These are such very tough days for you Chopin with many painful milestones and firsts to endure in this year without your DH. I really hope that you are able to prioritise your grief and reach out for lots of comfort and support. Good to see that you have a “safe and neutral” place with a good therapist. This will help you not to get drawn in, entrenched and then stuck in the toxic dynamics of your SIL / DD1.
No surprise that she is pregnant again - I suspect with the timing they will wrangle a paid maternity leave out of the system.
Always grifting.
Nothing has changed.
SIL has from day one been focused on two things - extorting money from you and isolating your DD1.
He manipulates your DD1 and punishes you in order to achieve both goals.
He truly believes in his head that he is entitled to you cash. It’s obsessive and compulsive with him. That’s his imprinted mindset.
He uses your DD1 to get it. Deep down she is likely hurting, overwhelmed, afraid and lonely even if she isn’t at all conscious of it. He is exploiting this vulnerability by provoking and then distorting these feelings so she instead feels jealous, excluded and resentful of her sisters relationship with you and he pushes her to seek financial recompense.
Follow the money.
Know his game. Don’t give her any info about her sisters. Play down any RS you have with them. Be v vague and non committal.
Don’t walk into any more traps. He is way more manipulative than you can even imagine and any word, sentiment, emoji or punctuation mark will be scrutinised and twisted to paint you as unfair to DD1.
Don’t give him anything.
Any approach / manoeuvre by you is a threat to him and so is crushed and punished.
On reflection the inheritance discussion and suggestion to visit were not good moves. Although I agree that you tap danced out of the inheritance conversation very diplomatically. Perhaps do the same with the visit.
Might be good to take a step back again. Stick to basic communication of just responding to her texts about recipes and Facetime.
Your DD1 is already tiring of him as he is exhausting her - don’t get in the his way - step well away so she is fully exposed to him.
Don’t give her any advice to make her life easier.
Because somehow he will distort everything and it’s your fault (it’s your fault not paying for childcare, cleaner etc that’s why she’s tired - not that he doesn’t help or God forbid they fund their own adult lives with the pots of cash they have accrued through exploiting every system and situation they can.
She knows deep down - even if she is repressing it her body is screaming out and keeping score with her skin issues and I expect that the DGD1 eczema is exacerbated by stress.
But enough about them.
This has many many years to play out - if it ever even does in your lifetime.
The choice now is how you choose to spend your finite energy, headspace, precious time and fragile emotions.
Getting repeatedly abused by SIL and embroiled in their dysfunctional marriage or taking care of your own inner world to honour your own grief so that you and your other DDs bond deeper and cherish each other without the shadow of DD1.
By doing the latter YOU will be in a much more robust place emotionally to support her if and when she eventually comes to you.
You can’t be in two emotional spaces at once.
Know that your detached approach is the best for you, your DD1, 2 and 3 and your DGCs ..... and when you feel the urge to get involved or respond with anything more than “that’s nice dear” .... that you should resist this urge to get drawn in because you will all ultimately be punished for it.
Don’t send the text, don’t pick up the phone, don’t commit or comment when in a triggered state. Take time out. Come back to it when you are emotionally settled and slap back in the with the vanilla and grey rock.
Your other two daughters have been very deeply emotionally injured by their sister - directly, experiencing their family pulled apart and watching both of their parents suffer. This situation with have had and with continue to have a profound negative impact on their own emotional state. They will be hurt, angry, confused and very sad with the years and years to date of relational trauma that this situation has inflicted on them.
They are now grieving their father and also grieving the fact that their family never healed this trauma and most likely never will.
Pour your energy, thoughts, time, focus and love into these two. That’s what you can do to heal your family. It’s you three now.
You can spend your time and money to support DD2 and DD3 in anyway you like.
You have no need to justify, defend, explain or reveal it to DD1. Tell her nothing about her sisters. If you want to keep final inheritance fair then that’s your choice - but your DD1 doesn’t get to pick over your bank account and spending habits and the lifestyle you choose to lead.
I suspect that DD2 and DD3 do not want to spend a holiday with DD1.
Prioritise their wants and needs.
Put DD1/SIL away up high on some dusty shelf that you don’t look at, turn your back and concentrate on your other loving, radiant daughters.
Bask in them.