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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

SIL & BIL so unpleasant...

3 replies

pinkfongy · 14/11/2023 12:51

DH's sister and her husband are really starting to cause us a lot of stress.

My DH is a very modest kind of guy, he's quite shy and isn't one to cause any drama. I am very much the same but I am struggling to deal with his sister and her husband more and more as time goes on.

She has grown up knowing how to play her parents, and she is very good at moaning about my DH and his 'lack of effort with her' so that PIL give DH a hard time.

The fact is my husband and I can't stand her husband and so we try to avoid any contact but kids birthdays/Christmas, His behaviour is also rubbing off on her and she's become very similar which is a shame because she used to be a lot nicer.

BIL is the sort of person who does nothing but brags about everything. And my DH does a lot but brags about nothing, and so any time spent with them is really hard work.
If we do anything, BIL will find one negative in it. For example for moved to a house in a nice part of the town, so BIL has nothing nice to say about the house but "now you have a further drive to take the kids to school" - like he was looking for the one negative thing and had to bring it up, and he'll do this with anything.

I'm really struggling with him looking for faults in everything we do, whereas we would always give compliments and try and make people feel good; he will always try and make people feel bad. SIL is also someone who shows very little interest in anyone else but happy to talk about herself and her family for hours.

PIL seems to think BIL is "alright" and ignore when he's rude. Given are kids are all friends it's difficult to avoid him.
DH won't say anything because he tells me he doesn't care enough to make it a big deal, he tells me he doesn't like BIL but he's happy to rise above it and not see them very often. Problem is I am struggling to rise above it and see them as much as we do feels too much!

Anyone else have this issue? Do you have any tips to help me rise above it?

OP posts:
jlpth · 14/11/2023 12:54

Grey rock in general for SIL/BIL

And next time MIL/FIL talk to you about the "lack of effort" with SIL, just say that the fact she is complaining about you to them makes you not really want to spend time with her.

pinkfongy · 14/11/2023 12:59

Sorry what does grey rock mean?

Good point on the PIL!

OP posts:
mindutopia · 14/11/2023 15:20

If your dh wants to see them, can he not just take the kids over and visit them? It doesn't need to be a whole family outing. My dh often has this thing where he thinks all visits to family or (his) friends need to be all of us. It drives me mad. I'm quite happy for him to see his friends or visit his mum, but that doesn't mean I want to chaperone it. We're both adults and we're both competent parents and he can manage just fine on his own without me. Your dh seems to be able to ignore it better than you. I'd still tolerate it for his sake for some Christmases or some other family events, but just let him get on with doing it on his own the rest of the time.

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