Sister-in-law won't look at me and runs away from me!

[TiredMummaChlo]

This is a long story - I will try to condense it. I am looking to vent and get advice (AIBU doesn't really fit, but couldn't find a better category).

My sister-in-law had several early pregnancy losses. We were so sad for her. We sent her flowers, would always ask how she is feeling and getting on. She is didn't really ever discuss with us, which is understandable. It might be worth mentioning she is on the autistic spectrum. I can't quite imagine how awful these losses must have been, as you must be grieving the life, hope and joy you thought you were going to have.

We used to be friends with BIL/SIL - go out for meals, cinema, boardgames nights, etc. Then got pregnant. We messaged BIL/SIL first, to express their might be mixed feelings, but I am pregnant. The invites then stopped...

At social events, my SIL would not say hello, not look at me, when she saw me she would turn and walk the other way. When sitting at dinner tables, she would spend the whole time looking at the ceiling or opposite direction to me. During my pregnancy, my in-laws would start talking about 'being a nanny for the first time...' etc. then immediately cut their sentence off, with worried expressions, as they realised SIL could hear. It was like the family couldn't feel joy for us.

I had a friend who was going through IVF at the time. My SILs reaction to my pregnancy made me feel so terrified to tell my friend I was expecting - as I thought maybe react the same. I felt really alone and had no other friends with babies. I remember crying at a midwife appointment about it.

All of the above continued after having my lovely now two-year-old. No acknowledgement of her, no talking to her, etc.

As of the end of January 2026, BIL/SIL have welcomed a baby girl into the world. I am so glad that they have had their baby. But I also feel resentment - that they could have their pregnancy, the family were allowed to feel and express full joy, that they are now allowed to discuss their birth openly, have full support, etc. I just feel resentment that we weren't allowed to have this, and that my BIL wasn't there for his brother after a horrendously traumatic birth.

I can definitely get over all of the above, so long as SIL/BIL do actually start talking to us again at family events, looking at us, acknowledging my daughter, etc. I know we will never be such close friends again now, but I just hope they can act normal with us. I don't want to feel these feelings when my MIL is talking to me about SIL. I just want to get over it!

Has anyone had any similar experiences, or have any advice?

While I feel for your SIL and it must’ve been extremely difficult for her to experience those losses ,I think it was completely unreasonable , hurtful and very rude of her to completely blank you at family gatherings.
I would understand if she didn’t contact you or make plans with you while you were pregnant and had a new baby .
But to behave the way she has done is awful .
When I was expecting my 2nd child my SIL wouldn’t look at me or talk to me about it and she already had a child ( had an uneventful pregnancy and birth too ) but had experienced a very early miscarriage when they’d tried for further children .
I never was , and never will be , the sort of person who expects a fuss made of me so it wasn’t that .

She IS autistic!

Have you been to see your new niece yet @TiredMummaChloor is this thread to help you decide if you will or not? Or do you need to be invited by SIL? Have you send card / flowers / gift? Or are you holding off tit for tat?

And? That means she is supported in being cruel to op and her child?

Every word of this. ❤️

The way you were treated was horrendous.You handled yourself very graciously. I hope you are able to forgive your SIL. Hoping what I read online may help:
"Anxiety and Fear of Response: If an autistic person feels anxious, uncomfortable, or does not know how to respond appropriately in a social situation, they may default to ignoring the person rather than risking an "incorrect" or stressful interaction. While it can feel intentional, an autistic person being "quick to ignore" someone is often a survival mechanism or a result of different neurological processing."

Please don't be friends with this person she's a dickhead and so is your BIL. How is it your fault or your problem that she miscarried? So you were denied the right to enjoy your pregnancy because she miscarried? Ridiculous. The family are dickheads as well if they treated you that way. I'd keep away from the whole lot of them. Most people are selfish, annoying bastards now anyway. Just for reference I'm diagnosed autistic for many years and have had 5 miscarriages. 2 of them recently and I resent no one nor would I begrudge them their happiness over a new little life.

Absolutely agree. It's life, shit happens. Protect yourself and your child going forward. I wouldn't want this messed up behaviour to raise it's head again. Sad situation for them but they sound toxic.

I'm so sad to hear that you have this experience. All I can suggest is that you just accept that you have done and said everything that you could, and that you have been sympathetic to their difficulties. You should be proud of the way in which you have handled things.

You also don't have to have a close relationship with in laws. I have some whose behaviour i will no longer tolerate and I won't do it for the sake of the cousin relationship, playing happy families etc

@Fearnotsunshine I really think you should reconsider the last line of your post.

Ignore them, like they ignored you, your husband and daughter. They don't deserve you. True saying, you can pick your friends, not your relatives.

I've seen this a few times in friends. I think it's disgraceful and incredibly selfish. If adults cannot put aside their own upset and disappointment without taking it out on other women at their most vulnerable time and then taking it out on innocent babies/children, are they really emotionally mature enough to have their own babies? BIL/SIL are arseholes and I'd want absolutely nothing to do with them. As for the rest of the family that pandered to it and took away from the celebration of your pregnancy and child, I would be very vocal and open about your feelings with them about it. Just get it off your chest and then move on.

Like I said before.

YANBU.

You've obviously had a difficult birth and time. But no consideration was made for this.

But you've coped with it and come through the other end.

I would think about your own daughter and would try and avoid situations that may affect her adversely.

Think about yourself and your kid first.

If your daughter and you will always remind her of her loss, to the point she can't stand to be around you, she seriously needs some professional help. Not being able to make efforts to overcome that or act normally out of sheer politeness is utterly ridiculous 2 years later. She needs a lot of therapy. A lot!

It's a really difficult one - your pregnancy should have been celebrated BUT I've had 1 loss and it just about broke me - every announcement felt like a dagger and at one point I was struggling to even see strangers with babies - it has very complicated emotions attached and I'm sure she hated how she felt towards you. I think its a "draw a line in the sand" situation now you both have kids and try to move forward as a family.

In life, always consider the alternative.

in this case, you have a healthy child and so does your SIL.

Try and set aside all the stuff leading up, you can't change your SILs behaviour nor the fact she was able to talk openly about it and you weren't. Let it go and move on, otherwise you'll make yourself miserable.

your SIL may take time to thaw and start behaving normally again, she probably feels a bit embarrassed that she didn't treat you very well. She wasn't that mean, she just couldn't cope with what was going on outside her situation. Don't expect an apology, that would be very difficult for her to even acknowledge how she behaved.

I agree and am surprised how harsh some of the responses have been wrt the sister in law.
My DH and l both have three adult DC similar ages, from previous marriages, same gender mix too, Both of us have DDs 1 and 2 and a DS3.
Then tragically and without warning my DS died. Apart from the obvious heartbreak which was and still is at times like a physical pain, l found myself unable to listen to my DH even talking on the phone to his DS, couldn't bear him visiting us. Then after a lot of persuasion l agreed to attend his engagement party which l really struggled at and had to dash to refuge in the ladies on a different floor, to avoid breaking down in front of all our family and friends at one point.
It's hard to explain and l know it sounds like plain old jealousy or bitterness which are both ugly emotions, but it's more a feeling of having your loss 'rubbed in' and very very triggering to see a stark reminder of exactly what you've lost and have to be (or at least seem to be) happy about it as it's family when you're fighting to keep your composure.

This…. 100% this.

I will never understand if you are happy and your partner are happy why do you need the world to celebrate you, if you crave external validation then you need to self reflect.

We experienced the same thing with SIL. She was struggling to conceive when I fell pregnant with our second child. She doted on our first child but I was instructed via MIL that she didn’t want to discuss my second pregnancy, and didn’t want anyone acknowledging it in front of her.

At the same time my sister was going through issues with her boyfriend (ended up breaking up the week before I gave birth), and two couples we were close to were trying to conceive. I can understand mixed feelings but it felt a lot more than that. They all seemed very resentful of our second pregnancy (one hung up after we told her).

I had lots of scares through my second pregnancy and was in and out of hospital and put on bed rest for the last month to try to stop early labour. It was scary and incredibly lonely. Once the baby arrived the in laws didn’t meet the baby for the first 3 weeks because I was told it might upset SIL. When they did meet her they all arrived at the house and completely ignored the baby. MIL also didn’t give her the traditional gifts she’d given to other grandchildren (I ended up buying them myself so my DD would have keepsakes).

SIL and both couples all had a baby each the following year, and sister a couple of years later. We were expected to dote on the babies (and we did) whilst my youngest (now 9), is still not treated the same as the other grandchildren. She’s overlooked at best and I’ve caught SIL snapping at her unnecessarily.

@Sudagame so because the SIL had miscarried, then had a successful pregnancy, the successful pregnancy doesn’t count, as she is to be accepted to be a cold, nasty excluding person to a 2 yo? That’s ok And acceptable?
how fucking awful to be sil’s child and to know that you’re not enough for your mother.

I think it’s fairly normal to celebrate the birth of a baby and to go and meet a relatives baby.

Yes grief can make us feel a certain way in triggering situations but life is not a race to the bottom.

If someone is struggling so badly that they can’t even meet a close relatives baby (I’m not saying that it wouldn’t bring up difficult emotions and require some effort) then, really, some counselling should be sort.

It’s ok to feel these emotions, and express them but it’s really not ok to take them out on other people.

In this specific situation it’s a bit different because the SIL is autistic and will be processing it all differently so deserves a little bit more leeway.

It’s really a contradiction for people to demand empathy and kindness on the one hand for their own personal circumstances while refusing to give grace on the other. Ultimately it’s the SIL who will miss out on a relationship with her niece.

I disagree, because it wasn't just when she was around. They pandered by changing their behaviour more widely. I'd be mortified if someone felt the need to tip toe around me to this extent because of something I'd been through. Such a shame for their first babies first few years and the relationship more widely.

This sounds really difficult for you and I'm sorry you felt you had to tone down/ not really acknowledge your own joy with your pregnancy and baby. It sounds like SIL needed some serious therapy at the time and hasn't done so, be ages that's well beyond considered behaviour even given the circumstances etc etc

It wasn't about external validation. We didn't do big announcements, gender reveals, baby showers, etc. Not that there is anything wrong with that either 😊
It was the shock of loosing a 'friend', with no explanation. It was the feeling that I'd done something shameful/bad to her. It was also that it was obviously a big life event, and I was 'the elephant in the room' that no one could acknowledge.
Thank you, upon self reflection I do feel that connection with others is something I value. I've taken on board bits from these posts, some of which I reflected on earlier.
I wonder if you need to do some self reflecting too!