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!

Christ all this talk of 'winning' you sound so petty just bloody grow up. You don't have to go and be best friends you can go and talk to everyone else there it's not hard. Obviously you want to keep the drama going, you sound ridiculous.
Would love to hear SIL version of events have a feeling it would reveal much more than what you have typed up.

He didn't really expect the answer to have anything to do with us, truth be told. I think he thought BIL was going to tell him that he and SIL were splitting up. To us that seemed like the most logical explanation for BIL being distracted and distant and SIL going scorched earth with us. Because we hadn't done anything to deserve being treated in that way so there had to be some rational explanation. He was taken completely by surprise.

Believe me, I too would love to hear SIL's version of events.

She doesn't want to share it with anyone, which makes us all inclined to think it's a crock of shit.

I’ve read all your replies OP.

I think you are assigning a lot of blame and characteristics to your SIL based on hearsay from others and have also built up an unpleasant picture of her based simply on her silence.

You have a third party account of the conversation between your DH and BIl.

You have a third party account of SIL’s anger over the name from a friend.

But you are using words like toxicity, creating WWIII within a family. You accuse them of ‘standing you up’ at the birthday party but it wasn’t SIL who made the invitation and then ghosted you - it’s just as likely that they were never going, separate from any issues with you.

Why did you only address the letter to BIL and not both of them. You haven’t reached out to SIL in over a year either - you are both ignoring each other.

There are hurt feelings on both sides - you might not think SIL should have been upset but she was. So there’s hurt on both sides.

You are the one making it into WWIII at the point.

Let. It. Go.

Just act like it’s water under the bridge - go to family events - address any issues calmly and low key (for example if their kids say anything about your daughters name) -

the only way to win in this situation is to act like it’s all over and you’re not bothered. Then you’ll see if there really is a problem by the way BIL and SIL act going forward.

I am not sure most people would be angry actually

But Im sure that most people will not normalise getting livid and having a shouting match on a public transport with their brother. You are normalising and minimising very aggressive behaviour.

being angry and shouting in public are completely different things

BIL coming over separately sounds like a sensible plan. If not then I definitely think say what you said in your letter to their face and if they don't accept it/apologise/engage you can tell PILs you've done your best but can't risk exposing your daughter to people who won't acknowledge her existence because they don't like her name. I don't agree with others saying just ignore it and move on as pretending to be all nice lets people away with bad behaviour. But you can also apologise and be the bigger people by going and making the first move, whilst holding the boundary of an apology from them.

For what it's worth, if BIL had said to us, a month after DD's birth, "This is a bit awkward but we're actually really upset that you used our DD's middle name, we don't understand why you did that and that's the reason DW hasn't come to meet your baby", I'm sure we would have said something like, "Oh god, we are really sorry we've upset you, it wasn't intentional and it never occurred to us that you might be even remotely bothered by this."

But he didn't.

You are so unhinged. She JUST DIDNT ENGAGE with you and you call it scorched earth. Do you even know what this means??

OK. But I'm not my DH, I wasn't there, and yet somehow I am still the villain here, according to BIL.

Yep the birthday party where you were "stood up" sounds like PIL organised a get together. Not the parents. But you are so blinded by your hatred that you have to make SIL be at fault.

It is absolutely not normal to cut contact with your BIL and SIL when they've just had a new baby! It's insanely rude and hurtful. I can't believe there are people who think this is OK.

The things you have said about SIL make it very clear you have built up an unhealthy hatred towards her. Given the amount of ways and words used to slander her as a person makes me feel that these are things which are only true to you, no one else. So to then jump to accuse her of being a perpetrator of DA is not something you should do lightly. Your responses to this thread actually lead me to think you are more likely to be a perp of emotionally blackmailing. Your DH, BIL and PIL were a family way before either you or SIL came along. It should not be you taking the lead on telling PIL to not play ‘hapoy families’. Allow your DH and DC to attend all family events without you.

Your entitlement to an apology is outstanding, and yes I have experienced something similar with the whole inlaw family. 6 years no contact from me, but I allowed DH to visit. I chose no contact. Guess how it ended, SIL was due to get married, I was invited, I bit the bullet and attended. No one mentioned the years of no contact nor the things which happened in between. We started off civil and now have a strong relationship.

You've said your husband has a temper that you are privy to in private – but presumably which your BIL has witnessed throughout his life. Is your DH older? Was there a childhood dynamic between the two of them where yours was the bossy one in charge or he ruled the roost with his temper? Because after reading all of your posts, I wonder if it was your DH who suggested using the middle name as a first name and whether he knew deep down it might be an issue but went ahead anyway, and that they've seen it as yet another example of your DH riding roughshod over his brother.

How do you know it’s not what he actually said to your DH and then your DH just “got livid” and started shouting?

BIL was the one who invited us so naturally we assumed that he would be present and that we weren't simply being roped in to help babysit their children.

Personally I think it says a lot about their parenting that they were willing to leave their two very young children in the company of a couple of adults they've been saying terrible things about at home. Obviously we're not evil villains but their children clearly think we are, so why would they put them in that situation? I feel sad for their kids, they deserve better parents TBH.

Apart from ils does anyone else know or give a fuck sil's dc hs 2 middle names??

Nope. You're way off the mark.

DH wanted to use the name before their DD was even born.

And DH and BIL have always been incredibly close. It genuinely was the best family and she's destroyed it.

Nope.

I feel sad for their kids, they deserve better parents TBH.

What a horrible thing to say. If they are that awful, why on earth do you want to clear the air with them?

The time to say that was shortly after she was born, not after 6 months of silent treatment.

If you've got a problem, fucking spit it out. Otherwise, this happens.

No. According to your HUSBAND. Who may be telling BS to you

I would rather crawl over hot coals whilst simultaneously squirting lemon juice into my eyes rather than attend.

They left their one year old and their three year old in the company of two adults they have been telling their children are awful, horrible people. To celebrate their three year old's birthday. With the horrible awful people, but without the parents. Who supposedly love their children.

Who the fuck does that?

I wouldn't flake out on my own kid's birthday celebration and leave them in the company of family members they didn't know that well even if I hadn't been telling my kids that those family members were the devil incarnate.

Poor kid seemed totally miserable.

You haven't answered the question though. Is yours the older brother? Has he always had the tendency to blow up? You can been incredibly close as siblings and still have an unhealthy and one-sided dynamic. I had that with my sister until, as an adult, my DP pointed it out to me and I recognised for myself that my sister used to put me down to big herself up. I wonder if SIL saw something similar with her husband and his brother.

How has ‘she’ destroyed anything - she’s simply stopped talking to you for a little while. And you are also not talking to her. You didn’t even address your apology letter over the name issue to the person who was the most upset.