Help me get some perspective on this

[nouvellenom]

Name changed.

Background: bil lives his life via social media. Multiple status updates, photos etc every day. He is unable to hold eye contact for more than a couple of minutes due to updating fb, sending messages etc. Personally I think he is missing out on real life by doing this, but it is his business.

What however really irked me is that during my first labour he was tweeting/fb status updates about my contractions. I felt this was a big violation of my privacy, especially as there were a lot of complications in my labour.

With my second pregnancy I instructed dh that he wasn't to tell bil anything when I was in labour, and also asked him to have a conversation about not sharing things on social media.

This time he puts a status update in fb, tagging both me and dh, and a photo, as soon as he was told. I hadn't even told my mother at this point. I asked dh to ask him to delete this, but he refused.

This may sound old fashioned, but I don't believe social media is the first place to announce a birth, and I wanted to tell family/close friends myself.

This has caused a big fall out, as bil cannot understand why I am upset about this.

What do you think?

I think you never tell him anything ever again. He doesn't respect your privacy and never will.

Your baby, your right to tell people how and when you please.

He sounds like an absolute knob by the way. I think you need to be selective what you tell him.

Your problem is with your DH not your BIL. He seems to be the source of the personal information, he's not supporting your wishes and he won't take any corrective action against his blabbermouth brother.

Take your DH to task. ... he's the weak link

Oh absolutely agree with Cog. Your BIL is a known quantity. A Grade 1 child over sharer.

Since this is affecting you, it's your DH who is the problem, feeding the info.

Horrible. What's wrong with him? How dare he he go against your wishes about something so personal and important?

And yes, your DH should be having a stern word with BIL.

What's wrong with your dh? He's an idiot.

It's funny how often people think the problem is with one person when it's with their own partner. OP, how does your BIL know all this stuff? How does he know you're in labour and what each contraction is like? Is he in the room with you? If he's hearing about it from your DH, then this is a DH problem.

I agree dh has a lot to answer here too. I think he should be a lot firmer with bil.

I still think bil is wrong though.

The reason I am not talking to bil directly about these issues is to avoid conflict.

He has been verbally abusive with me, and has a history of being physically abusive (not with me).

I agree with the others here were your DH is concerned.

You aren't married to your BIL. Your husband doesnt respect your wishes by the sound of things either.

Your BIL may be in the wrong but how are you going to stand a chance of changing his behaviour if your DH isn't backing you up?

Why on earth hasn't your DH laid down the law with him?

Bil is a dick. But agree, you and Dh clearly can't trust him so db has to stop sharing information with him.

My bil put up info about me being pregnant at five weeks. We had only told family. I was livid. More importantly, Dh was tok and when he spoke to his brother made him give his fb password so he could fix it himself immediately.

Next time, no family during labor/child birth. They all must stay home.

Two separate things to say about this:

He is unable to hold eye contact for more than a couple of minutes due to updating fb, sending messages etc.

I think this is a very real, very damaging social phenomenon slowly unfolding before our eyes. I can already observe this happening to some extent among some of my many of my peers who are otherwise perfectly functional, fairly intelligent, middle aged, middle class women, and it's a MASSIVE problem among younger people.

Millions are already so addicted to living their lives through electronic devices and social media that they are becoming incapable of functioning properly in face to face interactions. I think it's massive crisis and it's going to have a seriously negative long term impact on our society.

Second thing is he is a twat who has no concept of personal boundaries and invasions of privacy. But you really need to tweak your FB settings so that anything you and DH are tagged in cannot appear on your wall without your prior approval.

Of course you cannot stop him sharing photos of you and sharing your personal news when he doesn't actually tag you, but that's just like in life. Some people are gossips who like to be first in with everyone else's personal news. The only way you can control that is to control his access to those photos and that information in the first place.

I was wondering how BIL knew about the progress of your labour.

Why would your DH be giving him updates?

Your DH was texting his brother from the labour suite?

Your main problem is your DH sharing inappropriate information with his brother.
You need to direct your anger at your DH.

I don't see how you can blame your BiL for the second birth info leak!

Why oh why did your dh tell him before your own parents? Whats that about?

The fact that BiL chooses to live his life through social media is IMO none of your business. You can control what information he puts on there by not giving him any about yourselves.

In all honesty if you don't like your BiL. Go low contact, don't look at his social media pages and ask your husband not to share personal information with him regarding you and the dc.

Other than that don't waste your emotional energy on hating the man. There's just no point. Forget him and move on with your life.

He will never change, he will always be your dh brother so backing off from it all is the best solution.

Bil is wrong.

If he were a normal fella I would give him loads of misinformation that he could put out- eg they're calling the baby Maureen - they're having a naming ceremony in the woods etc etc.
but as he sounds - aggressive - I think just don't tell him anything. Dh has got to learn to shut up.

I'm in agreement with quite. It's not your business how your BiL lives his life, and if you don't give him information then he won't be able to share it.

Just from what you say about eye contact and his lack of understanding of your feelings, is it possible he is somewhere on the ASD spectrum?