I will try to keep this as concise as possible. I would be so grateful of advice as I am very upset by the situation with my mil.
Some background: I have been married for 5 years. dh has one brother who is married with one dd aged 6. Dh and I have 2 dds,one 4 years, one 4 months. I have a reasonable relationship with sil; although we are not close. We are very different in personality, she is not very sociable but when we do meet at family events etc we get on fairly well.
Mil is what could be tactfully described as a Very Difficult Lady. Just briefly she is a bit of a snob, prone to frequent sulking when she does not get her own way. We are often treated to stony silences and have no idea what our latest transgression has been. On Boxing Day this year (her b'day) we were genuinely ill and when dh phoned to tell her she slammed the phone down in a temper, shouting "I'm not having this!"
From day 1 she has "bad mouthed" sil to me and I'm sure bad mouths me to my sil.
My current problem is as follows. Last year (2006) on Christmas Day we announced to both sets of grandparents that I was pg and due in August 2007. We were having lunch with mil and fil at the time. Mil got quite "put out" , and when pushed said it was because bil and sil were trying for a baby and we shouldn't have our 2nd baby before they did?! When bil and sil visited that afternoon, we told them the news and they said congratulations but left very soon afterwards.
When they left, mil seemingly took pleasure in choosing to tell us that sil and bil had been ttc for 3 years and would have been very upset by our announcement. I was to say the least that she knew the extent of their disappointment at ttc, but didn't make any attempt to suggest we didn't make an announcement out of the blue on Christmas Day. To make it worse, bil had asked his parents to tell us what they had been going through as they found it too upsetting to tell more people themselves. Ils failed to tell us for some reason. So sil and bil were under the impression that we knew the extent of their sadness and must have thought we had spitefully gloated over them on Chrismtas Day
I have renewed respect for sil. They had their first (unsuccessful) cycle of IVF practically the week I gave birth to dd2. It must have been so difficult for her to come and visit and hold my new baby but she made a big effort and was genuinely pleased for us (I think). However, it has dawned on me that she must think that we in some way were "gloating" over them last year by making our announcement, when in fact had we known even the tiniest details of their problems we would NO WAY have behaved in that way.
So, once more mil has been spiteful and stirred between her 2 dils. I am really anxious about the right course of action. I want to tell sil what really happened, to offer our support to them and explain what really happened. Of course this will have the knock on effect of telling her and her dh exactly what his mother has done. What does anyone else think?