To be blatantly ignored when saying hello?? Rude???

[MyLimeGuide]

Hello everyone, I'm hoping for some advice for an issue some might say is irrelevant but I have always had anxiety and these things really get to me.

So back story, I have 2 sisters and a brother, we're all in our 40s we have wonderful parents and have always been close. Older sister has a boyfriend who is horrible and controlling, he has ruined endless family events and a holiday to France which my dad paid for - he basically hates me and targets me, a result from me defending my sister years ago when he was unbelievably vile to her (she almost left him and now he sees me as a threat) anyway, I recently had a Christmas party for family and I thought by inviting him it would be a sort of olive branch (I don't want to cause grief for my sister) so he arrived 2 hours late, when I opened the door to anxiously greet him he just walked straight past me and ignored me. He then goes on to say hello/hug the rest of the family. He only stayed for a little bit and refused to let my sister stay on (despite her asking him if she could stay) he doesn't want her spending time with us unless he's there! He has ruined family situations for me and the rest of my family just get fed up of my anxiety when I get upset about his actions. He is so passive aggressive to me all the time in a sneaky way, any advice?

Totally - the most important principle you can have is to not let anyone treat you like shit.

Agreed, it's always after these things happen I wish I had reacted there and then but my anxiety was through the roof and I didn't want to ruin the party for everyone (especially my son)

You know what he's like, so it shouldn't have been a surprise that he was rude in your house.

How about you don't talk about him to your sister, she will just defend him. Continue to invite her, and if he comes kill him with kindness when he's around, that way his rudeness and unpleasantness will really show up to everyone.

Yes it’s hard to react in the moment because you don’t expect such rudeness. It’s only when you expect something and it happens that you’re more prepared to comment on their behaviour.

This is true and bad behaviour ALWAYS shocks me!

But you know this man, and he’s always awful. Surely it wasn’t that surprising.

I take medication and I have been encouraged to do CBT - I'm going to log on and book it up with health in mind assp thanks for reminding me :-)

I guess I'm way too forgiving and naieve

You sound a little bit like me, I used to become very anxious and was full of self doubt because i was labelled family trouble maker, I don’t play into that narrative now but instead make it very clear that I have boundaries for my own sanity and health which they don’t. That’s fine for them but not me. I’m a lot less anxious since I started believing myself and having the confidence in my own instincts.

You can see something is very wrong here and you need to address it. He was rude and your sister had to ask him to stay, which is questionable. The rest of your family would rather bury their heads in the sand. Its easier to for them to put this down to your anxiety rather then address the elephant in the room which is clearly your sister’s relationship with her husband.
This dynamic is affecting your health and this ‘wonderful’ family dynamic can not be maintained at a cost to you. Address it with your parents but be clear that you did not imagine the situation. It is a fact that your Bil is an arsehole and that everyone has different ways to manage things. Yours is to assert your boundaries and be there for your sister. Also your sister will not defend your mum if she is in an abusive relationship, she is probably just trying to keep her head down. You can carry on being there for her for when she is ready to acknowledge the situation for what it is.

My BiL is like this with me, and has been since I got pregnant with my second child and he realised I wasn't available to do a huge, long running favour for him. It's been 8 years and to start with I was really upset because we had always got on really well, but these days I don't care how he treats me as I return like-for-like. So he blanks me and I blank him in return. If he's civil to me then I'm civil in return. Like you, I am labelled a trouble maker by my in-laws, even though they can all see how he treats me, but I'm beyond caring tbh. The whole lot of them are messed up in the heads due to living with an abusive father/husband their entire lives. Their idea of normal behaviour is very skewed, and they always justify abusive behaviour as being normal.

So OP, you need to tell your family and sister explicitly what he is doing, that they can tolerate that behaviour all they want, but going forwards you're not going to. That you will always love and support your sister but you aren't prepared to put yourself through this anymore. Your family can still invite him to events but you don't need to put up with it in your own home, and you certainly don't want your son witnessing his mother being treated in that way.

Avoid him in future and if anyone were to accuse you of trouble making you say, No and you should know me better than to think that of me, I have boundaries of acceptable behaviour and X constantly crosses a line, if he can be civil then he’d be welcome.

Thankyou
StraighttoCrone
BobTheBobcatsBob
martinisforeveryone
All amazing helpful posts, and all what I feel 'should' be done. I know i need to protect myself from these hideous situations I've always been a lot happier in the company of smaller groups, like 1!! So big Christmas parties at my house is probably not a good idea anyway, but thanks so much taking time out to help it's all very appreciated