Family dispute - who is BU?

[Plateofcrumbs]

This could be a long one. I'll try to make it as brief as possible but sorry if I miss any important details in process.

My brother and SIL have been married about 8 years and have a 1 year old. SIL has a physical disability which impacts her mobility, but she is very independent.

When they met, my brother was living with my mum. He was probably a bit of a mummy's boy. SIL-to-be lived a long way away (they met online).

My mum has always been a very practical kind of person who calls a spade a spade. When DB and SIL first got together my mum expressed to me she was worried that my brother was taking on a lot - travelling across country to see SIL every weekend and him supporting her with her disability.

Apparantly she voiced similar concerns to my brother, who repeated them to SIL and they struck a nerve.

Fast forward 8 years and it seems resentment about these comments has been steadily building. Over time mum has been given an increasingly cold shoulder by SIL. She has been given repeated excuses over years to not visit them, or SIL is away/working when mum has visited (they live at other end of country so visits are not regular).

My brother confided in me last year that SIL did not want to see my mum at all. I told him he needed to resolve this and could not keep giving excuses to my mum, especially now they had a son my mum was desperate to meet.

He has now told my mum SIL wants nothing to do with her as 'it is clear you do not like her' (no further explanation provided). My mum is heartbroken and thinks she will never she her grandson again.

Clearly there's a lot of second hand info here but who is BU? Can this be resolved?

Agree with PPs, there will be other comments throughout the years that have been slowly grating on SiL and she's had enough.

My MIL isn't that forthright but she doesn't engage brain before mouth and says hurtful things. I do have to back off a bit when this happens but I know I'll never change her and it would deeply upset the family if I did.

I think the SIL is out of order here and I'm quite shocked that people are defending her. Having a word with your son about a major life event is totally fine, but he has been and idiot for telling the SIL.

I see no reason to keep the grandson away, totally out of order.

SIL hasn't (from what the OP has posted) said that her MIL can't see the grandchild. She has said that she herself wants nothing to do with her.

Nothing posted here so far has given me the impression that the SIL is actually wrong in thinking that her MIL doesn't like her.

I agree with other posters that there must be more to this than just one comment made 8 years ago. I would advise your mother to speak to your SIL via letter or phone or best of all in person and offer to resolve whatever the issue(s) is. To be honest, I doubt it will get resolved if they have waited 8 years for this unless this escalated only recently.

And with regards to the grandchild(ren) - where is your brother in all this? Regardless of the relationship between your mum and SIL, she should be able to spend time with his kids. Why is he not helping to facilitate contact? Is it because he might be agreeing with your SIL?

I think you and your mothers attitude to your SIL is pretty poor tbh. You both seem to be coming from the standpoint that she is a 'problem' and any issue in the relationship is her fault.

I think what is difficult for me - for both of us - is that our understanding is so partial as to what the nature of the problem is. Mum was totally in shock - to her it came entirely out of the blue. Clearly there is a problem, I'm not saying SIL herself is the problem but we can only really understand the problem if we understood SIL's point of view.

You just did it again in the post before last! Saying that she doesn't fit in with your family or do things the way your family does it. You've mentioned that there is tension but again laid it all at your SIL's door as some sort of fault in her personality.

There seems to be no sort of awareness that perhaps the root of the problem lies on both sides. You don't sound like you like her much either.

I'm having more and more sympathy for your SIL on this. It sounds like none of you like her or have been very welcoming, but when she objects to this you label her difficult.

I really think you all need to have a think about how you have treated her and what has caused this.

I don't think you will ever fully understand whatever the reasons are for your SIL to not want to be more 'friendly' with you. I have similar family dynamics and my mother would love to 'understand the issues and discuss them' but that is never going to happen and sometimes you need to accept that and not try and go over and over what someone said, how it was interpreted etc etc. It is just the way it is; you, your SIL and your DM are all very different people.

Can you answer the question about the grandchild - does your DM get to see the grandchild with your brother?

You just did it again in the post before last! Saying that she doesn't fit in with your family or do things the way your family does it. You've mentioned that there is tension but again laid it all at your SIL's door as some sort of fault in her personality

You're reading that as me blaming her but I'm just trying to get my head around why she might be feeling this way. I know it can't be as simple as a response to one comment 8 years ago - it doesn't make sense.

It doesn't sound like I like her very much? I really want to, nothing would make me happier but god knows it has been hard sometimes - not to like her, I don't think that's the right word, I really don't dislike her - but to feel closer to her. One of the last times we visited them I remember crying after we left as I felt so sad that I felt so distant from her and DB. I don't know why it is, it is something that has upset us all (mum, dad and I) over the years in various ways.

OP, it is probably a bit late now, but could you and your family take steps to improve the relationship and get closer to her? Maybe by first having an open discussion about what the issue is and then take it from there.

The short answer is: I think you should butt out. This is not your problem to solve and you are making it worse by mediating/meddling. Probably inadvertently. I expect you love your mum and may be infuriated by your brother.

But that's family dynamics. Leave it. It really isn't worth it.

I was amused by the first reply about people who 'call a spade a spade'. She was spot on. I'd say the same thing about people 'who don't suffer fools gladly.'

It's code for being fucking rude and then saying: 'What? Me?'

I do have a long answer about my own experience. I'm the favoured DIL btw so it's not what you'd expect. And I don't dislike my MIL. She's a very nice woman. I just think she lets herself down in the way she treats my SIL.

It's really going to be very long, but if you want it, just ask...

Could also be that OPs brother is happy to not see much of his mum & use SIL's relationship (or lack of) as an excuse.

You can't fix this.

You don't know what annoying or upsetting things your mother might have said to SIL over time;

You don't know what your brother has said to SIL over time about his relationship with your mother;

You don't know what your SIL thinks about the mother/son relationship herself based on what she has directly witnessed;

You don't know what your SIL thinks about family and in-laws and how much she is even bothered about having a relationship with you and your mother.

It all smacks of too little too late on your mother's part, and motivated by the fact there is a grandchild rather than wanting a good relationship with brother and SIL for its own sake. Let them sort it out, preferably face to face.

The most you can do is advise your mother to apologise, to listen and to think before she acts or speaks, and take it from there.

Sil hasn't as far as we know,said grandmother can't see her grandson. Has the idea of your brother visiting on his own with son been mooted? You mentioned that sil is in the habit of absenting herself when mil visits so she is not stopping visits.

I don't really see why you expect sil to have an emotional investment in you and your mother.

It's sound like you expect your SIL to conform to what your family's expectations are rather than liking her for who she is and what she is like.

For some reason you don't seem to understand that your parents and yours point of view of how a family should be in order to be close may be very different to hers. Do you always visit altogether? Do you have relationship with her that is seperate to your parents?

I would hate to be aware that my IL's all discussed me and our relationship in detail and found lacking!

All the speculation is pointless. Isn't it a shame that your SIL isn't really close to someone in your family who could get to the bottom of it?

Oh wait! She is.

This is for your brother to sort out, not you.

And your mother crying on phone to you, and you crying because you're not close to SIL?

Let's just say that you (and your mother!) and I have different personalities, and wouldn't be natural friends. Which may well be the case with SIL.

People who say they call a spade a spade generally mean they say what they want without regard for other people's feelings.

that. And they also are always the first to be offended when anyone does anything or says anything they don't like

Sil hasn't as far as we know,said grandmother can't see her grandson. Has the idea of your brother visiting on his own with son been mooted? You mentioned that sil is in the habit of absenting herself when mil visits so she is not stopping visits

Mum has seen GS once for a couple of hours. They live at the other end of country from Mum - she is never invited to stay in their house so has to drive her motor home up and stay on a campsite. Mum was not invited to Christening (as far as I know she doesn't even know GS was christened) despite a big event with extended family on SILs side attending (this is when I found out about mum being unwelcome, I was not allowed to mention it to her). This all came out now as mum wanted to visit around GSs birthday and was told she could not come.

I don't think brother has taken GS away anywhere on his own yet, besides which it is a long trip with a small child.

This is for your brother to sort out, not you.

It's taken him 8 years to confront the issue and so far the result is a very upset and confused mum. I'm not entirely convinced he's going to nail this one on his own.

Maybe he's ok with that as long as his wife is happy?

I think at a minimum he owes it to mum to give her an opportunity to apologise. At the moment it seems he has told mum rather less than he has told me.

At least he has actually said something now, as I was in a v awkward position.

How is he stopping her from apologising?

So in those 8+ years that your brother and SIL have been together, has your mum ever said something along the lines of "I'm so glad that things have worked out so well for you both. I can't believe what an idiot I was to think those things about SIL when you first got together."?

If not, then why on earth not?

If it's taken him 8 years to confront the issue with your mother I suspect that she is not a particularly easy person to deal with.

I think your mum needs to get on a train or plane and stay in a budget hotel when she wants to see her grandson. She can book in for a few days so she can see him a few times over the trip.

I think your Mum and you need to accept that your SIL has said that she doesn't wish to see your Mum at them moment and plan her visits to her GS around that.

I don't know what you want people to say to you, you seem to want to be advised into how you can bully her to back down, or for people just to agree with you and say how awful she is. But the fact that you seem to have this complete block of seeing how any of this could be down to your own family or how your SIL could possibly have any positive points speaks volumes I'm afraid.

I have a MIL who is prone to putting her foot in her mouth and it has stopped me from seeing her, which means she doesn't see DS either.

Right from the start she was the sort of person who 'speaks before she thinks' etc but she is also quite manipulative and likes everything her own way. If things were not as she wanted them, she would cry and FIL would shout until things were as she wanted them.

So for six or so years of my relationship with DH I had an up and down relationship with PILS, mostly we got along and I either tried to accommodate them for the sake of peace and let things go or ignored my hurt feelings for the same reasons.

And then we lost a baby to stillbirth and MIL was utterly cruel. In the guise of speaking before she thought, she argued with me about the time he was born, demanded to know when we were going to try again and then asked me if it still hurts to give birth if your baby is dead. All of this just three days after he was born. The night before our sons funeral she accused DH of being 'moody' and 'not sounding happy enough' to speak to her.

And she went on like this for the next eleven months, when we lost our second child to prematurity. And she promptly accused me of having something wrong with me, dismissed our children as 'not proper grandchildren' and went on to wonder if our baby, being premature, was born with a whole face or not.

Comments like that went on for two years, mostly whenever we were alone. Which I think shows there was a bit more thought to them than she claimed.

DH finally spoke to her and she told him she was sorry, but she never apologised to me. Instead she got worse and started to tell lies about me to the wider family and still getting in some cruel/thoughtless comments and some weird, stalkerish behaviour that made me ill and left me feeling like a prisoner in my own home.

We had to move to the other side of town, which actually still isn't far enough. BIL and SIL, who were also on the receiving end of some very intense behaviour, actually emigrated to the other side of the world and admitted the decision was helped by the way PILS behaved towards them.

And it was then, ten years after I married DH, that I finally cut them out of my life and DS's life. DH sees them occasionally but even he admits he dreads going most of the time because they are always so miserable and negative.

Anyway, my point is, you might not know the half of what has gone on, especially if your SIL managed to live with and get along with your mother for a time. Nobody wants to feel that their parent might be capable of this sort of behaviour, My DH still has this idea that things could be different if I would give his parents a 'second' chance, when in reality they have had more 'second' chances than I can count.

And I suppose it could be said that I was the one to withdraw from them. DH's family has a hard time admitting that it's because PILS push people so much. You have no choice but to back off when someone is constantly in your face pushing you back even as they try to grab hold of you and pull you closer.

Maybe it's not been like that with your Mum, perhaps it is your SIL. But perhaps it's not and at the moment all you have to go on is the comments your Mum made years ago and the fact that your DB repeated them to his wife at some point.

So the chances are, I feel it's most likely to be one of these three things. SIL has been bearing a grudge about those comments since they were first made and they have eaten away at her relationship with your Mum. Or SIL has only found out about those comments more recently and has felt shocked and upset to learn what your Mum thought of her, especially as they got on so well when they lived together, and has reacted by cutting your Mum out. Or your Mum has said and done other things, perhaps without thinking, that have broken down her relationship with your SIL.

You might never know which it is, one of those or something else. But please don't get involved. Having the wider family get involved with my estrangement from MIL has only made things much worse, it made it more difficult to repair things when things could have been repaired and now it's too late for that it's left my other relationships with DH's family strained, which has impacted on our DS too. And that's not what I wanted at all.