Reply to SIL wants to cut ties with my family-WWYD?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][b]OP here. To address some of the questions/comments, my brother has always felt that my parents favored my sister and me, but my sister and I have always felt my mother favored him. As kids, we fought constantly, and it was my brother that my mother always defended, even when things got physical well past the age they should have. As adults, my sister and I are very close with our mother, but I think that is fairly normal in an adult mother/daughter relationship vs. a mother/son relationship. The most important woman in a son's life becomes his wife and not his mother.[/b]

All three of us help my parents financially. Whenever they come to visit, we pay for plane tickets and buy generous gifts for them for birthdays and Christmas. I know my sister has helped them out with cash when they needed it. I would do the same, but DH is by far the primary breadwinner in our house, and I don't feel comfortable asking him if we can do that. My mother moved into my house while taking care of DD, and we paid her for it, more than she was making at the job she quit, where her hours had been recently cut. When she was helping my brother, work was busy for her, and he didn't pay her for her work. Yes, they gave them computers and furniture, but you can't pay bills with used computers and furniture.

I agree that SIL is in the middle of this, and I'm sure it's a sucky place to be. I think in the beginning of her relationship with my brother, she was a lot like 15:13 suggests and pulled my brother away from our family, but when they had kids she decided to make an effort to be part of our family.

I think the best course of action is to tell her I would much rather have a relationship than not, and that I will just talk to my brother and take her out of the equation. I don't think anyone in this situation has done anything to warrant cutting ties entirely. It's certainly not that my kids need more gifts. I would much rather see my niece and nephew than exchange gifts. I don't know if that's possible, but I don't want to be responsible for my kids not knowing their cousins.

[/quote]

So basically, you and your sister are the favored children who can't see that they were favored.

Also, I don't understand why you feel like you should just go to your brother and cut your SIL out of the loop. It sounds like she may be the only one of the pair that's actually willing to make any sort of effort toward the family, so she may be your best in-road.[/quote]

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