To be really disgusted with SIL's behaviour

[itsgoodtobehome]

I'll start off by confirming the usual MN response - yes, I really don't like my SIL. She has pulled so much crap over the years that I have known her, that I really dislike her. However, I have always held my tongue and tolerated her. We have now had an incident that might have just tipped me over the edge, but the thing is, it doesn't really affect me. It's just another example of her entitled, spoilt and narcissistic behaviour which makes me really not want to have anything more to do with her.

SIL is single. Never been married, never had kids. She has however, been having a 'relationship' with a married man for the best part of 20 years. They had been dating, but he then decided that he wanted to marry someone that wasn't her. But rather than end things with SIL, he decided to keep her as his bit on the side, and she was happy to go along with that. He gave her the usual spiel - he married the wrong person, he didn't really want to be with his wife, he was going to leave but needed to wait until the kids were older, etc etc. This went on for 20 odd years, with her taking the scraps offered to her and waiting for the magical moment when he would leave his wife. Finally that moment came. Only problem is, it wasn't SIL that he left for, it was some other poor sucker who had also fallen for the same story. No idea how many others there may have been.

SIL is now beside herself. Posting all over social media about how she has been let down, betrayed, she's going through a trauma etc. Totally playing the victim. In my view, this was completely predictable and she is just as much to blame as him. Hasn't given a second thought about the wife and kids that are the true victims in all of this.

Like I said, this really has no impact on me, but I am just so sick of her 'poor me' behaviour and am finding it really hard to have any sympathy whatsoever, and it's just generally left me feeling quite sick that she has such a low moral compass. I just really don't want to have to engage with her any more, but if I give my reasons, does it just sound like I am being judgemental?

YABU: It's got nothing to do with you and you should just let it rise above you and not judge
YANBU: This is really disgusting behaviour and you are perfectly within your rights to not wish to engage with a person with such a low moral compass and has been a pita the whole time you have known her

I agree

Just leave it.

I said "understand that" (ie her response to the situation) not "understand her".

Anyway it appears that some posters are as devoid of imagination and compassion as the OP is.

Me too, SIL hasn’t shown the man’s wife or children any compassion. The best thing SIL can do now is to learn from it and move on with dignity not looking back or giving this man any more thought.

Just slide away quietly. Nothing to do with you. You don't need to explain anything.

Well you are 20 years too late, so YABU

I actually feel sorry for SIL. From your OP she was with him and he married someone else, she didn't so much hook up with a married man as find that the man she was dating married someone else. Who was the person he was with first? Was she the affair partner or the person that was cheated on? Yes, she could have walked away at that point, but presumably he strung her along and she gave up 20 years when she could have built a life only to find herself in her what 40s and alone. I hope she can get some therapy to work out why she think she didn't deserve better.

Try again.

A friend of mine had a 7 year affair with a married man. I stopped being friends with her as I thought it was really low behaviour.

The man she was having an affair with then won a very large prize on the lottery. He then ran away from his wife and my former friend to start a new life in Australia.

The only person I felt sorry for was his wife (though she was of course well rid of him and eventually got a nice chunk of money in the divorce), not my former friend.

This he wasn’t married when they met by all accounts and she has been stuck and wasted her life in an abusive relationship with him

no one’s mentioned abuse?

This

I think I feel rather sorry for SIL. It sounds as though not one person even in her own family was interested enough in her life to know she was in a relationship for 20 years.

She must feel desperately alone.

I do actually feel sorry for her - she's wasted 20 years of her life with this loser. Whatever the moral rights or wrongs, she must have really loved him. You don't have to have sympathy for her, you obviously don't like her. I would just minimise contact and put up with her at the odd family occasion for the sake of your DH. I'm not fond of some of my in laws but I can put on a friendly enough face when I do see them!

I do wonder about this. How can you keep a relationship under wraps for 20 years?!

Did she say she was dating, or was happy being single, or what?

Was she dating? Or just hanging around for this prince?

"You feel betrayed? You feel blindsided? At least you always knew you were a mistress, you knew what he was. His wife and kids weren't afforded the same courtesy."

Ignore her. Mute her on SM. Let her have her pity party.

Try what again? It's gone on for over 20 years.

That OP did not know about. So how is she 20 years too late?

Nah. They were dating, he married someone else and she agreed to be his bit on the side from the start. Her bar is on the floor and she’s just realised she’s wasted 20 years of her life with a shitbag. Them’s the breaks when you’re the OW. What I don’t understand is what OP’s problem is with it all. She didn’t know about it while it was happening and I’m not understanding why she’s so disgusted now it’s ended ? Would OP not have been quite so disgusted had this man ended his marriage for SiL ? It doesn’t make any sense because the end result is the same. He’s been dishonest even before he got married and has cheated throughout a 20 year marriage with an unsuspecting wife and children, who are going to be devastated. SiL is just collateral damage and I’d bet the farm the new woman is a younger model.

This.

Where’s the abuse ? She knew what she was doing when she carried on seeing him after he married someone else. The waste of her life is entirely her own making by waiting around for twenty years on the promise of him leaving his wife.

Well, she made her bed and now she must lie on it.

It's shit though and what must her self-esteem be like, to accept the scraps from the table for 20 years and then be treated like this.

YANBU to disapprove of her behaviour and to dislike her. However, YABU to think she will give a shit if you “no longer engage with her”.

Unless someone is very arrogant or generally oblivious of others, they know when they are disliked. Okay, maybe there’s a facade of politeness in your case for the sake of familial harmony, but the chance that she thought you and she were best buddies, meaning this will come as a shock and a crushing blow, is miniscule. You’re wanting to announce to her that you’re disengaging and that these are the reasons why… why do you think she’ll care? She didn’t care that about her lover’s wife for 20 years. Why would she care about the moral indignation of an in-law she almost certainly knows dislikes her?

She won’t give a damn if you disengage - but it will make life harder for your husband. Isn’t he supposed to be the one thing you do have in common? This desire to “share your reasons” smacks of wanting to be a key part of the drama somehow, when you’re barely even a bit part player. No one ever won an Oscar for the role of protagonist’s brother’s wife.

someone who has had a relationship with a married man for 20 years knows what they are doing. Basically it suits them.
She may be wailing and whining but its almost certain that she is seriously commitment phobic which is why she got herself into that situation in the first place and stayed in it so long.
She's an adult and while people do leave a primary relationship for an affair it isn't common and at some point in 20 years you are going to realise it isn't happening.

For some people they like the drama and angst of feeling 'in love' and have something to mentally occupy them.

I bet you anything you like if he'd left his wife for her, fine they might have had a brief honeymoon period but swiftly the commitment phobia would have emerged and she'd have found a new MM or someone with some other obstacle - long distance, different religion and his family won't tolerate her, too young, too old - whatever.

I would just tune it out.