To start WW3 with my SIL

[Allthewineandallrhedrinks]

Long story but I will keep it short.

Me and my husband had decided to stop speaking or engaging with SIL. Mainly because of an incident where my husband said something in a jokey way to my neice and she literally sulked off to another room in my parents house like it was the biggest deal making me feel uncomfortable and she's not even blood related.
I messaged my brother about Easter as we always do stuff all together and I said we need to do it separate this year. He asked why I said because your wife is a toddler sulking off and we don't want to see her again. Hears nothing more from my brother.

So then at my kids school it all gets a bit weird my mum friendship circle start ignoring me and I keep asking whats wrong and they say nothing all fine. But then they are organising meet ups without me which never happens. I normally am one that arranges them. I keep asking what's wrong. Finally find out. My SIL has told one of the mums that she knows through work about my husbands past. He did some bad stuff and was in prison but he did his time and is an amazing person.
Now because of my bitch SIL I am now isolated from my friendship group.

I was willing to not make a big deal and just not speak or see her again but she has made this personal and I cannot let this go.

I lived over the road from a man stole a car and killed a little girl. The sentence was ridiculously low. He's since been in custody for DV/Drugs. I don't think that he is entitled to ever find peace tbh. I hope whatever life he sets up and those who think he's served his time and share his life, that they are constantly disrupted and the air of respectability shattered. I was disgusted when I found out who I'd shared neighbourly pleasantries with. @Allthewineandallrhedrinks ask your Mum why she told him to appologise and how fucking dare he not do so when asked by his host. Committed a crime against a child? Shut the fuck up, towards children, for the rest of your life.

So you flounced when your SIL removed herself from the company of you and your husband (she’s obviously got some sense and knows what you’re both like) and now you’ve flounced because majority of people are saying how awful you sound!
I'll hazard a guess that SIL isn’t crying into her cornflakes over this.

reoport your OP and ask the mods to do it.

Knowing that if you do that just about everyone will think it is because you feel you are in the right and people aren't agreeing with you.

Your deflections about your DHs past, and what was said to the niece aren't helping you at all here.

So if your friendship group now want nothing to do with you then either what your husband did was bloody awful & they think you are wrong to be with him or they weren't friends at all?

also

Im not posting anymore because this site is not supportive how other mums couldnt understand how this would effect me and my kids someone doing this.

isn't the whole truth tho? This thread is supportive of the other mum in here (both of them, as in SIL and your mum) and are trying to help you see why this may have happened.

He went to prison for something non-sexual and non-violent involving a child? Just "people being massively OTT and extreme"? And his crime sounds worse written down? Just... what?

Surely this has to be a reverse or a troll. The OP's even complaining that her SIL "doesn't vape" - WTF does that have to do with anything?

@Allthewineandallrhedrinks To be honest I don't think you have given us enough to judge fully.

On the face of what you have written, and I confess to not having read it all, you haven't disclosed what your husband said to your niece except his Mum told him to apologise, so it can't be nothing? So unless we know we can't say if SIL was justified in storming off to the bedroom.

But what you have told is that you rang your brother about Easter hence prompting a confrontation by telling him " because your wife is a toddler sulking off and we don't want to see her again" and that was never going to get a positive outcome, you lit the dynamite intentionally there.

You could have text and made an excuse for Easter, or if you wanted to truly resolve it, you could have explained how unhappy you were with how your SIL reacted given it was (potentially) a misunderstanding or over reaction by the niece and cleared it up in that manner.

I'm assuming that your SIL is married to your husbands brother or is she married to your brother? If its your husbands brother I am sure he would not be happy his wife is stirring the past up over his brother either if he knew. If its your brothers wife as I am assuming from the post, then its still not nice. But I am pretty sure a reasoned woman would not intend it to hurt any children involved and by the reaction from the school gate mums, that is potentially what it has done. One thing that is clear is that the women at the gate are not your friends, they would have talked to you about what was being said before taking any action.

You don't want to say what your husbands criminal history is except it wasn't sexual and I get that. What your SIL has done, has potentially caused issues for your children at school because many people are very careful when it comes to who they and their kids associate with and despite what they say, don't believe in 2nd chances. That's wrong, but did your SIL intend this? I doubt it and I think she would be mortified if she knew the situation.

But you are not innocent here, you set off like a heat seeking Exocet missile homing in on your target by ringing your brother and saying you wanted nothing to do with her, you made no attempt to resolve, you went for the jugular. How you describe her reeks of jealousy. Actions have consequences.

You sound a lot like my SIL. After the way she has behaved I don't want anything to do with her, but I told my husband that I didn't want to stand in the way of them having a relationship. Turns out he was relieved to have an excuse to never speak to her again.

If your "friends" were really your friends, they wouldn't immediately cut you off without hearing your side of the story so it sounds like they also were only too happy to have a good reason to steer clear of you.

This has got to be a troll post seriously. Can't believe someone would actually be this entitled.

I suspect your SIL and family are breathing a sigh of relief at not having to spend any more time with you. The other side of this story would be interesting.

But who did what and who said what is very relevant here. I don’t think the other mums are bullying OP at all. Their response is entirely understandable given that they have found out one of their midst is married to a man who went to prison for a crime involving a child. The OP didn’t disclose the potential risk and the thought that their children may have been around this man unsupervised would be enough for them to take a significant step back.

I can understand that the sudden loss of what you thought was a great friendship group is horrible.

I also think you may well have felt your SIL was being fake in her interactions with you, because it's possible that you two don't like each other much. She would maybe say the same about you - polite when we see each other, would would prefer not to see each other but have to, no genuine liking.

If you are with someone with a criminal record it will always be there and at risk of surfacing, so you will both always be on the back foot and vulnerable to the consequences.

If your SIL's terrible faults are charity work and running then I dread to think what your husband's "sounds worse than it was" conviction is for.

Currently 91% of posters think OP is unreasonable, and yet she thinks the consensus is that her SiL is vile and spiteful !!

Im not the problem here.

If you say so, though I completely disagree with this. Sounds like you're SIL won't be too upset if you go no contact, she's probably dodged a bullet.

OP’s side of the story is potentially that she has allowed her friends’ kids to be around her husband unsupervised, without disclosing his past. So she has taken away any informed decision from them. I wouldn’t need any other reason, that would be enough.

I totally agree that your sister in law is completely out of order.

the sister in law in very spiteful

people are allowed to fall out, and say they don't want spend time with people, family or not.
It doesn't make betraying trust, confidentiality and stirring a whole load of shit acceptable.

I agree. It's not bullying, it's normal safeguarding. Decent parents aren't going to allow their children around someone who committed a crime against a child.

It sounds as though the OP is desperate to downplay what her husband did. She says "it sounds worse written down" (which essentially means it sounds worse when you can't pad it with excuses). She says it was "just people being massively OTT and extreme". You don't go to prison for being massively OTT and extreme.

She said it wasn't a sexual offence, so unless it was physical abuse of a child I don't see what business it is of anyone on the school run!

There's no such thing as confidentiality when it comes to criminal convictions, unless they were committed when the person was underage (and it's safe to say the OP would have mentioned it if that were the case).

I can't think of any non-serious offence someone could commit against a child that would get them a prison sentence.

"Mainly because of an incident where my husband said something in a jokey way to my neice and she literally sulked off to another room in my parents house like it was the biggest deal making me feel uncomfortable and she's not even blood related."
You guys are the problem. Even if he wasn't an excon, you are only thinking about yourself and your feelings and SIL is protecting her daughter, AS SHE SHOULD.

It doesn’t have to be a sexual offence for him to be a threat to other children. The crime he was convicted of involved a child and he went to prison for it, so obviously there was significant harm of some description.

I think whatever DH said to OP’s niece has made SiL think twice about whether he can be trusted around children and that’s why she’s passed on the information to the school mum group. The groups’ response is entirely natural given that their children may have been unsupervised around DH and OP kept quiet about any potential threat.

To me you sound like the problem

Oh right! I missed that. OP is even more like SIL than I thought...this was actually a big factor in my final decision to cut her off. She knew her partner was involved in criminality including heavy drug use and yet brought him around our children and they also stayed with my elderly parents. I had some suspicions about it and she lied straight to my face.

Then when it finally came out she continued to lie and tell different versions of events and eventually when I didn't just accept her confused stories, became very angry at me and called me some horrendous names, not for the first time.

I found out after we'd cut contact that she was just as involved as him in it all, hence the continuing lies to try to cover up her part.