I think my brother is married to a narcissist

[DayKay]

My sil has always been horrible. We couldn't understand her behaviour at first but she used to accuse my family of not making an effort with her and treating her badly, when we hadn't.
We tried to make amends. She's quite materialistic so we bought her nice gifts for her birthday and other occasions. I'd email and text her and see how she was. She would reply but never initiate any conversation. We would always try to make her feel included but she always had some sore point. My brother gave up trying to ask her to stop being rude to us as it it just made her worse.
She's polite enough when my brother was around, but often when he was out of earshot, she'd make some horrible PA comment.
My mum is often sad about how things are with her and feels cut off from my brother and her grandchildren. Sil has no sense of humour at all and is quite limited in what she talks about (we've always tried to include the topics she feels she can talk about). She also lies quite blatantly about things we've apparently said.

I now cannot stand her and make no effort with her whatsoever. Its a horrible situation for my brother. He's not one to open up so I don't know what their relationship is like but I know this situation isn't easy for him.

I don't really know what I'm asking as I know everyone is different and even with narcissism, there must be degrees of it?

I guess I just want to know if it does sound like she's a narcissist and how we can deal with her. A friend who knows about the situation said 'I bet you can't wait for her to get some comeuppance' but I don't want that.
I'd just love to be able to maintain a decent, polite relationship with her but that means she has to change which I doubt will ever happen!

So whats the next best thing?

I promise you, we are not gossips. We are not mean and hurtful. We are a decent, normal loving family.
We are fairly positive people, always preferring to see the good in people.
My mum is welcoming, lovely and helpful. Her relationship with my other sil is proof of that as far as I'm concerned.

My SIL is like this - she is just nasty and treats people badly because her mum is nasty and treats people badly.

No approach seemed to work and she definitely was convinced we all hated her - and acted in ways that made it very difficult for us not to dislike her at any rate.

She has now alienated all her friends, her own family and us - we see my brother because he travels for business and drops in when he's down our way.

Basically she acted in a way to provoke conflict and use it as an excuse never to see us again.

I half despise my brother for staying with the cow - but he is too lazy to divorce ehr so just avoids being home with her. They sleep in separate rooms too. How anyone can have a marriage like that boggles me - she just spends his money. That's it.

She's also an alcoholic now so her personality has got a lot worse.
She also knows my father and brother are people pleases so won't ever do anything - and so she carries on. DH and I are not people who please others and we told her to bog off - that was the end of our relationship. Hence your SIL will carry on shitting on your mum because SHE CAN.

What happened to people being a bitch? Or self centered? Or difficult? Or heck any other bloody word but narcissistic?!

Are you some sort of doctor or just obsessed with self help? Do you realise what a pompous loon you sound?

A person is complex. She's more than one thing. What you are doing is writing her off to save you seeing anything nice about her so you can spend as much as possible time talking about her and how she's doing wrong. It sounds pathetic.

Deal with her as a human. With different moods. Changing your attitude might do more to alter the situation than any quasi diagnosis by internet.

Ok. What sort of comments does she make when your brother isn't there? Could you be misinterpreting them?

Your worried for your brother but why? What is she doing to hurt him? Is she just not the type of wife you wanted him to have?

This is not being turned on you but I'm offering you a different perspective on the situation.

If she is actually causing your mother trouble then I think it's only fair to raise the issue.

I admit that I may have jumped the gun by saying she's a narcissist but there's so many threads on here about that and I thought they describes her well. It's not just the bitchiness but the blatant lying, the rewriting of past events, her lack of empathy to any situation and her coldness.

You say treat her like a human with different moods but she doesn't have any other moods with us. I do feel like I'm writing her off because I've given up with her. I can't empathise enough how horrible and deluded she is.

Miggsie sorry you have an awful sil too. And yes, I am getting annoyed with my brother for not standing up to her more but he says he can't do it as she just gets more determined to be nastier.

I don't know if she's hurting my brother as he doesn't really talk about it much. We've had about 2 conversations about it. It's more that she's causing a rift.
My brother really wants to maintain a good relationship and used to ask me to send her a birthday card etc as he thought it might help. Basically, we were all pandering to her a bit so she wouldn't feel like we didn't care.

I thought you said she was nice when your brother was around? I'm not defending her but some examples of what she says to your mother would help me see it from the other side.

I mean if you thought she felt inferior and insecure would it soften your attitude towards her.

Although you have came on here it appears that you have totally written her off. Feeling hatred towards her will cause you untold mental stress and anguish. These feelings can be draining and are a total waste of mental energy.

I see lots of threads on here from women in your SiLs shoes. One thing I can say is they do not seem to have the same problems with their husbands. Obviously each case is different.

The problem is you have to stand up to bullies or they get worse and worse - as my SIL has. I sometimes feel my entire family is centred around not upsetting her.

Bad behaviour always escalates if you challenge a bully - the only solution is to be very very firm (and I suspect your SIL chose your brother because she knows he won't be) or leave.

At the moment your SIL has all the power and gets her own way. What we have done is just maintain communication with my brother as my SIL is impossible to relate to any more.

What really bugs me is it has destroyed any chance of a normal family life as we are not allowed at the house so no family gatherings or Christmases or visits between cousins and that really riles me - also my brother could have left and found someone who actually likes him and might make him happy. As it is he is unhappy and his health is failing trying to placate her mad demands and irrational behaviour.

Anyway, sorry to say there is no way to deal with such a person other than avoid them to save your own sanity - why your brother thinks he must stay with her I don't know, why my brother stays with his wife baffles me - but then I suppose if you have never known a good relationship perhaps even a bad relationship is better than nothing.

Is your brother caught in the middle

She is your brothers wife, and will most likely be forever. If you want to maintain a good relationship with your brother, then she is going to be there at the family do's, sunday lunches etc. If you shun or exclude her, then you are going to very possibly lose contact with your brother.

I know how it is. I was in the same situation. I could not stand my brothers wife, in fact some of the things you say remind me so much of her. We had a major blowout and I did not speak to my brother for 23 years whilst they were married as she would not allow it. They have since divorced and I am getting to know my brother again now.

Does your brother have any explanation about why she acts as she does and what else he thinks could help? A birthday card seems like a fairly token effort to me. I can see why you feel stuck. My dh would definitely explain and he also feels the same re his family but i don't think our situations sound that similar.

I am fairly certain that my SiL thinks I don't allow my DH to talk to her or the rest of his family.

In fact, I try really hard to get him to talk to them, but he won't because he doesn't like them much, and has little in common with them. But he won't tell them that he prefers to just not contact them, or only very rarely.

His aunt has on more than one occasion said I stop him talking to them or seeing them - but I don't. He chose to live the other side of the country to them before he ever met me, and he chose to do that for a reason. But they have concocted their own narrative in which I am the evil other woman who stole him away. I wouldn't be surprised if they all speculated on the happiness or otherwise of our marriage in the absence of any regular contact with us.

I think some of the criticism of OP's choice of words here is a bit out of hand - I think had OP posted those "traits" a lot of people would have suggested or inferred a degree of narcissism. OP wasn't saying she was desperate to have a label for her, rather that understanding what it COULD be could allow her to tackle the situation better?

I know NPD is built up out of inferiority complex and fear that if exposed, people would isolate them. By fearing they are inferior, embellishment of achievements/lifestyle and making others feel less important allows them to achieve the (false) sense of importance. They engage in self preservation but at the expense of other people - a means to an end type thing. It's pretty serious in that someone with NPD would find it difficult to achieve things through life because of the exploitative and dysfunctional behaviour towards others and is not a label to be bandied around lightly - the only person who can diagnose that is a professional.

Also, you may only be privy to a small section of her behaviour - there could be a whole host more going on at home that does not get spoken about.

My advice would be to drop the narcissist label (although I see why you would think she is) and try to speak to your brother. Make sure you are there for him - the more reinforced he feels by your support, the more likely he is to give you information about SIL/situation that may be able to be tackled at a later date. Include SIL at whatever points are acceptable, but remember if behaviour is unacceptable, back out. I wonder whether pandering to her behaviour is reinforcing a belief that what she is doing is appropriate - but appreciate it is not easy to bring up issues in an already difficult relationship.

Whenever I see a thread the premise of which is 'This person is such a BITCH' I always ask myself - 'but have they started a thread on mumsnet about you?'

Sometimes repeating to someone what they have said can put them on the spot and make then realise their bad behaviour. Next time she comes out with something nasty pretend you can't quite hear her?

"Sorry what was that you said about about..."etc or "sorry did you just say?" and repeat it back to her? Do it very slightly louder than your normal tone, with a smile not frown and always leave it hanging, have an imaginary task to run to or someone to speak to straight after you have delivered your line.

That's the exact situation I'm trying to avoid. I don't want fallouts.

As for the way she treats my mum, mostly she blanks her but if my brother is around then she'll say hello and how are you but then after she's either downright rude about the food, anything she's said, about her friends, whatever, but a lot of it is you had to be there at the time or it sounds ridiculous out of context. Just really bitchy comments all the time. She has never said anything nice or friendly except the hello if my brother is around.

She's thrown back any present my mums bought her (and they've been nice things too) with nasty comments so now my mum just gives her money in a card for birthdays.
My mums as quiet as a mouse when it comes to stuff like that so sil gets away with it.
At the same time, she makes up stuff to my brother about us and that we've apparently said or done that never happened. My other brother has brought stuff up with him too.
We try not to get involved but my mum was really upset recently after an exchange where a present for the baby was thrown back at my mum so my other brother mentioned it to my brother married to horrible sil. He'd had a totally different version of events, all made up and putting the blame on my mum.

Day, I would have a word with your brother in private regarding her behaviour towards your mum. But she sounds like a bully and a spoiled brat.

Do you know her family?

Gen35 I was going to send a card anyway and a text but I think my brother was concerned that she'd have more ammunition against us if we didn't. I don't anymore as I never got a card from her on my birthdays.
She was even annoyed with us that none if is congratulated her when her sister had a baby. I congratulated her sister but stupidly forgot to congratulate my sil on becoming an aunt

I came here really to get ideas

She does sound pretty unreasonable tbh. If your brother doesn't understand her behaviour, it does seem hard to see how things can improve.

Sorry, my finger got trigger happy.
I came here to get ideas on how to deal with the situation as I don't want anymore confrontations or any fallouts. If I bring it up with my brother again I know it's going to sadden and annoy him. He's already told me she gets worse if he brings it up with her and it's true. I've seen how nasty she gets with my mum.
I don't think anything is going to make her change so I'm not sure if I want to bring it up with my brother again.

Some people are just cunts

Thanks LEM :) I should change my thread title.

DayKay

I think you need to completely reassess and raise further your own boundaries regarding your SIL because these are way too low to begin with. She is acting like this too because she can. Her H, your brother, is her enabler here and acts too as a bystander.

You state that you do not want fallouts and this is commendable but I do not think your SIL will be so amenable anyway and you will need to take a stand. You are after all from a family unit where all this crap thankfully does not go on so wish to remain amenable and nice.

FWIW I think your SIL is a nasty individual who is surrounding by people pleasers who do not want to rock the boat with her in case she lets rip at them. No-one has dared to say anything to her to date despite she being bloody nasty to them. None of what your SIL has done here would be tolerated by a friend, I put it to you that family are truly no different.