SIL (DH’s sister) has a H who philanders, gambles and has an alcohol problem. He does it all under her and their DC’s noses without an ounce of respect shown.
The two of them have frequent bust ups at social gatherings and family parties. He is rarely invited, but often turns up anyway invited by her, and comes on to some member of the extended family or one of my friends.
Despite this, SIL will not leave him. Nor will she admit that there is anything wrong. She absolutely brazenly maintains that everything is fine. The times when his behaviour has been absolutely bleeding obvious (eg he is snogging some other woman up against a wall in a corridor at one of DH’s cousins’ weddings while we were all trying to leave) she will blame the OWs for getting him drunk and seducing him and she expects us all to get behind her in the hate campaign. She has gone as far as physically assaulting and harrassing OWs in the past and trying to encourage her daughter to do the same.
Paradoxically she’s gained a lot of sympathy from her family for this, especially MIL, FIL & to some extent, DH, who have that old fashioned belief that she is doing the “right thing for the DC” by keeping her family together despite his awful behaviour. No one really talks to her about it. I think she and MIL have alluded to it in conversation once or twice, but MIL has stupidly gone along with the idea that it is always the fault of the OWs that her husband is so unfaithful. She also seems to be enabling SIL to live in a world where she feels she is in competition with other women constantly.
If this was where it stopped, I wouldn’t be writing this post because it wouldn’t be my business, but unfortunately I think that SIL projects a lot of her unresolved anger on to me, as the closest, youngest “other woman” in the family. I would go as far as saying that she bullies me. It’s subtle things: Criticising and shaming my appearance, trying to exclude me from family events and conversations, comparing our bodies and keeping tabs on what I eat, when we all eat together she will often insist that I eat more than I want to, to “prove” to her that I do not have an eating disorder (I don't.) She once lost her baggage on a flight and banged on my door at 4am when she arrived at the family holiday home, demanding that I open up my wardrobe and give her all my clothes to try on so that she could choose which ones she would take for the duration of the holiday.
She is excessively preoccupied with looks. If an attractive woman walks past, she wants everyone present to analyse, criticise or rate her out of ten. It always ends with an accusation from SIL that the woman must have had plastic surgery to be attractive, and how superficial that is. It is a topic returned to again and again, when really none of us have noticed. Notably SIL’s facebook profile picture for a whole year in 2013 was a picture saying “If you think the grass is greener on the other side, that’s because it is fake.”
She is also sanctimonious. If DH and I pop out for a drink together and leave PILs to babysit which they love doing, she will make a point of texting me and saying that she, as a mother, would never leave her kids to go drinking, but each to their own. She will then tell MIL the same thing and imply to MIL that I am somehow an alcoholic (far from it) in an attempt to make herself look better (?) She does this in any scenario where she feels she can draw a comparison.
I’m sure you get the gist. But the worst part is that she is totally and utterly defended by PILs because of her established “victim” status. If I challenge SIL on anything that she says or does to me, I get taken aside and given the “talk” – “SIL is very fragile right now, so we’re all just trying to make life easier for her.” This even includes her using her DD (14 years old) who called me last year and begged me to let SIL go to an event with DH instead of me because we should all be trying to help her mum "feel better." Yes, SIL has everyone wrapped around her little finger, apart from her H and me.
I have tried to have it out with SIL many times. Each time she says she has no idea what I am talking about. That all the talk about my appearance is a compliment and that maybe I don’t do things how she does things but she is allowed to comment on it, as the aunt of my DC. That I probably don’t get her quirky sense of humour and her way of taking the mickey out of people. And I’m so sensitive to what people say! How I survive in every day life she doesn’t know!
I have tried giving her a reality check about her situation, especially when her sanctimonious comments about me completely contradict the way she lives her own life (e.g. comments on having a drink, when she and her H can get paralytic and scream at each other in public or in front of their DC.) But touching on that is always met with total denial and usually ends with an accusation about one of my friends being promiscuous and flirting with her H at some event or other, and therefore the implication that I have been somehow complicit in the cause of her problems.
DH is on the fence about it all. He doesn't pick up on the constant digs at me. He joins in with the family status quo, which is to go along with what SIL wants to have an easy life and to try and avoid "scenes" with her H.
I am absolutely certain there is a key to unravelling this, or there is something I could say or a way I could behave that will stop SIL in her tracks, but I just don't know what it is? Any ideas?