It's an in law one...

[inlawproblems]

First of all, I must start by saying that I love my PIL... 99% of the time.

DH has two brothers. One of them lives in the same town as us with his wife and children, and the other lives five hours away with his wife and child. We get on well with the one who lives five hours away but we haven't seen them for over a year due to the distance. They will be visiting next weekend and we are looking forward to seeing them.

Things aren't so great with my other BIL and his wife. His wife hasn't spoken to us for 18 months since our daughter was born, for a really stupid reason. He is backing his wife up but we don't think he really believes they are in the right. Before my daughter's birth we all got on well.

Literally everyone thinks they are being completely ridiculous and the thing they are upset about is utterly trivial. To avoid drip feeding, they are upset that we named our daughter a very common top 10 name which also happens to be their daughter's second middle name.

Anyway. We have invited the visiting BIL and his wife and child for Sunday lunch next weekend. We were also planning on inviting PIL.

When I mentioned this to FIL two weeks ago he said he was rather hoping that we would do something all together. I said that until BIL and SIL acknowledge how hurtful their behaviour has been and apologise to us, we don't want to have a relationship with them. FIL said they will never explain or apologise, and so I said in that case we won't be seeing them. He wants us to just let it go and play happy families. I made it very clear that doesn't work for us.

Today PIL came round for lunch and everything was normal, nobody mentioned next weekend. And then an hour or so after they'd gone home, MIL put a message on the family WhatsApp group saying they want us all to come round for cake next Saturday afternoon and Grandma will be there too.

We have not replied yet. We don't want to go. We feel that we are being strongarmed into seeing them and pretending everything is normal, when what we want is to have a discussion. (They have refused multiple requests from us to meet and talk.) PIL are banking on the fact that if we go next weekend we won't want to cause a scene in front of Grandma, or be unpleasant to SIL who is two months postpartum. (I wouldn't piss on her if she were on fire at this point but I recognise that the optics of having a go at a woman who's just had a baby in front of the entire family aren't great.) They're right about us not wanting to make a scene in those circumstances. That's why we don't want to go.

AIBU?

Thanks for reading if you made it to the end of this!

Just go. There'll be other people there and no one will notice (or care) that you are not making conversation with the two 'aggressors' . You don't have to overtly ignore them, give them looks, be passive aggressive etc just be indifference although I suspect that will be hard for you.
Besides if you don't go they might spend the whole afternoon gaining support by bad mouthing you where as if you are there you will either stop this happening just by your presence or if they are rude then you can make a calm exit. In terms of 'winners' 🙄 you have 'won' because your dd still has her middle name.

You're not wrong @inlawproblems This happened to my 'd'B. His wife has extricated him from me/my kids and our parents. He's gone NC completely right when they needed him the most and quite frankly it's unforgivable but it was all instigated by his wife. I'm convinced it's an abusive relationship too. She hated our parents for no other reason than she was jealous of the close relationship we all had as a family; something she never had. Despite us accepting her with open arms, including her in every single family thing the jealousy she had for our little family was so toxic that it broke us completely apart. It's been awful.

Sounds like your BIL has had her drip feeding poison for years now and as with any cult, the abused believe it all.

I agree with you but in this case it is clearly not happening/not helping and in laws are refusing to engage with direct communication, there is nothing that can be done about that

Why? Her PIL have invited them to an event. Why would they decline the invitation because of someone else? You are saying you don't expect the PILs to intervene. Yet you are saying @inlawproblems should somehow punish PILs by not attending because they have a problem with someone else?

My own sister didn't talk to me for about 4 years. (She's a very difficult person and it was the most peaceful and relaxed 4 years of my life 🤣) I did not avoid any family situation because of this. I went. I was pleasant. I engaged with everyone. I spoke to her children, her husband (who didn't seem to have the same issue with me as she did). I did not let my relationship with my parents or anyone else in my family be affected by her actions and attitude. I didn't involve my mother, although my sister would give out about me to her. And considering she hadn't spoken to me in 4 years I was bemused at what she could still be saying about me after all that time.

Your BIL and wife have a problem with you.
You have a problem with your BIL and wife.
You don't have a problem with your PILs.
Your PILs have invited you to something.
Your PILs have no control over their son's wife.
You want to upset and disrespect your PILs by not attending something because you have an issue with someone else.

Cop on. Be an adult. Go to your in-laws event and let "the other side" decide whether or not they want to go knowing that you will be there. Stop behaving like you've done something wrong. Unless there is much more to this story than a child's name.

Yes I did. I completely sympathise with the OP. I have had miscarriages too. But if I was in this situation with a small family and children so close in age I would have thought to check. Middle names are often used for sentimental reasons and have important meanings to the family. This is not the only name they could have chosen, she said it wasn't even her favourite on their list.

It's not a continuation of the previous situation though

Her/their behaviour when our daughter was born was so rude and out of character that I felt like something was wrong when I was only three days postpartum and that feeling continued to grow over the next few months as it became increasingly clear they were avoiding us.

When I say we weren't close before, what I mean is she and I weren't texting each other cat memes, lending each other maternity clothes or going for cocktails together. But when my first child was born they came round to meet him when he was a week old, congratulated us, celebrated with us, you know, all the normal things you do when someone in the family has a baby. So their behaviour second time round was very noticeable, and hurtful. And then for them to leave us guessing for six months, only for us to finally ask them and find out that their decision to cut us off was indeed deliberate and calculated to hurt us, and was for an utterly trivial reason that everyone else agrees is nonsensical. It's hard to describe just how hurtful this is, especially when all our attempts to reach out to them have been rebuffed. We don't want to just pretend everything is fine and we feel this is too much to ask of us.

My husband wouldn't go for any of my choices so in the end it was the only one we could use.

What if we had checked with them and they'd said no, we want to keep this very popular top ten name for our daughter's exclusive (non) use?

Then what?

We'd have had to either say, "oh well, we're going to use it anyway" or call our daughter a name one of us didn't like.

Don't you think it's time you all grew up?
What a trivial thing for adults to fall out over. Does it matter?
Go, and behave normally and don't start WW3

I'm so sorry. That sounds incredibly tough. I hope you get your brother back one day.

No one has said you need to pretend everything is fine.
Also you may never know why she has behaved like this.
Probably Narcissistic rage, completely irrational and to feed her fragile ego

Take your hat out of this ludicrous game of hers.
Let her own her behaviour by carrying on with polite, calm behaviour.
Trust me it will drive her nuts

Grey rock at family events

Why do you need to talk it out? What needs to be resolved? You're not going to change your child's name. If you're all in the same space just get on with it. Someone you don't particularly like stopped talking to you for 18 months. That now means that whenever you see each other in public (you share a family and it is very petty to punish the grandparents of the children for some stupid reason) you be politely civil in each others company and then move on and not have to interact again until the next family occasion.

You are coming across as very unreasonable and very hostile whether you realise it or not.

If you suspect your BIL is in an abusive relationship and being isolated from his family is that not exactly the time to all stand together and show him you're united and his family will always be there. By removing yourself you are also allowing her to isolate you, your husband and your children from his family too.

I know what I'd do...

Yes if they had said we would prefer you don't use the name Lily etc I would not have used it.

There are names I loved which my siblings have used before me. That's life.

@inlawproblems Another way of looking at it is, why are you letting this woman dictate so much of your lives, and relationships? Isn't that handing her far too much power and influence?

At the end of the day, she sounds passive aggressive and fearful of confrontation. You sound like you are not fearful of confrontation as you want to get out your hurt and anger.

Look, I get it. You're angry. That they behaved so badly when you went through so much makes it even more hurtful. I'd not count on them or feel close to them. But I don't know how long you've been in this world not to know that some people will never ever apologise and may even be relying on the fact that you will start to look more and more unreasonable the longer this goes on.

You said that the bil and sil have have estranged themselves from you, not the other way round. So why are you staying away from events rather than them? This doesn't make sense. You have every right to be there. If they have a problem with you being there that's their problem. You don't have to interact with them beyond a very surface level. Surely if she's behaved so badly, she will be the one feeling awkward, not you.

You said you loved your pil. So it would be terrible to let this person who it sounds like you don't have much time for anyway ruin your relationship with them.

Perhaps what you really want is some acknowledgement of your hurt from the grandparents. Perhaps you should say that to them. Say you don't want them to take sides but you could do with a bit of acknowledge as to how you feel.

If you don't want to go to the event just make up a time-clash excuse. Or politely decline. But this might be an opportunity to move forward from this ridiculous debacle without letting it fester further which becomes more difficult to come back from.

This is nuts, it’s not her first name! I have cousins named Kate, Caitlin and Katherine. No one cares.

This is how I feel about it.

We've had a similar falling out with an in law. Words were said, voices were raised, due to a high pressure event and BIL hasn't spoken to us since. We've apologised for our side, but he is the type that is never wrong, never admits to being wrong and would cut someone off from his life entirely for merely opposing him. Hell, he even cut his own sibling off for scorning him, and didn't see him again until the sibling was on their death bed. There is just no arguing with some people.

It's ridiculous. He's ridiculous, but for the sake of the rest of the family we're just having to suck it up and get on with it. Purely for this reason of you never know what might happen. It's not worth the bad blood. It'll blow over eventually.

My PILs didn't get involved either. I mean they said to us that BIL was being unreasonable, but who's to say he wasn't saying the same to him too! All FIL said was that he just wants no bad blood but he wasn't getting involved. As an outsider myself, I don't blame him! I tried not to get involved either, but ended up having to try and play peacemaker as I seemed to be the only one that any of them would listen to.

I'd go, be civil, and ultimately let time deal with it.

The only way to stop her "getting her way" is to not play this game. Rise above it all, business as usual, take your space in the family, stop resenting your PIL who have nothing to do with it. Don't let her show you that her behaviour impacts you or YOUR behaviour in the slightest.

Well we would not have been willing to not use it, so what would have been the point in asking them?

They got exclusivity over one name for each of their children. (Which also ruled out us using other names which were too similar.) They had the first boy and the first girl which meant that they got a completely free choice both times whereas we did not. And the only reason they had their children first was because I suffered from infertility whereas they did not.

Frankly, expecting anything more than the enormous good fortune that they had already had - particularly exclusivity over middle names - is completely unreasonable and egocentric and should not be encouraged.

This is the best response here @inlawproblems . I think you should take this on board

All the best

So you carry on and act civilly whenever you see each other. That’s all there is to it.

OP we have a similar situation in our family, though not to do with a name (batshit SIL who has also turned BIL a bit batshit). People who don't have this kind of character in their family just don't get it. They behave so badly to everyone but rely on PIL's fear of not seeing grandchildren to do whatever they want whenever they want, with no repercussions.

The truth is, it's not fair on the grandchildren of the "good" family. They have to deal with a horrible aunt and uncle (and sadly those cousins also become horrible too, due to their parents' influence) and are taught to accept bad behaviour against them, to please granny and grandad.

What good parents/grandparents would do in this situation is sadly accept that their son married an awful loon, do whatever they felt necessary to maintain a relationship with their son and grandkids, but not force anything at all on their other kids or grandkids. Yes it means they won't have all their kids or grandkids together in the same place, but why would you want that if you knew that one kid and his family would be hurting everyone else there? Good parents would put their other children and grandchildren's happiness above their own.

It has taken PIL in our situation a long time to realise this but they are getting their now. Funnily enough, once they stopped forcing the issue, we actually decided we could cope with 2-3 meet-ups a year that include the batshit family, as we no longer felt held to ransom and could just grey rock them for a few hours. We see absolutely no benefit whatsoever to our children to ever spend time with these people, blood relatives or not. Sometimes children sadly need protecting from their own relatives, and in a situation where an auntie won't even acknowledge her niece's existence (seriously, wtaf!) that is definitely the case.

Those of you feeling sorry for PIL in this scenario need to have a word with yourselves - where is their/your sympathy for the innocent little girl whose family won't even acknowledge her birth and whose cousins spend time making digs about her family and her name! how on earth will contact with those people benefit her in any way?!

“We don't want to just pretend everything is fine and we feel this is too much to ask of us.”

I don’t think you have to pretend anything, just attend what seems like an important party for your PILs, be nice to the granny, don’t rise to any bait from your BIL/SIL and walk away looking like the very model of reasonableness and then have nothing more to do with BIL/SIL until the next social event.

I understand your PILs wanting to get the grandchildren together with what must be one of their elderly mothers for a photo. Surely they would appreciate you achieving that for them?

Could you have an important event that means you can’t stay for long? Go in smile and laugh for a short while then leave and slag them off to your hearts content?

I'd go, rise above it, be the bigger person. They all know already she's a dick - if she behaves like that in front of the family it will be her that looks bad not you. By refusing to go you pass power and the opportunity to cast the shadow of blame to you

@inlawproblems I haven't read all your replies because there are 5 pages worth of them!!! All over a name that happens to appear in your nieces name which she will literally never use. Your BIL /SIL are being absurd.

You should go and be gracious and great guests. If BIL/SIL decide to act like 5 year olds then that's on them not you.

The problem with you declining this invitation is that YOU are perpetuating this batshit feud.

You and your DH need to be the bigger people here, by not going, you are being as petty & preposterous as your BIL/SIL - you are sinking to their depths - is that where you want to be?

You are getting overly upset about a relationship that was not strong in the first place.
Your bil and kids did come and see your new baby and congratulate you. Your sil was clearly going through a lot at the time and yes she didn't act as graciously as she could have but you need to get over this.
You need to stop demanding meet ups and apologies from them. This is not putting boundaries in place, it comes across as very aggressive. Your sil is obviously the type who doesn't like confrontation and she doesn't want a relationship with you. You have to respect that.

Hopefully you can be mature enough to go and be civil for the sake of your pil and children.

Just going along and playing nice is not a small ask though. It may be easy for many of the folks suggesting it here, but if you're not from an abusive or toxic background, then going along to a family event and acting nice despite the awful behaviour directed at you can be very difficult indeed. If you were scapegoated in childhood, then trying to act normal when you're actually severely triggered by being in the same room with someone who has been nasty to you is near impossible. It directly mirrors what you had to endure as a child - people allowing or perpetrating abuse and unkindness, then blaming you for your reaction.

When you're dealing with narcissistic people, darvo - deny, attack, reverse victim and offender - is common. Many people find it retraumatising to put themselves in a situation where even defending themselves is likely to be seen as the issue, rather a reaction to horrible treatment. Those pretending it's an easy thing to do clearly haven't had to deal with the legacy of past trauma.