Please make me feel better with tales of your weird family members!

[SnowWhitesRestingBitchFace]

So my SIL is batshit. I mean properly mad and obsessed with hers and DH's DDad (actually it's their Step DDad but is a wonderful father and grandfather).

She regular throws a strop if she isn't seated next to him at family meals/gatherings.

Counts how many words he speaks to me or DH and compares them to how much he's spoken to her then will sit in silence for an hour before blowing up about it.

Could spend 6 out of 7 evenings in the week with MIL and FIL but all hell breaks loose in we spend an evening with them without her.

Point blank refuses to see that she is doing anything wrong.

It's now got to the point that we joke she must fancy FIL (but actually we aren't joking and it's incredibly worrying).

She's even jealous of her own daughter (18) getting any attention.

She's a 40 year old woman with 3 children. It's weird and honestly I'm just over it. Having to watch where I sit incase she has a funny turn.

We have sons the same age and she can't stand it.

She can be the nicest person even and then sometimes just loses it over these silly things. Their biological father left when they were very young and and DH has always been closer fo MIL than SIL has (although SIL would happily admit she's had more given to her both practically and financially than DH has).

I don't know if it's an abandonment issue or something but it's ridiculous now.

So please just make me feel like I'm not going mad and other people have families like this?!

Doesn’t feel “ silly” to your SIL, obviously. She does sound in need , emotionally.

@Taoneusa

Doesn’t feel “ silly” to your SIL, obviously. She does sound in need , emotionally.

Counting his words goes beyond silly into batshit

I thought this would be quite funny, but its sad. She doesn't sound well.
I think she might need to speak to someone about this.

There's obviously something more going on here. Is she actually that emotionally dependent on him or does she feel the need for everyone to know she's more emotionally attached to him than anyone else?

This is what we had one Christmas-nothing like as wacky, but maybe you'll relate.

Dc#1 was about 18 months old. Great-grandma IL was delighted. She'd been desperate to be a great-grandmother and none of the others had dc, so she was really pleased.
Before we arrived for Christmas lunch mil had a quiet word with me and asked if we could put dc1 next to GG because her eyesight wasn't that good and it would be lovely if she could interact with her during the meal. I was very happy with this. GG was lovely, and I wouldn't have had a problem anyway.

So we arrived at dh's cousin's house. The table was laid out and they'd put name tags, to make sure the above happened, and they'd mixed everyone up to sit round the table to get people sitting with different people.

When I arrived GG was sitting in the lounge and the rest of the family was being very loud in another room. Dc was asleep so I popped her in her buggy in the garden to sleep (well wrapped up) and went to talk to GG. Knowing she was a little wobbly on her feet, I asked if she wanted helping through to the noisy room, as she normally liked to be with people.
"No" she said. "CousinA and his wife are far too noisy and I don't like they way they're talking. It's all about themselves. Her laugh. It hurts my head!!"
So I stayed with her and chatted, and then when dinner was called, went to get dc1 up.
When I came back to the table I found a bit of a standoff.
CousinA and wife had rearranged the name tags so they were sitting either side of GG. They were standing there arguing that GG wanted nothing more than that and people shouldn't be depriving GG of what she wanted. GG's lovely and didn't want to say no, but she couldn't keep her feelings from her face.
Anyway MIL sorted it and GG sat next to dc1 and loved it.
And to add to the battiness. There we are exchanging presents after lunch. The way that family do it is hand out the presents and when they're all handed out open them at once.
So you can picture the scene. All the presents handed out, and someone says "let's open".
CousinA's wife jumps to her feet and calls "wait everyone, we've got important news".
Everyone looks at her expecting pregnancy announcement or something like that. "Guess what," she says "CousinA has decided to apply for a promotion at work."
I will add as a follow up when we next got together someone asked how the promotion was going. According to them he decided not to apply for it. I suspect he did and didn't get it, but maybe that's too catty.

@Sunshinealligator

I thought this would be quite funny, but its sad. She doesn't sound well. I think she might need to speak to someone about this.

She's been told multiple times that she needs professional help. Nicely and more firmly. I love her, I genuinely do. She's my family. There is only so much I or anyone else can do though unless she wants to help herself.

I know I've made it sound horrible and sometimes it is. Sometimes it genuinely is funny and she'll laugh about it later herself but I'm beyond knowing how to react now.