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?

Flat out ignoring a two year old to their face is so cruel and if they choose to attend family events they should be behaving better than that.
I think all op is asking at this stage is that they stop doing that which is not unreasonable.

Exactly! I wasn't going to bother responding to that one, but you've done it for me.
Hoping the flat out ignoring will stop, or I won't be able to take my child to family events. That would be difficult, as my partner does want some sort of relationship with his family.

Funny you should mention bridezillas....many years ago, when I got married, my married friends were really happy for me, but the friends who were long-term single were anything but happy. (And I was the opposite of a bridezilla; I didn't even have a hen do and certainly not a bridal shower!) Since then, I got divorced but one of those friends married, and of course she expected everyone to be happy for her. She enjoyed taking his name, wearing the dress, etc. So basically, it was OK for her to get married, but not me.

I would be keeping away from both of them as much as possible. Be distantly polite and no more, there is no going back from this. Many, many, women have miscarriages but still manage to behave normally around pregnant family and friends. Her being on the autistic spectrum is no excuse for being a bitch.

No reason why your partner can't attend on his own. Not always, of course, but you could cut down on attending the whole-family events. You and your DD can always visit your PILs when SIL and her family won't be there, and the two brothers can always get together.

You aren't unreasonable at all. Her behaviour is awful and rude and there's no excuse to justify it.

This is so sad. I feel sad for all involved. I think your sil stayed away cos she didn’t want to put her sadness on your happiness and then it gets awkward and maybe she doesn’t know how to be around you now free stepping away for so long. I think the Parents in law handled it badly but it’s tough coping with joy when one of your kids is breaking inside. I feel sorry for you that you didn’t get to share your pregnancy in a joyful way and I get it as my best friend had a miscarriage 3 months before I got pregnant and telling her was the hardest part. I knew she’d be happy for me and sad for herself and that was normal and okay. I sort of tried to ignore my pregnancy stuff after that around her but then found it hard to connect when she did finally get pregnant again and it was weird and I don’t know why I couldn’t do that for her cos I wasn’t the one that lost a child. She had it tougher. 🤷‍♀️ Life is hard and we just all try to do the best we can. Hope you sort it out and your kids get to experience having cousins. Xx

I’d be more annoyed that my husband wouldn’t raise this with his brother than anything else to be honest.

It sounds to me like she is mentally handicapped and incapable of emotional processing. I have a relative who is similar- brilliant at some types of academic work but emotionally 2-3 years old. If something brings up a negative emotion for him he has to literally look away or run away like a little child. This sounds like your SIL.

If anything, be ready to be a safe space for this lady’s child who has arrived in the world. Having an adult incapable of emotional processing means her child will end up being heavily parentified and having to modify her world and deny her own internal and emotional experiences to cater to her mother’s emotional volatility and immaturity. This will really impact the child growing up and if you can help with that as an aunt or be a safe space in any way, it will be a great gift to the child.

And also the fact thar they have gone into have a child but years down the line they completely ignore op, ops husband ops child. I mean seriously. Its ridiculous.

I feel sad that the sil suffered many losses. But this is just not on.

The irony of you saying you don't have as close a relationship with one of your nephews because of your miscarriages then telling op she needs to move on.

Fwiw I think that's awful of you. Your poor nephew.

I think it's because SIL is autistic.

If mil/fil and other relations were involved and excited but toned down in front of sil/bil I’d say that’s fine providing it didn’t impact on their relationship with your child once they arrived. In terms of your relationship with sil/bil the best I could offer would be polite. I would do cards as they have, and only see them at big family events. If they wanted more unless they were offering an apology/acknowledgment of how poor their treatment was it would be a no from me. And even if they did I wouldn’t go back to how things were

This shows immense empathy and emotional intelligence xx
which not every has

Let it go. Your SIL is obviously an unhappy person who was going through some stuff. If she can’t move on now, I’d suggest decreasing contact with family and go and meet people who you want to spend time with. As your child gets older you’ll meet other parents you can form relationships with.
i remember reading that holding onto resentment is like holding onto a burning stone. It just hurts you. You have a healthy child and your dh- go and enjoy life with them.

Why should they be the ones that miss out on these things when it's the sil and bil that can't behave like adults and choose to continue to punish OP and her child for something that was never their fault.

Experiencing painful things does not give you the right to treat other people like this. We need to qll take responsibility for our own emotions and while withdrawing for a while would be completely understandable, publicly shunning them like this for years is not.

It really doesn't. It's dripping with saccharine niceness and validation, but is also unbalanced and more about the pp's than the OP's experience, and it's also unhelpful (and incorrect) to label every adverse experience as "trauma".

Perhaps once the OP actually sits in front of people who have been horrifically abused, she might think twice about saying someone not acknowledging your baby after several miscarriages of their own is trauma 🙄

Honestly? If the best case scenario is that the SIL stops ignoring the OP and the child then that still isn’t great. Because one day the child is going to say something daft or thoughtless and the SIL will be offended. Or the two cousins will get up to some mischief and the SIL will blame the older cousin.

Being iced out by someone in your family when you are 10 / 11 is much worse than when you are an adult. The SIL has shown she is quite happy to do this - and she learned it from her family. Realistically she is an unsafe person for the OP’s child to be around.

There is certainly a mismatch here between you and the SIL/BIL but your husband is very much to blame here for not putting your MIL/FIL in their place and telling them to stop treating you like shit. SIL was obviously deep in grief and is neurodivergent so you can almost forgive some unusual behaviour in that respect, but the treatment of you by ils is a bigger issue here and moreover your husband for allowing it

First off - I see you, I hear you, and I’m sorry your family has been treated this way. I do understand her actions have come from grief but it still hurts for you.
I had similar experience when I got married before my older sister. I wasn’t allowed to talk about the wedding, my mum didn’t even come wedding dress shopping with me I went alone!! My sister was SO upset that I was getting married first.
I know this is VERY different to miscarriages and births, not at all in the same league. But I felt the way you felt.

when my sister got married I asked myself ‘do I want to treat her the way she treated me, or do I want to treat her the way I wished she had treated me?’ And I chose the latter, forgave her, and every time I got upset (like when my mum went to try wedding dresses with her!), I reminded myself I had chosen the path of forgiveness. Not for her, but for me, so I could feel ok about it all.

whilst it is awful that they haven’t acknowledged your child, (and this would hurt me A LOT) , it’s possible now that she has her own child you could build some sort of friendship back and have the little ones grow up in each others lives.

so in a nutshell I would choose ‘treat them the way I wished they had treated me’. It will heal your soul.

The whole ‘cutting people off / out of your lives’ can go along with an autism diagnosis in my experience. A grandmother who never spoke to her sister again after a minor slight, a previously involved dad who left his wife and is now happy seeing his kids once every few months, a friend who has cut every person out of her life over tiny arguments (I’ve remained but only because we live quite far apart) - her very probably autistic father did the same thing to her as a child.

Your SIL might thaw, given the history of her family behaving in exactly the same way towards her - why did they eventually relent and let her back in the fold? I understand your sadness, Op, but there is definitely not much more you can do, and long conversations won’t work in this sort of situation imho.

I think op has been really generous in her attempts to maintain family relationships.

I would have drawn a hard line and simply would not attend events where people blanked me and my child. I think it is unacceptable so I wouldn't accept it, despite other factors. For me that's a line that couldn't be crossed. I would be sad about it but try to put it behind me as out of my control.

I'm sorry this cruel behaviour happened to you.

Have you seen the new baby or sent a gift yet? Or are you looking to this thread for justification to ice her and her new baby out?

Yes, the behaviour of the family is odd, but this is never the child's fault. If OP does as you suggest, the schism in that family will never heal and it's very much harder to get that back once it's gone. There will be repercussions for the children. The behaviour of SiL (and I'm assuming BiL also) was hurtful, but to me this doesn't necessarily fall under the category of unforgiveable and I certainly wouldn't ostracise a child over the parents' behaviour.

Something in @Twinkletopz's compassionate post above resonated with me. She wrote:

What has happened in the 9 months of her pregnancy? Have you all been face to face - how did she behave with you? Was she still anxious, traumatised, catastrophising and fractious until she gave birth? Maybe these last 9 months were arguably the worst for her.

After my own long years of multiple pregnancy losses, when I finally did carry a pregnancy to term this was exactly my state. Pregnancy after these kinds of losses is a frightening time. But no one witnessing it would ever have known it. I had to keep a lid on the stress for the sake of my unborn baby, to find ways to remain calm, but the reality is I didn't know one easy moment until I first heard DC cry. It's a difficult time. To someone who isn't already mentally robust - and that's hard for anyone following the rollercoaster journey of IVF cycles and repeated miscarriage - it would be even more of a trial.

You're entitled to protect your mental wellbeing OP, but a scorched earth approach or long period of NC is usually non-returnable. You'll need to be absolutely sure, if you take this option, that you're fully prepared for what follows. Partial emotional withdrawal, and wanting to protect your own dignity and feelings, is very understandable. I hope you eventually reach a place where you can coexist even if, as you say, the relationship can never be the same again.

It's a great shame.