Dealing with “family members” you deeply dislike at get togethers.........

[MonkeyTennis34]

A couple of months ago, SIL confided in DH and I that her boyfriend of 6 years has been verbally abusive towards her for the last three years. There has been one incidence of physical violence and one incident where she told us she had to leave the house as she felt unsafe. She was extremely distraught when she told us and we obviously advised her to move on.

After this disclosure they spent time apart but are now unfortunately back together.

This is, of course, her decision but puts us (and other family members who know) in an awkward situation.

We have a family get together looming and I’m feeling anxious.

I know to isolate him, and consequently them, would be wrong as she may stop confiding in us but I don’t want to carry on as if nothing has happened....which I guess is what she is doing.
I don’t want to enable his behaviour but I want to support her too.

Advice please.

Holy moly, the family WhatsApp group!
Me and DH have one with SIL and her boyfriend.
Unsurprisingly, it’s gone a bit quiet of late...

pizzaHeart
It’s finding those “friendly and civil for the sake of appearances but actually I can’t stand you” behaviours that I’m going to find difficult.
I’m imagining myself with a superficial, vapid smile pasted on my face all day...your suggestion of behaving the way I would with people I don’t know that well is helpful.
DH will hopefully convey our true feelings when he communicates with her.

If you say anything or treat him badly all of a sudden he's gonna know somethings up, and might cotton on that she's told you, this could put her in a worse position. When I was in a DV relationship I ran out of the house after an incident to my mums and told my mum and sisters what happened.

when the dust settled he knew I'd told my family and he started a hate campaign against them, he tried to turn me against them and even hand wrote a "contract" for me to sign, stating that my family were no longer allowed in our house. He obviously didn't like that his cover had been blown and didn't want people who thought badly of him anywhere near him. The abuse also got worse.

its hard but you just have to let it run its course, keep asking her in private if she's ok, but in his company I'd advise to be civil and try not to let on that you know.

My sister was also in a DV relationship a year or so later and when he knew me and my mum knew he tried to move her away and get married 300 miles away. Thankfully she didn't go, and he buggered off.

@Tessasays
I'm sorry you and your sister have both had to experience this. Hope you're both in healthier relationships now.

After a lot of chats and soul searching, me and DH have decided to invite him. For all of the reasons that posters have stated. Ultimately, it's her choice and although we definitely don't agree with it, we have to respect it.

And by not inviting him, it may give him ammunition to possibly start isolating her.

BUT, DH is going to have a chat with his sister and explain that we can't unhear what she told us and we can't forgive him but we want to support her and be together as a family.

He does know that she's told us.

So you haven't seen him since june? I had thought the family event had happened already and was wondering how you'd got on when I saw someone had posted on this thread.

For the record, if it's a question of inviting/not inviting him - You have to invite him. Technically, he's her partner and it would cause chaos if you didn't. we had to spend christmas with exBIl for two years even after they broke up and then when we finally put our foot down, it backfired on us! I'm already dreading this year and we're not even seeing them properly on Christmas!

You remain civil. Neutrally friendly. Watch the police on those 24 hours in custody type programmes. They are civil to vile criminals. Doesn’t mean they like or approve of them, just means they maintain civil standards.

Exactly. Or something along the lines of the "tough love" talk you see on American shows, where the person walks into a house, only to find they are outnumbered by lots of big, angry men, and realise the error of their ways. And are not allowed to leave until they have been told what's what.
Or you could just skip the talking part.

I know what me and my sons would choose if this happened to my daughter.

@GingerIsBest
No, we haven’t seen him since before Easter when SIL told us what had been happening.

We invited to DS2’s 18th but he was apparently working.

*We invited him to DS2’s 18th in September.

aah, okay. That makes sense. Have you seen plenty of your sister in the meantime? My experience is that he'll use this awkwardness against her... "I can't come to your family events because you told your family about everything and now they hate me. It's all your fault and just another way you are a disappointment...." etc etc.

Sorry, I'm feeling a bit bitter today. Having thought we were largely shot of exBIL as he's been disappearing off and on for the last year or two but had appeared to be truly gone from our lives after a few incidents in the early summer..... when it seemed even SIL had accepted that whlie he's always going to be at least on the periphery of her life as her children's father, she would keep that limited and the rest of us could be shot of him completely. But we have realised he is currently ingratiating himself back and SIL is completely unable to maintain boundaries and, to make it worse, is pulling down her children's boundaries on his behalf too. It was bad enough when she was talking about it the other day but DH and I had a revelation about something else today and now we're both just depressed. Also because we suspect that he will be very much present for christmas. We won't have to see him, but the rest of the family will have to deal with him,

@GingerIsBest
Exactly!
I don't honestly know if he or he and my SIL will come.
I'd be more than happy for him not to come but I think we do have to grin and bear it for her sake.

Sorry to hear that you're going through a similar situation.

It really puts an edge on at Christmas.

I know what you mean, but I’ve seen this twice with women who admitted after they finally ended the relationship that they hadn’t wanted to admit to others that it was bad.

It took a very frightening episode for one woman to admit to her family what was going on. She didn’t really have a choice as he smashed up every present given to them by her family and friends, but none of his. Lots of broken glasses and crockery etc

I don’t think it’s very different to other situations that people persist with - staying at uni was clearly the wrong decision for some of my students over the years but they’ve not left as they were worried what their family would think. Eventually they fail a second attempt at first year and have to leave - when they should have left 18 months earlier.

I think it’s very strongly bound up with identity. People find it difficult to admit that a relationship isn’t working as they see being married or with someone as a key part of their identity. They might be particularly worried about parents seeing them as a ‘failure’, or feel awkward when with siblings for whom things seem to be going well.