Brothers wife, bridges burnt. What do we do?!

[tallulahturtle]

Ok.

My brother got married last autumn and all seemed well. Had a few sketchy moments leading up to wedding where my parents were offering to pay for bits and bobs here and there and the bride seemed to take offence. Wedding happened and all fine, then my parents gently enquiry about wedding photos as they would really like to choose a few to have put in a frame. Months and months go by where my brother and his Mrs say "they are not ready yet". Eventually my brother says they are ready and this is the photographers contact details. So they order some and all fine.
The wedding video......my parents go visit my brother and Mrs and they show them the video, parents casually ask who did it. My brother tells them.

My parents ordered a copy ( they have a copy of my wedding video so thought it would be nice to have my brothers wedding too).

Last weekend on a visit they casually mention that they have got a copy.

Brothers wife goes from friendly to hostile rapidly. Goes very quiet. Parents mention it to me, I say " you are being over sensitive, she much have just been tired perhaps"

Yesterday brother phones to say please don't show anyone else the DVD.

Again phones this morning to say "please return the dvds to us as she is freaking out about it"

Ok must say, we have watched them and there is no dodgy sex scene. It's just a regular wedding video.

My parents as am I , are worried that we can never repair this. They have agreed to send the dvd to her and essentially lose £50 , but we just wonder what the hell we did wrong. Had no idea she was so sensitive about these things. Personally I would feel happy if my parents in law wanted a copy of the wedding video. At least it meant they gave a shit about me.

Anyways just looking for opinions on the whole situation as my parents have always felt her standoffish as she seems to be friendly for the first hour of a visit (we only visit every 4 months or so for half a day to go for a pub lunch for example) , then she goes all quiet as if she has had enough.

I may sound biased but my parents are not controlling or over bearing. They are just simply interested and care about them.

Just wish she could realise it. If anyone has any ideas as to how to mend this rift or even an idea of what her issue might be so we can be better prepared in future. My parents are approaching their 70s so just want everyone to be happy, life is way too short.

I don't know why people are assuming the OPs parents are going to watch and rewatch the video. In my experience you put the video in a cupboard/on a shelf and in about 20 years time it is fun to watch. You see cousin Charlie, super smooth city banker, as a snot nosed 5 year old with his shirt hanging out and chocolate cake round his mouth, Granny who is now frail with dementia and there she is as you remember her, dad when he had hair or whatever but it is fun to look back. I've got videos like that, graduations of my kids, brother's wedding etc. Haven't looked at them in years but one day they will be fun to look at.

I was having a clear out at the weekend and found a photo of me and my kids with my late mother. She died of cancer and the picture in my mind is of this frail invalid and then I looked at the photo and there she was all dressed up and happy and enjoying herself. I'm so glad no one stopped me having that photo that I haven't looked at in years.

That's lovely grannytomine :)

She sounds like an idiot. People saw her on the wedding day didn't They? Or did she hide her face? How ridiculous. I don't think your parents should apologise or do anything to try sort this out, it's just encouraging her stupidly childish behaviour.

I find the idea of a person who is seriously introverted having any kind of public wedding odd - surely you'd go and have as small a do as possible, with no photos or DVDs or guests.

tallulahturtle I'll be honest, it made me cry but I have been avoiding photos of her and I'm so glad I just came across that one and see her as the woman she was before she got ill. There was also one of one of my children with a great aunt he was really fond of so I am sending that to him. Photos improve with age I think, you need to give them a few years to mature and then they are great.

She sounds very tiresome.

EdmundCleverClogs. My God are you still here banging on in favour of the SIL. Are you the SIL?

Spoke to them earlier, as they are now on holiday I've told them to enjoy their holiday and hopefully this will all calm down and we can start over.
If they do have kids then none of us will be making any conversation like "so when are you due?" Or "do you know the sex?". We will sadly just have to avoid such inflammatory questions when all we would have meant was to simply ask a friendly question and show an interest.

Oh Grannytomine - you sound just like me! Decades on from my wedding I love the video now because all but one of my parents, aunts, uncles and grandparents have now died. It's so lovely to see my wonderful dad walk me down the isle. I don't look at me in the video, but look at the happy faces of all those who have now passed away.

Letitrain, glad it's not just me.

LucilleBluth, I'm not 'banging on' . It's very easy to call a woman who we know nothing about every name under the sun, make assumptions about her past ot what kind of parent she will be, but ultimately there is (probably) a real woman on the other side of this that has genuine reasons for why she's asked not to have this video copied. In real life (not the stereotypical universe MN lives in), most people don't do things for the sake of being nasty, and without any evidence that she has been deliberately horrible/dismissive to the op's parents in the past, I think it's rather unfair to paint her as an 'idiot' and 'not normal'.

If they do have kids then none of us will be making any conversation like "so when are you due?" Or "do you know the sex?". We will sadly just have to avoid such inflammatory questions when all we would have meant was to simply ask a friendly question and show an interest.

How on earth have you come to this conclusion? You seem to have gone from trying to build bridges to deciding to tar her as 'that sort of person' in a few posts. This is still your brother's wife, even if you evidently think little of her.

As a mother of sons I am finding MN very depressing reading at the moment. . I've always welcomed my in laws to my life, I don't see my own family as my proper family and them as nosey interlopers. We are all family, we all love each other. I shall be so very sad if any future daughter in law automatically relegates me to the position of necessary evil to be barely tolerated because I gave birth to her husband.

My parents and in-laws were given a small album of wedding photos of their choice as part of our wedding package and they have copies of our video (and it is a video!) which we gave to them and our siblings. I have a copy of my brother's video too and it's very precious because it contains footage of my Dad who died shortly afterwards.

This sounds like a 'control and putting people firmly in their place' issue to me. It's a shame your brother panders to it.

I like my PIL's and I think MN is far too anti in law at times BUT I think that if you are serious about building bridges you should v v strongly suggest that your parents respect her wishes and don't copy the video.

I agree with pp who have suggested this is likely to be linked to insecurity about her physical appearance- I feel like that sometimes myself and maybe she was talked into having a video or thought it would be better than it is. I can also see why she would have watched it with your parents but not wanted copies to be made and possibly passed around the family. It's an odd insecurity to have to explain - my mil has a wedding photo of me on her wall that I hate to the extent that I can't look at it but I haven't said anything because I just think I'll look vain and ridiculous.

I also don't think it's that odd to want to keep some control over a video that she has commissioned and paid for. I think it would have been better if your parents had asked directly if they could order a copy.

I have never even looked at our wedding photos, that's how strong my dislike of photos of me is.

I say back off and leave it - if she's self conscious she's probably really unhappy about it. Don't push the issue. The fact they are getting a copy and keeping quiet is really not ok.

To be honest I sympathise with her and I think your side of the family sounds like they need to be more sensitive to boundaries.

I have to agree with the posters who believe this does not bode well for the marriage. I have a great friend who had almost the same situation when her son married. Initially, everyone got on well and they really loved their DIL and thought their son very lucky to have met her.

Over a period of time though things changed. Visits became briefer and she became distant. Their son covered up for her saying she was shy, didn't like meeting people and couldn't for example eat in front of others so family occasions such as Christmas fell away or became brief visits to drop off presents and then scuttle away.

When children came along they were hardly able to see their grandchildren despite their very obvious love for the children and their generosity. They were sidelined.

During this time attempts to find out from their son if they had done something wrong met with no real answer and it was obvious he was deeply embarrassed so they stopped asking.

Eventually their son was no longer able to see his siblings as this upset his wife and soon he could only ever have quick conversations with his parents. They described him at this time as having a haunted look.

One day he told them he had been to see a solicitor. Turns out she had been emotionally abusing him for years. Seperating partners from friends and family is typical behaviour. In order to get the partner to 'agree' or at least 'understand' why they are doing this they typically site innocent actions such as OP describes as outrages that no person should have to tolerate.

I have a very grave feeling that this will happen to your Db OP. It is vital that you keep contact with him and do not allow yourselves to be cut adrift! He will probably need you more than you can imagine one day.

Abused people begin to believe that they are stupid and can't trust their own judgements. This is how psychopaths gain control of them. Please be very very wary and vigilant.

Now she's an abusive psychopath?? Really! Good lord I hope she never comes across this thread, it's shocking the assumptions people on the internet make about others on little to no information.

Edmund

Where exactly did I say the sil was a psychopath? Please tell me. It is indeed shocking the assumptions people make. In this case, the assumptions you have made about my post.

Imo your parents sound a bit intrusive ordering someone else's wedding video without asking. I'd actually be annoyed at the company for letting anyone other than DH or I buy a copy of OUR wedding video.

From reading your first post, I'd say this is one of many things that she feels they have overstepped the mark on and I agree with the previous poster who said that having the whole family visit is too much. Again my sisters in law visit with my PIL and I find it very uncomfortable, forced and weird.

*Edmund
*
Its baffling how everyone is assuming that the parents are sweet, lovely warm people -
I'm sure they are very charming, but so was Ted Bundy

No smoke without fire

*Cannonfodder
*
It was a poster called Voiceforreason

"This is how psychopaths gain control of them. Please be very very wary and vigilant"

nowhere in Edmunds post did they say it was you.

CannonFodder, sorry but where did you get the impression I was referring to any of your posts?

Oh apologies. . I said my sil is one. I missed the other post. Bit of a touchy subject for me.

CannonFodder, that's ok, I just became very confused for a second! I'm arguing with so many people here, easy enough to get muddled .

Thanks for understanding