Bil and Sil problems

[fairynuf]

Bit of back ground first - I've been with dp for just over 5 years and I have three children dd 15,ds's 11 and 7. His brother has been with his wife about 6 years, she has a ds who is 7 and they have another ds who is 2. Their 7 year old and my 11 year old have birthdays a day apart (yesterday and today!) and they always buy ds1 a present, but never buy the other two (or me!!) anything. They do know when its our birthdays and we buy for all four of them, so what can I do? I can either ignore it(but it pisses me off more each birthday!), say something (not good at confrontation), stop buying for them (petty), get Mil involved (but then they would be buying because they had been told to)or...................... what? This year was considering refusing ds1's present and telling them that they should treat all my children alike but couldn't bring myself to do it!

The kind of situation that makes me feel sick, I'm not good at confrontation either. However, also know that this kind of thing festers away and can burst out at very bad moments (or poison otherwise reasonable relationships). Could you say something along the lines of "Shall we stop buying presents for each others kids, do you think it's getting a bit expensive"? That might get them thinking...

agree with wibbsywoo

festering is a very good word, oh yes, its festering - and getting all out of proportion really! My children aren't short of anything, I shouldn't really get so worked up about it.

fairynuf, could you try approaching it in a non-confrontational way and give them the benefit of the doubt (even if they don't deserve it). Maybe they truly don't remember your other children's birthdays because they don't have the trigger of having their child's birthday on almost the same day. I know that i am useless at remembering people's birthdays (sometimes even forget when my own dd was born and she's only 18 mo.). Maybe you could say to them that you are a little concerned that your other 2 are getting hurt as their birthdays have been forgotten. Ask them if it would be easier to just not give presents to any of the children, or maybe they might prefer you to remind them a few weeks before the birthdays of the other two. If you do it sweetly and without accusations, then you could come out of it without creating tensions in the family.

What does your dp say? Maybe he could have a word.