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!

Yep, I think BIL and SIL telling their 3yo son that OP’s baby stole his sister’s name is a low blow.

How exactly did they stand you up a their sons birthday party? Was there nobody else there? Did they tell you the wrong time? What happened?

Why did you not invite them to your daughters christening?how soon was this after her birth? You could not be sure they would say no, you should have given them the opportunity to say no.if you had been making every effort to make up with them as you have said surely you would invite them to the christening.

Did they have a christening for their third child? Did they invite you?

Absolutely zero chance whatsoever. Their first child was a honeymoon baby and their second child was born 21 months later. Like me, she was advised to wait a year to TTC after a C-section. So they were almost certainly both first cycle pregnancies.

@inlawproblems I'm sure they won't want you there all stroppy, so don't go.

Nope.

i mean, I AM someone else’s SIL but not the OP’s!

Has she REFUSED an invitation or you just didn’t invite them?

Like they had a point?

Nursing one's own feelings of resentment never leads anywhere good.
You're really reminding me of the Harry and Meghan saga. The result for them has been estrangement from family on all sides and few friends.
If you don't learn to forgive grievances real and perceived, or at least carry on with life, the circle of people you can be around will grow smaller and smaller.

Why do you keep needling OP with these inane little digs?

You're absolutely right. We're all wasting our time. OP is constantly changing her story, and it's all got ridiculous. She has no intention of doing anything other than spending the rest of her life stewing in her own resentment, and the PILs will die with their kids still at each others throats.

It's so unnecessary, and so sad.

So yes, you do want them to take sides. Using childcare as black mail. Stop saying that the only thing you want is your boundary not to attend to be respected, it is not true.

Also “the small thing” you expect is not just party attendance without shouting (that is expected of you) - what you want PILs to extract is BIL/SIL explaining themselves and you explaining how wrong they are.

Hear hear. For the OP to say "My daughter doesn't even know she has cousins because she's seen them twice, as a baby, and my son has pretty much forgotten" is very sad. Children gain such a lot from knowing about, and knowing they are part of, an extended family. Carrying on this ridiculous feud into the next generation is horrible.

OP, you asked if you are being unreasonable, but when people tell you that you are, you don’t like it and argue back. I’ll put it another way: no, you are not being unreasonable. Your SIL sounds unreasonable. But where family relationships are concerned, "reason" is not the most important thing. Your PIL are trying to organise a family occasion, with all their children and grandchildren there. Presumably your BIL and SIL know you were invited too, and are willing to go, so if you refuse to go you will be the one spoiling the whole occasion, and will be putting yourself in the wrong from then onwards.

This whole "She needs to say sorry first!" thing sounds so childish. Rise above it. Be the adult. No-one's asking you to be best buddies with your SIL. For the sake of your PIL, who want all their family together, you should go and just smile sweetly and say nothing but pleasantries.

Wait, so is the problem just the name or is it actually that you hate her for a host of reasons and the name is a convenient excuse?

If you just want the bare minimum of basic common decency then force her into a situation where she has to show you the bare minimum of basic common decency by being civil in public.

Unless of course you want her to flagellate herself in front of you?

People have mentioned this isn't just a disagreement between two women, but your posts are almost exclusively about your opinion of her, and how she's so awful, and how BIL made a bad decision marrying her. It seems this is a dispute being prolonged by two women. With a whole family caught in the crossfire.

Go. Be polite. If she doesn't extend the bare minimum of basic common decency then you can actually and honestly say you tried. If she does extend the bare minimum of basic common decency then everyone's happy because that's all you're looking for. Right?

The birthday party was hosted at PIL's house, just between cousins. It was at 5pm on a Friday afternoon which wasn't that convenient for us because it meant finishing work a bit early and picking our kids up from nursery but we thought it was an olive branch so we made an effort, brought a gift etc. When we got there, their two kids were there with PIL but BIL and SIL were not. They were at work. MIL had picked their two kids up from nursery and brought them to PIL's house, we had birthday cake and candles with our kids and theirs and PIL, and BIL and SIL did not show up at any point. At 6:30 we took our kids home to go to bed and MIL dropped their kids home. Neither BIL nor SIL acknowledged the fact that we'd showed up, or that they hadn't, or that we'd brought a gift. We felt totally manipulated. We now realise it was deliberate because BIL has said several times that our kids can continue to have a relationship with each other without us adults having to be involved. Of course he means without him and SIL having to be involved and it depends on DH and I making our children available.

Our children's christening was recent, so SIL hasn't spoken to us for over a year by the time it took place, it was very far away from where we and they live, the wider family were not invited (we kept it to grandparents and godparents) and neither BIL nor SIL are religious. SIL is actually a non practising Muslim. So no, their children are not christened for obvious reasons.

Honestly, no offence but some of these suggestions are bonkers. Given the fact that SIL is completely no contact with us and has been for some time, if I sent her a huge bouquet of flowers, turned up on the ward with a care package when her child was ill or invited them to my children's christening, everyone would think I was completely off my trolley.

We did invite them to our son's birthday party, a month after their son's party (when they stood us up). They didn't come or acknowledge the invitation or wish him a happy birthday.

I'm genuinely curious to understand how much more effort you think we should be making to include them in our special family events, given the circumstances. They've made their feelings towards us perfectly clear. We don't like it, we don't understand it, but we've accepted it. Now we want everyone else to accept that we don't want to be in the same room as them at the moment.

Wow, the more you post, the more it becomes clear that you’re a childish, spiteful and vindictive person.

To be honest, I’m surprised that the in-laws continue to tolerate you because you can be sure they don’t like you.

Fair enough. I saw from an earlier post that sister in law can't be in the same room as you? If that's the case then, if she knew that you and your husband/children were attending, would she not attend herself? That would be a good outcome perhaps?

It's good that your husband is on your side because that's his place. This seems much too difficult and complicated to resolve so perhaps if you are ok to attend if your sister in law isn't present, you wouldn't miss out from a visit with your family to the parents in law and wider family.

It must be frustrating for you because whatever you're posting, posters are trying to help, coming up with all sorts of suggestions and scenarios that aren't related to your own - and there seems so much more tied up in all this.

You've tried. You have. There is nothing else to do other than to decide for you and your husband and children what you are and aren't ok with - and then do that.

Does your brother speak to his brother at all now or are they keeping their distance? It's a separate thing really, I just wondered.

I am sorry that you're in this position, it really can't be pleasant for you.

The bare minimum of common courtesy I expected from her was a simple "congratulations" when my daughter was born and for her not to slag me off to her three year old. But that ship has sailed, hasn't it? It's a bit late for her to congratulate me on the birth of my 18 month old, especially when she now has a 2 month old. But we are expected to be thrilled about that.

@paywalled because she's not listening, confirmed she can't fake it, making it awkward for everyone, at a time when she should be civil, is trying to dictate to PIL how they should live their lives and constantly changing the "story"

That ok with you? Or would you like to approve my posts first?

I think you should just go and have cake and pretend you like each other. For your PILs and for the kids.

At any given family gathering, there's at least two people who are just pretending to like each other through gritted teeth at any given time. Isn't there or is that just my family?

For me it's a case of playing nice for one hour out of respect for the elder members of the family the PILs.

The only exceptions are where an actual crime has been committed.

She later on made it clear that she doesn’t think a photo like that is important and she feels it would be false picture, so I don’t see her really doing that.

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.

Are you expected to be thrilled? Have they contacted you with photos? Have they invited you over to see the baby?

I'm out OP. Good luck. I can't see any resolution to this ever. But I do hope you don't continue to punish your PIL. Past a certain age you're supposed to stop asking your mammy and daddy to give our to your brother for annoying you.

It's not important to us, no.

If it's important to PIL then they should be trying harder to facilitate it rather than putting 100% of the burden on us.

Trying harder how?
They are trying hard to bring you all into one room.

they are supposed to be trying harder to make another side apologise and repent, righr?

Gosh just go and ignore. Compartmentalize the shitty behavior. Yes they are wrong. It is however not worth the aggro.

Read the OP's posts and I really don't get what more OP is expected to do here.

I wouldn't go either OP. We seem to be in the minority here but I wouldn't want to spend my time hanging around people who felt this negatively towards me and my children. It's not like the cousins will have a close relationship after this.