PIL favour BIL & SIL

[BellaBella42]

My BIL & his family are nice people but always favoured by in-laws. BIL and my husband are brothers. The car they drive, the parenting decisions they make, the food the cook, the clothes they wear are always praised by in-laws. We never recieve praise for anything. In-laws always ask BIL and SIL for advice but we have never been asked for advice about anything.
PIL are nice and perfectly civil to us but I have always subtly felt second best but never mentioned it to anyone. I tried to ignore it as I felt it was just my low self esteem. But at a family wedding over the weekend and my husbands cousin had a few drinks and brought up how BIL is the "favourite" son in the family so it's interesting that other people have noticed it. I didn't say anything as I obviously don't want to create rifts in the family.
Hubby and I always try our best at everything we do, we have similar professional careers to BIL and his wife and tge things we do are not wildly different to them. But I really feel that this is poking away at my self esteem.
Any tips how I might learn to live with this without it making me feel bad every time we are all together?

DH is one of 4 brothers. Brother 2 is the obvious favourite. I couldn’t care less. It’s not a competition. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Parents have favourites, I see it in MIL and in my mum!

Why would you allow it to make you feel lesser than? Just because PIL comment on them and praise their decisions, PIL aren’t any sort of grand jury, their praise is really just words.

Is your husband bothered?

In my family people would jokingly call out things like that “oh yeah asking x again, what am I, the door post” sort of thing but only work for siblings to do it.

It is irrelevant, try not to let it make you resentful.

It honestly doesn’t matter! Out of all the in laws I’m the ‘crappest’ partner, not very knowledgeable, can’t cook not great at cleaning etc etc. sil is like an encyclopaedia, bakes, cooks and has everything in common with them. You have to just be happy with yourself and go about your daily lives, I’m sure they don’t mean to favour one

My parents have favourites, it doesn't affect my self esteem because I know its a them issue. It has nothing to do with my accomplishments or what I do.

It is difficult but try not to let it wear you down. Take a step back if you need to

Why are you letting these people influence how you feel about yourself? Why do you need this validation from them to feel worthy?

The fact that they have a favourite means something's wrong with them. Not you. 'Normal' parents don't favour one of their children, and certainly not so openly.

Find a way to detach yourself and your self esteem from these people. You don't neem them to tell you who you are.

Take a step back from them if it is upsetting you. So long as it isn't upsetting your husband i'd ignore them.

Big problem will be if you both have kids. I would not accept one set of grandkids being visibly inferior to the other as this is damaging to the kids.

You didn’t marry the golden boy. Just accept it and stop looking for praise from them.

I’m in the same situation, on the plus side, now MIL is older and needs more support, BIL is first to be called. He also moved closer to her so he will be the one having to wipe her arse when she can no longer do it.

I’m willing to bet that Bil has always been the favourite since childhood and that SIL is favourite DIL because she’s married to the golden child and if she’s married your h then they would be asking her for advice etc

What I’m saying is that it’s not you. His marriage to anyone else wouldn’t make him more or less favoured so there’s no use taking it personally. He can’t do anything to be BIL’s equal and the smart person would withdraw from that game rather than played the competition where BIL will always win. This is especially true if you have kids. BIL’s kids will be favoured as they are his kids and you don’t need your kids being made to feel your h does. Sadly a lot of kids who aren’t the favourite accept this status because it’s the way that it’s always been for them.

Life is long, we had similar situation with BIL& SIL then controlling MIL died, things relaxed as FIL was more fair, BIL then FIL died in close succession so guess what, we’re left to support SIL(who really married into this dynamic)& DNs. BIL was lovely chap but slightly underachieved his whole life compared to DH so MIL went completely overboard on the overt favouritism. Guess what-we just got on with our lives, included in-laws & even took them on holiday(which BIL couldn’t do financially).

These things have never concerned me because I just get on with my own life.

If spending time with them is not enjoyable or productive limit the time you spend with them.