AIBU to not invite sister in law

[Gameofphonesx]

Have three sinlaws, get along great with two, kids all get along and often meet up to vent about our in laws amongst general chit chat and just because we enjoy each others company. Third sinlaw is dh sister and somewhat socially awkward(?). She didn’t speak to me for the first 7 years, her own dad said she was just jealous of us because we were happy and she went from one loser bf to another. I tried to ignore it, trying killing it with kindness but eventually just got over trying. She had her first kid then that was it, suddenly she seemed a bit more interested in speaking to me and took a lot of baby paraphernalia from us. Thing is, I don’t need to be her friend but my in laws are constantly moaning about us not inviting her anywhere- but she rarely speaks to the other two or myself unless it’s about herself and it’s just tense with her there. Her and her bf don’t invite us anywhere or make an effort to ask about the kids or us yet we’re expected to invite her on weekends away that we organised between us, because they think we’re leaving her out- she leaves herself out! She’s been invited to days out and has refused, she turns up late if she does come and then will keep her distance so it doesn’t even feel like she enjoys it herself?! I feel it’s just too little too late to have the same relationship that the rest of us have, to the point where I feel awkward if we happen to be altogether at in-laws house for example. I don’t mind her but as far as I’m concerned, she’s had numerous chances to make an effort and she just doesn’t. I do feel for her in a way, but it just feels like my in-laws are forcing her on us a bit. It’s made a bit more tense as her ds is very bitey, pushy and generally terrorises the rest of the kids and they don’t like his behaviour towards them. I wouldn’t not invite her for that alone, but equally I don’t want to make the other kids and sinlaws uncomfortable by just inviting her everywhere. I thought this ‘leaving her out’ rubbish was over in school!!

Well you are leaving her out..

Just compromise and invite her to some things, but not weekends away. And if people ask why just say because she’s a PITA. The price for family life is a bit of compromise.

Can I just appreciate sinlaws I really hope that gets adopted 😈

“MIL, SIL has made her disinterest in a relationship with me clear. I respect her decision.”

Where’s your dh in this? Why doesn’t he tell his mother to MHOB?

Well you are leaving her out aren’t you?

and of course your in-laws are going to push it - she’s their actual daughter so will be important to them.

My problem is, we didn’t always ‘leave her out’ she’s been invited plenty of times to things and always had some excuse so naturally you know, we stopped asking- it happens! It also implies we are doing it in a spiteful way. She’s not on our radar, just as we aren’t on hers. My husband is quite quiet but has stood up for me as far as I know. He’s also my in-laws child but they treat his sister like the most important (only girl, youngest). I just want to be friends with who I want to be friends with. She does get invited to days out with our husbands and their parents, we just don’t always think about it when we’re organising it between ourselves- I don’t even invite my own sister as I just see it as my friends🤷🏼‍♀️

You dont sound very nice. Invite her when you invite the other sil. Every fucking time

.

Well then why would she want to be friends with me? 😂

Why can’t she invite us somewhere for a change!?

Sounds like she's socially anxious.

I have a relative who is the same. She's actually lovely, and appreciates all her family members. But she never invites anyone to anything, because it's way out of her comfort zone, and she would really worry about it.
We continue to invite her, and the fact that she's much quieter than the rest of us doesn't matter

Just say no @Gameofphonesx - otherwise it will be a lifetime of misery for all concerned and life is too short.

your adults and MIL needs to accept she can no longer bully other family members into dragging sinlaw along to everything.

do the other sinlaws do things with her?

id just reiterate no. She doesn’t arrange anything herself, she doesn’t act like she enjoys days out. No MIL we aren’t dragging along an unwilling surly child in an adults body.

She is autistic.

I'm saying this so confidently NOT because I am an expert or know that she is. My reason for saying it is that I reframe her behaviour like this in my head, it makes so much more sense, and would make it easier for me to be kind to her if she was my SIL.

I do question myself - why can I have lots of patience with friends who I know have an autism diagnosis, but can't accommodate personality quirks with people without a formal diagnosis? This has helped me accept more from friends who are obviously struggling, and I recommend it as a strategy. My own model also involves (where appropriate/possible) talking to the person who is struggling and asking them what I can do to help them feel more included or to ease any social difficulties they have.....

*Now I'm going to hunker down and wait for MN to tell me what a poor or ableist strategy this is and how I am letting myself be walked on. The objective is to be kind and inclusive, BTW.

With all due respect, she’s not autistic. By all accounts, she’s been a sullen, rude, selfish brat her whole life. The whole family cannot communicate effectively, preferring to talk behind backs in the hope that Chinese whispers gets them what they want. Aside from the fact that she is who she is and ignored me all that time and it’s only been a year or so that she’s been willing to talk to me, even if we really wanted her there- I wouldn’t want to invite her just because her mum and dad told me to! Id like it to be a bit more natural. I don’t want her thinking we’ve invited her somewhere but only because we’ve been told to. The other sinlaws don’t do anything with her as she doesn’t talk to them either unless she wants something from them- she’s able to talk to them then! Ideally they’d be encouraging her more, rather than forcing us. I get that she’s their daughter but this way of getting us all to be best friends isn’t working for them so why can’t they just listen to us. They’re the same, never inviting us anywhere, expecting us to organise family days out etc. it’s exhausting. The husbands are just the same, don’t say anything because they don’t want to upset their mum- because their wives can stick up for themselves!

Wow - so you and the other ILs get together for a bitchfest about the family you married into and your SIL being there would cramp your style? Sounds like she's better off out of it. She clearly has issues with social communication and seeing as your relationship with the others is through the family then yes, you should invite her every time. It might change the dynamic so you spend less time bitching.

@DoDoDoD we’re at this point because of them. If she’d just been a welcoming, even just polite person when we met her brothers then maybe we would all get along. She’s always been jealous of her brothers settling down before her, she makes it so obvious, stomping off whenever we’d mention houses, weddings, kids etc. I’ve tried my hardest to just say to her, speak to us if you want to engage with us. A friendship can’t be all one sided can it?? There are other issues between the in laws and each sinlaw which deserve their own threads so that skews our thinking when it comes to them anyway, but we just want the chance to invite her without them getting involved: is that really too much to ask? If I was her, I wouldn’t want to be invited somewhere because my mum had told them to invite me! It’s getting to the point where I’m being told- via somebody else of course- that I shouldn’t be posting photos to my Facebook in case it upsets her?!? Maybe if I thought she’d be sat there looking at my photos thinking ‘I wish I’d been invited, it’s because I don’t bother with them’ instead of ‘why haven’t they invited me, I deserve to be there even though I don’t talk to them’ , then I’d have more sympathy but she’s not. She wants us all to run around after her instead of doing something about it herself. Remember this person only started talking to me when it was convenient for her, when she wanted my things for her baby.

I’ll just add, I’m only this bothered because I don’t want my nieces and nephews thinking I didn’t bother with them. I want my children to think I have actively tried to have a relationship with all of their cousins. If she didn’t have children, she probably still wouldn’t talk to us at all!

Invite her for the kids, her.kids have done nothing wrong and it would be nice for them to grown up with their cousins, where you have days out with the kids invite her. The more this happens the more likely you are to get to know her and that natural building of some sort of relationship might build - not necessarily as best buddies but.as family at least.

And how old were you all and how old was she when you all met her brothers?

Hmmmm. I've three sil, two of whom I love, one of whom I struggle with. I would never organise a SIL group meet and leave the third out. It's soooo mean. Just meet the others one on one rather than excluding her from a family group. She won't come 90% of the time from what you've written but you get the brownie points.

Yeah, it would hurt to constantly see SM posts with you and the other SILs out together. Personally I'd limit the audience for those.

We do invite her to some days, just others we just don’t think, but we just don’t see why she gets away with being so rude to us and then still gets us running around after her. A simple sorry would’ve gotten her so far years ago but we’re just past it I think. I prefer doing a one to one with her as I can bring her out of her shell a bit but if it’s all of us together she can just be a bit ‘me, me, me’. We’ve known her since her mid-20s. You can see where she gets it from- my mil is just the same. I’m just exhausted from having to think about other peoples feeling all the time- nobody appears to give a crap about how I felt all that time when I was being ignored and disregarded. She just got away with it because they enable her. If she was my kid or sister I’d have been telling her years ago!

I have three sisters and one of them is tricky - she would feel hurt if we organised for all our kids to go swimming during school holidays (ages 2-10) and then not think to invite her because it never occurred to us she would want to take a day off to work to come too (she has an adult child). To be honest your s’n’law sounds neurodiverse and is likely to have trouble with social communication. Just because her body language is displaying one thing she might be feeling something else. I don’t have the right answer but all I can say if one of your children was neurodiverse how would you feel if they were left out? No judgements from my sister drives me so insane with her behaviour of sulking etc we are now low contact.

@ittakes2 if it were my child, honestly I first of all wouldn’t let her get to this point. Doesn’t sound like she’s been told she’s wrong very often. Everything is just ignored. She definitely isn’t neurodiverse and even if she was, I’d be encouraging her as a parent, to go out when we asked, and turn up on time, to ask us if we want to go with them when they’re going out, to actually respond when we do ask. I personally would think a family group chat would be an ideal place to just pop on and say ‘going swimming today if anybody fancies it?’. It’s low key, you’re going swimming anyway, you don’t have to make plans around other people, you don’t have to organise anything, but she just doesn’t and when we do- she takes ages to respond, or doesn’t at all. I don’t even think she wants to involve herself- it’s all coming from MIL!

I have to say that you aren’t coming across particularly kind on this thread. She may well have been jealous when she was younger to see her brothers settling down and having kids but she’s your DH’s sister and your children’s aunt and I’d really be trying to make an effort with her even if it’s not reciprocated all the time. It sounds really quite teenage and bitchy by deliberately meeting up with all the other SIL’s and excluding her. No one will believe the whole “we just didn’t think” excuse btw. I’m almost certain she will know how you all feel about her so I’m not surprised she’s awkward when you do all meet up. Try setting a good example for your children and actually be warm and welcoming to her on the next group meet-up and shut down any negative comments from your other SIL’s.

@Gameofphonesx family chat sounds like a great idea, drop in the open invite next time then you can’t be accused of not inviting her. Doesn’t stop you organising other things without her, but maybe limit the fb audience if you post those - or better still don’t post, send pics to anyone who might want to see tha (top tip - it’s not most of your friends and family who do 😜)

She sounds hard work. Empathise totally in having in-laws who communicate via Chinese whispers, so draining. I just opted out of comms altogether and let the DH deal with his lot!

I think you need to decide which it is:

You would invite her under your own steam for the sake of the family if given the chance

OR

You dont like her and as an adult you can make your own decisions about who you invite.

I actually get what you mean, you see your other in law sils as friends and she makes a fun gathering awkward. But what you have to remember is that family complicates things and if push came to shove, you could be excluded if you and DH broke up, so the family element IS relevant because you arent just friends.

In your shoes I'd set up a new WhatsApp an try to make alternating plans to include her through it. Invite her one week in the group and put up with it - you know she wont come every time, and the times that she doesnt come you can arrange another meeting without her and just say it was planned when she wasnt there.

But there is a real risk the others might cave if they are under pressure and you'll be seen in a bad light because you were asked to do the same and you didnt. Families are weird. You can pick your friends but not your family.

@Spareus thats my point- we do have the family group chat and nobody uses it to chat except us! 😂
@Nosleepforthismum my main concern then is why do I have to change my behaviour, when she can’t try to change hers? I’m not an unkind person- if I was, I wouldn’t be doubting myself enough to ask a forum of strangers whether I was been an arse or not. Seemingly I’m an arsehole for giving up after almost 10 years of trying and getting nothing back. Rude, sullen, selfish people don’t have to bother obviously.