Private SIL
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Anonymous
| I can see why she didn't tell you about her IVF. |
Anonymous
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Team SIL.
Your Brother Also Decided Not To Tell You About IVF |
Anonymous
| Your SIL seems smart. Take notes from her and share less or tell your husband to share less with the family. |
Anonymous
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I’m going to need examples of how she’s rude. |
Anonymous
| Is SIL your brother's wife, your DH's brother's wife, or your DH's sister? Lots of family dynamics could be in play. |
Anonymous
Not really. Everyone is in charge of how much info they choose to share. OP can choose to stop sharing info she doesn't want getting out to other families. |
Anonymous
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I'm the private SIL. You know why? Because my in-laws are constantly trying to pry so they can relentlessly gossip. And even when I don't give them information, they just make $hit up. Worse, when I do share anything, they get so judgmental and think I should just do what they say.
There's a reason my DH moved 2,000 miles away. Unfortunately, then his sister moved to the DC area, and then his parents followed a year later. Now they're all much too close and try to be in our business. Thank goodness DH has strong boundaries. |
Anonymous
| OP here. First off it is my DH's sister not my brother. I can give a few examples: wants to throw baby shower when she knows we are celebrating birthdays in my family, tells her father my DH and I are being mean and he has a talk with us. She is in her late 30s and acts very immature and everything has to go her way. I know she is talking behind my back because i have heard her. |
Anonymous
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Totally her right not to tell you about IVF. I am grateful that I've never had any fertility issues (knock on wood) and can't imagine how painful and scary it would be to go through IVF. I would stop talking about your family with your in-laws unless you want everything out there. I am learning this with my in-laws/family. My MIL constantly talks about everyone (my nephew is a genius but couldn't get into any private schools to save his life, my SIL made her kid anorexic, she can tell my other SIL's kid is autistic, my nanny hates us, everyone is compared endlessly to no end, etc.) I'm realizing it only ends when you stop talking. I tried sharing at one point, because I drank the Brenee Brown cool aid and thought that sharing and being vulnerable was part of building relationships - I learned that this was not the case in my husband's family.
Your sister in law also sounds like she can be a drama queen/makes everything about her (most of us have a SIL like this!). I am realizing that sometimes that is the result of family roles never changing. Maybe SIL was the baby, so even though she's 32 she still acts like she's 4 and everyone treats her like she's 4 (my husband's parents bought my 29 year old SIL a car when she had been married a few years to a guy with a trust fund and they owned a house to celebrate her completing a grad program that they had paid for... when my husband asked about this - bc he'd never been gifted a car - his father told my husband that he still considered the SIL "a dependent"?! Maybe this will change when she's in her 50s, but my guess is probably not). These dynamics don't make sense to make to me, but I am realizing that I can't change them. I can be annoyed by them, they can trigger me bc of my own family dynamics, but I really can't change 30+ years of family dysfunction. That said, I would still try to avoid triangulation as much as possible (bc it can get exhausting quickly) by having your husband tell his parents that his sister should speak with him directly about scheduling, etc. |
Anonymous
OP here. Thanks for the best advice on the thread. DH and I suffered from miscarriages before conceiving our child who has special needs. I don't want people here to think I am insensitive to this issue, because I am not. Her mother told her about our miscarriages before my DH did and at the time, she told me, "oh, that sucks". Just coming here for advice, not backlash.
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Anonymous
| Sorry about your fertility struggles OP. I can see on your end how her talking about IVF/her fertility struggles could have been a way for her to open up and bond with you about having similar struggles. |
Anonymous
Only if she/her husband want that and are open to that. What many, many women on here don't seem to get is that a lot of us who get married in our 30s or so already have strong friends and family ties. I like my SIL a lot. But when something happens and I need support, I call my mom/sis, female cousins, closest college friends, and closest mom friends. I really do like SIL, but she lives in CA. We've seen each other for a few days at a time maybe a total of 20 times. I am not as close with her as I am with "my people." If we ever had a problem and DH wanted to talk to her, sure, I would never stop him from discussing our lives. But it would never occur to me to call her for support when I already have support. |
Anonymous
Maybe she doesn't tell your stuff because it's crystal clear that you don't like her (and she apparently doesn't like you) and who wants to share their personal business with people who don't like them? I mean, this seems pretty straightforward. |
Anonymous
Based on the OP's post, it's not HER BROTHER, it's probably her BROTHER IN LAW, like her HUSBAND'S BROTHER. |
Anonymous
NP. Yes, and? The point is: WHETHER IT IS THE BROTHER OR THE BROTHER-IN-LAW, RECOGNIZE THAT ***THE HUSBAND ALSO IS INVOLVED IN MAKING CHOICES ABOUT WHAT PRIVATE INFORMATION LIKE IVF TO SHARE, WHEN, AND WITH WHOM.*** SO DON'T JUST LAY IT AT THE WOMAN'S FEET. See? I can use all caps, too. Stop blaming only women for family dynamics that you don't like. IVF is a *couple's issue,* not a *woman's issue.* |