SIL refusal to recognize pregnancy and now i feel bitter, advice.

[scottishmum2022]

this will be quite long winded. i have gave birth this year to my second child a girl and have a DS6. during my previous pregnancy SIL was delighted and supportive the way family should be. while on IVF waiting list SIL had a marriage breakdown as they were incompatible and really a dodged bullet as she acknowledges it now. family including myself have been supportive to her and she began dating and loving her life. afew months after their split i found out i was pregnant. partner and i told SIL in person but treaded carefully knowing it may still be painful for her. she non reacted said that was a shock. during the pregnancy she had no care or ask when the baby was due, how i was feeling after a scare in hospital etc. had gender scan and she didnt ask the sex. she had not made one congratulations even a fake one and made it quite explicit she doesnt want involvement and told DH that she will be fine when the baby is here but no one understands how she feels. while i was pregnant we had a family dinner where she started being quite rude towards people with lower income, people renting houses. basically describing my family's life and informing that she "wont settle for less." I raised this with her to be laughed at and told i was dramatic. i would feel at times she would say certain things to try start arguments between me and partner. prior to the birth my partner told her that she wasnt welcome unless she apologized for her behaviors or at least acknowledged them.

SIL begrudgingly apologized but was very clear was fake. i didnt want to cause any arguments during a time being hormonal after the birth so just left it as it was.

fast forward to april and she has informed she is pregnant with new partner of 6 months. I'm happy she will have the baby she has yearned for but cant feel slightly bitter that she expects to constantly have pregnancy talk and me to go to baby shows etc when she couldnt even acknowledge her niece.

has anyone had similar happen?

tia

I wonder whether some of this is just it being her first pregnancy. I don't think I properly understood how it felt to be pregnant until now (pregnant with my first). Now I just want to apologise to everyone I've ever known during a pregnancy. It sounds like she couldn't cope with your news at the time and now she's pregnant herself would like your support. I'd be tempted to let it pass. Be who you needed, instead of bearing a grudge when she didn't know better.

She apologised for the other comments, they're a red herring here.

If she was grieving that she had not managed to get pregnant despite IVF and had even lost her partner over it, it was perfectly normal for her to tell you that she didn't want to be involved in tracking your ongoing pregnancy. Now she is having her first child, she is in a very different position and hopes you will celebrate with her as she celebrated your first alongside you. It is about her circumstances and the timing, not about you or your second child.

During your pregnancy, she retreated into herself and protected herself. I guess it was difficult for her, and it sounds like you were very sensitive to her needs.

I can appreciate though how you feel hurt that her pregnancy is now being celebrated whilst you weren’t allowed to celebrate yours. Also, she hasn’t acknowledged your child either.

If she is asking for your help and advice, then perhaps be the bigger person and support her. She’s probably very nervous about her pregnancy. However, you don’t have to be available for every show etc.

SIL sounds like a right b1tch, I would keep her arms length and have as little to do with her as possible.

You can go two ways here.

Either put it in the past, get excited about her pregnancy, support her in her first pregnamcy as she did with your first, do the whole auntie thing, and have a close and loving bond between niece and cousins.

Or you can hold onto a grudge because someone who was grieving didn't acknowledge your pregnancy, and not have a bond with your niece or between the cousins.

Totally up to you if you can forgive and forget or not, but your choice will shape the future.

in my heart i feel this way if i am honest! would never say it out loud.

Totally agree with this.

i can get that and have had close friends go through infertility so have insight from a friend perspective how to be supportive on that, nottaking her pain away. just as a whole her personality is very she cant be happy for anyone if things arent going great for her. i think possibly is just a clash of personality as i even at my darkest points i couldnt imagine not being happy or celebrating things for people. suppose thats the joy of humans and we are all different.

just finding it hard personally to not be bitter which isnt my personality normally. just hurt .

Why not? You are under no obligation to spend your time with a toxic arsehole. Be clear that you want nothing to do with her.

You are kidding right? Your SIL was just after a marriage breakdown, had had IVF, and presumably wondered if she would ever have any children at all .... She was grieving FFS.
A very large percentage of people would ask not to be 'involved in your pregnancy' in such circumstances. Some will manage to put a brave face on for sure, but many prefer to protect themselves a bit while they grieve. The correct response from you would have been, 'I totally understand, SIL. We won't force news on you about the pregnancy/baby until the time you let us know you want to know.'

The other stuff about the income and picking fights sounds mean based on your account of it. You can't make everyone nice though, so just rub along and rise above it, and see her as little as possible.

Yes I had this. My SIL had a real problem with my pregnancies because she was having trouble. Once she got pregnant, it was all forgotten.

I choose to put it in the past and move on because I saw it as she was in a bad place that I couldn’t understand, having been lucky enough to have never been there myself.

Maybe you can't imagine it, tbh I can't imagine infertility as I haven't been there myself.

I am someone who gets really happy for others, delighted at their happy news and it brings me genuine joy.

However when my child died I honestly hated anyone who was having a baby, or who had a child. Pregnancy announcements happened and I didn't acknowledge them, I avoided people with kids, refused invites.... grief is a really complicated thing, and what's rational in your head at the time while you're trying to protect yourself isn't always the rational when you're not in that situation.

She was hurting, she saw you have something that she was desperate for and she protected herself.

You were surrounded by people who were happy for you, she is just one person.

That doesn't reduce the fact you were hurting too, of course, but understanding that she was protecting herself and you were caught in the fallout from that, might help you come to terms with it a bit.

She was hurt and lashing out hence the comment on your situation but you don't feed that fire. You can say it works for us and we are very happy. Unhappy people tend to try to bring others down with them.

You can choose to congratulate her and at least be there to listen when talks of her pregnancy like she was when you were first pregnant or you can choose to distance yourself.

Going forward you have to ask yourself how this impacts family dynamics ie will your ILs choose to spend more time with her and her new baby than your family of 4 if SIL feels her nose has been put out of joint? As someone whose siblings fell out years ago I know the realities of this. One big Christmas celebration as always for all of us bar one family member and their immediate family. It must hurt.

Making rude comments about income is mean.

But, I don’t understand why people think other people need to make a fuss over someone else’s pregnancy? They’re not the ones having a baby. I’ve never really said more than congratulations when family or close friends announce their pregnancy. I wouldn’t pry into their scans unless they volunteered.

Even when my friends and I meet up, we do a quick, ‘how is the family’, but then talk about all the stuff we used to before marriage and babies. We see other as their own person, not just a mother/wife etc.

Be kind to her. My SIL was trying to conceive at the same time as me. I had two within three years. She was stoic because we were both in our twenties. Over the next two decades she tried everything, nothing worked. When I accidentally got pregnant in my forties she fell apart. We didn't see her until the christening.

Let her enjoy her pregnancy, it's so special to her

This. Yes her behaviour wasn't ideal but if you haven't struggled with infertility, you have no idea what it does to you. Add in losing her relationship around the same time, it's no surprise she wasn't in a good place. You can either forgive and move on or hold a grudge and make life difficult. I know which one I'd choose.

Hurt people, hurt people. Situations like this remind me of that saying. I would try to give her some grace, having infertile friends doesn't mean you know what she was going through, or what support she needed, or really anything about her experience. She isn't them and she isn't you. You've never walked in her shoes, you have no idea how you'd act in her place, none at all, maybe you'd do no better.

She was hurting and she expressed that hurt by hurting others, it's a very common human reaction to facing major losses. You can carry this harm forward with you, pay it back to her, hurting her for hurting you when she was hurting or you can work on giving her some grace and letting it go, accepting that she's human and was struggling and overwhelmed. Maybe she's not the nicest person anyway, but that doesn't reduce her hurt or make her hurt less worthy. Her actions are writ large in your mind, but they're the past, it's up to you to chose what the future between your two families will be like and your children's connections with their cousin.

@scottishmum2022

It's not about you this time, be glad for her

As someone who has been through ivf I know how absolutely soul crushing pregnancy announcements, updates and basically anything to do with pregnancy can be. Unless you've been through it yourself it's impossible to understand.
If I was your SIL I'd have done the exact same thing. When my brother and his wife got pregnant when we were going through IVF I told them I had to distance myself. They understood and were supportive.
When I did get pregnant by ivf, they were just as supportive.
I don't think your SIL has done anything wrong, she was simply protecting her feelings but I can understand why you felt hurt by it

Be thankful you don't understand her hurt.

This.

Despite having many friends with small children or who have been pregnant and had successful births when I’ve had miscarriages, the only one I have irrationally struggled most with my brother and sister in law’s pregnancy and child. I think because it represented what I didn’t have in a family I was part of (albeit on my husbands side).

Me too

You sound like more of a bitch than her tbh. I’m astounded at your lack of empathy towards someone having fertility struggles. I’m continually amazed by how callous women who fall pregnant easily can be.

Grieving for the loss of her baby and being a bitch aren't mutually exclusive. I'd be less bothered about her lack of interest in the pregnancy, to me that's understandable, but would keep her at arms length because of her horrid behaviour towards you and your dh after the baby had been born.