So my husband‘s family’s relationship with my SIL (wife of my husbands brother) is difficult because she sometimes acts in immature ways and has shown some disrespectful behaviors. I have witnessed some of this myself and we only get along superficially. She has tried to badmouth the family to me before I had the chance to meet them and I have recently found out that she badmouthed me and spread hurtful rumors about me to people that just now got the chance to meet me and make up their own minds. It is an issue that continuously keep coming up because no one speaks up against her out of respect to my BIL. My husband also does not like SIL and her family and usually asks me to stay away from her.
She is now pregnant and her pregnancy seems difficult. We also don’t know whether my BIL is aware of the drama SIL stirs. no one has ever confronted her or him. My MIL tried to two weeks ago by reaching out to her but she then ended up in the hospital for feeling weak.
Yesterday, the family moved houses and I couldn’t be there because of work. SIL was there and ordered food which surprised everyone that she even came to help. Last night I saw that my husband texted SIL and thanked her for „the awesome food and thanks for the amazing help“. He also is planning on going on a wedding of her relatives on Friday which I declined to go because I cannot continue the fake niceness and politeness.
I am wondering whether I should talk about this with my husband and tell him that I feel uncomfortable seeing that he is continuously nice to her while asking me to stay away because she is toxic and although she speaks badly about me (and everyone in his family) behind our backs. I had no issue with him going to the wedding by himself with his brothers and SIL but now, paired with the text he send her, I feel as if he is not being loyal towards me. On the other hand, I do not want to create more drama and alienate him from his family, especially brother . I do not know what to do but I also do not want to feel like this.
5 comments
Your husband kind of has to be nice to her to keep the peace for everyone and I imagine he may be trying to stay close to protect his brother a little…
Support your husband don’t worry about the rest
I don’t think your husband was disloyal to you in thanking SIL for her contributions to the moving process. Rather, he was commending this rare case of good and unselfish behavior, no doubt in the hopes that she might do more thoughtful things for his family in the future. Maybe SIL is starting to grow out of her immature and disrespectful ways, so doesn’t she deserve praise from her BIL when she does something right for a change? Try to keep an open mind, although I know that’s difficult when you feel like she’s been a thorn in your side ever since you first met her.
You were also invited to this wedding but chose not to attend – and you’re entitled to make that choice for yourself. However, I think it’s unfair for you to feel like your husband is being disloyal to you in going alone. He’s only going because his brother loves this woman, and he doesn’t want to cause a family rift by obviously “boycotting” SIL’s family wedding. You seem to feel that’s hypocritical, but he loves his brother and doesn’t want to be the source of any more family drama.
Yes, your husband feels obliged to act politely around your SIL. But that’s what you do, when you love your sibling but dislike the person they married. You admit in the first paragraph that he doesn’t like her any more than you do, and he has warned you to stay away from her because he doesn’t want to see you hurt by her badmouthing and drama. But you are on the verge of creating drama of your own, by feeling like your husband is disloyal just because he doesn’t directly confront SIL for her bad behavior – and in fact recently thanked her for GOOD behavior.
I think it’s fine for you to complain to your husband in private when you observe SIL doing outrageous things, if in fact she’s still doing that kind of thing. But please don’t accuse him of being disloyal to you. He’s just trying to balance his love and concern for you, with a desire to not tear his birth family apart. You should not try to force him to take sides in your secret war.
He is your husband and not hers so you have a right to ask him to stay away from a toxic person. This SIL is manipulating everyone around her and if her own husband can’t see that then he’s in trouble because once that baby is born it’s going to get twice as bad. Your SIL is likely already using her pregnancy to manipulate the family by feigning illnesses so that she doesn’t have to agree with his family on certain things. I’d watch her for that if I were you. You should speak up to your husband about your feelings and tell him that just because she’s his brother’s wife doesn’t mean he has to be so close to her.
Oh one more thing, I understand that you said you don’t want to attend the wedding but you should go anyway if only to show her that she can’t win. I’d say swallow your pride and go to the wedding with your husband and show a united front to this woman because you not going can cause some family friction and you shouldn’t want that right now.
He’s definitely that baby’s daddy. Kids these days talk in code “awesome food” means pregnancy and “amazing help” is the sex. Look furrher back in their text logs, When she starts asking him to bring over some “eggplant” that means the d.