Bit of background
SIL and I aren’t exactly close. I largely keep my distance. We are completely different people and I find her bitchy and negative in general.
On Sunday we had a small party in my house and invited all the family. OHs sister and cousin came.
I was looking after nephew3 and DS2. Nephew went to hit my son and I said “don’t you dare!!” And he stopped. For context, nephew has behavioural issue to some extent in that he is constantly hitting and cannot play nicely. However I treat him exactly as i would treat my own.
OH cousin said “I don’t think everyone should give him into trouble. It’s not nice. It should only be his mum”. I was a bit taken aback and didn’t say anything but she repeated it again to make her point clear. I thought to myself that she was wrong but remained silent so not to cause a scene.
SIL then said “yeah me & only fools mum were talking about nephew today and I was laughing because she said he was a little bastard”. Everyone looked uncomfortable at the thought of my mum calling her grandson a little bastard. Especially the cousin. But everyone remained silent.
I couldn’t believe it as 1. My mum never swears and I knew it was a lie. And 2. Why choose to say it now when it was clear the cousin thought I was treating nephew too severely. it looked like my mum and I bullied nephew or disliked him, which ofcouse isn’t true.
Nephew is not anything to do with their side of the family. He is my sisters son.
So I ignored the comments but was really uncomfortable. The next morning I decided to ask my mum if she did say that as I wanted to know if SIL had lied or maybe my mum actually did call him that.
When I asked my mum she got very upset and claimed there was absolutely no way that she said that.
I then asked SIL why she said my mum said that and she denied it and hung up saying I’d really upset her and was not getting involved.
Not sure how to proceed. She’s supposed to be my bridesmaid and we have a wedding shopping day planned in two weeks which my mum will also be attending.
Should I have left it or was I right in asking my mum then asking SIL? Thinking I may have caused unnecessary drama but I wasn’t happy with her lying about what my mum had said especially in front of OHs family who were already voicing this disapproval of my treatment of nephew.