WWYD - wife's relative acting like I don't exist

[CalonHapus]

Hoping to get some advice on how to deal with an increasingly awkward (and frankly annoying) in-law situation.

One of my wife's cousins has always been off with me, ever since he found out I wasn't just my (then) girlfriend's 'friend'. A lot of my wife's family struggled with our relationship to begin with, as they hadn't realised she wasn't straight, and they're from a culture that isn't massively on board with that.

Fast forward many years, a marriage, and a baby and the vast majority of the family are now absolutely fine with me and with our relationship (or at least they've got very good at pretending to be). However, this guy actually seems to be getting worse.

It started with him doing things like hugging everyone else but making a point of just shaking my hand. Then it became him just saying 'hi' in quite a dismissive way before immediately moving on to someone else, making it very clear he didn't want to be around me. At various Christmas events this year, however, it's now descended to him just fully blanking me - culminating in him walking up to me, my wife and our baby at a gathering this evening and saying 'happy new year [wife's name]' and then just walking away as if no one else was there.

I don't know what (if anything) I can or should do to try and improve things. At the moment, I'm just mostly trying to stay out of his way at family events but I'm not sure how sustainable that is. What would you do in this situation?

How often would you see this idiot? If you only see him once or twice a year then I'd probably just ignore him too?
But if more regularly then, you probably need to do something. Maybe your wife could speak to him and say his behaviour is unacceptable.

What has your wife said to her cousin about it?

If she's accepting of his behaviour, you have a wife problem.

Sod the cousin, they mean nothing.

It evens out at about once every two months or so at big family gatherings - so pretty often unfortunately.

She's started 'blanking' him back - so this evening when he wished her (and only her) a happy new year, she just didn't respond.

She's made it clear to me she thinks he's being a massive twat.

You've been together 'many years' and she's so far said nothing and only just stopped replying to him when he ignores you?

Would you treat your wife like that if a member of your family was doing the same to her?

I know my DH wouldn't and I'd certainly have pulled my family member aside many years ago, if that's how they thought they could treat him.

Personally I'd just smile or wave to say hi, I wouldn't shake hands if he's being off with you. Don't let it get between you and your partner as he'd 'win' just see him as an ignorant idiot and don't it live in your head

Just let them be a massive that, whilst being normal, highlighting his massive twatness.

Grey rock the guy. Or be absolutely 300000 % friendly! Like do everything 5 x the happiness levels when you're in his presence, so it REALLY highlights just how much of a massive that he is being. Wind him up no end!

And when he blows, act all surprised, like why has Bob got steam coming out his ears, I really don't know, he's such a nice guy usually but he seems to have just exploded woth rage!

I'm not going to go into details but your take on this (that my wife doesn't care about me being treated badly) couldn't be further from the truth. There has been a lot of deeply unpleasant (and homophobic) water under the bridge and she has very firmly stood up for me and for our relationship.

With this cousin, I think it's more that it's so indirect and low level that it's a lot harder to call out without seeming petty. If he just came out and said something to my face, it would actually be a lot easier (for both of us) because then we could actually address it.