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!

Do you really not see the difference between OP venting anonymously online and BIL saying things about OP that OP hears about?

There's nothing nice to say about her though, is there?

But she's deliberately and defiantly standing in the way of the grandparents having a photo of all their grandchildren. She mentioned it in a previous post and how she won't allow that because they haven't received an apology and she perceives the GPs as siding with them.

Like it or not the grandparents have two sons. The two sons married two women. These two women are now holding the family to ransom by refusing to engage with each other.

I suggest the two women stay out of it and let the brothers, the parents and the cousins foster their own relationships. It is possible for these relationships to exist without the women being involved. The grandparents can get the photo of their grandchildren and OP doesn't have to be involved or ever look at the photo if the idea upsets her that much.

And how do you think things would be between you now if, following all of that, your SIL had then cut contact with you and refused to acknowledge the birth of your long awaited baby over something utterly trivial?

SIL has ostracised OP’s child by never once acknowledging she exists.

In my family that would never be forgotten.

YABVU to expect the PIL to take your side against another of their children.

I don't need to! I'm not asking am I being unreasonable 😉

OP, don’t forget that the majority of people on AIBU are looking to be combative, not supportive. The fact that they speak ‘cleverly’ and write long posts doesn’t change the fact that they’re looking to disagree with you.

The fact is that almost all of them, if treated this way by a family member, wouldn’t simply meekly allow themselves to be manoeuvred into showing their belly to the person who’s been completely unfair and insulting.

Your DH should talk to his parents very clearly about how he feels at having HIS boundary stomped on here. And maybe mention to them that if they’re wise, they will be watching and learning at the way their DIL is acting, and be careful.

I'm saying we don't want to go. It's not just me. My husband doesn't want to go either.

The photo is neither here nor there. If I were in PIL's situation I'm not sure I'd want a photo which painted a completely false picture of a happy family to anyone unaware of the reality. If I were them I wouldn't want to commemorate this time, I would be urging both of my sons to talk to each other and find a way to reconcile.

There's nothing nice to say about her though, is there?

And this is why they're not interested in being friendly with you.

On that basis, no one should ever have children, or hope for grandchildren, “just in case”. Because unless you’re expecting your kids to interbreed, you’re not getting any grandchildren without the help of “some randomer” and their terrifying ability to destroy your family. You’re getting all dewy-eyed over the grandparents not having this special picture of all their grandchildren together, but you’re reducing OP and her SIL to the level of walking incubators; a kind of Deliveroo for grandchildren.

And if you think only “randomers” who marry into a family have the potential to destroy it, you’re being very naïve.

I posted about the fact that she has started WWIII in a previously happy family for literally no reason and you want me to be like, "but on the plus side, she has nice hair and her half marathon PB is pretty speedy"?

OP hasn’t said she won’t allow a photo. I’m guessing if PIL asked to take all the DC to a studio or park to take a pic of them together, OP wouldn’t object.

I don't know if my SIL sent me a message when my child was born. If she didn't I would not have given it much thought tbh. We were not and still are not very close but we see each other at family events and are civil.

💯 well said

Sorry you clearly hate her guts and hated her for a long time before the name issue.

Possibly for many reasons but also clearly because she easily had children (and you are clearly angry that she had both first boy and first girl in grandchildren AND had first pick of the names). I get it, infertility is soul crushing, but it STILL doesn’t give you a license to hate someone so much. You make such a big deal of you being the bigger person and congratulating her with her children’s births - Im sure it was very difficult (even more difficult given the level of hate towards her you seem to have) but however hard it was the only decent thing to do, you can’t expect people fawning over the fact that much. You behaved with basic decency, it’s great, but it doesn’t deserve as much applause as you think it should.

more importantly, You think otherwise but given your level of vitriol and hate towards SIL even before this fall out there is no way it wasn’t coming through and you came across as “anything but nice”. Especially given that you say that it’s usually pretty obvious how you and your DH feel. So stop telling this story to yourself and others - you weren’t NICE, you just showed basic politeness and even that most likely begrudgingly.

i think you need therapy to understand what exactly in SIL provokes such level of hatred and nastiness in you, because honestly your comments about her marriage and her personality make you sound unhinged, there is nothing rational here.

@TellMeWhoTheVillainsAre none of which answers what I and others objected to in your posts. Whether you agree with the OP or not, she's not a "randomer" and noone in her immediate nuclear family is going to be impressed if she's treated as though she is.

Basically we'll all been through it over and over on this thread. The OP can take people's advice or not. It's up to her. If the pils are particularly keen on the photo it might have been more diplomatic to ask OP and her DH in private if they would do this despite knowing they didn't want to interact with the other couple. Maybe they just don't know how to explain the situation to the great-grandparent?

I am sympathetic with the pils here. Thankfully they don't sound like they see OP as a randomer at all. The fact they have a history of good relations with the OP is one of the reasons I think she might be better parking the feud with the sil. Not worth one difficult person ruining all the relationships. But the OP will know more about the situation than any of us and has to make her own call.

Agreed

Presumably she has at least spoken to you since your baby's birth?

I'm not asking her to fawn over me. I'm asking her to show me the bare minimum of basic common decency, which is considerably less than I showed her and she can't even manage that.

100% that.

Your in-laws are in an impossible situation. If they show any 'side' they risk losing the other son, and potentially their grandchildren.

You are being incredibly unreasonable to expect them to take that risk, @inlawproblems , and though you later denied it, you DID expect them to take your side, and you DID blame them for not doing so.

The majority of us here are hitting our heads against a brick wall though. You are so entrenched in your grudge holding, that nothing is going to change your perspective. As someone else said, you're now drinking your own poison, and making your own life miserable. And that's a win for SIL.

I just hope that your DH and his brother will be able to see past this, and that their love for their parents, and their filial relationship will overcome their resentment.

Well said.

I'm not asking them to do anything except stop badgering us to come and play happy families.

Yes we have spoken at family events. Superficial stuff, we are not friends but we are polite.

Why on earth should the PILs pay anything to try sort out a disagreement between two women who don't seem to like each other???

The me talking gymnastics some people will attempt to try make their problems someone else's responsibility is astounding!!

This is actually the funniest thing I've read on this thread. And there's been a few doozies 🤣