AIBU in not wanting anything to do with my SIL?

[Momoftwoscallywags]

I will state for the record I am not a fan of my SIL, but I have always wanted her to have a relationship with my children.....until recently!

She has always been a very "jealous" person which was amusing when we were in our 20's but not when you reach your late 40's. This jealously makes her suspicious of everything that is said to her, she takes everything personally and has absolutely no sense of humour. This makes for some interesting time's between her and my DH, who as her brother, seems to deliberately "bait" her with his sarcastic sense of humour. I think a lot of the time it's because she doesn't understand his humour so this makes her feel stupid so she retaliates by having yet another strop.

We had another strop today but this time she went too far and began shouting at my 6 year old son and calling him a liar , so my husband told her to stop and basically didn't stop her leaving escorted her out of our home.

She had her strop in front of my DH, my DS6, DS4, her Mom, her own DS9 and DS12, while I was upstairs getting changed, as I had just come home from work. I ended up shouting down the stairs, while hopping around trying to take my trousers off, for them to stop it as I did not want them arguing in front of the children, only to hear the door slam and she was gone!

When I came downstairs to find out what had happened my DH was furious, apparently his DN12 had thrown my DS6 shoes into the bushes outside and DH, jokingly, had took him to task. Everyone was giggling because he was being funny when , apparently, my SIL just blew up accusing my DS6 (much to his shock) of lying and saying my DS6 was always saying nasty things about DN12! Flabbergasted my DH gave as good as he got and that's why she left, taking her kids with her.

She has done this before and the last time it happened she didn't speak to DH (or us) for 6 months it was bliss.

DH has just said "fuck her" but that doesn't make for good future relations but I am inclined to agree with him as I am not sure I want my kids to have to deal with her if she is always like this. I can't remember a time when spending time with their Aunt hasn't ended with her having a strop.

So AIBU in not wanting anything to do with my SIL?

Am I reading the same thread??

On the one hand you have a nightmare drama queen of a sil who throws tantrums at the drop of a hat, who seems to have mood changes on a knife edge and who will emotionally manipulate her mother by witholding access to grandchildren in order to get her own way. I cannot believe she would be so threatened by you taking your MIL out for a shopping trip that she threw a tantrum over it and stopped her daily help - most people are begging for siblings and their families to share the "daily help" required.

On the other side you seem to have a fairly normal husband. Who doesn't dance around eggshells when he has to meet his sister and who doesn't enable her behaviour by altering his.

I can't understand how people have formed the conclusion that this is all down to your DH and then carried on with that but I suspect it's the usual AIBU trend of the thread continuing along after the first few posters set the tone.

I would go NC with your SIL because she sounds like far too much hard work for all of you. I would continue to see your MIL and continue to be bright and breezy (and not stand for SIL tantrums for a moment) if SIL happens to drop in while there.

Hic

threads are subjective, posters generally post from experience, your views don't match mine but that doesn't make either view any less valid.

by saying that posters are following a trend belittles their experiences.

Your DH sounds like a sarcastic twat. Isn't this emotional abuse? How long has the emotional abuse really been going for?

Thanx bbj

I can't understand how people have formed the conclusion that this is all down to your DH and then carried on with that but I suspect it's the usual AIBU trend of the thread continuing along after the first few posters set the tone

Well as everyone's aware, on AIBU you only get the story from one side, and that side will inevitably be biased. The person asking AIBU is quite likely to try to skew information so that in fact they appear relatively reasonable. The OP didn't include some of the SIL's "tantrums" until later posts, after the first few posts had largely been against her DH.

So people are often left reading between the lines and thinking "ok, if the SIL had her chance to speak, how different would all this look?" If you take the OP's story at face value, it might look like an exasperated DH dealing with a long-term issue. However, I've been on the receiving end of that kind of niggling sarcasm which is intended to provoke a reaction in such a way that the person doing the niggling can then say "oh but it was a bit of a joke, don't take it seriously". If it goes on long term, it's just fucking annoying and wears you down. Fortunately my brother grew out of it in his late teens. I'm sure though that my family think I fly off the handle "unprovoked" when the reality is years of provocation which I put up with (because I was told if I ignored my brother he'd stop. He didn't) until finally it's too much and I go off on one.

It sounds like a warped family dynamic with neither side being guilt free.