I cannot handle my sister in law and I think it'll make me absolutely lose my mind.

[LH2016]

Hi wise ones, please help me! To cut a long story short my SIL is a little older than me in her early forties, not in a relationship, and no kids. She's bossy, arrogant, opinionated and always makes me feel like shit. No filter or respect for me being her brother's wife, even though she wouldn't dare talk to the other SIL the way she talks to me. She corrects my grammar, tells me what to say and not to say, and then I thought, oh well she'll get better when we have kids because she wouldn't dare correct my parenting. I have had a difficult time telling my husband for the last seven years how she makes me feel and he basically always excuses her and never has my back. ONCE he picked her up on something. Never again. He always finds an excuse.
Yesterday she said really aggressively I do hope you aren't giving him too much fruit juice. I said, excuse me? I was so shocked. She goes on about it being the leading cause of hospital admissions. My husband starts rambling about how it's ok because we use a straw and I'm like WTF this was your chance to tell her to STFU as we are not idiots and we have it covered thanks, and so I tell him how out of order it was in the car on the way home and then I'm told his family is off limits and then we had a huge row and I called her an interfering bit*h. I think that's pretty good going once in seven years. I am his family but feel like the lowest level on the pecking order because he will NEVER correct her. So he said ok, I'll call her and tell her what she said was out of order. But then it'll get back to the MIL, the BILs and I'll be the horrible person, so guess what, I told him not to bother because of how hard it will be for HIM. So she still is free to carry on. I hate her with my every ounce of energy and live in fear that when my MIL dies, we will inherit this miserable, opinionated arrogant woman to come and ruin our Christmas and Easter and children's birthdays, She makes me feel like shit CONSTANTLY. It rips me apart and despite having a fairly good chat to clear the air for a few hours last night, the upshot is husband still thinks I should just 'challenge her respectfully' next time she does something but I know even the smack down I gave her yesterday - well you don't have a toddler so all this theoretical parenting is easy isn't it - won't be enough to stop her because she has no respect for me. My mum hates her, my friends hate her, I just can't handle it. I don't even know what I want here, there's no answer, I just cannot deal with it.

If you want something done properly, do it yourself. Don't wait for your husband to stand up for you, he's clearly a bit of wet lettuce. Next time he pipes up bring her down a notch. Tell her to butt out. What's the worst that can happen? She'll get pissed off? Her relatives will pissed off? Meh so what

Exactly - call her out on her comments. Tell her to get back to you when she has kids, tell her to fuck off if you feel the need. You married your Dh (wimp that he is) not his family. You are not obliged to pander to them or take any shit from them.

Personally I would not be in her company - don't visit her, don't invite her to your house. If Dh wants to see his family let him visit them. If they are at your house on his invitation, you can go visit your own family/friends. You don't have to see her.

Fruit juice isn’t the leading cause of hospital admissions and it’s not fucking crack cocaine. My god, people are weird about what other people choose to feed their kids.

OP, I have a mad SIL and life got infinitely better once I called her out a few times. Try it, it’s very liberating. You don’t have to be rude or abusive, but just stand your ground, tilt your head and say something like ‘well that’s just not true, is it?’ Or ‘please tell me again how you’re an expert on childcare?’

Watchingthetelly you are brilliant.
BlankTimes - will be remembering those and getting them out on autopilot :-)

She's a nightmare who nobody has ever pulled up by the sounds of it. I'm wondering why you feel that you can't put appropriate boundaries up around her though? Going from saying nothing for years to quite an aggressive reply and then complaining to your hubby for pacifying the situation then stopping him from backing you up later has left you in a no win situation.

Try assertive and not aggressive, as often as you need. "Oh, thanks for the offer but we don't want parenting tips from friends and family, thanks."

A deep breath and a few seconds to consider your response is no bad thing. Allowing somebody to feel shame because of their own bad manners is no bad thing, and other people's responses to you asserting reasonable boundaries are their responsibility not yours.

and now I'm worrying I might be overstepping your boundaries too

I wouldn't bother thinking about what the in laws would think - I'm sure they know your character by now and I'm sure they have witnessed how she has treated you over the years.

I would also 100% stand up for yourself and almost treat her how I would a child in telling her how to behave around you as she's clearly incapable. For example, you could directly say 'that's rude/unnecessary/crass/disrespectful/unkind', 'that is not upto you to dictate, SIL', 'I'm not in school, please do not correct my grammar even if it's incorrect as it is annoying', 'I'm allowed to say what I would like to, given that my words aren't impolite and hurtful -insert pointed stare-', 'I'm trying to teach my child to be polite, respectful and kind, so please can you watch how you address or talk to me', 'I feel quite bullied when you say things like that', 'I am the mother/we are the parents so ultimately it is up to me/us how we raise our children. You will be able to do the same if or once you have children', 'please could we talk about something else as you are making me uncomfortable' and so forth. Look her right in the eye as you say these things.

She sounds like a nightmare and you have a lot of patience but she is bullying you. I would cut down contact also as she is extremely rude and you don't want your child to learn her shitty behaviour. I would also turn it around on your husband and ask him how he would feel after years of her saying this to him or if one of your family members did all that to him. Would he like it if she treated your kid like that? If I didn't feel as though my partner wouldn't step up when I'm being bullied, in front of him by his relative for so long, it would really make me think negatively about him.

I have been known to blame my husband if I want to get out of something without an argument - "It's my husband's idea to treat his daughter", "it makes my husband happy", "my husband likes it".

There is status in being a wife. Use it. Remember that she isn't one. It also implies the intimacy of your relationship which is something she has no part of and, hopefully, has no answer to. Don't use your husbands name, use the phrase "my husband".

YippeeKayakOtherBuckets - god I love you :-)

Ladies honestly thank you ALL for cheering me up and making me laugh .... :-)

Fruit juice is the leading cause of hospital admissions? Is she on glue?

Assertiveness OP. Train yourself and arm yourself with assertive responses with a good book like 'A Woman In Your Own Right' by Anne Dickson (i think that's her name). I got mine from Amazon. It's literally the only way to survive these people. Don't expect your dh to do it for you, but equally if you find him not to be in your corner generally, that's a separate issue to address once you've mastered the assertiveness.

XXVaginaAndAUterus and TheSandGroper - solid advice. Thank you. I certainly have left myself in a no win situation and should have got him to call her and made him bloody squirm and do something for once. And yes, I love the idea of MY HUSBAND being thrown into conversation. Thank you both

You don’t need him to stick up for you, though it would be better if he did!

You need to stick up for yourself. Every time.

Why on earth would you have her a Xmas if your MIL dies? Sounds like there are plenty of other relatives - and even if there aren’t, not your problem.

I would tell your husband that you have now officially had ENOUGH and you WILL be pulling her up every time.

First time:

• SIL, please do not correct my speech, it’s rude

Second:

• SIL, I have told you before not to correct my grammar, it is rude (see how the dropped the please after the first time?)

Third:

• SIL, are you REALLY correcting my grammar again? How many times am I going to have to point out how rude it is?

Fourth and every:

• ignore, or just laugh at her

Re your parenting... either ignore, tell her you’re not interested or have a stock line like “they do warn you that once you have a baby, everyone has an opinion”.

Don’t ever waste your time arguing / justifying - like telling her about the straw.

Don't go to mils then. Invite mil to you without her or meet halfway. You do t have to go anywhere where she's will be. I don't go to pils, my choice. Dhand kids still go.

She sounds horrible, I agree, but why do you see her so much? It sounds like you see her far more than you need to. You don't need to put yourself through that.

You say that your mum and friends hate her, but how is it that they see her so often?

My suggestion is that your DH could take your DS for a visit without you sometimes.

I know what it can be like to have a SIL who has an opinion about everything. My SIL (my BIL's wife) has 5 DC now, at the time when we were about to go through IVF she had 3. She dared to tell me that IVF was wrong because of the spare embryos. She also pushed the subject of adoption too much as well. (We did adopt our DDs in the end, but it wasn't for her to push the issue.)

I reproved her very strongly and she backed down. I wasn't rude, but I pointed out that it was not her place to say that, she couldn't possibly comment in view of the fact that she had always got pregnant so easily.

The difference is that she means well, whereas your SIL sounds like a spiteful bully. But you need to be the one to call her on it. You can use the standard MN repost, 'Did you mean to be so rude?' Or 'Frankly, SIL, it has nothing to do with you.' Practise it in advance maybe.

But, as I said earlier, the best course of action would probably be to see less of her.

'There is status in being a wife'

Seems like my time machine works. It's 1951 again.

There's no 'status' in being 'a wife' unless you count being solely defined by your relationship to a man.

I would go completely NC with someone like this.

DH can meet up with her outside the family home if still if he wants to see her, but really you do not need this in your life.

No more invites, no more christmases, be completely straight with dh. His bullying sister is not welcome anymore. He has had a lifetime of being scared of her I imagine, so struggles to stand up to her forceful character.

From now on don't invite her, and if she invites herself have ready made excuses

'we are busy that weekend'
' we are doing christmas differently this year'
' Children have lots of on, so we are not around for the next few months'
' That would have been lovely, but we can't make it'

Its your life, and its up to you to ensure that toxic people are not welcome any longer.

Next time she gives you some ‘advice’, look at her incredulously and say, “and what the fuck would YOU know?”

OP, I had a SIL like this. Years of passive aggressive and mean comments. I fought the whole time for DH to do something but he just couldn’t stand up to her. I think men don’t pick up on the nuanced comments as well as women and it took him a while to realise what was going on. Also PIL supported her on EVERYTHING (she is the golden child).

Then one day DH just said enough is enough. Either she apologised for her behaviour and we all move on or we never see her again. She chose the latter. And we’ve been NC for 8 years now. Sad, but ultimately her choice.

Just smile and say ‘yeah, I know’ and then keep doing exactly what you’re doing every time. If she keeps going just smile and say ‘yeah, I KNOW’ and then change the subject like you really really don’t care what she says.

You are worrying too much about upsetting your DH while not dealing with this yourself.

You are allowed to have a relationship with her in your own right. That includes setting appropriate boundaries, which won't happen until you deal with things yourself.

You've had some good examples of how to respond, so practice those. I always like 'Thank you for your concern, but if I'm looking for advice, I'll ask for it'.

I think you should refuse to see her again, and if that means missing family gatherings so be it. Let your DH go if he wants to. And never, ever invite her to your house.

I do sympathise OP, my ex’s family were a bit of a nightmare, didn’t approve of me from the start, and he would never stick up for me. I did have a wry smile the other day, as according to ds they are now the same about his new girlfriend, moaning about “that woman” taking up all his time. It’s quite refreshing to know it wasn’t personal!
In your shoes I’d try to avoid the sil as much as you can, there’s also some wonderful comebacks suggested by pp’s upthread.

Can you not make it clear to your husband that inviting her to yours has to stop? Surely he sees enough of her when he goes to his mother's, and it is your home after all.

Each time she starts giving 'advice' simply ask her what it has to do with her.
Kind of like...
S,I,L 'fruit juice bad etc'
You. 'what has it to do with you?'
S.I.L ' blah blah'
You. 'No, i asked what has it to do with you?'
Repeat question until she gives up and goes to froth at a pigeon or something.

I hear you, OP. I have a SiL who was passive aggressive (long been NC, I'm happy to say), which is quite a different approach to deal with as it's cowardice at it's most basic level (i.e. not having the courage to voice her displeasure with me openly).

I too was infuriated that my husband seemed more inclined to upset me than her. It was easily manageable before we had DC, but that was when the trouble started. So I spoke very strongly to DH, and told him I'd concluded that if he hadn't spoken up for me after nearly two decades I'd taken the safe assumption that he never would, so now it was down to me. And I warned him that nobody would like what I had to say.

I think he thought I was bluffing, and humoured me in support, possibly thinking that I 'd be cowardly enough to continue to sit and simmer in silence. I wasn't. Rather than sitting and taking her passive-aggressive swipes, I made her actively own her shit. And she didn't like that one bit. Inevitably things came to a head - in the wake of a family death as they are wont to do - and we are happily now no contact. An indication of the kind of woman she is: her close relative's house was valued and on the market before this person was buried. Nice.

The first thing I'd do is ask your obnoxious SiL to repeat herself every time she makes herself obnoxious. Then say 'I thought that was what you said. I'm actually embarrassed for you that you thought it appropriate to say that out loud'. I'd also be pointing out that people who correct others' grammar don't make themselves appear more intelligent. They appear as they are: profoundly ignorant people with a manners deficit.

You are also at liberty to withdraw. DH can have a relationship with her if he wants; what he can't do is compel you to do likewise. You're an adult and can make that decision for yourself. And the first thing he needs to do is stop inviting her to your house. FWIW, her behaviour sounds like insecurity and/or jealousy to me.

Good luck OP.

Yep, be assertive, not aggressive. Don't say anything that can be turned against you or be considered rude.
I love some of the stock lines on here. I'd pick one, use it, then change the subject.

I can't choose between "they do warn you that once you have a baby, everyone has an opinion” and "yeah, I know". Maybe alternate them!

Fruit juice being the leading cause of hospital admission

😂😂😂

I think she has disappeared up her own arse.

If she says anything about your parenting again I would tell her to come back when she has her own children and not to believe everything she reads on the internet.

I think you've already won OP, that's why she is how she is. I really think you've got what she wants. And I agree with the suggestions above. She isn't bothering about your feelings. You can be blunt and straight with her as she is with you.