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!

No chance whatsoever.

Who told you that BIL blames you, and not your husband?

My uncle married a woman who never acknowledge any one in his family. We had cousins we knew existed but never "knew". We are now adults. We recently met our cousins who are 2 lovely men and now we all have a great relationship. The other families of cousins share history, and memories and stories. Our 2 cousins have expressed upset at not also having these memories.

You might never speak to each other but your children will most likely build their own relationship in time. It'll be sad when they realise they never knew each other because their mams didn't get on.

I’d go, be the mature adults to highlight how childish they’ve been.

PP suggestion of a personalised outfit is hilarious it maybe negates some of the maturity but could be done very innocently.

Seriously? She thinks she has a right of monopoly over all of her children's middle names and I'm the entitled one?

Yikes.

They don’t have to be ever alone. If your DH says something horrible about SIL to your BIL without her even present that’s enough, it’s going to make its way to her and they both will hate your family unit.

but also why do YOU only blame SIL and not BIL? Isn’t it the same thing you object to, that BIL blames only you and not his brother?

BIL told DH and DH told me. Confirmed in a text by BIL a while back. Because I'm the one who "knew" it was their daughter's middle name.

I've never denied that I knew. I just had no idea they would be petty enough to care.

If I'd given it even one second's consideration I'd have thought, "No, don't be silly, they gave their son the same FIRST name as another family member, of course they won't care about this."

You are a completely unreliable narrator.

"We distanced ourselves because they ignored us for some time because they disapproved of your name and we have never seen them or your cousins since because we are waiting for an apology."

vs

"We distanced ourselves because of their disgusting behaviour."

No reasonable or honest person could fail to see the difference between the two. I'm now as certain as I can be that there's a lot of stuff you're not telling us and the picture you are giving is as distorted as the one you'll give your daughter in future.

It's such a shame that having gone through such hell to get your daughter, you're so willing to weaponise her and sabotage her relationship with her cousins and make the grandparents miserable because their parents won't admit they did you a wrong that isn't going to matter in 18 years.

But you won't accept that, so there it is.

But he hasn't? There is no back story. We weren't close to her but we were perfectly pleasant to her. We chatted to her at family events. We showed an interest in their wedding plans. We showed up with gifts when their son was born and I sat in a corner of the room next to SIL's mum who must have asked me three or four times when we were going to have a baby of our own and give her grandson a cousin and it took all my self control not to tell her to mind her fucking business, but I was polite to her.

I know you clearly don't believe me but there is absolutely nothing DH or I could possibly have done to make her feel this animosity towards us and BIL has confirmed several times that there is no other reason, it is just about the middle name.

The family was so nice before. I can't believe all it has taken is one toxic person to completely destroy it.

I am not only blaming SIL. BIL has been an absolute twat throughout. But we know that this is coming from her and that he is basically her spokesman. We've had that confirmed by the family friend who has been trying to mediate.

You just said your husband agressively SHOUTED at his brother on public transport. When said brother actually tried to explain what the problem was (which is what you seem to be demanding).

Are you being intentionally obtuse? SIL
never has to witness your DH temper; and your BIL is obviously aware of how your husband behaves as he grew up with him! and it is definitely not the first time he blew up at your brother.

you don’t even know what he said - I bet you know deep down he said some horrible things and maybe this time BIL had enough of YOUR HUSBAND

You go on and on about their vile behaviour?
What have they done apart from not congratulate you on your daughters birth, ignore your childs birthday and refuse invitations to meet up? I know its not nice but it just seems like they want to keep their distance from you for whatever reason. It may be the name but that's probably just an excuse, it's likely something else.
It is hurtful for you especially if you don't understand their reasons. But it's not vile behaviour.
You would get so much more sympathy on this thread (and probably in real life) if you had a better attitude. You have been so rude about your sil here and so selfish, stubborn and fixed in your mindset.

Why are you blaming only SIL??

you just told us that there was a shouting match between two brothers. Why do you think it is SIL who cut you off, and not BIL?

OP @inlawproblems be under no illusion that if you refuse the invitation of a 3rd party to a gathering then it is you that is perpetuating this clusterfuck.

The only person causing a rift is the one trying to host exclusive events, refusing to attend anything they are invited to and blaming others in the family for not 'taking their side'.

Did you read the bit where the ILs refused to show up to their own child's birthday party or acknowledge the fact Op and her DH attended and brought a gift with them...?

Look, I wasn't there, I don't know exactly what happened.

The version I've heard is that DH said, "Clearly something is up, can you please tell me what it is?" and BIL said, "We're upset that you used our DD's middle name" and DH said something like, "Are you serious? THAT'S the reason you've been refusing all our invitations and your wife still hasn't met our 6 month old daughter?"

And then BIL took offence because DH didn't instantly say, "Oh I'm so sorry, your feelings are totally valid. Of course we should have consulted you when deciding what to name our child."

I've no idea how aggressive the conversation was on either side or even really how it ended, because I wasn't there. All I know is that DH deeply regretted asking the question in a public place and would not have done so if he'd realised the answer was going to be something that would make him so livid. I think he was expecting the answer to be something that had nothing to do with us, such as, "We're getting divorced."

Because our friend has heard their version of events and told us that apparently for the first 3 months or so of DD's life SIL was refusing to have anything to do with us and BIL was attempting to reason with her and say it wasn't that big a deal really and not worth falling out over. Apparently they were arguing about it for quite a long time, for several months until their DD became unwell and BIL stopped asking SIL to let it go because they had other things on their mind. The friend told us that BIL only really became angry with us after the confrontation with DH when DH was not sympathetic to their point of view.

Actually that reads as if PIL were doing childcare and invited the OP to get all 4 grandchildren together in a room rather than refusing

That's what was in fact happening but it is absolutely not what we were led to believe was happening.

Actually that reads as if PIL were doing childcare and invited the OP to get all 4 grandchildren together in a room rather than refusing

In which case PILs are doing an awful lot of situation manipulation in order to get the family together, which is exacerbating the problem rather than fixing it.

Either they need to acknowledge the fact that neither side wants anything to do with the other, or get involved and help mediate. They can't just expect both sides to blindly show up and play nice because it's clearly beyond that now.

This just shows how your attitude stinks.. she is entitled not to like you, I suspect as you had zero relationship outside of the family group up to the point in your late pregnancy when you decided to make an effort to get to know her, that she doesn't really like you, you picking that name was obviously the final nail in the coffin.. your BIL congratulated you and made effort to see you when your child was born on behalf of their family.. no more than that was needed.

She doesn't have to say sorry for not congratulating you personally (her husband did it on their behalf), any more than you have to say sorry for choosing to use that name (it's a free country).. but you have been pushing for a confrontation and an apology from them ever since.. which has now resulted in a massive blowout where instead of two 'by marriage' people not really liking each other (or having to like each other) but still being civil for everyone's sake.. Now two brothers aren't talking to each other either and no one can be in the same room as each other.. and it's causing your PIL a lot of heartache to think all the grandchildren are being affected by all this and can't all be together with them either.

All because you think you are owed an apology and you're just not! You didn't even text her when her child was hospitalised.. so it's not like you have have the moral highground here.

Like I said.. get over yourself.

There are a lot of people on this thread with very poor boundaries and clearly coming from toxic families, where everyone is supposed to tiptoe around awful people and let them behave as they like, to prevent "bad feeling" or to not upset "granny". It's very telling when posters are advising OP to put her 18 month old daughter in the path of horrible relatives just to "keep the peace"!

Thankfully my own granny would have given BIL an earful by now, telling him not to let his wife be so bloody spiteful as to not acknowldge the birth of her niece, and would have said she wasn't welcome at family events until she was willing to behave like a decent human being! As a result, we don't have toxic family members, as they get cut out pretty sharpish.

There is literally no benefit whatsoever for children to be in contact with spiteful family members who are not on their side. OP and her DH are very sensible to keep their children away from BIL and SIL and even to limit contact with the cousin now that he is mimicking their spiteful nonsense. PIL are totally crap grandparents if they want their DGD to be forced to spend time with people who resent her or refuse to acknowledge her existence.

Shame on all those posters having a go at the OP (but no her husband, for some reason!) for protecting their children, as any decent parent would.

@sandyhappypeople if you don't acknowledge the birth of your niece you are a shit person, regardless of whether your husband does it for you. HTH.

No the BIL/SIL's behaviour is vile.

If anyone in my family had failed to welcome my DC's arrival with less than wholehearted joy, and chose instead to have an issue with my baby's name - to the extent of badmouthing the OP and DH to their own small child about it - I don't think my response would have been at all calm. I doubt I would have made any of the efforts the OP has made, to try to repair things.

'It may be the name but that's probably just an excuse, it's likely something else.' This is pure speculation on your part. If there is something else going on with SIL/BIL then it is up to them to share it if they are interested in patching things up. But all they have mentioned is the name.

I think I would have a 'bad attitude' too if I had been seriously hurt by my ILs as the OP describes here. I don't agree at all that the OP is 'selfish, stubborn and fixed in (her) mindset'; she has evidently tried repeatedly to resolve things and it has been thrown back in her face so why try any more? For someone with a supposedly bad attitude she has explained her case repeatedly to provocative and hostile posters on here with a lot more patence than I think I would manage.

Did you miss all the posts where I mentioned making a big fuss of her kids when they were born even when I was suffering from infertility and having a perfectly nice relationship with her at family events? We just didn't have a particular relationship outside of the family group dynamic, that's all. It's fine if she doesn't want to be friends with me. I have plenty of other friends. It's her failing to even be civil and causing a massive rift in her husband's family (not her own) that we take issue with.

Thats your opinion and you are entilted to it but most people here disagree with you.