Hi all, first time poster here looking for an independent opinion on a family rift.
DH and his DSis have never had a great relationship as they actually have very little in common and fail to see eye to eye on many things. Never really caused arguments, just means we don’t see her and her 3 DC very often. Her eldest DS (17) can’t live with her and youngest two DCs due to his violent outbursts. Due to this, I won’t allow my DS (3) to have contact with eldest. I do have a tendency to be a bit PFB with him but MIL did agree with me about this a few months ago.
Over Christmas, MIL organised a lunch at her house for us, my parents (staying with us for Christmas as live at the opposite end of the country) and DH’s DBro plus partner. She would then have SIL and children over in the evening after we’d left. Fine, no problem, everyone happy. On the actual day my mother’s DBro died unexpectedly in the early hours of the morning and my mum and I were asked to spread the news amongst the wider family. My DM said she still wanted to go to MIL’s as she’d gone to a lot of trouble but she would need to be able to answer her phone if needed. Again, all fine. We went and, despite everything, had a nice lunch with good company. We were getting ready to leave at about 4:30ish when MIL was going to collect SIL and her DCs. She said we should stay and see them but my DM still had phone calls to make and our DS was exhausted and wanted to go home so we left.
My SIL has now got very angry with us about this, saying me and DH were very ignorant. She’s blocked us from contacting her. I hate that there’s this rift in the family and want to make things right but was I really BU?