Tricky SIL

[fringeandtrainers]

So I’ve been with my partner for nearly 10 years and have a young daughter. His family are great BUT very difficult. When we first got together, the rows they had were incredible and very damaging. To his credit, he has been in a lot of therapy and has decided that he can have a relationship with them, but boundaries are essential.
His sister has been stuck in the same cycle for years of accusing him of not being there for her, not making an effort, not ‘celebrating’ her enough. So much so that every few months, he gets a lengthy email detailing his failings as a brother and what she wants from him. The most recent one accuses him of gaslighting her? Which he categorically does not do. The most he does is tell her to stop shouting when she is most definitely shouting.
She is definitely one of life’s mood controllers - you know, walks into a room and the whole atmosphere can shift.
I love her like family but I’m so bored of this cycle. He will call her, tell her he loves her. We see her regularly (not regularly enough, apparently)
I’m trying to see things from her side, she’s always been single and I know she struggles with that. I try and put in plans with her but a large part of me doesn’t want to, particularly when I know I’ll have to listen to a long moan about something. Am I awful?

Nope, it sounds like you and DH have the patience of saints!

He's perfectly entitled to set limits and define how much of a relationship he has with his sister - as are you.

My DH has a difficult FIL. He has a separate folder that anything that is received in email from him automatically goes into that folder. He checks it when he wants to. Well, actually, he tells me if there's been an email, I check it, if it's one of his self pitying, racist, xenophobic and islamophobic rants, then I read out the highlights to him if he wants a good laugh and then it gets deleted.

If it's a half way sane email, he responds.

They basically don't converse beyond the weather. Any self pitying phone calls, or rants, get cut off. You don't have to listen to that.

Oh wow. At least she’s not racist?!
I mean, I could probably recite the rants that he gets now verbatim. And my partner is good at being present with her, but being distant. She wants phone calls and time with him but when they have that, that’s when things go awry. So he chooses to keep the contact to a minimum. It’s a bit of a lose lose.
Thanks for your reply, it’s reassuring that actually, we are not the ones in the wrong, even if the situation is being manipulated to feel that way!
And organisationally, love the idea of another folder. I joke with him just to send ‘UNSUBSCRIBE’ back

She sounds like she needs to be told that your DH is not her father, not her partner, and does not have the kind of obligations to her that either of those entail.

He has his own family, his very full and busy life with his partner and daughter coming very much first, and his work being very busy. Of course he cares for her, but the time and headspace he can give her is clearly not what she feels entitled to, however, this isn't going to change. If she can't deal with that, well that's her problem to find a way to deal with, not his. Oh, and to go scream and cry at someone else about it, because he's over it and doesn't have the time.

Then light a match and stand well back. You might want to lay in marshmallows ahead of time. And toasting forks. . .

And who the hell 'celebrates' their siblings, or expects their siblings to? That's just weird!

Yes. There was a flurry of messages accusing him of just being shit basically.
I’ve encouraged him to ignore it from now on but ofcourse it just all makes it more difficult to have an ok relationship.
I think she means the contrast of celebrating, for example, my child’s birth and if you’re single etc you might not have those same recognised milestones. I mean, cool, but I think it is all just basic adult life. No one has celebrated me figuring out the central heating in my new house. It’s crazy and I’m keeping my distance! Thank you for your reassurances

Well she needs to learn that if she wants a better relationship with someone, throwing hissy fits and periodically ranting at them via email or phone, is possibly not the way to go about it. . .

Tell her she's too much hard work & that for the next x amount of time he isn't going to read any of her emails or answer her phone calls, that he'll read one text a week from her & reply to it so she can consider better what's most important to her in each week what the single most important thing she wants to say to him is. Maybe after a month or two she'll calm down a bit.

Yes great advice. I do find it bizarre. If this was new information we’d listen but it’s the same complaints so... I’m out! Or not but emotionally and mentally checked out of it all anyway.
It’s been really helpful to know that I’m not in the wrong when you have someone convincing you that you are. If any gaslighting is happening I’d suggest it was more from her side.