How to deal with nasty SIL suddenly become very rich

[User55567]

SIL (DHs sister) was very mean and bitter to us from Day1. DH and I have stable professional jobs and we worked very hard with zero family support. SIL didn’t have a job/ had no intentions of having one. She wanted to find a rich guy and just enjoy life. She spent 8 years on the hunt, while living with her parents. She then went back to uni for a masters, and then found a job straight after. This time she found a guy with “potential”. She married him and promptly quit her job and had 2 children.

All good, but all though these 15yrs of looking, finding and being with this guy, she constantly made snide remarks about our incomes, jobs, any thing nice we had, our holiday, everything. She constantly made in-laws put pressure on us to gift her things, while giving nothing in return. In-laws gave her property to “compensate”, bought her expensive things and constantly felt sorry for her and her “one income” lifestyle. Her husband once lost his job and still she won’t get a job saying “it’s his problem to sort out, I won’t take the stress”

She constantly told her brother about how her kids get a parent to look after them, about how bright her kids are etc, and how she “sacrificed” a career (she never had one!) because her kids mean more than money to her. All this while telling us we seem to have a lot of money because we both earn.

Now, her husband made a few million € in under a year as a small business he started as a side hustle really took off. She now can’t stop bragging and how she knew she is always meant for luxury, how she is the best wife (taking credit for his business success) and how her children are so lucky because they are set for life.. It seems to her like some “victory” over us. I already speak to her bare minimum - kept distance over the years.

DHs mental health is getting impacted over all these remarks and constant rubbing it in. He is now chasing “ideas” spending nights “researching” things. We already have very stressful jobs, I’m worried about him.

Wr are not poor, pretty comfortable but have salaries and mortgages like everyone else. We live a middle class life though and quite happy with it.

Money is like water, you can have a waterfall with plenty, it goes into the river and flows, then it can slow down, trickle the dry. Seen it happen. Be humble and grateful for what you have, don’t fall into her trap of jealousy, envy and ungratefulness

If your DH can't ignore it all and focus on his own career and family and how lucky he is to have what he has he needs some counselling to support him with this. Trying to recreate an equally successful side hustle like his BIL sounds like a very immature reaction to all this.

You sound jealous to be honest.

People can say shit about me (as a SAHM without a 'career' etc... you get it a lot) it doesn't effect me at all, neither does how rich they are.

If your taking it so to heart its clearly something much deeper like jealousy.

Can you copy his side business too?!

I am lucky to be a stay at home mum but I wouldn't rub it in someone's face and most of the time I am bored. I do day dream that one day I will have a career of my own and it will happen eventually but in the meantime someone has to stay at home. My waistline has suffered. All you can do is ignore your sil however annoying she is.

What's the side hustle op?

The way you both have given so much headspace to this doesn't really show you in a good light. Everyone comes across braggers all the time and it's best to give them a wide berth and not much headspace which if you don't then you end up sounding pathetic just like them hence the jealousy comments coming out in this thread because it makes you sound jealous. No need to compare, no need to analyse the ins and outs of yours/sils circumstances. Everyone lives their life in their own trajectory and life is short to let yourself be consumed by braggers.

Tbh the side hustle might not be all that legit . I’d watch and wait before you follow… When something seems too good …

"DHs mental health is getting impacted over all these remarks and constant rubbing it in. He is now chasing “ideas” spending nights “researching” things."

What does this mean? Why does he measure himself by their 'success?' And why do you? Your whole OP is seething with envy and spite. Basically, you are beyond livid that she doesn't work and yet, she has more money than you. Is she always bragging really - or does the mere thought of her leave you in a jealous rage? This is very sad OP. Their lives have nothing to do with you and this is wasted energy because there is absolutely nothing you can do about it anyway. Envy will eat you up from the inside out. Stop comparing yourself to her and take no notice. Who cares?

What’s the business, OP? asking because Id like to start something that can kick off that much money!!

Go no contact with her please OP for the sake of your children if not your husband. She sounds foul. Life is short. Much too short to waste worrying about and socialising with people like your SIL

This. Your husband needs help and support, to get his idiot sister out of his head. Forget her and the parents - focus on him.

Easy come. Easy go. I don't think this will end well for her.

A medal for being a kept woman whose lifestyle comes from her husband's efforts? She's setting her children a poor example of how to live their lives, is she teaching them to look out for sugar daddies rather than work?

Were I the OP my fingers would be firmly crossed for this outcome!

@User55567 Thing with sudden riches and side hustles, is that there is no long term security and it could all be gone this time next year.

I’d ignore her, go low contact and reassure your husband that what you have financially is more secure and likely to be sustained.

Not if he has had the sense to stash much of it away, in MN terms, his 'running away money', women are encouraged to do so, why not men?

OP’s DH needs to put his sister on mute. She is only gloating because he is listening.

It’s stinging him now as she got a lot of handouts from in-laws over the years.

so bloody what?

She needed those handouts because she's incapable of providing for herself.. she's a shit show of an insecure human being and you've got no reason to be intimidated by someone like that.. Why does your DH not see it for what it is?

You both should be able to go home after seeing her and laugh about what an up herself arsehole she really is, and thank your lucky stars you have a solid family unit who loves each other unconditionally. Your DH is putting too much stock in the money thing and there's definitely an element of jealousy here, I would hazard a guess that you're both too stiff upper lip and repressed to give her guff about her ways, that's why all those pent up feelings are eating away at your DH, it's time for you to tell her to cram it if your DH won't. There's nothing to be gained by being a martyr here.

I'd visibly roll my eyes when she starts banging on about money, and joke 'is that all you think about? You're SO shallow!!', and I would never in a million years tolerate her telling my kids they're not as good as her kids, without telling her how up her self she sounds. She gets away with doing it because you LET her!

Stop pussy footing around her.

Me too, I'm a bit of a nasty cow that way. 😆

Ask DH to look at the life he has with you and DC. What’s wrong with it, that he wants to make huge changes at the cost of a lot of stressful effort?

Ask him why he lets his sister and parents rule his life. That’s what he’s doing right now. Why should they have more influence on him than his own loving family has?

He needs to stop competing with silly shallow people, and focus on his own happy life.

Sounds as if his problems stem from his upbringing. But when you grow up you just have to let go of the past, with counselling help if necessary.

It would be extraordinarily unlikely that they were actually as well off as you think. The company and it's assets may well be valued at that amount on paper right now. They might have been temporarily lucky with a sudden income stream last year which has lead to a predictive company valuation based upon that figure. Unless they were to sell off their company, they will not have millions of pounds. And it would be unlikely that someone would make a decent offer on such a newly established unproven business. Also, through personal experience growing up, my parents owned several seemingly successful businesses. We were either flush with cash or stony broke and homeless. Running or owning a business comes with lots of risks. It can be just as easy to suddenly run up huge debts and become bankrupt.

She also had to live with her parents for 8 years. No amount of money can be worth that, surely?!

Just enjoy your life, which sounds better and more stable than hers in any event.

There’s a strange dynamic in your husband’s family which has him and his sister competing with each other and you have jumped straight into it making it worse. Try to ignore her and enjoy your own life. Tell your husband to try to do the same. Build him up, don’t make him feel worse. If he can’t break out of this pattern he needs help with it. Odd too that his parents were pressuring him to give her things. He needs to create a bit of emotional distance and enjoy his own life. Tell him that you have enough and prefer his company to him spending time looking for ways to make more money. Detach- live and let live

I think you need ask her about the new house/car/holiday home she's buying for your PIL, and when she says she's not going to say you thought she was well off now but realise that MIL was exaggerating and it's all on tick. And if she says she really is rich, ask her when she's getting them the house/car/holiday home.

It will make it less fun for her to boast about her good fortune.

Dont get me wrong, I don’t want their money to go away or her marriage to break. I just want her to shut up (and happily enjoy her life). I have nothing against her choices in life, honestly. She has been incredibly lucky!

For her, having something nice is not good enough. It has to be better than what others around her have. She carefully picks her social circle, where everyone is “less than” her. What she doesn’t realise is, there will be other dimensions in which these people will be better than her. Manners for example!
But with family, you can’t make that choice. For many years I put up with a lot of snide remarks for having a normal life with come comforts. It felt and still feels as if she’ll be satisfied or happy if something horrible happens to us. Now that they are significantly wealthier, I hoped she will shut up and look elsewhere for her dose of sulking, but no ! She now wants to extract juice by telling me how lucky/smart she/her DH and her kids are! Small remark, big brag, looking down at others, something nasty is slipped into conversations every single time!