I know, I know these threads are being done to death lately but I’m really dreading spending Christmas with my in laws.
DH has 2 siblings, a lovely brother who unfortunately emigrated to NZ in March and this year is spending it with his new wife’s family over there. And then SIL, who in the 7 years since I’ve been with DH has never shown me an ounce of friendliness.
MIL is all sickly sweet and pretends to like me, but after a while the odd barbed comment will start to appear (DH did warn me about her when I first met him to be fair) MIL I just don’t trust and the nicey nice act doesn’t wash with me. You can tell by the time you’re mid 30’s when someone is fake, call it gut instinct. She’ll lavish me with really expensive presents too that make me feel really uncomfortable as I know they’re just ammunition for if it ever did kick off and she can then go all wide eyed and innocent and say ‘who, me?! Of course I’m a nice person/ like you, I lavish you with all those expensive gifts.’
SIL also buys me an expensive gift which I find just odd and uncomfortable as she’s never spoken more than a few words to me in the 7 years I’ve known her and has treated me with distinct disdain half the time. I suspect it’s actually MIL who buys it and just puts her name on it, I then have to make a big show of being SO grateful and saying thank you to someone who just sits there giving me evils, urgh.
FIL is a nice enough man but I don’t think he can really be bothered with the get togethers as he tends to just be grumpy and not really speak much. SIL is also his ‘princess’ and he makes a big thing of fawning and fussing over her (despite the fact she’s 32) and then beams round the room at everyone for agreement about how lovely she is and how proud of her he is and everyone duly nods along enthusiastically whilst I sit there wanting to puke.
Last year was fine as we hosted at ours for the first year and I had all my family there, it was on my territory so I didn’t get that usual feeling of intimidation and unease. This year though we’re having our new kitchen diner put in and the house is chaos at the moment. My family are going to my brother’s wife’s family as they all get on pretty well. FIL hasn’t been well this year so understandably he wants to spend it with his family.
Our families just do Christmas very different too, mine like to have a few drinks, we put music on and play games most of the evening etc. In laws just like to sit around nursing 1 or 2 glasses of wine the entire day, staring at each other and SIL’s kids. There is no adult conversation or games or anything. They literally sit in the living room for 7 hours just oohing and ahhhing over SIL and her children. If the conversation is turned around to any subject other than SIL’s children she’ll get stony faced and shout over whoever is talking and the turn the conversation back to her and her children. And people duly oblige! That’s why BIL is so good as although he’s never said anything bad about his sister (and I wouldn’t expect him to) I think he feels my plight and sympathises with it as he’ll often say ‘Sorry Mega, what were you saying?’ And re-start the conversation.
DH just doesn’t really notice anything, he also hates thinking bad of his family. His sister did pointedly ignore me in front of him though earlier this year and he finally admitted that no, she wasn’t ever that friendly towards me. He asked her if she had an issue with me and she apparently started crying saying that of course she doesn’t and she’s upset both him and I think that she does.
She reigned the scowling and dirty looks in a bit for a while and actually even attempted some conversation once, but all that was short lived and she’s now gone back to her usual self. I sent one of her DC a birthday present in the post not so long ago, which was blatantly from me as DH had already given the child a present from him, it’s just this child is obsessed with a certain kids tv show and I saw some bits related to it so thought I’d stick them in the post. I messaged SIL on said child’s birthday to wish her a happy birthday, nothing. Not even an acknowledgement of the text or a thank you for the present. In fact my last 2 texts have gone ignored and I just can’t be fucked anymore. DH says so long as she is civil towards me and says hello etc that’s all he can really ask of her, and I get that, but it just means that time spent in his family’s company is often not a very nice experience for me. I try and only see them now once or twice a year when I can’t avoid it, but even those times are just bleurgh.
I’ve never been anything but nice and polite to these people, I always take an interest in their lives etc and try and forge relationships for the sake of DH but I just feel like I’m having to be nice to people that don’t really like me and ordinarily I wouldn’t even entertain people if I thought they didn’t like me, I just wouldn’t have them in my life.
So this is just a vent really as I’m dreading Christmas this year and am hoping I may have some allies on here who are feeling the same!