BIL and SIL knowing our shit from PIL

[inthegardenboo]

My H is the oldest of three siblings.

SIL still lives at home and BIL has moved out but literally lives next door and has dinner and goes around to in laws daily.

We have a family and live 10 minutes away from everyone.

BIL and SIL are nice enough but even though supposedly a close knit family, they treat us like strangers in my opinion. Never really giving away many details of their own business, never even sharing as much as any kind of real information or thought with us. Never levelling with us, on the relationship with their parents.

My H and his father are in business together and this causes some friction in the family, as you can imagine. BIL and SIL never ever let my H know that they understand the difficulty in working with family and level with him about it, but would rather always clearly take sides with PIL. There have been some upsets and whenever BIL and SIL have been around, they very clearly and loudly took parents side. They've never once said to him that they understand the difficulties faced. But if anything comes up, you can tell they think the parents are always right.

We don't discuss our issues with PIL with H's siblings and just get on with it. However, there have been a few times over the years where they've just happened to be around.

The relationship with in laws is complex.

Now onto my point that PIL discuss our business with their other kids, but they don't discuss their kids's business with us. They know stuff about our finances / our plans etc. but we don't know anything about them.

Why do they know stuff about finances ? Some of the finances are unfortunately interlinked because of the business and it can't be helped sometimes.

They seem to express opinions about things we do / decisions we make, as they have access to this information, but not from us.

My H is clearly the black sheep in the family and according to MIL it's because I'm a horrible person of course. I once did raise it with mother in law that sometimes she could discuss her grievances with me without a massive audience. This was after I had my first baby and she was hyper critical of everything I was going, in front of everyone and I felt embarrassed. I asked her to please next time, either keep it to herself or take me to one side and not discuss in front of everyone. She absolutely lost it because she felt like I was calling her other children strangers.

I want my H to raise it and if he won't, I will. No one should know our business from PIL.

I don’t really understand what outcome you’re looking for here. You know that there will be things your husband’s siblings know about your finances because of the business. You either can’t or don’t want to sell your share of the business - which is fine, but means you’re stuck with the situation of them knowing certain information. So what do you want to change?

From your comments about your husband’s siblings never sharing any information or “levelling with” him, it sounds more like you’re annoyed about what you don’t know about them than what they do know about you. Are you really angry about your lack of privacy, or do you just want the details of their finances and personal lives - and because they’re keeping that to themselves, it’s starting to grate that they unavoidably know some details of yours?

If you’re going to stay in business with FIL, you have to accept that they’ll know more about your situation than you do about theirs. As for anything that doesn’t relate to the business, simply don’t tell your PILs. They can’t share what they don’t know.

Don't go around to see them so often. Your DH works with his Dad so surely can't want to spend his free time with him too.

We do the bare minimum.

It's just BIL and SIL that are around us a lot.

What do I want out of this ? I don't know, it's a bit of a letting off steam by expressing how I feel on one side.

On the other side I was looking for people who may be in a similar situation where their in laws tell other siblings personal stuff about them and it annoys them and how they handled it.

Whether we should just leave livelihood behind wasn't really the question..

Also, I'm not just nosy cow who wants to know everyone's business. But I just want to keep some things private to us. It just feels like we are the topic of discussion a fair deal and they just know our shit and it annoys me. Just today we found out BIL knew some private business stuff and had commented on it to H. Why the fuck does he even need to know what we do ? It's just frustrating.

And I still don't understand why you automatically take your parents side over your siblings. For em it's the exact opposite, if anything.

I guess I find it hard to understand them as I am so different with my own siblings. I find it hard to see them all the time when I know they never ever have our backs.

And I still don't understand why you automatically take your parents side over your siblings. For em it's the exact opposite, if anything.

Surely that’s just as unreasonable?

Not to me 🤷‍♀️

Well how could it not be? Surely if it’s unreasonable to always side with one party, it’s equally unreasonable to always side with the other?

You shouldn't automatically take any side, of course.

But a few posters wrote that of course they'd always take their parent's side. That was my response.

@NiceCutRoundDomeDormice what I mean is, if I had to take any side - and ability to understand the point of view - it would be more likely my sibling as we are from the same generation- so their point of view just makes more sense to me most of the time.

I don't need them to actually take H side. It would help if they just didn't automatically take their parents side ( which seems unnatural to me ). It would help if they 'levelled' with their brother at least once and said ' I get it Bro. It can't always be straight forward dealing with dad in that way. You're doing a good job '.

That's what he would do and has done on the rare occasions over the years there's been an issue between them. It's just what a sibling does, I think.

You've got it wrong according to me. I would side with a parent over a sibling. If the sibling was wrong I would have words with them and if they were right I would just stay out of it then. I don't know why but would feel more protective towards my parents. I'm not the only saying that. Maybe that's how the siblings think too?

So even if your parents are clearly wrong ? I know how my parents can be. They're super traditional / think they're right, just because they're the parents, never apologise and belittle us/ overstep boundaries. Very similar to H's parents tbh.

I love my parents but knowing how they are and how I get annoyed by them, most of the time I see my siblings point of view. And I don't think that's unusual at all. I will try and level with my parents to make them see it too, but very gently. To keep the peace. I will also level with my siblings - ' I know they can be a bit like XY, they do it to me too. They can't help themselves you know how it is'..

I wouldn't take my parent's side just because they're my parents. I wouldn't take my siblings side just because they're my siblings. Most of the time I can see where my sibling is coming from a bit more though. Generational I think.

@MintyNew it's an interesting discussion and point of view though thanks for sharing your thoughts.

This?

@BodkinToday what's that got to do with anything ?

I'm not about to divulge such personal information tbh. I don't see how it makes any difference ?

I suppose they treat your DH differently because they are in business together. If he was working for himself, they wouldn't know his earnings, financial position or have input to his business decision making. As the business is joint, any impact on finances affects both them and you. So you are in this tricky position of not being able to make decisions that suit you and vice versa. I should imagine you all feel like you are making compromises/could do things better.
You and DH do not moan to anyone in the 'family'. Sadly your PILs use your BIL as a sounding board, all their frustrations and irritations are communicated to him. So you now have this difficult dynamic of DH and PILs in business, but BIL and PILs united in criticism of you and DH. It's a shame PILs can't kept family and business separate.

I think uou wrote level so much it started to lose meaning, you really like that phrase.

anyways, they don’t need to take his side, clearly they don’t agree with him. He needs to be a grown up accept that. You say you take your siblings side as your parents annoy you. Maybe it’s the same for them. Or maybe they genuinely think he’s a whinging pain in the arse.

I think uou wrote level so much it started to lose meaning, you really like that phrase

So what ? 🤦🏻‍♀️🤷‍♀️

This is exhausting.

Can your DH explore other work options?

And move more than 10 mins away IMO.