SIL has now said she can't spend xmas around us

[gloriousgolden]

My husband and SIL (his sister) have a strained relationship and have since childhood. I have always got on very well with her but she has a competitive edge which is draining after a while. She always said we would have weddings/children around the same time but it just didn't work out that way.

We have two children, 4&1years old and they have been trying for their first since June after their wedding in May.

It was agreed ages ago (aug?) that we would host SIL & husband, M&FIL and my parents and siblings, the in laws house is only a mile from us and my family will stay over.

My SIL has messaged tonight and said she can't see us over xmas, it's too hard whilst they're TTC and she can't have our "good fortune rubbed in her face." She's also said she would prefer her parents also decline so they can spend it together.

I haven't responded yet, I completely resonate with not wanting to spend xmas with babies when that is what you are yearning for.

But in between my two children, I suffered an ectopic where I lost a tube, two early losses and a 16wk loss. She knows this, she watched me go through the entire fucking thing. The comment on good fortune has gone around and around my tiny head all evening and I'm pissed off about it, I feel as though she's worded it like that deliberately to hit a chord. I know I do have very good fortune to have two healthy children and I'm so grateful but fuck, the youngest was hard won and I feel as though she's poked the best a bit.

@Babyvenusplant

I tried for 7 years before having my dd and although it was tough seeing other people have their babies I still loved spending time with them whenever I could, especially my nieces and nephews. If she doesn't want to come, fine, but I don't think she should be dictating where your in-laws should spend Christmas

This. 5 months is nothing! She's clearly very entitled, extremely self absorbed, and NO WAY should she be stopping your kids from seeing their grandparents on Xmas day! Hopefully she'll have her moment, in GOOD TIME, but in the meantime, if indeed she did turn out to be infertile, or God forbid not have a baby by next Christmas, is she going to stay at home every Christmas from this point forward?? Very selfish to say you're rubbing her nose in it. Enjoy your little family and enjoy your Xmas, hopefully with both sets of grandparents present. She's a twat.

Your response was perfect.
She is an attention seeker

I think OPs response was perfect.

Whatever you think about how the SIL is feeling, there are ways she could have declined the invite without being utterly vile.

“I was really looking forward to spending Christmas with you all, but to be total honest I am finding TTC a really emotional process and I think it would incredibly difficult to spend time with DNephew and DNiece over the holidays. I know you had a really difficult journey to get your family and I hugely admire your strength going through that. I don’t want to compare our journey to yours in any way. I just know that sadly I would not be good company at what should be a joyful time of year.”

Something like that maybe.

I'm utterly aghast at "good fortune rubbed in her face"

Which, roughly translated means, "I have a sh*t life, then so should you".

You don't need to be around such toxic desponds, thank yourself lucky she's not there.

YANBU.
As other posters have commented, 6 months is not infertility. I feel like your SIL comments are unnecessarily thoughtless and insensitive given that she’s fully aware of your own struggles. As for accusing you of rubbing her face in your good fortune, what a bitchy comment! Try to rise above it, if you can, but I’d let it be known that you think her comments are unnecessarily rude. Just out of interest, what does your husband make of her email?

@FateHasRedesignedMost

It sounds like she’s just distressed by not being able to conceive yet, and maybe she’s had investigations you don’t know about, or fertility treatment, that has resulted in bad news for their ability to conceive in future. Maybe she’s had a recent miscarriage and can’t talk about it.

We struggled for years TTC our second, and I found it very hard when others had babies. Now I’m pregnant with that longed for child I completely understand when friends suffering infertility don’t want my pregnancy in their face and avoid me for now.

Serious question, how would you feel if one of those friends, having been trying for 6 months, told you she couldn’t accept an invitation from you because you would be rubbing your good fortune in her face? And not only that, but also tried to get other friends to decline the invitation? Because that would be the equivalent of what the SIL has done here.

And no, she hasn’t had a miscarriage or fertility treatment that she just can’t talk about; from what she has had the brass neck to say, it’s blindingly obvious she wouldn’t have held back on these sort of details.

You are both hurting and sad to read and a break from each other at this 'heightened time of good cheer', is just too much for her. She is probably doing you all a favour in the long run. She sounds like a perfectionist and as you said competitive so she can't face her failure.
I hope things change and she can become a mum and my MIL told me that ' being a mother rounds a women'. I agree your whole perspective on life changes when you have children.
Good luck to you all.

I totally get where you’re coming from OP. I lost a friend because I had DS1 and they didn’t have a baby. I should add that DS1 was born four months early and nearly died on multiple occasions. The friend visited him in NICU and knew how ill he was. He is now a teenager with complex disabilities and every single day is a challenge for him. It’s a challenge for me and DH too because we have to fight constantly for everything he needs. Am I grateful to have him? Yes, enormously so, more than I can ever put into words. But do I understand why that friend no longer has anything to do with me because I have a child and she doesn’t? Yes I do, to an extent, but it’s not like we were handed perfect fortune without any difficulties involved!

I thought you worded your reply to DSIL really well.

As you say, the relationship has never been easy but it makes me sad that she finds no joy in being an aunty. Often nieces and nephews are the closest we ever get with family.
Reply that you understand but you'll still be happy to host ifvthey change their mind as insert your kids names here would be so happy to see aunty

She’s been trying since May and she can’t bear to be around babies? She’s being ridiculous.

Totally understandable if she has fertility issues and has been trying for years, but she’s been trying less than the average couple takes to conceive. She’s being a total drama queen but I would just say sorry you won’t be seeing her then.

But I would think less of the parents if they pandered to this.

I sort of see your point, however TBH, you have had good fortune.

Despite all the issies and losses, you do have 2 much wanted children - this is incredible good fortune. Some people go through all that you have, and don't have the good fortune to have a child at the end.

Maybe you're reading too much into it.

What I would be anooyed about is her dragging her parents into the mix. That's totally unacceptable. Once the holidays were over, I'd have to say something to her. Her choosing not to participate, for whatever reason, is her choice but then to put her parents in that position and keep them away from grandchildren that they have is selfish on another level. For everyone - the children, the parents, DH.

I also struggled with infertility for years - we tried for about 9 years, before it destroyed our relationship (with my DP.) I tried very hard for it not to destroy the relationships with my friends and family who were managing to have children. I know I was a bit obsessive at times.

I did have to go and cry in cupboards and bathrooms, at different venues - but I did rejoice in my friend's and family's joys. I'm lucky enough to have a fab niece, and wonderful nephew - and try to spend a lot of time with them. Maybe your SiL will get to that point; but for now, she might need the space.

I suspect in August when you made these plans, she expected she would be pregnant by now and was looking forward to being centre of attention with all the excitement of the new year and a new baby and now she's realised it won't look like that so she's getting the attention in another way.

She may have had good reason for that expectation in August.

I really think everyone is barking up the wrong tree thinking of her pregnancy issues. I have a SIL who did this over everything from family holidays to bereavement. It's just unresolved sibling rivalry and presumably the insensitivity of OP's FIL has been partly responsible for that. She just has to chalk it down as something to watch for later and be sure, there will be a later.

I am afraid for some people it just becomes another excuse for narcissism. Not all, before I get roasted - but for some people it is just another excuse to be all about themselves and SIL sounds like one of those.

@Wheresmywoolyjumpers

I am afraid for some people it just becomes another excuse for narcissism. Not all, before I get roasted - but for some people it is just another excuse to be all about themselves and SIL sounds like one of those.

Seconded.

@PleasantBirthday

She may have had good reason for that expectation in August.

If you are obliquely suggesting that she may have been pg and then had a MC, I think you have misread the situation. By the sound of it, she would have been shouting about it if that had happened - it would have been Far Worse than anything that @gloriousgolden had been through, because of the competitive streak. No one would be in ignorance of that happening in the family.

She is jusy grieving.
You have been very unfortunate. But also very very blessed right now with your kids.

She is still walking in the battle field feeling sad and lonely. X

After 20 years of TTC I gave up at 45. Now almost 48 and still childless. There was a time n the warnt days when being around children was unbearable and it seemed the whole world was pregnant. It gets easier over time. Maybe she should “sit this one out” and rejoin the family for Christmas next year. If I stopped seeing my family whilst I was TTC I wouldn’t have seen them for 20 years.

She is a twat and had been trying for a baby 6 months, she needs to get a grip of herself.

@Marvellousmadness

She is jusy grieving. You have been very unfortunate. But also very very blessed right now with your kids.

She is still walking in the battle field feeling sad and lonely. X

Grieving?? Sorry, have you misunderstood? It was the OP who lost a baby at 16 weeks, not the SIL.

She's loving the drama. She's been trying for less time than the average to get pregnant. I am presuming she also has previous for loving some drama.

Serious question, how would you feel if one of those friends, having been trying for 6 months, told you she couldn’t accept an invitation from you because you would be rubbing your good fortune in her face? And not only that, but also tried to get other friends to decline the invitation? Because that would be the equivalent of what the SIL has done here

Tbh I’d assume there was more to it than ‘trying for 6 months’. I’d wonder if maybe she’d had a very low egg quality result, or he’d had a semen analysis that implied ICSI or donor egg/sperm was their only chance. Sure I could be wrong. But TTC for only 6 months and reacting like that, seem contradictory. I’d also wonder if she’d had losses they felt unable to talk about.

It’s her parents she wants to decline the invitation, not friends, and it sounds like the parents can make up their own mind.

I wouldn’t read rubbing it in her face as a deliberate or malicious action, more that she cannot stand to be around babies just now because she is desperate to get pregnant, so being around small children rubs salt into the wound.

I do suspect there is more to her actions than just TTC for 6 months.