Hi 🤗 I'm new to mumsnet, I was advised to post my thread here. If anyone has the patience to read through this long post and offer advice that would be really appreciated.
So I've been with my husband for 9 years and we have young children together.
He has 2 older sisters and his mum, they are very close and spend a lot of time around each other. In my opinion they baby him, they never call him out on his behaviour or see anything other than a halo above his head.This I can ignore, if there happy to let him talk to them a certain way so be it. But they expect me to do the same. I call him out if he talks to me like crap and all three of them will jump on me and have something to say. There have been so many mean comments and situations I have had to deal with and despite the fact that I don't like them (although not always this way) I have been nothing but friendly and nice to them.
It started after our first was born, Sister-in-law 2 would come around and ask my husband to help her fix something and hours later he'd still be there, this kept happening and every time it would turn out that she had people over, a couple of times she had been having a big barbecue in the garden with drinks and food. I knew I was being left out by her on purpose, I'd already figured out by this point she had something against me. One of the times she was on her way to get him I asked him why she never invited me and the baby. Both his sisters have kids and this was their niece so didn't they at least want to be around their brothers child. He asked her when she turned up if we could come too and she said there was no point it was a quick 10 minute job. That was that, my husband didn't bat an eyelid and hours later he was home, fed and tipsy after another group day out. It hurt me. Another thing is that SIL 2 best friend and my husband had a near romance in the past and once on a night out this friend approached him and said she was ready to make a go of things and he should just leave me and the two of them could get together. I had been standing there with SIL 2 and this girl five minutes beforehand having a chat with a very pregnant stomach and a fresh wedding band on my finger. My husband told me and I was disgusted. Who would try to poach a heavily pregnant woman's husband whose standing feet away!
SIL 2 would have this friend at her house on occasions I was left home and husband was over there. I was also upset that my husband thought it was an okay situation. Roles reversed it would not have happened.
I obviously was not a fan of this friend which led to SIL 2 deciding I was crazy jealous and didn't like my husband having near any other women. My husband could see no wrong in anything SIL 2 did and he'd tell me I took her comments the wrong way or it was in my head, I was far too sensitive etc.
SIL 1 is the "nicer" one of the two. She can be friendly sometimes and early days we got on well. SIL 1 actually told me after a few too many drinks that SIL 2 slates me behind my back, hates the fact that SIL 1 spends time with me and does in fact exclude me on purpose. Also the fact she dislikes me so much is that by marrying and starting a family with her brother I was taking him away from her. SIL 1 is no angel though. She has insulted me on numerous occasions, about my parenting, the way I clean my house, she can really go below the belt. When my eldest was born I was so petrified of washing this tiny baby in the bath, plus I was in a lot of pain so bending over was a problem. I wanted my husbands help to do it but he wouldn't despite not having a job at this time so he was home all day. After about 2 weeks of being home from the hospital I did it alone whilst sobbing through the whole thing. SIL 1 knew about all of this and went above and beyond to make digs about me not washing my child. I mean really nasty. It lasted years! She would pick my baby up and sniff her and if people were around she would say "ew she stinks". She would check her ears, her fingernails and if all was well she would look hard to find something I must have missed. One occasion I picked my child up from nursery and SIL 1 smelt poo when she went near her, I thought oh here we go but she wouldn't give in so I took her into the toilet and checked her. She was only 2 and a half years old and the nursery had let her wipe herself which she obviously couldn't do properly. I cleaned her up and explained. SIL 1 picked her up in front of a guest and said in a baby voice to my child "that's not what happened is it, mummy just doesn't wash you properly". Another time I remember vividly is going to his mums for dinner. That morning they'd had a bath (I had all my kids by this point) and we stopped at a garage on the way and my husband bought them a lollipop each. My youngest got it in her hair at one side. Within 10 minutes of being in the door MIL was making a scene about what was in her hair, SIL 1 came over to investigate. I said 3 times in a row what it was and the two of them blanked me as if I wasn't even there and then began to discuss with my youngest that mummy hadn't bothered to clean her or give her hair a wash. My husband was there and his advice was "you always take things to heart,just ignore it."
Things came to a head with SIL 1 when
her youngest and my youngest were messing around on the couch, she told my child to calm down (not hers), they continued to mess around and her youngest is 4 years older than my youngest child. She again told mine to stop and that she would smack her if she continued. Both children carried on and she grabbed my child and smacked her across the bum twice. For the first time since knowing her I stood my ground. I grabbed my little girl and told her not to ever put her hands on my children again and that her son was messing around too so why the hell hadn't she dealt with her own child. She did apologise and I think it was more shock that I opened my mouth but she backed down immediately. After this though she was never the same with me, the friendly spurts disappeared altogether and she joined forces with SIL 2 in having a good old bitchfest about me on a regular occasion.
My MIL loves to makes comments about white people to me. She told me that it wouldn't have been her choice for her kids to go for white partners (all 3 of her kids did), she wasn't thrilled about it but as long as her kids were happy she was ok.
Another occasion I was washing up at her house after dinner and she came in to check on me and told me that there was no way she was going to let me wash her dishes the way a white family raise their kids to do it. Not in her house. She has told me that I need to be raising my kids the way hers were raised and completely disregards the fact that I have family too. Because I was raised by a white family and they let their kids do what they want and install no discipline among other things she feels. Her opinion is her own and she's entitled to it, but to try and disregard my upbringing and my family's ways is simply disrespectful.
She has stood in my face and poked me in the shoulder whilst telling me that she is my kids grandmother and she will raise her voice to them, she will smack them if she sees fit and if I don't like it then tough there is nothing I can do about it. Her husband had to pull her away from me and yell at her to stop it. She has a huge problem with me buying my kids toys. She has even said to me that I need to call my parents and tell them she said they are no longer allowed to buy their grandchildren presents.
She has insulted my mum who she's met briefly a handful of times. I was furious but received an evil glare from my husband who again saw no wrong. I have always been friendly and nice to his family despite everything and I have on a million occasions looked after their kids, sometimes for 2 or 3 days in a row. Both SIL's and MIL will never asks me to do something, they will tell me. Eg. SIL 1 got a temp job and instead of "any chance you could watch the kids for a few weeks..." It was "by the way I'm working now so your gonna be having my kids while I work". When I question these things they look at me like I have lost my mind and if I say no, they want to know why, what am I doing instead, family are supposed to help each other". The "family" thing is a way for them to use me. Especially SIL 2, they do not see me as family and SIL 2 has made plenty of comments about why do I always have to be at family events. However I'm always family when they want something. SIL 2 lost her license and told me I'd need to drive her to work everyday. Her job was completely out of the way from my house and when petrol money was mentioned she was livid that a "family" member would want to take petrol money from her. So I'm supposed to fund her travel to work out of my family's pocket. I ended up getting really poorly a few days later, I was in a bad way and the doctor told me in no uncertain terms that I needed rest and lots of it. It was basically down to stress, and so my parents came to stay with me (they live 2+ hours away). Not one of my husbands sisters or mum contacted me- their "family" member to see how I was doing. A week later we were all at a friends house and his sisters sat and giggled together whilst looking over at me, and ignored me the majority of the time we were there. It was such playground crap but it made me feel really uncomfortable and self conscious. The one thing SIL 2 did have to say to me was how was I getting my kids to school now I was ill. I told her my dad was doing it and she asked me if I could get my dad to ferry her to work until I was well enough to start doing it.
This is when things came to a head with her. When I was back on my feet (our kids go to the same school) she began ignoring me on the school run. I didn't mind one bit, by this point I couldn't stand her anymore. But then she began ignoring my kids and it upset them. It confirmed to me the sort of person she was. Those children are her family. No matter my feelings towards her I would never ignore her kids. I sent her a message to say that there is no love lost between the two of us but there's no need for her to ignore the children. The message was friendly enough but she replied to tell me that I wasn't right in the head and admittedly I lost it. I sent her a message and didn't hold back what I thought of her. Things were then ok for a while. Very recently she got a job and I was told I'd have to look after one of her kids after school. One month into doing it her partner (who I like) gave me some money to say thanks. I told him he didn't need to buy he insisted. Once SIL 2 was told her partner had paid me, he said she was absolutely livid with me and would be having a word.
Both SIL's make digs about how lazy I am.
I own a dishwasher and a car and call me crazy but I tend to use them, this makes me unbelievably lazy to them and they make numerous digs about this. I sometimes feel very uncomfortable and even intimidated when it's 2 or 3 of them and I'm always alone when they start.
The hardest part is how the three of them try to overrule me with my children. I have made it clear that if my kids misbehave they can be told off, but they are not to smack my kids. SIL 2 knows this and will constantly say "if you do that again I WILL smack you" in front of my face.
She once pulled my Childs sock off and I heard my child say "mummy says we're not allowed to take our socks off" her response to this was a hearty laugh followed by "I'd like to see your mummy try and stop me".
I was so angry at that and my husband calmed me down and told me to leave it.
MIL will guilt trip me and my husband if we don't let her make the rules with our children, she has even made a point about grandparents having rights and insinuated if she's not happy she would go that route.
Obviously over nine years this a just a few but they stick in my mind the most.
Thanks if you stuck with this post xxx