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Reply to "My SIL makes family functions unbearable - I really need to vent."

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[quote=Anonymous]OP, if you're still even reading after all the nonsense posts from the person who just wants to blast you --

NP here. I do get why you're venting. Fifteen years of this behavior -- which is very much about SIL being sure she remains at the center of everyone's attention because (for right or wrong) she feels she belongs there due to her situation -- is way too long.

Here's what seems to have gotten lost amid all the back-and-forth posts above. Your SIL got physical with you. That alone is reason to limit or stop contact with her. You have kids and so does the other SIl. Both your family and other-SIL's need to protect your kids, not just because she might go off on them but also because you don't need your kids to grow up thinking that toxic family members who physically attack others must be tolerated just because they're family.

If she was contrite on some level, it's your choice whether you carry on, but I would truly be ready for the next time and if she hits anyone or verbally abuses anyone, the rest of you adults need to step in even if you're not the one being abused, and call SIL out and tell her to leave, or all of you leave her standing there alone. She of course will blame all of you and decide she's in the right, but your family as a whole needs to agree on how to react to her, as well as limiting what you see of her. She gets abusive and she is asked to leave and come back when she can be an adult.

The sad thing is, you mention at one point that other than the obsession (and it seems to have become just that) with her infertility, she's good to be around.  I feel sorry for her husband. He must feel he's lost the person he married as she has descended into a tragically self-centered world. Yes, the infertity is a personal tragedy, but she has made it her definition of who she IS in every interaction.[/quote]

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