Reply to Would you tell a vegetarian relative that your MIL has been sneaking meat into their food?

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Reply to "Would you tell a vegetarian relative that your MIL has been sneaking meat into their food?"

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[quote=Anonymous]It seems to me that a lot of people here are missing the bigger picture as it concerns OP - which is OP's family relationships.

Some people are saying MYOB. Some people are agreeing with MIL basically that what SIL doesn't know won't hurt her. But both of those arguments are missing the point. Even the vegetarians who are saying, "I would definitely want to know" (whom I agree with) are missing the relationship point.

Some people are saying that OP should basically give MIL an ultimatum that she needs to tell SIL or else OP will. Well, that is going to be a relationship killer. It is not really OP's place to lecture MIL, just as it is not SIL's place to lecture the whole family about their eating choices.

But the real problem is that MIL has broken trust with a family member and now expects OP to break the same trust... indefinitely. OP is stuck between wanting to be respectful of her MIL (and not rock the boat) and wanting to be respectful of her SIL, and not wanting to break anyone's trust. She feels bad enough that she was complicit at the last family meal.

So it seems to me that OP needs to have a heart-to-heart talk with MIL, not in a rush if she arrives early during preparations for the next family meal, but well ahead of the next meal. The main points from OP to MIL would be these:

* "I find myself in an uncomfortable position because I want to keep your trust and I also want to be someone my SIL can trust. I also want to have a completely open and honest relationship with my husband. I felt very uncomfortable during the last meal, keeping your confidence but breaking SIL's confidence."

* "Trust once lost is hard or impossible to regain. If SIL is told about the past meals when her trust is broken, she might never trust you or me again. I'm not sure any good could come from that. It would probably be harmful to family good will. So I don't know that we need to hurt SIL and the family by letting SIL know what has happened in the past. But I do not want to have anything to do with breaking her trust again going forward. I hope you can understand and respect my feelings about this."

* "My suggestion about future family meals is that you take care of some of the the meat dishes / salad / fruit / rolls / desserts or other dishes where there can be no ambiguity about whether any meat byproducts might be included. I will take care of any soups, stews, beans, legumes, vegetables, or vegetarian-friendly side dishes, or we can ask other family members to help with those. In this way, neither of us needs to fret about needing to swap out favorite ingredients or needing to break trust."

* "I would also like your blessing to discuss this matter with my husband, because I would like to understand his views on sensitive matters like this. If he was raised by the code that 'What you don't know won't hurt you,' and if he still lives by that code, I need to know that so that I can think about how to protect myself in the future. I live by the code that we are indeed hurt even by things we may not know, if our loved ones think it is okay to deceive us and disrespect us. I don't mean any disrespect to you by saying this. There are certainly many people who can give reasonable support for the concept that what we don't know doesn't hurt us. I just happen to feel differently and very strongly about it, and I hope you can understand and respect my feelings about it. I don't see any need for my husband to speak to any other family members about it. I just need us to have a clear understanding about our own relationship and the foundation on which it is built."

And then a hug...?

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