To expect my SIL to keep her aggressive cat away during Xmas?

[juiceboxjuggle]

My sister-in-law (SIL), has a cat that’s… let’s just say, difficult. The cat is quite aggressive—she’s bitten me before while I was just sitting on the sofa, scratched my husband simply for sitting too close to her toy, and even leapt at people with claws out from the back of a sofa or armchair. She also has this habit of scratching legs under the table while people are eating. It’s not exactly a relaxing presence.

This Christmas, we’re staying at my parents-in-law’s (PILs) house for two nights, which is non-negotiable with my husband. SIL will also be staying, and, as always, she’ll be bringing her cat. The cat is her world, and last year, when I gently suggested she keep the cat in a separate room during meals, she was really upset. She insists the cat needs to be “free to roam.”

As a result, last Christmas was stressful. Despite my best efforts to keep an eye on my two toddlers, one of them ended up with a big scratch from the cat while swinging their legs under the table—just normal kid behavior. To make matters worse, my husband has also been scratched in the past, simply because the cat was annoyed he wasn’t feeding her.

I’m dreading a repeat of last year and honestly don’t know how to handle this situation. How do I keep my kids safe without upsetting SIL again? I’d love to be able to enjoy a meal without constantly chasing the cat away or worrying about potential injuries. Any advice on how to navigate this?

Send your IL the research about cat psychology - they are territorial and much prefer the safety of their own territory - they do not react like kids and dogs to new locations.

Happiest cat scenario if cat has to come to ILs is that there's a room with all of the cat's 'stuff' - bed, blankets, toys, litter tray, food trays etc.

A safe space with all those things and protected from new noises and smells will make the fur baby much much happier.

Maybe there's a room that can be the cat's safe room and they get a cool cat tree etc so that every time the cat visits - not just at Christmas, the fur baby has their own special space.

The whole family is torqued around the mist supposedly fragile members. DH snd FIL are the perpetual rescuers of the perpetual victims on the drama triangle. They can easily push OP and the children into the role of persecutor.

OP just stsy firm. Keep repeating “this os no big deal. Everyone is fine. If SIL doesn’t like her life she needs to get off her fucking ass and build one.”

Fucking hell, OP… MIL and SIL are attention-seeking arseholes and your DH is utterly spineless. Someone needs to shake the lot of them.

The cat doesn’t know what fucking day it is.
Cats hate little kids.
BOTH the cat and the kids are safer if kept separate.
it’s a fucking cat.
You would be a negligent mother deliberately putting your kids in harm’s way to appease a hysterionic aunt.

If you don’t lose your shit, please send me.

The cat will never enjoy its short breaks at PIL - it wants to be at its quiet home with its home comforts and its one slave to serve it and accept its arsy behaviour.
Failing that the cat would prefer to remain at home and have some other slave feed it. If your SIL insists on putting her own needs above the cat's then it needs a safe space at your PIL - it's own room with its stuff in.
If the cat is going to have to accommodate a different house, lots of people, and a selfish owner it's going to be nasty again.
At the very least this is not a relaxing time for anyone and it's potentially pretty dangerous. I think you can't do this for 2 full days - 2 minutes of kids jumping and me fearing a bad accident is enough as either a human mum or cat mum tbh - you'll have to not go if sil needs have to be accommodated over all human relatives as well as her cat's.
I may have missed it but is the cat a tortoiseshell? They're the sassiest /meanest? I know - tortitude!

If the cat is still invited and made welcome by your PIL, after what has happened before with cat injuries, then it’s clear they prioritise their DD rather than their DS and his family. They want you to fall into line …for a quiet life I suppose.
I would point that fact out to your DH and tell him that you and the children won’t be going as there’s a serious safeguarding issue at PIL’s house while the aggressive cat is there, poor thing.

A cat is a very independent creature and will hate being babied and carted around. It’s cruel. Time for SIL to grow up and face facts without wanting others to suffer with her. If she wants to resort to her tantrums, so be it, let her get on with that on her own. Don’t be her audience to fuel her nonsense.

If she loves the cat so much, she must either stay home with it, or leave it just for the day, or buy a cat feeder, or put it in a Cattery or get a cat sitter, or get a neighbour to feed it for two days. That’s the responsibility of owning a cat.
She must stop inflicting her misery on her cat and on everybody else too.

Your duty is to your children. You can't have her cat scratching them. If she doesn't understand that, she needs to grow up. I wouldn't go near them.

Not relevant and a bit mean but no wonder SIL is single!

"Same with the cat, it's not the actions of him protecting his kids, it's the significance behind it - showing her cat doesn't matter as much."

Of course not. OF COURSE her cat doesn't matter as much to her brother as his children's safety!!!!! OF COURSE. It would be genuinely insane for her to think that he should prioritise her cat.

One way of looking at it is you and husband are prioritising your babies, she is prioritising her fur baby. So a compromise needs to be found. It's not impossible and families do this every Christmas with inlaws and extended (human) families. You have suggested some sensible options.

These histrionics are not about the cat, or Christmas, it's about your SIL being the centre of attention at all times. Was she the golden child?

Treating a cat like a baby is cruel. Cats have different needs to people. This cat sounds extremely distressed. And your inlaws are nuts and its not hard to understand why SIL is single 😆

No it's not. They're very small children. Wearing trousers doesn't mean anything & nor does staying away from a cat that scratches.

Amongst the adults you might feel the cat is being prioritised, but the barely just not toddlers won't think that.

Not only would I want my children far away from The Cat, I’d want them quite far away from the lunatic in-law dynamics. It might be OK while they’re very small but as they grow up they’ll be witnessing some deeply unhealthy, fucked-up dynamics. SIL/MIL are unhinged and FIL enables them, as does your DH. I mean, non-negotiable?!

I adore cats which is why I have 3 of them right now. I have been scratched a few times over my many years. typically in freak incidents where a cat got suddenly surprised. Even though I am around my cats all the time, some of those scratches have gotten infected, which means really unpleasant antibiotics. I would be furious if a young child had to take something like metronidazole for doing nothing more than behaving like a child.

your husband doesn’t get to insist you and the children join an unsafe situation. You can insist on a different plan, like everyone meets at a restaurant where cats are not allowed.

Your dh is not ‘rational’ - it isn’t rational to let crazy emotionally unstable sister and mum to rule your life. I had a little bit of this, I said no and made it clear to dh that while I’m not irrationally unstable, he lives with me and definitely doesn’t want to pander to everyone else at my expense, he won’t find peace at home if he takes that path.

How old is SIL? has she ever considered the fact she's hysterical and full of self pity maybe is the reason she's single, she sounds exhausting!

But @juiceboxjuggle you know that on the day, the cat will be roaming freely don’t you?

I would be getting Covid again. Fuck that shit.

i wouldn't be going

It is manipulative of MIL to tell you she is off to comfort crying SIL. If she mentions it again I would say "i feel awful, we wont come. I cant have sil so upset. We will see you weekend before"

The more you share about your in-laws OP, the more disturbing it all sounds. These are not normal, proportionate reactions to life for adults.

How incredibly stressful for you!

Time to put your foot down DH can go but you’ll stay at home to keep the toddlers safe and have a lovely peaceful cat free Christmas.

As I have said upstream - being single isn’t an indication of a personality flaw. Some horrendously flawed and toxic people are in relationships.

If we applied your theory to society there would be no spousal abuse, no toxic mother in laws, no horrific step parents. No abusive parents. Because the world would fit u to two camps. The perfect Peter’s and penoloes who find partners and the car crash horrors who stay single.

I hate that threads about one woman behaving badly who happens to be single focuses on the fact that she is single!!!!

Society just hates single women.

oops was so cross I quoted the wrong person😂😂

Your in laws sound totally batshit. I can't believe MIL set off at what - 10 o'clock at night ? To go on a two and a half hour journey . She's making her daughter worse by enabling her.

Quite frankly the behaviour of your inlaws is weird and a totally unhealthy dynamic for your children to be exposed to.

Your DH needs to grow a pair and tell his sister that a cat is not a child and she is actively being cruel to her poor cat treating it like one. Cats like their own space, peace and quiet and familiar comforts.

You don't say how old your children are but what happens when they are old enough to say they don't want to go if the cat's there or start sobbing on the way to PILs ( having learnt this behaviour from observing Auntie Fruit Loop on countless occasions) because they are scared of the cat ?

What is it with people who think pets are equivalent to human babies????? Your SIL is nuts, you need to keep firm.

Hear hear, once again I agree with your posts on this @Bellyblueboy I keep seeing more of the “no wonder she’s single” type posts and it’s utterly depressing.

It’ll be massively damaging to the psyche of many singles reading this that are not like this SIL.

I’m not single currently but have been most of my adult life.

I get how people are taking offence to the "no wonder she;s single" which isn't a nice way of putting it. But what I take from it is that the SIL struggles to form human relationships, and thinks her relationship with her cat is just the same as a relationship with another person of either sex. 99% of people think this is absolutely batshit crazy, and if she can't see that, this may explain why she is struggling to make bonds with other people.