Reply to Sister-In-Law: I don't get along with her...any advice?

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[quote=Anonymous]okay, so i like my SIL, so maybe I shouldn't post. But...I can still relate. My SIL and I are nothing alike! When I first met her, I also thought she was a bit territorial. I was frankly a little bit unsure of how to feel about how close she was with my husband (is that revealing about my insecure personality or what?). But you know what I mean -- inside jokes that didn't get explained, she mentioned the ex-girlfriend a few times, etc, and DH was SUPER tight with person with whom I just could not seem to connect.

On top of that, MIL and SIL are very much alike in many ways. I love my MIL, too, but there were a few episodes of what felt a lot like "scheming" early on; hard to give good examples, but things like birthdays were something they cooked up and sort of tried to strong-arm everyone into doing their way, even if nobody else was into it.

So I was a bit taken aback, because I knew I was going to be part of this family. I personally didn't really feel that urge to get too close to them, though, because they weren't like me, and I felt annoyed half the time I WAS with them.

Fast forward a few years. We had a few skirmishes over the years. The first few were passive aggressive travesties of non-communication, both on their part and mine (but they started it, of course!:)), that resulted in my husband being kind of aghast at their behavior. He was upset, I was upset, the family was upset, so I figured that it takes two to be passive aggressive. I just stopped doing that. Anytime I was annoyed, I didn't run to DH about it but just brought up the issue. STraight up. As kindly but straight-forwardly as I could. Then got over it. I instituted a "no holding grudges" rule with myself and have strictly held myself to it. I also made a huge effort to watch what I said. I had a natural birth, and SIL and MIL, when I first got pregnant, were telling me about how great epidurals are, and how I'd change my mind. I decided this was only going to be a fight if I let it be. When I had my natural birth, I resisted the urge to "gloat" or tell them they were wrong. To my surprise, they asked about it, and now "brag" about it to their friends.

The more I've opened up to my SIL, the more I realize that we are more alike than I realized. While we are not the kind of people who would have been friends otherwise, I love her and really enjoy the person that she is. I think of it as an opportunity to get to know someone who is outside my normal "type" of friend. It took a ton of effort! She loves things like Disney and I love to mock those things. Getting to know her made me realize that I don't have to relate to Disney to relate to her. But i do have to stop mocking something just because i don't get it (which we should all do anyway).

Now, even though my SIL is very different from me, I can tell her anything. She's my family -- you don't get to p;ick them, so you can either make the most of it or tolerate them. Maybe it's just me, but I think making the most of it is MUCH more fun. [/quote]

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