmolly - But what haven't they let me know? That DH is actually SIL abuser? He isn't, he can look scary can't we all but looking scary isn't being abusive, he has a fairly confident/dominant/alpha male (take your pick) personality, again it doesn't make him abusive. None of my friends see him as abusive...

Honestly can't see him as the type

It isn't keeping everyone happy though is it as you don't get to spend time with your whole family.

If your SIL is seeking therapy for herself then she deserves sympathy. If she has shown she is grateful for the huge sacrifices your family has made for her, then she deserves credit. If she has shown that she wishes things could be, were, different then she deserves respect.

If she hasn't, then..

God, no! I wasn't suggesting that at all, just that if you're getting unwelcome vibes when you're there without your DH, not just from SIL but from your wider family also, she seems to have put the boot in well and proper.

Oh , no my family are apologetic that I have to leave DH at home if I go while SIL is there. I feel uncomfortable because they have to ask and then apologize and I think they are uncomfortable for the same reasons I refuse to think they are uncomfortable for any other reasons

If you seriously think there is a chance he is the man who abused your SIL then you need to ask her. If not, then put it out of your mind. Abusers are just normal people who act in an abnormal way and as such, look like normal people.

There is no good reason for SIL to avoid OP's DH. Therefore there is no reason to "compromise" as someone suggested above. The family is not responsible for curing SIL's mental illness or PTSD or whatever it may be. They are not mental health care professionals (and even if they were, they wouldn't be allowed to serve as her therapists). Their responsibility is to treat all family members with equal respect and care. As things stand, they are failing in that by pandering to an irrational fear, and the OP is being badly affected.

In treating phobias, AFAIK the generally accepted approach involves desensitization. Avoidance of the feared object isn't recommended. So expecting the OP's DH just to make himself scarce really wouldn't be helpful to the SIL. It would just reinforce her irrational fear.

dreaming - OP isn't excluding the SIL, it's the SIL who is insisting on excluding OP and her dh. From the OP's own family. The SIL may be the victim of horrendous abuse but that doesn't mean she is justified in cutting the OP out of the OP's family.

btw, one of my sister's close friends is the survivor of an horrendous attack. The perpetrators went to prison for a very long time indeed. Her life is curtailed in all sorts of ways and she is a very, very damaged person, poor woman. But she does not use that trauma to bully other people in the way the OP's SIL has done. She avoids certain situations because she is too fragile, she doesn't decide to order other people to stay away!

That's exactly it, Pantomimedam. The reasonable course of action if the SIL's background checks out (etc) is for her to remove herself from the situations she finds difficult until the point where/if she feels able to confront it and cope with it.

This is what makes me wonder if there is another truth to the situation. I suspect if the OP's DH was an abuser, that her family would've clued her into that by now. It all seems a bit unlikely that OP's own parents and siblings would allow her and her DS to go on living with someone they knew to be an abuser without telling her. That would be unforgivable in my mind.

I suspect that SIL is manipulating the situation to a degree. If she was a kind person, she would withdraw herself from social situations since she is the problem. The fact that she doesn't do this is telling.

Assuming the fact that your dh looks like your SIL's abuser and there is no backstory at all then a story I heard recently may give you some comfort. It is a true story of a family that moved to a small town and attended a place of worship there. This family were very religious and the place of worship was very important - integral really - to their being there. To the man's surprise and then discomfort ( although he had spoken to people on the phone from that town before the move having been introduced via friends but had never seen them and they had expressed friendly sentiments and couldn't wait to meet the family etc) when he actually arrived in the place of worship people's reactions were distinctly cool and he even noticed some looking askance at him and moving away. He checked his own appearance in the bathroom thinking maybe he'd left shaving foam on or something else strange but - nothing.

He smiled openly at a few people but receiving nothing more than awkward responses in return decided to go and seek out only those with whom he'd been introduced on the telephone. To his horror the same reaction ensued - and from a man who'd expressed a welcoming nature and said that he'd like to have the man and his family round for a meal etc.

Puzzled and dejected he sought out the spiritual head of the place of worship.

"Ah, Mr x " said the head. " I was wondering when you'd come to see me".

" Can you explain all this please? " said the man on the brink of tears. " People are acting as if I have the plague or something and I just can't understand it. "

It turned out that this man looked identical to a conman who had been part of the religious group and had conned many people out of a vast sum of money and left. And they were talking of vast sums of money as it transpired he'd invested people's money and many were facing bankruptcy as a result. The resemblance was uncanny he was told and his very appearance was bringing back memories ( this happened only a few months before he got there) making the congregation uncomfortalbe and unwelcomingly.

" Well, what would you suggest I do ?" Said the man , " Uproot my family and move back to my home town?" [this was the only grouping of this reglious nature in the area].

" No" came the advice , " stick it out and people will get used to you and slowly slowly they will warm to you as of course they already know ratioanlly that you are not him".

To end the story without the long middle, this is what the man did and slowly slowly people's barriers did come down and a few even shared with him what this man had done and the way they had felt when they initially saw him. It took a while but he is now a fully integrated and happy and welcomed member of the congregation.

So - to move this to your situation - I would say that your dh must attend each and every gathering and no attempt must be made to pander to your SIL's feeling that the sight of your dh upsets her. Rationally she must know that your dh is not your abuser ( unless she is insane which is a whole other thread). She will therefore get used to the sight of him and will gradually be densensitised to him. Allowing this to continue is just making it worse and entrenching her feelings towards your dh and even allowing her to justify them by equating anyuone who looks like her abuser to be her abuser.

HTH

Your family can't like your DH very much if theyvare willing to collude like this. This is honestly so, so odd.

OP theres no possible way your DH and SIL have had a fling is thrre? Sorry to ask, just so strange

Bloody hell, some people really do post some shit on here don't they?! I'm sure if he had been the abuser or involved with the sil it would have come out by now and the op has already said it is nothing like that. Don't some of you people think before you post your stupid comments and the 'conclusions' you have come up with?!!!'

Nothingisasbadasitseems has already said that she and her family have known dh since their school days. I think it's highly unlikely that the op or her brother would have been unaware of either his friends or him knowing sil before she met the brother.

Also the brother seems to have no issue with his bil.....

This is one of the problems though isn't it? People will fill in the blanks of situations they can't get their head around. If complete strangers start going down these lines what will the rest of their friends, family and possibly dc start concluding?

What worra and lisalisa have said - this alienation of you DP must stop and your sil must start spending some time socially with your DP and treating him like a human being. Its a form of bullying. He has done nothing wrong and this pandering to her is unhealthy.

Quacks I agree that's how the SIL should be handling it -- but she's not, and I don't see how the OP can really do anything about that. It's also possible it's how she will handle it at some point but sometimes it takes time.

Not everyone deals well with trauma. For all we know she had a difficult life before her ex and that's not helping. I'm not really comfortable judging someone for not handling a traumatic event something that most people will never have to deal with very well.

Mary the SIL is not acting on the basis of 'not liking' the DH, she had a massive panic attack at the sight of him. That's a bit different.

Pando The SIL is not trying to cut the OP out of her family, she is trying not to be in the same room as the DH. Yes unfortunately that means that sometimes the OP is not at certain events, although she could go on her own. So if anything, the SIL is excluding DH from the family -- but he has kindly agreed to go along with it.

I really do sympathise with the OP but I don't really see what else she can do. I have huge respect for her DH, it can't be easy for him but he sounds incredibly empathetic and kind about it.