I am 6 months postpartum and struggling. I’ve had a very difficult postpartum experience, including significant mental health challenges and trauma around my baby’s birth, failure to breastfeed and early medical issues. During this time, I’ve felt that my SIL has been critical of some very sensitive areaas including my birth (which involved interventions and ultimately an emergency caeser), formula feeding, and my experience of postnatal depression. Whether intentional or not, those comments have landed as dismissive and invalidating when I was already vulnerable.
Recently, she had her own baby, and everything went smoothly for her. Perfect no intervention natural birth, instant bonding and breastfeeding and healthy baby. After a few days I responded and congratulated her, but I’ve also been dealing with a lot of complicated emotions—grief, comparison, and hurt. I reached a point where I felt I needed to step back to protect my mental health, and I sent her a message explaining that. Some of you may have also seen my post in AIBU re the wedding.
Her response was brief, along the lines of “I’m sorry you feel that way, all the best.” It felt quite final and lacking in acknowledgment of my experience. I replied more emotionally, explaining some of what I’ve been going through, but she hasn’t responded since.
Now I’m left feeling rejected, embarrassed, vulnerable and unsure if I’ve made things worse, especially as this affects the wider family dynamic.
My main question is: is a relationship like this repairable after it reaches this point, or does that kind of response usually signal a permanent distance? I’m open to reconciliation in the future, but I also don’t want to keep putting myself in a position where I feel hurt or dismissed.