SIL excludes my child AIBU to be annoyed?

[Aquababe73]

SIL has three kids older than my 1 by a few years. Since she has been with my brother she has always made little effort with me. First time she was introduced to me she fell asleep on my sofa and interacted very little. She was pregnant about a year after they met and I spent the Christmas she was pregnant with them. I bought them both lots of lovely new born bay stuff and fun new parent stuff. She got me a box of lush bath bombs from her and my brother. On Christmas day they left immediately after lunch to go to her cousins leaving me on my own at their place. I didn't know they were going anywhere until they were leaving and as i'd had a couple of glasses already I was trapped. For me that was the writing on the wall. Fast forward 18 months and I was pregnant. I found out just before their wedding. I was so excited as this was a long time coming. I told them both and my brother had a word with me privately and told me not to talk about it any further as I was 'stealing' his wife's thunder. I was hurt but fair enough of she wanted to be all princessy on her wedding day. A few months later I lost the baby. No condolences or sympathies were offered. 2 pregnancies later I finally had my baby. I didn't hear from either of them throughout my pregnancy. I didn't expect anything from her but my brother now seemed to be following suit. Again very hurtful. When my child was newborn all the usual house visits happened and her and my brother came along. I thought things were changing and we could now bond as a family and the cousins could all grow up together. I tried to arrange to meet up with her several times alone and she cancelled at the last minute each time so I gave up. She visited once with my mum and we all went to Mothercare where she proceeded to load up her basket with stuff that my mum could pay for. IMO her nose was out of joint the minute I had my DD as she had been used to using my mum as a cash cow up until then. Her own parents have plenty of money btw as do both her and my brother. DD has only ever received an invite once to one of cousins birthdays. There's 3 of them and the eldest is now 13 so that's a lot of birthdays. Whereas I've always invited the cousins to DDs birthdays. I stopped this a couple of years ago when I discovered she would get my mum to buy the birthday gifts she gave DD. Since then my DD has never received a birthday or Christmas gift from her. She does however buy gifts for the kids of her own brother. My brother does call on DDs birthdays but he travels abroad for work and if he's away there is no call from her. I always get the cousins gifts and feel I should now stop as it is never reciprocated as DD gets older she is becoming more away of this disparity (she's 9) and is hurt by it but I try and laugh it off and say it's no big deal etc but really my heart is breaking for her and I'm so blooming angry at my brother for allowing it to happen. I've tried speaking to my mum about it but she just pays me lip service and then fawns all over SIL making vomit inducing posts on FB about how wonderful a mother she is etc. Brother is the youngest and has always been the golden boy. I don't want my nephews to miss out but then I don't want my DD to be disrespected like this either. I also find my mums behaviour very disloyal as she won't address the issue with them either. So AIBU to expect my DD to be treated as I treat their kids?

Your biggest problem op is that you are an internalised misogynist. Your expectations of women are way higher than your expectations of men.
every single ‘problem’ in your op, was your brothers responsibility to fix, not his wife who you are not related to at all and owes you precisely nothing. She doesn’t owe you friendship, it’s not her responsibility to tell you if she’s going out, not invite your child to her child’s birthday, nor get your child presents - every single thing there is your brother’s responsibility.
taking things a step further, this is why the patriarchy is so strong, you have looked for a woman to blame instead of a man. We have no hope of getting on equal terms when women do this to each other.
even when you’re acknowledging what everyone is saying here, you’re giving yourself a pass with ‘it’s just because I love families so much’ or whatever you said, you haven’t said ‘crikey, I need to lower my expectations of women, what I’ve been doing is wrong’

Some people are not big into birthdays & gifting.
If your daughter gets on well with the cousins continue inviting them to spend time with her. Don't expect same in return. If aim is cousins getting on doesn't matter really which parent is setting it up.

I have many BIL and SIL, DH has a complex family.
My and my children’s relationship with all of these people is a direct mirror image of my DHs relationship with them.
His sound bros are my sound BILs, his dickhead bro is my dickhead BIL etc etc.
It’s not my place to go marching in to fabricate what I think the relationships should be - these are his siblings/step siblings/in laws and they are who they are.
I’d shovel more blame in the direction of your brother and resolve to stop placing your DD in a position to be hurt by all of this.
One of my BILs could not summon one fuck to give about my kids if his life depended on it and it has zero impact on them because they don’t know who he is! The loss is entirely his 🤷♀️

I’m just reading the thread properly now, I have already passed 4 posts who think the sil is to blame!!! She’s literally not done a thing wrong. Ffs. So so many women blaming women for men’s failings.

Because the sil doesn't reciprocate gifts, invitations etc

Frankly as much as you love the children I would drop it.

My mum treated my cousins as if they were her own children - if not even better at times. We did interact with my uncles every now and then but it was mostly at our home because of them being so cold and if I ever received a gift from them, I wouldn’t remember.

Fast forward to adult years: my mum was severely ill (my cousins are both in medicine) and we struggled a lot. Not so much as a visit or a phone call asking if she needs anything. But obviously they’re still close to their parents.

Don’t force it. They’ll pick up on the parents habits and become similar.

Um. Why is it he ops brothers wife responsibility to reciprocate gifts to his children from his sister, and not his?

it wouldn’t occur to me to get my husbands brothers kids gifts, it’s nothing to do with me. I will get my sisters kids gifts of course.

Stop trying to force the situation and accept people as they are. Trying to make them do what you want or withdrawing gifts in retaliation is a waste of energy.

My brother never buys gifts for his nieces and nephews.I used to take him Xmas shopping every year before he got married so I know for a fact he’s just he’s wilfully incapable. My SIL is open that it’s my brother’s job to buy for his family and I respect her for it. She’s set a clear boundary and sticks to it despite social pressure.

I still buy for their kids because they’re my nephews that I love and their dad’s failings aren’t relevant to our relationship. I also choose the gifts for my husbands family and just send him a link to order as well as remembering everyone’s birthdays, likes, etc because I’m a mug 😅

Neither does the OP's brother - the person she is actually related to. So, my question remains unanswered.

The thing is, not all women are prepared to tolerate strategic incompetence in their male partners. The only reason that men "aren't great at that sort of thing" is because they can't really be arsed and because they know that people will typically hold their female partners responsible. Maybe she doesn't want to buy into that shit?

Forget SIL. She is probably jealous and wants a daughter of her own - but who know she could just be a nasty piece of work. Whatever her reasons she doesn’t want a relationship with you and this isn’t your fault.
I would forget B and nephews too but I suspect you won’t. So do gifts for birthdays and Christmas and distance yourself emotionally the rest of the time.
Your Mum just wants a relationship with her grandsons so is keeping SIL sweet, try not to let that impact your relationship with your Mum.

How is any of what you've said your SiL fault, when it should be your brothers? It's his niece. Your his sister. He should sort gifts, if he doesn't that's on him.
The Christmas day thing, did you just assume you were invited for the entire day without asking?

And again? Why is it OP's sister-in-law's responsibility rather than OP's brother's responsibility?

Has the brother vanished?

What a load of nonsense. The problem is OP's brother, not her sister-in-law.

I have a sister in law like this. Never brought my kids presents but would email and remind me when it was her kids’ birthdays. After a disagreement with her I totally backed off. Didn’t contact her and stopped sending anything for the kids. Honestly, it was such a relief not having her in my life or giving her actions any headspace.

It sounds like there is no love lost there on either side. If you don't like her, why would she be expected to like you?

Why on earth would she buy gifts for her inlaws? DH buys things for his family and I buy for my side. It's not necessarily normal for cousins to go to one another's birthday parties once they are at school, they tend to be for school friends.

She probably doesn't want to bother much with your daughter as she has three kids herself to contend with.

Yeah I don’t understand why it’s not your brother that you’re annoyed with.

I have no interest in one of my SIL. She isn’t my sort of person and I’m not hers either so we have very little to do with each other.

I message and talk to my brother and it’s up to him and me to drive the relationship between our families.

I've seen two posts so far saying SIL is probably jealous because OP has a daughter and SIL has sons. I sincerely hope those posters don't have sons since they seem to value them less.

Your brother's laziness isn't your SIL's responsibility.

I buy for my brother's children, DH buys for his brother's children. I make the arrangements for visiting my side of the family, he does the same for his. Because I am not his social secretary.

Stop expecting your SIL to maintain a relationship your brother clearly can't be arsed with. Stop making family bonds the woman's role. It isn't.

You are unfairly blaming SIL rather than your brother and I suspect that a lot of your problems are linked to SIL knowing this.

I think it’s common to stop inviting cousins to parties once kids go to school. Didn’t you do that?

What’s with you low expectations of men? Of course they can buy a gift- a phone reminder and Amazon Prime is fine. Most couples split the gift giving ime with each side organising their side of the family because that’s what adults do. You praise your brother for making a call on DD’s birthday which is insanely low expectations considering that you think gift giving is too much.

If your brother wanted the cousins to be close then he would have made that happen. You need to accept that he’s happy with how things are. It’s not your ideal amount of contact but you can’t impose your wishes on other people. If the unequal effort annoys you then match their energy.

You would have been unreasonable to announce your pg when they were getting married btw. I think most people would have waited until after the honeymoon. I’m not sure that everyone does cards either but I’m sorry that your brother didn’t know that you would’ve appreciated it.

I don’t know how your SIL and brother have the brass neck to accept presents for their three kids for years and never reciprocate for your daughter. SIL clearly can’t be bothered making any effort for you, brother likewise - no one is too busy to put some cash in a card. I’d stop giving them any gifts and invites. I’d also tell mother you are sick of her excuses for the inexcusable and refuse to talk about them. Just mirror your brothers treatment to you by being nice and friendly to your nephews when you see them. Your daughter is getting older and wiser, picking out gifts for her cousins and getting nothing in return is quite sad for her

OP isn't complaining about her brother so much as her SIL

There are a lot of people here saying, "Just because she married your brother, she doesn't have to be your friend" and "Why would her older kids care about your younger kid?"

These are supportable views but they're not universal.

I think that when you marry someone, you are connecting yourself to a web of relationships that have been there for many years before you came along, and which are stronger and more meaningful than your new one. You hope that your marriage will grow to be as strong and as permanent, but at the beginning you're the weak link. So it's a good idea to build connections with the other members of the family.

But it's not just strategically a good idea. It's socially a good idea, and you'd hope it'd be fun, and easy, and natural. Because these are the people that made you partner who they are.

Also - and I know this isn't true of everyone - I wouldn't (and didn't) marry anyone who didn't get on with my family and want to be a part of it, because my family is the biggest part of my life.

So maybe that's the measure. I think one has to make an effort to be as close to one's partner's family as the partner is.

To get back to the OP - do you think your brother has become more distant under your sister-in-law's influence? Or is she just adopting his attitude towards you?

There is the possibility that the brother sees gift buying as his wife's responsibility (a bit like several posters on here) so doesn't realise no presents have been sent to his niece.
The OP says he calls, so maybe he is naively thinking that all is good.
SIL may accept these gifts thinking that her husband has actually sent something. She doesn't feel the need to ask as it's his side of the family, so his responsibility.