Is this passive aggressive?

[justakiss]

Sister in law. Was the only girl around (three sons) until me. Didn't really make an effort with me and looked down her nose a bit (very subtly)

Then a few things that started to upset me, but I can be a sensitive twat. They had a baby and she got everyone little gifts from the baby at Christmas time. Nothing for me (even though I was engaged at this point and there for the Christmas Day celebrations, I was the only one in the room not included in that) then my then fiances bday. She put up a collage on the wall at his parents for a bday celebration. Sort of documenting his life so far. The last section of pictures were of him with her and his brothers at her wedding. There was one picture out of about 40 of him and me. Even though we were engaged to be married and been together over three years. When she kept gushing about how much work she had put into it and how she had dashed down to boots to get photos printed out that morning I said nothing. She said "oh it was hard to find any of you two together!" Even though she is friends with me on Facebook and there are absolutely loads of pics of us on there. My best friend said "there is no way that was an accident, you would make the effort. She's a twat."I could go on, lots of little passive aggressive things, like pointing out i had made mistakes on our wedding invite with the time. Then on the morning of the wedding, instead of texting me good luck or anything...she text saying she was looking forward to the day. Was it a cash or card bar as we hadn't mentioned?! Yes that's the kind of text I have time to respond to when getting ready for a big wedding! Problem is she is really outgoing and vivacious and comes off looking like a ray of sunshine and I feel like a bitter miserable cow. I know I should take it with a pinch of salt but every gathering has me on the defensive to her little comments when to be honest I actually just would like to get on with her (which we do on the surface of things!) what would you do?

I was not her brothers wife.

It is not her brother.

It is her brother in law and I was his fiancé.

But i understand the comment that I wasn't actually an official aunty.

I still think she purposefully excluded me. That's how it felt and how I see it.

OP, I sympathise even if others don’t. Next Christmas, pack of bath cubes or notelets for her, job done. If you can get it from Poundland even better.

TBH each example on its own, but put them all together and i can see why you would be a little upset about it.

I think other comments are a bit horrible towards you - maybe you do come across as a little sensitive, but in your shoes i think i would feel a little hurt to.

I'd take a step back from her, and from hereon give yourself a break and don't take things personally. I wouldn't say SIL is passive-aggressive, but she is certainly thoughtless towards you x

Sorry that was meant to be "each example on its own is not that bad"
x

Lol! Thanks for the Poundland comment. It is nice some people can maybe see where I am coming from!

And that's exactly it, all these things combined make me feel this way.

YANBU I have had exactly the same situation. I married one of three brothers and sis-in-law had been the only female (apart from dmil). I always bought her presents for birthdays, xmas before I married into the family but she never bought me anything. She gave presents out to everyone else and always left me out. Refused to come on nights out as a foursome or cancelled at short notice and when eventually confronted about her treatment of me by another family member stated "I will be different towards her when they are actually married", well, 20 years of marriage later and she still not only "forgets" my birthday but also my dc's, which I find more upsetting than her ignorance towards me. I always send xmas and birthday presents to her dc's as the way I see it, its not their fault their mother is so mean and I love them because they are my nieces. I found once I stopped having any expectations of her then she no longer had the power to hurt me. The main thing is that I have a good relationship with my dh and the rest of his family, she just shows herself up with her petty jealousy. It's a shame really as we could have been good friends but it's her loss and too many years have gone by now for things to change. Just get on with your own life and try to have as little contact with her as possible - by leaving you out she only shows herself up. Good Luck x

Thanks for that. I'm sorry it must be even worse when children are involved. And she even admitted her treatment of you!

That's exactly what I said when the xmas present and photo thing happened. That she knew exactly what she was doing and she should be embarrassed to act so unkindly. It actually made
Me feel pretty good about myself in a weird way as I know I wouldn't behave like that.

She doesn't consider you part of the family in the same way she is part of the family. She is doing small things to make sure you know your place. If you dare to have children I imagine she'll ramp this up some more as her children will be in competition with her children.

It will be exhausting if you let her get at you. All you can do is drown her with kindness and smile, smile, smile. Otherwise the only person that will suffer will be you.

• your children

She sounds like a pain in the backside. Focus on your own close family and friends. My friends and my own small family are the ones I focus on. I have nothing/very little to do with my tiny circle of in laws.

Hi OP,

I, personally, think she is doing it on purpose.

My SIL was the same, only g/f in the family of two brothers until I rocked up about 2 or 3 years later.

She did some very weird stuff to mark her territory but she was much more obvious about it.

It upset me at first because my only sibling abused me when we were growing up and it was horrible to walk into a situation where there was someone else who had it in for me for no reason.

As pp said, it wasn't personal as such - she would have done it to whoever my DH was going out with. For e.g. her and BIL turned up to the dinner DH's parents arranged for me to meet everyone 2 hours later in a restaurant and then proceeded to ignore me..for about 9 months. I mean, they wouldn't look at me, acknowledge me, say hello or goodbye to me. So weird. They didn't know me!

There was a major falling out about 10 years ago and we've had nothing to do with either of them since. It's been beautiful!!

So my advice to you is - set yourself free and don't bother trying to be friends with her. She's not worth it.

Don't take it to heart. She's either thoughtless or mean. Either way, the only way you will come out if this with credibility is to ignore it, be kind/polite and be yourself.

I have a strange relationship with my SIL. I was expecting to get on really well with her as my DP said I would. Instead she has made quite a few passive aggressive jibes about various things. On their own none of them are significant but over time I feel like she really dislikes the fact that I have joined her wider family. The backstory is that DP had an ex she was really close to and she was very hurt by the ex after their break up.

Also, we both became mums at a similar time which I coped ok with and she found incredibly tough despite having loads of local support. Strangely, she has told mutual friends how great she thinks I am but face-to-face can be quite cutting!

I have asked many friend for advice and the general consensus is to take a step back, be patient in getting to know each other and try to see her point of view. Her long held role has changed since you came along, and, whether it's right or wrong, she feels threatened by the new dynamic (not you personally). Once she knows you all that will melt away and you'll probably both forget this phase!

Would you really have wanted a baby footprint though?
Much as I adore my dn, I don't really want that sort of thing from them, they take up space and if you end up with 16 dn what are you going to do with 32 of them if you and your dh receive one each for them all? Tile the bathroom? And if you don't display them you end up potentially hurting feelings. I'd assume that the present was for both of you and be thankful you didn't get one.

The first grandchild/niece/nephew etc is more exciting that subsequent ones for everyone except the parents of the subsequent ones. If she does it again with the second child you'll probably see people rolling their eyes quietly.

I do feel for you, OP, probably because I react in the same way! I felt the way you describe on the day of my DSis’s wedding to her second DH - a joyous occasion after her horrible first marriage. She left from our house to go to the church along with the bridesmaids. When it came to the Thank yous during the speeches, I was the only one who wasn’t thanked, and that hurt. Then embarrassingly my DSis noticed that I was fighting tears and I managed to fob her off about the reason.

That was clearly an oversight and I got a thank you pressie from my DSis afterwards. But you react how you react and it’s hard not to take things personally sometimes.

Your SIL will probably never be a close friend and maybe she has been excluding you, not giving you a Christmas present was quite unkind, I think. The rest of it not so much. But put it all together and yes she does sound like she’s possibly being passive aggressive towards you.

But she can’t exclude you from the family, can she?? You’re with her BIL and there’s nothing she can do about that.

in your OP you do come across a bit precious. HOWEVER.... sure it’s totally plausible she feels threatened and is beating you down with her dainty little brush. REGARDLESS... bringing this up with anyone would make sound like a petty betty, won’t win you any fans or favours. my MIL doesn’t particularly care for me and every now and again gently slights me. my approach towards her is pitch perfect welcoming politeness. i invite her to things, involve her with my baby, the mask never slips. the only way to win in this situation is to quite simply let it wash over you & respond in kind like a stepford bitch. then I regale my mum with the tales and we cackle and she promises not to die first - that is my reward!

It doesnt matter fo yu are 'officially' family or not. Yu didn't exclude one person form the gift giving at Christmas.
Gish, I didn't even do itmwith a friend of mine who find herself in her own at Christmas and that I,therefore, invited.

The photo thingy is crap. Either it was totally planned and she didn't really want you in there. Or she is completely scattered and actually DID only go to do the photos etc on the morning, wo much preparation. In which case, it doesn't look vertu good either TBH. More like a quickly throw together gift wo much taking even though it's meant to be looking like that. Hmm....

The time at the wedding? It depends how you ask. Asking 'can I check if xx is at 11.00am. I thought I was 12.00pm' is different than 'I think youve made a mistake there. Xx is supposed to be at 12.00 not 11.00'

I do think that anxiety makes it much hayrides to distance yourself from people like this. I do think it's perfectly ok to tell people when they go too far. Assertiveness is your friend there.

OP you sound high maintenance self involved and highly strung.

Wow. What a complete arse hole response.

She spelt it out to you before during and after the writing of her original post.
She clearly said she was over sensitive and aware of it.

She didn't storm into SIL home and tell her what for.

She gathered her thoughts, considered the fact that it might be a reflection on her and her sensitivities and came on here for clarification.

Instead of pointing out that yes indeed it was her rather than SIL you tore her down with those comments.

Does it make you feel really good and warm inside when you tear down someone who has already explained that they are oversensitive?

OP I get where you are coming from. She is a prize twat. She knows what she is doing but it's in such subtle ways, way too subtle to call her out on. She wants to be queen bee and keep you in your place as she sees it. She's figured out how to push your buttons too. And she will any chance she gets.

I would either ignore her slights or as and when things happen say something. Don't expect her to acknowledge or admit her twatishness though, she will deny, deny, deny whilst smiling sweetly. I've met her kind before.

I think you're getting a hard time on here OP and while I don't know if I'd go so far as calling her PA, I think that either her dislike of you is showing in subtle ways or she has exceptionally poor manners.

Gift: could be an oversight but rude not to acknowledge you in some way. It's a very awkward thing to be excluded whether intentionally or not, but in her shoes I'd have been mortified.
Photos: I've done a birthday collage and it is the devils work to get it right because everyone has their own perspective. But you didn't bring it up, she did, which suggests she grasped your perspective just fine.
Invitation: basic manners would have you compliment the invitation before you point out the error.

But OP, you're going to wear yourself out overthinking this kind of thing. She doesn't like you, but that's ok. Don't make that a value judgement about you. We can't expect everyone to like us. You are giving her power over you. Try just shrugging it off as bad manners, or just "her way" and even if she is trying to get at you, so what? If you can step out of the dynamic (even in the privacy of your thoughts) you'll be happier for it. she says after years of counselling

I think a number of people on this thread sound way over sensitive.

I have a difficult relationship with my own SIL (DH’s SIL in my case too). We get on fine now, 15 years on, but at first I felt continually unfavourably compared with her. Although that was my issue more than hers because at that time I was infertile whilst she had 5 children.

She made relations between us very cool for a while when she criticised us for going through IVF because of the ‘spare embryos’ there would be. (There weren’t any eggs at all in the event.) We adopted our DDs in the end, so life has moved on. She still has a tendency to rub me up the wrong way at times but I’m used to her.

Agree dingleberries

OP I've been through similar & yanbu! Women do get a 'feeling' about whether other women like them or not.

There is nothing worse then somebody deliberately being unkind/in thoughtful/hurtful THEN doing it behind a sweet smile

My advice to you OP is try not to let it upset you, ignore & rise above it.

Kill her with kindness.

It is good to know lots of people can see my point of view. I am confident in my reading of people and I know as much as I am oversensitive and a little defensive, I am also self aware and aware of others. There is no way she wasn't trying to say, you aren't family....

It’s a shame if you don’t become close to your SIL, but at the end of the day she can’t hurt you unless you let her.

"There is no way she wasn't trying to say, you aren't family"

You wasn't though and that was the dilemma. She was giving presents to the family. Does she get the item engraved with just your name, which would cause offence, or leave you out. She is dammed if she does and doesn't.

The rest is you overthinking things.

You should have started things off after your Wedding with a clean slate. You are looking for offence.