Regretting cutting off my sister in law after hurtful comments

[DaringMember]

Feeling very down.

I am 7 months PP and cut off my sister in law (who had a second baby last week) after things built up for a while, but there was one moment a few weeks ago during a family function where she said some very unkind things about my birth that really tipped me over. I felt belittled and dismissed in a way that stuck with me more than I expected. At the time, it didn’t feel like a small thing, it felt like a pattern, and like I was always the one swallowing it.

So I pulled back to protect myself, and it turned into fully cutting contact. I told ber I was doing so and she accepted it. At first it felt like relief, like I was finally not putting myself in situations where I’d feel small or upset.

But now… I just feel a lot of regret and sadness about how final it’s become. It’s affected the whole family dynamic, and I hate that. I keep thinking maybe I should’ve handled it differently, or at least left the door open instead of shutting it completely.

The hard part is I still don’t feel like what hurt me was “nothing.” I’m not suddenly okay with how I was made to feel. But I also don’t know if cutting her off entirely was the right call long-term.

I don’t know if reaching out would actually help or just make things worse, especially after such little time. And I don’t even know what I’d say without either downplaying my feelings or making it into a bigger thing again.

Has anyone managed to rebuild something after it got to this point? Or figured out how to sit with the regret if you chose not to?

There is a middle ground here and particularly with family. I don’t think she should expect to have a “proper SIL” relationship with you based on how she treats you and I don’t think you should expect that either.

I have family members I have cut off because of a very abusive upbringing and I have ones I’ve cut off emotionally.

The emotional ones feature not a jot emotionally in my world anymore because they enabled abuse but I would happily be around engaging in civil communication with them knowing internally that they are not good people for me.

I think for you that is where you need to categorise your SIL. She treats you like shit so even if family dynamics require that you be in her company give her absolutely nothing emotionally and expect nothing back.

Did she care that you didn't want anything to do with her any more?

Im not sure
She did a half assessment im sorry you felt that way apology and said I should do what I gotta do and all the best...
So probably not?

That is what I want I think. Like for her to not have access to my private life. My child's health struggles, whether we are having another baby etc etc
She has had far too much intel and used it against me

In that case I wouldn't be making any effort to build bridges, I'd just be civil if our paths crossed.

You again? You seem obsessed with your SIL

Dont reach out, move on with your life

The family have taken her side, but they know what they were doing. Choose your little family and try to enjoy it. Her cummupance will come eventually x

No? Just struggling with PND and difficult family dynamics.

I think you are wondering why she cares so little for you and disrespects you. Once you can really, truly start to fully understand that that is down to her own character flaws and insecurities and not who you are as a person you will be far, far happier to let her go.

She might be much better behaved around other people but only you can give her licence to treat you like shit, give her no oxigen around you anymore and she won’t be able to do that anymore. Tell her nothing, she is not one of your people. There are plenty out there who will be your people so don’t allow one person with insecurities to lessen you as a person.

I don’t think it is a good idea to keep going over this on MN. You’ll end up ruining the family completely because you are following the “advice” of strangers who only have your one sided story.

Youre obsessing and reading into everything. I’ll bet your SIL has a very different version of events!

Don’t let this go on too long, just message her and apologise. Say sorry SIL, my heads been up my arse, I’m struggling with PND and I’ve gone too far. Sorry about that, congrats on new baby, looking forward to meeting her soon and putting all this nonsense behind us x

Thing is though she might not want to, even if you reach out.id leave it a while and then see if she’s willing to try and rebuild.

Again?
People need to reread your other threads. A lot of vile comments on there.
Just leave her alone.

I remember your post. You were advised that dramatically cutting her off would be detrimental to the wider family. You ignored the advice and are now back asking for more.

Respectfully, OP, I remember your last thread. You were obviously unwell, paranoid and delusional, referenced a long psychiatric inpatient admission after the birth of your baby which had caused problems with bonding, said you felt nothing for your baby, said you were under psychiatrist care, said at one point you wished you’d died during your CS, and that you blamed your SIL for your bad birth experience because you were at her house when you started labour, and were jealous of her. You continually referenced her ‘using intel’ on you but never provided any examples, only something garbled about how dare she attend a family wedding while very pregnant and something about her baby shower decorations

Your fixation on her is a symptom of your illness, OP. Engage with your psychiatrist and any other support being offered, and focus on bonding with your baby.

This is the same poster who posts a lot about her SIL and has MH issues that really need addressing IRL. Her continual posts on here aren't helping and the SIL info which will come out over the thread feel like unreliable narration from a dark place. She needs to forget about this SIL and focus on herself and her DC.

Given this update, you did the righg thing.
Using private stuff against you is abusive behaviour.

You can wish all you want that you hadn't done the cutting off. But you did it for good reason. Iv you do tty to reconnect, she'll just have one more thing - your "baby brain" behaviour - to usa aganst you.

Her lukewarm redponse to you cutting her off indicates just how little she cares, so she's not gonna change.

I think your regret is mainly with the family dynamics. What is now happening that wasn’t previously?

Not invited to some things. My husband and his brother have m strained relations at the moment. My MIL is pushing me to reverse the step back.

You are right

I remember your previous posts, and I think you need to trust yourself more.

What she said was out of line, inappropriate, and not an acceptable thing to say to anyone. If your friend came and told you this story, you'd tell them the same.

I think what you're struggling with is the rejection. You want a healthy relationship with your SIL (who doesn't?) and you really didn't do anything to make her not like you, right? You're struggling with the injustice of it.

You're also faced with dealing with no one taking your side. She's obviously in the wrong (she really is, please don't gaslight yourself), but neither your ILs or DH are acknowledging this. Everyone is staying neutral, and making you feel like you made a big deal of it all.

You need to believe that it's not about you. Hurt people hurt, and her behaviour on you is not because of you. She's part of a family that enables this behaviour, so she's used to getting away with it.

In an ideal world, I'm sure you could have experience the uncalled for hostility and taken the high road. But, we're not ideal beings. We have emotions, and react with them.

It would have made sense to have posted this on your existing long thread on this point - there is a lot of context set out there that isn’t on this post.

But anyway the change in family dynamics was entirely foreseeable. But you were adamant how incredibly awful she had been to you and so you had to go NC. Nothing to suggest any of those facts have changed.

There is nothing respectful about your post btw

This really isn’t the case. If you read the OP’s previous posts on this, she’s seriously unwell.

It's all pretty accurate though and as you say you've read OP's past posts too, it's hard to understand why you're engaging with the SIL stuff as though it's normal. Indulging and stringing it out even more isn't going to be helpful, respectful or not.

And yet it’s more useful than the posts from people who know nothing about the context, and are taking a seriously psychologically unwell poster’s most recent post at face value, rather than a symptom of her illness.

I wish her well, but this fixation on her SIL is part of her extreme unwellness.