SIL visiting my friends

[Silvercloud79]

My DH’s sister and I have never been close.
She has never been welcoming towards me over the last 13 years DH and I have been together. She often causes a lot of drama in her family also.
only once has she invited me out, and this was after I experienced a severe trauma, but really be have never bonded.
in the early days of my relationship with DH she would have tantrums that she never got to see DH and spend time with him because he was out on dates with me.

Fast forward 2022, she met some of my friends at a social function and mentioned she would be visiting a part of England over the holidays where they live. My Friend told her to get in touch when she visits. This has now come into fruition and she will be having dinner and staying at their place.

i got a lot of anxiety about this because I am always on my guard around my in laws as we are not close; where as my friends know more about my private life.

i don’t have many friends, but I can’t imagine having a close relationship with my friends if they commence a relationship with my SiL. I have never told them about my feelings towards her or about her nasty streak towards me. To the outside world she’s really pleasant but she saves the drama for DH, me and PIL.

are my feelings valid? I feel really immature, can you advice me on how to overcome these worried feelings I have about losing my friends.

🤣

OP, I understand your views as my own sister-in-law is a person I very much prefer to keep at a distance.

Your follow-up posts sound sensible and are what I'd do in the same position. There isn't really much else you could have done.

Agree that your SIL sounds like a manipulative nightmare. Poor you. How did your friends react when you spoke to them OP?

They have promised not to say anything. I apologised for the odd request. But they responded saying they understand.

My main frustration lies also with my DH in that he doesn't think his sister has crossed a boundary. I mean I have attended lots of social functions with her friends, but I don't go around collecting phone numbers and arranging coffee dates with them. I am upset by it and do feel violated.

I was iffy on this but your last post sounds like yabu.
She invites you to stuff with her friends. You choose not to socialize with them outside of that. I don't think that's her fault. I think it's normal to strike up friendships with people you meet and like.

I feel for you. One of my SILs befriended one of our friend groups and I had not made any secret of how she behaved sometimes. After she had got herself enmeshed in our friend group she acted as if DH and I had to leave it as it was now "her friend group". Didn't happen. She no longer sees them and we still do. One of our friends is very bitter every time she is mentioned as he is sure she and her then husband only befriended him and his wife because they wanted to borrow their car. Which is probably true but I did warn them about her and they chose not to listen.

A couple of years later SIL started to ask a lot of questions about a couple we were friends with. Funnily, I pretended not to understand that she wanted their contact details. When my DH later mentioned it to them they said they appreciated that I didn't just hand over their contact details to her as they found her to be a bit "too much". They couldn't understand why she would possibly think it was ok to ask for their contact details.

She and her former husband also "own" Canada because they did an internship there for a couple of months and then traveled around a bit. They were in Canada for six months. They were offended because I knew that the capital of Newfoundland is St. Johns and because it turned out I have relatives in a couple of Canadian states. The small detail that most of my Canadian family moved to Canada before 1920 though there was also an influx in the sixties is beside the point.

Name change fail?

So which is it, she’s never been welcoming and only invited you out once or you’ve been to lots of events with her friends?

She has never been welcoming towards me over the last 13 years DH and I have been together. She often causes a lot of drama in her family also

only once has she invited me out

I don’t think she’s crossed any boundaries, this is how people socialise and make new friends!

You can’t control other peoples friendships and believing you can/should is quite naive and immature.

Very bizarre. I've not seen the messages that have been deleted but I can't remember such an innocuous and hardly contentious thread that has attracted such vitriol. It's very odd.

I agree with this

and this ^

YANBU but there isn't much you can do about it unfortunately besides what you've already done, asked them not to divulge certain things.

I don't get this, it's very normal to meet friends through your existing contacts and for many people it's the easiest way to do so. You don't own your friends or have any say in who they also socialize with. It would never occur to me that I'd done anything wrong in your SILs situation.

Especially if your friends had made the first move by actually suggesting to the SIL she contact them if ever in the area!!

If you have to ask your friends not to divulge personal details about you to others, then surely they’re not that good a friend!

Good!

I would tell them all so they know what she is really like.

Sorry your friend has invited her.
If you could have warned her before hand would have helped.

This, and surely you don't think the topic of you will be the main discussion point of their meet up?

I think you've handled it well. And I completely understand where you are coming from.

So, you don’t like your SiL, you don’t want a relationship with her, but you want to control whom she sees?

And you want to control your friends’ relationships?

I have. SiL who I don’t much rate. She’s not like my family, very different values etc, but she loves my brother. I have no control or choice over that. So I accept her, but I get to think who I count as part of my “family” with whom I’m close. But I’d never ever grudge her getting to know my friends.

This response is very unfair and not authentic. No-one would feel comfortable with someone who has a history of manipulation suddenly getting into their personal friendship group.

the “personal friendship group” in this scenario made the first move and invited the SIL!!!

the “personal friendship group” in this scenario made the first move and invited the SIL!!!

Yeah, not knowing much about her and not knowing the history of her manipulative behaviour towards the OP. That's what manipulative people do!

“YANBU

It's weird behaviour from your SIL. It sounds like jealousy or something and she's trying to push you out from your own social circle.“

^I thought this too.

To be honest, they offered and she took them up on it, so I don't see anyone overstepping boundaries anywhere. OP, you sound rather insecure in yourself - are you generally lacking in confidence?

Manipulative people do what?

The friends invited the SIL

The friends could have said to sil when she contacted them to take them up on their offer

”oh I’ll check with OP and see if she’s available” I.e will only get together with the SIL if the OP joined them.

The friends didn’t.