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 will go against the grain and say that I don’t think being in an extremely painful situation, such as infertility, gives you a free pass to treat people badly. Her actions may be more understandable in that context but it doesn’t mean that OP can’t feel hurt by hurtful behaviour. I think it’s pretty shoddy not to muster so much as a ‘congratulations’ throughout an entire pregnancy, especially when the baby concerned is your niece/nephew.

You need to remember and realise you have had 2 successful pregnancies, and now have two happy and healthy children.

You need to be hoping and praying for the same outcome for your SIL.

When the baby is born, you need to be congratulating her and telling her how wonderful her baby is !!!

and hopefully you will organise her baby shower for her !!! with the biggest smile on your face ( fake it until you make it real ! )

be the bigger person ! she is now pregnant, you already now have 2 children.

I also agree with this

You can congratulate her but also tell her how hurt you were. How you felt dismissed and that she had no right to pull down your housing situation, etc.

If she's worth having a relationship with then she can also be an adult and accept that her comments were unkind. That close family door swings both ways and it's not for the OP to bow down and accept that spite just because sister in law had fertility issues and OP has two children. Nobody should put up with that, or be made to because that's what leads to bitterness.

I can see both sides (never had a loss, but I found it extremely difficult to get pregnant the first time around) it's hard having everyone around you get pregnant when it's all you want but fear it will never happen.

Although it's not nice what she did to you/ your daughter. However if you yourself haven't been through a loss or any difficult conceiving I don't think you'd really know how you'd deal with it yourself.

I would just be the bigger person here and celebrate with her.

i am fully aware difficulties conceiving is consuming for people and they have my full sympathy, i have a close friend that has been through it and came out the other end with a beautiful son. i was fully aware and tread carefully, i was never expecting her to be overly involved. i just assumed she would acknowledge it rather than act like it was not happening. while i was in hospital with a scare family visited and text to see if everything was ok, she just acted like nothing happened no acknowledgement at all. i am not taking away from her the hurt she feels but she knew she herself had no fertility issues and now has met new partner and concieved quickly with someone she is far happier with. i'm rambling.. what i am trying to say is that i was fully aware she wouldnt want to be involved and would be hurt so much so she was my first thought when finding out i was pregnant again. i just expected her to acknowledge it that is all, if someone done that to her she would be fast to call them all sorts. the comments also about us renting etc. just put the knife in deeper.

really i will need to be the bigger person and just get on with it and put my feelings to the side but probably want to make space from her .

I struggled for 12 years with failed IVF and miscarriages, during that time I had a few friends and family have multiple children. My BIL had a baby, split up with his wife and had another with someone else all whilst we were going through hell. I never once refused to acknowledge their pregnancies and I developed a great relationship with my nieces and nephews..yes it was hard and I cried a lot about how unfair it is but it's not their fault. I would never have cut anyone off because of jealousy. Maybe that's just me but I just can't understand how it improves the situation being bitter and jealous towards others.
The good news is I'm finally pregnant! Almost 30 weeks now and because I've kept those relationships I have a great support network of friends and family.
It's up to you how you deal with it now but if you can move on and build a relationship with your SIL and new niece/nephew thats probability best all round in the long run.

congratulations that is amazing not too long to go now! really nice that you were able to be there for friends etc and have that outlook. i suppose not everyone is the same. hope everyone spoils you and baby and enjoy every minute!

I can understand why you feel the way you do.

Have you asked yourself why are you bothered about her feelings towards your pregnancy and child? I mean this in the nicest way but I honestly couldn’t care who asked me about my pregnancy outside of my closest circle.

Does it hurt because you consider her one of those close people? I have never been through what she has but the grief must have been a heavy weight and made her act in ways she wouldn’t usually.

In those circumstances and given your children are cousins, I would bite the bullet and move forwards, but don’t force yourself to be more involved than you feel comfortable with. Like PP have said, her behaviour may be understandable but it does have consequences.

Congratulations on your baby too, I hope everything is going well for you all

You won’t ever understand what loss or fertility struggles are like if you’ve not experienced it, add to this a shitty relationship, a breakdown of that relationship

she was probably just experiencing a lot of loss, loneliness, anger and resentment of her situation.
thankfully, you’ve not had to walk in her shoes - so perhaps that goes some way to not being more understanding of her behaviour.

whilst the comments she made were unkind can you let go of them knowing really it was about her and not you at all? She was clearly hurting and lashing out.

im going through yet another loss and I have family and friends who are pregnant (inc a sis in law) while ill be acknowledging them I will also be keeping a safe distance as im hurting too much to celebrate others right now. That’s the ugly truth of it.

you may not wish to re-establish your relationship to the place it was before all of this, but I’m guessing you will have to grit your teeth for the sake of your family and husband regardless of if you’d prefer to cut her out?
your daughter won’t remember you not receiving a congratulations message for her arrival from her, and perhaps now she has found some of her own happinesss she can make amends for the lack of relationship with her thus far.

as other posters have mentioned you can either hold onto this grudge or be the bigger person, dig deep for some compassion and let it go, allowing your children to form lovely relationships with each other. Perhaps in time you will be able to talk about it and she may even apologise.

Good for you. What is the point of this post other than to make those who haven't managed to do the same feel crap?!

You're not fully aware. You haven't been through it. You can't imagine how horrendous it can make you feel and how it can cause you to behave in ways that make you not recognise yourself. Start from the point of accepting you don't understand how she feels, and if you can, try to just let it go and move forwards.

@SErunner 👏🏻

the point of the post is to try see if anyone has had something similar, i am aware the upset it cases people and i truly feel sorry for that but i am entitled to my own feelings on this also and to be upset how things were.

post wasnt intended to make anyone feel crap and feel that comment was not necessary. i was looking for comments from people in similar situation or have experienced . if you feel triggered by the thread then you shouldnt comment on it.

@scottishmum2022 poster was replying to another comment, not you.

the point ofthis post is to say that not everyone reacts the same way. poster acted in a way that acknowledges her own upset but she acknowledged that wasnt her friends/ families faults and didnt take that away from them. im happy for my SIL, im just disappointed how she acted with me and that she doesnt actually see any wrong in how she acted as the apology was fake.

no need to be bitter towards other peoples posts as i appreciate insight from both sides.

i realised that after and posted! i appreciated the comment from JRTfan and all the other comments reflecting on both sides of the coin.

im not saying i understand but i can acknowledge how hard that is on people hence why i spoke to DH about treading carefully.

i hope in time it can heal truly as prior to breaking up she was a lovely caring person and seems to have had abit of a personality transplant.

ill continue to be the same person and supportive regardless and just try put my own feelings on the back burner and hope she come round in time maybe discusses it. i know these are touchy subjects for people that are passionate from both ends. i just wanted to see what happened for people in similar situations as its upsetting.

wish everyone the best of luck on whatever journey they are going through.

i hope in time it can heal truly as prior to breaking up she was a lovely caring person and seems to have had abit of a personality transplant.

Does that not tell you that she was clearly having a very hard time and deeply affected by it? Yes it was shit she didn’t say congratulations, but perhaps she didn’t want to bombard you after your hospital admission in case it was bad news and you didn’t want to talk about it.

Just let it go. You’ve got two lovely healthy children which you managed to conceive without issue. Your SIL is now back to her usual self, what’s the point in making a drama over nothing?

I think it’s getting a little pedantic now - I didn’t say you had said you understand - I was simply stressing the point that you probably won’t be able to wrap your head around her behaviour and how it feels as you’ve not been there.

last things I will say is I agree with poster above, she’s been though trauma not had a personality transplant.

I hope you can see her as the person she was before and is showing you now, and not judge her too harshly on her behaviour during what was a really upsetting time for her. Hopefully with some time passing you can forgive for any hurt she caused you and move on.

Forgiveness is the gift we give ourselves.

Rather than getting hung up on past wrongs, forgive, move on and look forward to nurturing a beautiful relationship between your children and their new cousin.

Or you can be petty and ignore her pregnancy. Up to you. But remember when she did it to you, as much as you might not agree with the way she acted (and your right should have been able to muster a half hearted congratulations), at least she was doing it to protect herself following her struggles with infertility and loss of her relationship, rather than it being some kind of 'see how you like it' style revenge that you seem to want too enact.

@SErunner the point was that not everyone deals with infertility the same way and just because you are struggling it doesn't mean you shouldn't make an effort to be happy for someone else, especially if they are being sensitive to your situation. There is certainly no excuse for negative remarks or making someone who has managed to conceive feel bad because you haven't been able to.

You are being unreasonable. You will never understand how she felt going through infertility and a relationship breakdown. I have been through infertility for years with a lovely husband and it's so hard I had to distance myself from very close friends who were pregnant. In her case it was even worse after losing her partner too.

She couldn't really distance completely from you because you're family, so it must have been really hard for her to see you at family gatherings hence the mean comments.

I would let it go and just be happy for her. After all, she's part of your family and you're so lucky to have never gone through the same struggles than her.