Family issue - really don't get on with BIL

[Weegiemum]

My dh was, until the last 3-4 years, very close to his brother. They were each others "best man" (18 and 15 years ago).

BIL hasn't ever really been a good friend of mine, but I always treated him as family - the relationship is very important to dh and so I supported it.

My dh has had depression over the last 2 years, really struggled and bil, his supposed "best friend" has totally ignored it. Dh didn't feel up to telling his mum but bil - while not helping dh at all - told her, which has made our relationship harder.

The last 2 years after discussion, bil, his wife and 2 boys came to us for a holiday over the Halloween weekend. Now it turns out they have planned (even bought tickets!) to come this year without asking. I have a neurological disability that needs regular IV treatment in hospital - they plan to come the next day, when (we've explained) I'm utterly wiped out, I need 3-4 days after my IV to feel normal.

Am IBU? I've explained I can't have visitors the week of my IV. I need a real (sleep all day and night) rest and I've explained it to them.

Dh is trying to be nice to them, but he can't get the days off and I'm useful for nothing at this point. Plus, they've assumed an invitation we hadn't planned to offer this year because - surprise surprise - I had a hospital appointment!!

:D Ezio.

Thanks everyone. Feeling both supported and cheered up by you all.

And totally stronger. We shall say no and mean it!!

Seriously...it's bizarre. If I were your bil, the first no would have been more than sufficient. Who wants to stay with someone when you are clearly not wanted and an inconvenience, for whatever reason...never mind the OP's? Who wants to intrude like that? It would be the last thing I would do.
I find your mil astonishing. No doubt as the matriarch she feels entitled to organise everyone and their homes. You must stick to no.

There's a saying...
Going to church makes you a Christian the same way that standing in a garage makes you a car.

Boundaries needs established.

Never a truer would Pictish.

*word

Pictish you are very right.

We've been working on boundaries since we got married - and that's coming up 19 years!!

Mil is happy with them herself (and fil pretty much never stays, they're divorced and he has a new dp) but she gets very het up about bil. He lived in Canada for 7 years and that was where they started a family. My dc adore their little cousins. But bil and wife have either lived a) 8000 miles away or b) 5 mins from mil and other mother. No one ever stays with them and they just don't get it.

There have been no calls to my mobile today (I'm at work) and we'll see what is there when I get home!!

An update!

Bil called and grumped at dh again, but my wonderful dh totally stuck to his guns: there would be no visit.

"Miraculously" bil has managed to find a friend who will buy the tickets to visit family, as its in bil's registration number, they're going to swap card ("because my friend wants to see his family").

So the money issue is resolved, but I'm at a loss about rebuilding relationships.

I expect they'll sulk for a bit and then get over it. Whether you want to rebuild is the issue after all the fuss they made

I'm glad they finally got the message. Next time they'll ask first I'm sure

Surprise, surprise NOT re your BIL.

You want to rebuild relationships, this is admirable but with whom?. Not BIL surely?. Toxic people do not and never will play by the "normal" rules governing familial relations. He is not worth it and nor is his toxic mother.

How bloody selfish.

I am always utterly agog at people who cannot listen and have no qualms about abusing people who dare to disagree with them. In my family, my ILs clearly don't really want to hear anything I have to say, their way of dealing with it is to stay quiet (ie not respond within a conversation) and to be frank, that is hard enough.

(MIL has just - JUST - acknowledged that she didn't realise I felt so bad with hyperemesis. She's had chemotherapy and it's made her feel grim. I was in and out of hospital, on a permanent drip while there, almost tube fed. And she didn't realise. Well, gee, thanks. I am supposed to be pleased that she can empathise. Instead I just think: you coldhearted fucker.)

Wow, if they were trying to persuade you never to invite them again they couldn't have done a much better job, could they?

Could you all go, or send your DCs to stay with them some time, so all the cousins have time together and they get to appreciate the burden of guests?

The other that bothers me about people who take massive fucking liberties like this is: they don't do it to everybody. They divide people into those who can be treated badly, and those who they would not treat badly. How horrible is that?

We could never, sadly, send them to stay or go ourselves. They live in a teeny tiny 2 bed semi (genuinely no room in the lounge for a sofa bed).

When sil had a friend come to visit in the summer, she stayed with mil (like I said, 5 mins walk) for three weeks (my dc didn't get to stay with her over a few days this summer for this reason - once again, bottom of te heap).

And peaches - I know it's not everybody. It's just us. Because pretty much no one else thy know has moved that far from them!

Well, well done for staying civil with them for so long. I can't help thinking if I were in your position, the move from cool toleration(?) to such disdain for you regarding your illness would have hit me quite deeply and moved me to close down the relationship, between the adults anyway.

Tbh I'd close it down this afternoon, if it was just me. But it's not my family, and dh (courageously) want to keep on trying. It's his mother, his brother (and I'm biased because due to a toxic mother who left us when I was 12 to live with her lover - who was my Dads best friend) it really is his call - to a great extent.

I've called him and mil over the years - when you go to her house and there's 2 massive school/nursery pics of the other dc, another big one of that family, and one small one of all 5 of us (despite us sending school photos with letters from dc) you realise why you're not important.

I've just typed then deleted a whole load of examples of how their family and our family are treated differently. But I though I looked like a raving loon so deleted.

Last year mil didn't come to a huge show that my dd1s class had worked tirelessly on (in p7) for their last Christmas in Primary School. To go to a 15 min nativity for dn1 in year 1.

We really scrupulously don't mention it, but our dc have started asking why granny likes their cousins more than she likes them.

My goodness I'm realising this is a much bigger picture. My poor dc (very glad my dad and stepmum are incredibly fair!).

weegiemum - my dh and your dh could share horror stories about how their respective mothers (unthinkingly? ) ignore them and their children and favour siblings and their offspring.

Fortunately in dh's case, he gets on well with one of his sisters and they can laugh about it (it is another sister in particular who leeches off her mother is the "favoured one" ).

Thanks pb - might get himself to met for a drink at the rugby club sometime.

In our situation bil is the only sibling that dh has, and I know dh is hurting at the loss of that relationship. I genuinely try to encourage it but bil is like a stone wall.

Db and I also have issues (more on his side than mine 'cos I apparently don't do enough for "family") but he blames my dad for this and now won't talk to me

Families - who'd have 'em?

Your dh family is clearly a bit nuts!!!

If there are so many examples, it doesn't sound good.... Even worse, they may not even "let" you finish wuth them completely! Sorry!

Yes I know. I've been with dh 25 years almost. But still his family reduce me to a gibbering wreck!

Oh, dear, don't use up your gibbering for when you're well!