I don't really get on with SIL, and to be honest, I never have.
Its not that she's an awful person, or that i am, its just that I find her a bit bossy. I don't precisely know why she doesn't like me but I think the problem is she considers herself my social superior. Nothing about our feelings or opinions about each other has ever reached the other person's ears.
The problem is that DH is caught in the middle.
DH and I have argued over things she has done to me in the past. He doesn't like them, but he gets over them, whilst they just keep piling up in my mind.
One thing she particularly does, is call DH up to tell him to tell me not to do something, or to command me to do something. She will never deign to speak to me personally when she can pass a message through DH instead, even if its a direct reply to a message I left on her phone.
I also have a very strong suspicion that she's been putting the knife into me with MIL too.
Things have now deteriorated to the point where we only see SIL and BIL annually, usually for just three hours or so. Unfortunately, its that time of year again, where they realise that our two families not seen each other all year and its all "we must meet up before the year is over". DH usually sees her on his own once or twice a year, but not this year (because he was very hurt by a phone call she made to him complaining about me in the Spring - even though I had not seen her since December last year).
I always tell myself that i can get through 3 hours. But the truth is, it stresses me out beforehand and DH and I invariably fight about the situation either on the way there, or on the way back, or both.
I asked to be excused this year (any convenient lie would have done), so now we are not meeting them at all, as DH would not go with the DC on their own.
The thing is i can't imagine wanting to be around her next year either. or the one after that. However, I don't want DH to go years without seeing his sister.
I am worried that i am causing a family break up and that would be a terrible thing to do. However, I find it incredibly stressful to be around SIL. Often DH and I fight about it and it ends up with us both feeling bruised and battered, sometimes for weeks afterwards. I find it safer to not let her see any part of my life and I've no intention of ever contacting her again.
What would you do? Go see her and catch every passive-aggressive dig? Or take up smoking for occasion and start rolling my own in her sitting room with my muddy shoes on the sofa to prove her snobbery correct? Or tell DH that he on his own until she apologises to me personally for what she insinuated about me in that last call?