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!

I don't think the OP needs any lectures from anyone about her conduct based on what I have read.

I would guess that most posters have no idea of what it is like to go through infertility, what it costs to suffer privately and have to put on a brave face and be pleased for others' good fortune. I went through this to have my one & only child and it is punishing.

Please stop with the false equivalence between the OP's position and that of her SIL; you are not even trying to understand.

I think why I have become so invested in this because I was in a similar situation 10 years ago.
I have been trying to give you insight as someone 10 years down the path.
I held a lot of resentment towards sil for having a baby before me, having a baby so easily while I struggled and struggled. I felt everything came so easily to her and I probably did blow her words and actions out of proportion.
I was extremely hard but I went to family events, I was civil. 10 years later our kids have a great relationship, I have found peace with myself, we are not the best of friends but we are polite to each other.

OP, how do you think your parents in law (whom you say that you say you love mostly), feel about this? The rift that the four of you are creating and feeding, year on year? I bet they're sad beyond measure.

Take this back to bare bones, the very crux of the argument. What can you and your husband personally fix of this? You say that your brother in law and sister in law don't accept anything from their side but what about the two brothers? You and your sister in law don't get on but that's not a deal-breaker in families. Most women can be civil with people they don't particularly like, they don't live with them, just have to meet up occasionally with the family.

Why has your brother and his brother allowed this to escalate and stagnate like this, and why do you want them to? Is it so important that you hold out for an apology? Do you think that your own conduct has been above reproach?

The two brothers should get together for the sake of their own relationships with each other and the perhaps concede that their wives will not see eye to eye but they will behave in a cordial manner when at a family gathering - and then do that. Just that. Do not put your child's relationship with her family in jeopardy for this.

Yes, it is terrifying and you're right to be worried. But you don't have the right to sweep family conflicts under the carpet and tell the victims to just get over it. If you want permanent estrangement, that's exactly the way to go about it.

The PIL could go about resolution in many other ways - eg. offer to pay for some family arbitration sessions, suggest that everyone meet up to thrash it out - but instead you think it's just fine for them to expect OP and their son to just suck it up, even though they have done absolutely nothing wrong.

This.

Just let it go.

I'm completely with the OP on this. Sil needs to get a grip - you don't freeze out your bil and sil because they gave their child a top 10 name that you also chose as a middle name! Absolute batshittery behaviour. Particularly considering their own son shares another family members name.

Seems to me like OP has bent over backwards trying to make peace, but she is absolutely entitled to an apology - posters on here think she should suck up shit for the rest of her life, just because her PIL want to act like everything is fine. No, I wouldn't be going that. At some point she's allowed to say enough is enough and to decline any pressure to see sil/bil.

PIL aren't entitled to have everyone fake it for their benefit. Or to have their kids and grandkids in one place. As nice as it is to have kids who get along, that's not the reality in this family and they need to accept this. They are trying to manipulate OP and their son into doing what they want, are ignoring what they have previously been told and they are not entitled to have what they want at the expense of what OP and her dh feel is right.
I'd actually be very cross about that - they've done it publicly to make it harder to refuse.

I wouldn't play that game - I'd reply with 'unable to make Saturday, look forward to seeing you on Sunday as arranged'. Keep the drama out of it - they'll know why you are declining and that their attempt to force it has failed.

What you really want is everyone in the family - PILs, BILs, children, ideally batshit SIL too but you know it won’t happen - to know, acknowledge and respect that you are right about everything and your SIL is 100% in the wrong.

I wouldn’t even know where to begin with someone like this if I were the PIL or the BIL. With people like you, it’s your way or the highway. Theres also usually a whiff of sanctimony and/or martyrdom. It’s deeply, deeply unattractive and off putting.

I am DIL! I am a randomer in the family. He could have met and married anyone else . It is "random" that I ended up meeting him.

You're really not coming across very well @inlawproblems and I suspect from reading your posts here there is a whole lot more to this story than a child's second middle name.

I wish you'd make up your mind. You recently said that you don't expect anything from your PILs other than accepting that you won't go to family events. But early on you said:

we feel that PIL have failed to deal with BIL and SIL and by doing nothing have sided with the aggressors.

So you DID expect them to 'deal with' BIL and SIL.

@TellMeWhoTheVillainsAre you said, "I hope your own children don't marry such nasty vindictive people. Imagine wanting a family photo and having some randomer that just happens to be part of your family by chance of your child meeting them denying you that moment."

I can't not respond to this. Calling the OP or the mother of the grandchildren in general "some randomer" is thoroughly outrageous. As for "happens to be part of your family by chance of your child meeting them". It also sounds weirdly possessive. Like there is a family that includes grandchildren but the dils or sils are not relevant or just hangers on.

You don't own your children. They grow up and they have independent lives. Familes aren't just the people who flow directly from yourself with yourself at the centre.

If anyone talked about my mother like that I'd be outraged. I am a grandchild. I liked my grandparents but I am not "part of a family" with them but without either of my parents thanks. I'm not some sort of possession. If someone talked of me in those terms as a child or in a disrespectful way about either of my parents in that way, I'd have been furious as a child.

The OP is not some random. In fact one of the positive points of her post is that she clearly is considered close and family by her pils and has said how much she cares for them. Which is why it's such a shame that all this is happening.

The 'victims' are not OP and her sister in law, they are grown adults who are unilaterally making the family dynamics miserable because of the way they are behaving around each other with no end in sight.

But OP’s PIL do know her, she’s been in their lives for years, is married to their son and has given them 2 grandchildren.

So if you’re going to say something so nasty like ‘some randomer’, at least own it.

It’s you that’s not coming across well.

OP, I get it. Your SIL has been batshit, and it can be so hard to handle someone like that. So many of the males in my family share a family name (as first or middle) that I've lost count.

I spent years being the bigger person with my SIL. I had a similar experience to you with a carefully written olive-branch letter to which she never replied. She slagged me off behind my back. She was unpleasant to my face.

There was eventually massive blow-up between her a d DH, which was somehow my fault....

Your options are to avoid, suck it up, or look like the bad guy. They're all crap. Sorry.

None of your issues have got anything to do with the state of either of your marriages and they shouldn't say that either. I don't agree with alot of what you say but the same rules apply to you , they have no right to say these things either, it's not helpful and you've all come so far now I doubt there's a way back. But that said never say never. I really do hope you all make up and say sorry to each other all 4 of you. Not just them and not just you.

A simple no thanks will suffice, no need for the drama

Also PIL are able to hand out invites to their home, as they wish.

They do not have to take sides, because OP stamps her feet and tells them too.

They don't have to blackmail their other child with threats of withdrawing babysitting or telling them how much they do for them, so they should make up with OP.

Clearly the BIL and Sil don't like OP, she also states that BIL should never have married his wife, as there were "signs" before, so this isn't just about a name is it??

The way you have spoken about her on this thread is anything but nice.
If this is how you feel it would be hard for this not to come across in real life.
And your negative opinion of her has been there since she met your bil as you have said yourself.

I've changed my position on my response as this thread has progressed, OP.

I know the heartache of going through infertility and repeated miscarriages. I know the joy, after the abject fear of something going wrong for 40 whole weeks, of finally holding my healthy child for the first time. I know the concept to which MN jokingly refers to as 'PFB', because these kinds of experiences can make us very protective of our much-wanted children.

I urged you to consider your PiLs and try not to let this develop into a full family schism. But in the circumstances I was giving advice which I know I wouldn't adhere to myself. Considering I've been in precisely the same position with a spiteful in-law mistreating my child because they had an issue with me, this, on reflection, makes my points pretty hypocritical.

I would not, could not, look past someone deliberately ostracising my child. The childish nonsense about names and fallings out are one thing. Punishing and ignoring a small child for the perceived slights of her parents, is quite another. My response (although this took many, many years and for that, more fool me) was to step back and allow DH and DC to continue the relationship with MiL without my presence. He and his siblings are now inevitably NC.

I apologise, OP. I was wrong. You are not being unreasonable.

He's the one who has made unkind comments about the state of our marriage by saying we clearly don't communicate with each other because I didn't tell my husband the message he thinks he communicated to me via telepathy about his children's bloody middle names. As if he thinks we didn't have a thousand more important things to talk about even if he had communicated anything to me, which he didn't.

And you're the one saying he could never have married SIL signs were there from when they got married

As bad as each other, but you think your comments are justified.

How complimentary do you expect me to be about someone who has treated us like this when we had never been anything but nice to her?

Oh give over!

You didn't like her before the name thing!

I think your hurt response, while understandable, especially given your losses, has, over time, come to victimise you. Originally it was your bil and sil who were wrong, rude, petty, pathetic and difficult to deal with. Over time your refusal to see them until you have received an apology has turned you from being the people who were wronged, to the people who are being difficult to deal with. I’m sure you never envisioned nor wanted that.

Just as your SILs behaviour has affected everyone in the family, so too now, is yours. So while you are angry that the PILs didn’t discuss this with you first (which I understand you feeling), I wonder if they find it as difficult to talk about with you, as you do with your SIL, and what they are doing is just putting their wishes out there in the hope that someone in the family might find a way out of this problem.

Because they probably feel they are being hurt by all the conflict too, and just as you feel hurt and victimised, they probably feel helpless too. So just as you are entitled to put forward your request that you receive an apology, so are they entitled to put forward their request that everyone puts it behind them and gets on. And just as your SIL can say ‘no apology’, you can say ‘no tea’.

It’s really complicated and difficult for you, but you need to ask yourself, how do you want this to continue? Because unless you can resolve it, it will continue and get worse. I imagine soon it’s going to affect your relationship with your other in laws who you get on with, who will also have a difficulty with choosing what to do.

Your SIL is clearly batshit and no wonder you don’t want to deal with her. And you could have chosen to swat away the accusations, by ignoring them completely and making her feel silly and marginalised (and everyone would have agreed with you) And probably forgotten about it and focused instead on the absolute joy of your having a child after several miscarriages.

But the response you chose, while seeming to be sensible initially has not served you well over time. It’s given the issue legs, drawn all the family, including the children in to the conflict and slowly allowed SIL to seem like the reasonable one (because she doesn’t want to talk about it) while you have got stuck in a no-win lane of demanding an apology which clearly you are never going to get. (I’m sure she loves that!) If she is never going to apologise, what are your options as more people get drawn in and become victims and end up feeling resentful just like you?

Insisting on a formal apology is a bit like submitting the person to a ritual humiliation, a ceremony of ‘I am right and you were wrong and now you admit it’. That’s very difficult for lots of people, they will never agree to that. Plus everyone knows she’s wrong and crazy already (we all think that here!). Plus, you can’t rely on some people doing the decent thing, and your SIL definitely seems to be one of those people, so in that case you have to get smart to get even. Clever, subtle steps… Formulate a way of dealing with her without drawing everyone into the conflict, which is damaging for you over the long term.

Like come to tea with something to undermine her so, so subtly, like a drawing of the family tree which in its own way will show how many people have the same names over generations and casually show it to the kids. Something like that.

Let her occupy the batshit corner of the family and don’t join her in it.

I think the fuss she made about other BIL getting engaged three weeks before their wedding was an early warning sign but obviously you're not going to call your wedding off at the last minute over something like that.

But they got engaged and married very quickly and I think if he had taken things a bit more slowly and got to know her properly first he might have thought better of it.

Handing out an invite on the family group chat (where it's harder to decline) rather than in person, when fil had literally just visited OP, does smack of manipulation though. It's not like this is a normal family dynamic.

I agree that the PIL shouldn't withdraw childcare etc - that wouldn't be right. But if this was my family I would tell my son that I thought he was being unreasonable to cut off his own brother over this. It's not like it's the same first name, which would be fair to get annoyed about.
Pil should stop trying to force OP/her DH to pretend all is fine because it clearly isn't. OP tried at nephews party and her bil/sil chose not to attend. At some point it's okay to say enough is enough and you just don't want to see certain people anymore.

I didn't have strong feelings about her either way before she went no contact with us after our daughter was born over a middle name.

I would not, could not, look past someone deliberately ostracising my child

I don't think any parent would, would they? I've read the OP's posts and I haven't seen anything about her child being ostracised or excluded? The only point I saw was in OP's first post that her sister in law didn't visit when the baby was born, but brother in law and their children did.

The parents in law (whom OP loves) are kind to all of the family, inclusive and wanting a generational family involvement. The barriers to this are between the four - OP, husband, sister in law and husband and they will either find a way for civility or not.