Hurt Feelings from Extended Family Member

I think every family has a member that is difficult. Unfortunately, you can't control how another person behaves. You can only control how you behave. I think it's best to not sink to her level. Unconditional love is important. It take more muscles to frown and less to smile. A smile is contagious. Answer her behavior with hugs and love. An effort at honest communication is good. Say, Is there something bothering you? Have I done something to upset you? I love you, but when you do this behavior it makes me feel bad. It leaves me with negative feeligs about you and I don't want to feel that way about you. What can we do to make this better? If possible, family counseling.

This person is who she is. Confronting won't help. Minimize contact and just be polite when you are forced to be around her. LET IT GO!!!!!! There is absolutely nothing you can do to change her.

Well...
To be honest with you, I know this situation all to well.
I am the in law wife. My inlaws have been pretty rotten to me for 12 yrs. so there for, we dod not attend many funcions anymore.
What you need to ask yourself is:
Have I or someone else, maybe said, offended, or done something to her, whether it was intentional or not?
MOst people aren't just unhappy with others for no reason at all.
Maybe she doesn't feel welcome in your family.
Maybe instead of your wives trying to help her, everyone should.
You also need to realize that she has a family too.
We run into the dilemma constantly.
We get invited to way to many things for holidays, that we started doing our own thing at home, as "our "family. It is to hard to try and please everyone and from the sound of it, you guys may be some of those that they feel they have to "please". That really puts a huge stress on someone, let alone a marriage.
You need to adopt the attitude, if anyone can make it great, if not, we will catch up with them another time, and mean it in your heart. So many people get offended by someone declining an invitation, don't take it so personal.
It isn't about you, maybe, like I said, maybe they just want to do things as "their "family.
Why else would they have gotten married, if they hadn't planned on being alone.
Maybe she enjoys hosting things too. My mother in law is always hosting stuff, and you know what, I like to host things too. She isn't the only one.
I hope this helps, I am trying not to be mean, but there may be some hurt feelings that you are not aware of , or thought she had gotten over by now....
Always remember, you don't have to like this person, but you do have to respect the fact that your brother chose her as his wife. You should be kind in public, and behind the scenes, because as much as you say things get back to you, things get back to them, and maybe they themselves are avoiding and confrontation with you.
You don't have to go home with this person at the end of the day, so what does it matter?
Hope you guys can resolve this to where everyone feels comfortable. I think it is great that you are willing to work on these relationships, your brother must mean a lot to you.

She is his family now. He chose her to be his wife, mother of his children etc. People that have commented before me should be a little ashamed of their responses. His loyalties should be with his wife first, then children, then anything outside of that.
It is the husbands duty to deal with his family, and the wifes to deal with her own.
I guess you have to be the "outsider" to realize some of these things. Also, you may be blaming her for things that your brother is acutally doing. Trust me on this.
My husband gets calls from his family and never returns them. YES, I give him all the messages. He doesn't like speaking with them often, but then I hear that I don't GIVE him the messages. My husband most of the time avoids confrontation, as his brother in our same situation also does, which means us wives look like the jerks, because they have no guts.
I am tired of the in law being blamed for the things that the actual family member is doing or saying.
Anything I have said about my husbands family, that may have been mean, he was right there, backing it up. Do you think his family knows that though, heck no!
Remember if you can't recognize that yours and your closest friends and families poop stinks, then you are in a world of hurt when you hit reality.

1-Stop letting people tell you what she's saying behind your back. You've heard enough of it. Just cut them off and say, "ya know what, I'd rather not know." You don't need to know. You already know what she's like. Allowing people to tattle like this is just making your pain fester.

2-Does your brother have kids? Sometimes it's easier to get along with the mom if you're saying nice things about the kids - a nice/safe topic for any mom.

3-try to reach out to her individually instead of as a whole. Either you or one of the sister-in-laws....buddy up your family w/ her family. Send her emails or cards...try getting together w/ just the two families. It's hard to get to know a family all at once. Give her someone she can feel is on her side.

Wow - I'm in the same camp with Jen M. I'm that sister in law. I know you've gotten a ton of advice here (some of which is appaling to me, and they should be ashamed of themselves!!), so I'll try to keep it short here.

1. You are only seeing things from your side. I would bet a million bucks there's been some hurt feelings for your sis-in-law.

2. You try to make your brother choose or confront him with out sis-in-law there, you will be sorry. Either your brother will choose his wife, as he should, or you will divide their marriage, which is unaccepatble.

3. You need to get new friends - ones that don't spread gossip. This is a big reason I have trouble with my inlaws - they listen to and spread gossip.

4. You need to relax. You said your self that she has a larger family than you, and yours is very large. They are probably getting pulled by everyone. There is no way to divide time so that everyone is happy, and the more you pull them, the more she will resent you. And your brother eventually will too, if she's upset, he'll hear it!

One of my big peeves with my in-laws is this: they don't understand extended vs. immeadiate family. For the first 2 years of our marriage, my husband thought his aunts & uncles and grandparents were all immeadiate family. This is nonsense! It's crazy! We had to redefine family. There's family of origin: parents, bros & sisters; extended family: aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents; and there's immeadiate family: husband, wife, & kids. When you get married, your spouse & kids come first, family of origin second, and extended family third.

And with a family as big as yours, you have got to realize that they can't be there all the time. With eight married siblings, that's 16 birthdays a year, not counting your parents, your kids, cousins, etc., plus her even larger family. It's too much. Cut them some slack. Who knows, your brother may be getting the same bad rap from her family... that they always pick you over them! There are just too many demands on one couple.

Either confront them together, one couple to one couple (NOT eight couples to one couple), Or... get over it.

Good luck.

You may have to cut her loose, your brother is the one who should be putting his foot down and protecting his family, if the family as a whole draws the line your brother may step up to the plate, you guys shouldn't be taking such rude and demeaning behaviour from anyone, it's one thing when people are just inconsiderate at times that can be dealt with, but she sounds over the top and I don't think that that is OK under any circumstances. I would also invite your brother and his kids but I would leave her name out of it something like "we would love for you AND the girls to come to the BBQ on saturday" see if the hint is taken. This is such a tough situation and I don't think I would of put up with it as long as you have, good luck!

Well just about everyone I know have problems with their in-laws. I have actually be on the flip side of this...where I hear all the bad things all my in-laws have said about me. Sounds like there is back-biting going both ways here as well. I feel like it's totally the family's job to make the in-law feel welcome. I tried so hard to be part of my husbands family, but they were so tight that they do not like to let others in. It was very hard...so I made an extra effort with my brothers wife and ended up loving her like a sister. I think as syblings it's very easy to work each other up and make her even more horrible then she might be. Obviously your brother loves her, so you need to do the same. You do not want to do anything to cause marriage problems, and by confronting her or your brother you may just push them further away. But if you can handle not having them in your lives at all, then it might be something to try.

I personally would say go out of your way to make sure she is comfortable and happy! It's hard meshing new family members, but if the other side treats them better then why would she want to join your family!

With my in-laws I did sit down and apologize for some mean things I said...and they did as well...and we are now getting along better. So sitting down and apologizing to her for the things you have done and said might work, but I think confronting her is just going to make more problems. Good luck.

While reading your article, I could almost imagine it was one of my own sisters writing this article about my husband. (That would make me your brother) I am not really sure what advice to give you, except be there as much as you can for your brother. Being in the middle of my husband and my family is the hardest place to be. My husband openly dislikes my family, and my family not so openly dislikes my husband. I know that at this stage you and your family are probably not so fond of your sister-in-law, and as time passes and she continues to be difficult, you probably try less and less to make her feel welcome. I could be wrong, but that would be my assumption. My husband and I have been married for 5 years, and I think that at this point, my family just says, if he wants to sit in the corner and be unsociable, than let him. I am not blaming my family, or my husband, I know they both have their reasons for not liking each other, whether they are reasonable reasons or not is not the point, they obviously all believe their reasons are legit. If I were to say anything to my sisters (as your brother would say to you), it would be, please bear with me. Please continue to try to make my husband feel welcome. I know that he is difficult (and that is an understatement at times), but I love him, and he is and always will be my husband. If for no other reason than that, please just keep trying, don't stop making the effort. I know it is a lot to ask, which is why I have never said that to my family, but I think it every day. I don't know if that helped at all, but I just was hoping to give you a little perspective on what your brother goes through on a daily basis. Not for your sister-in-law, but for your brother, to make his life that much more bearable. Try to imagine what life would be like if the 2 things that mean the most to you in this world, your family, and your husband/wife, fighting, not getting along. It is a very hard place to be.

T.,

I agree with Jennifer on this one. It's your brother's responsibility to step up and let his wife know that disrespecting the family that accepted her isn't ok by any means. Maybe he hasn't said anything because he doesn't hear the things she says?? You might want to go to him first before any confrontation with her, just to let him know how you all are feeling. I doubt that he will sit idly by if your entire family is feeling disrespected like this, but then again he may not think of it as a big deal if he's never witnessed her behavior towards you all. Make a point of talking to him and let us all know how it goes. Good luck!

I definitely agree with needing to talk to your brother about it. It's his wife and he needs to decide how to deal with her, if he won't then you need to limit the circumstances where you see her. Find neutral areas and just let it go after that.

My husband has a hard time getting along with my family, which is really hard for me because my family is really easy to get along with but he has a pretty limited view of what he likes to do and he can get uncomfortable in a situation pretty easily, in his case he's not putting down my family to anyone he's just not very good at expanding his circle. He also came from a large family, 3rd of 7 kids, and they are all very close but in large part because they came from an abusive home and they had to depend on each other.

Who knows why your SIL is acting this way, but if she is the person that your brother has chosen to spend his life with then you have to let him deal with her and just be as patient and understanding as you can while limiting her sphere of destruction in a way that works for your family.

Good luck, there's nothing easy about dealing with any family member who acts like this.

Hi T.,

I can certainly see where you are coming from. In-laws are probably some of the hardest people to work out problems with, simply because the level of communication isn't the same as in an immediate family. No one wants to offend their in-laws. I had a very rough couple of first years with my in-laws, they do not accept new members of the family well. They wanted me and my husband over every weekend, starting from the first week of our marriage, and if we didn't come they would just come over and bring a pie or something so we would feel obligated to be with them. They also constantly asked how much we had seen my family that week, and asked if we thought that was fair. They were very jealous of our time. Needless to say I wasn't very happy with this, and felt like my space was being totally invaded. Not only that but if we decided not to come to dinner, or to another family get together (not that we did that all the time, mind you, maybe one time of five) we would get calls from my husbands older brother and his wife telling us we were horrible for not showing up, and that my husbands family should be our first priority.
Let me just say that after these things started happening I was not too willing or happy to go to my in-laws house, and was very frustrated with them. I agree with what was said earlier, when my husband and I married, we started our own family and our loyalty has to be to each other first, then we each handle our own individual families. I completely feel that respect is owed to each family, and that we should be trying to learn to love each other's family. I mean, I married this guy that came from this family, and they are part of who he is, so obviously the qualities that I love about him exist within his family. I just need to look deeper and get to know them better.
However, this took me two years to figure out because I was so put off at first. I had to really reach past my angry feelings. My husband was torn between his hurt wife and his family that felt like we should be around more. He got very frustrated with his family and just stopped going to family events or answering the phone. I felt horribly guilty because it's his family, but it was so hard to be around them! It did eventually get better as we spoke up and told them how we felt, that we needed space to be our own family.
Any time I say anything about my family, to this day they are completely quiet and act as if I haven't spoken. That really hurts because I feel like if they love me, they should be interested in the things I have to say, as well as my background.
ANYWAY! I know this is getting lengthy. The point I'm trying to make is, maybe your sister-in-law has somehow been offended or put off and is just not handling it very maturely. I do not condone her actions at all, maybe just that you guys can be the bigger people in the situation and try to ask her if she has been hurt somehow- tell her you want to be close as a family and that you love her and to be a family you need to know why she is unhappy so you can help. If you keep a healing attitude and forgiving and loving feeling about the whole thing I am sure she will respond to you. Your brother married her, obviously she has some redeeming qualities that he loves about her. You can only change your actions, not anyone elses, so just try to "kill her with kindness" and see what happens.
Everyone is different, and if she HAS been hurt, it may take her time to come around. But I think confronting her or having your brother confront her will alienate her and make her feel even more hurt, if that is the problem. It needs to be dealt with in a loving way. If she doesn't respond that way that's her problem and it's time to back off and let her do her own thing and just be polite from a distance.
I hope this helps put a view on this that can take the anger away. I know you have been hurt and I don't blame you. I hope that things can be resolved and that your family can feel whole again. Let me know how things go.

E.

I had a sister-in-law that did this very exact same thing. I tried my hardest to help her feel loved and appreciated in the family, beings I was also an in-law. I finally said to her, "I love and care about you very much, and know that the rest of the family feels the same. I feel bad that you refuse to see and appreciate all the kind things they do for you. I still want to be there for you, but I will no longer listen to unkind things that you have to say about my husbands family, because I love and respect them as much as the family I grew up with." It still took some time for her to come around,but I no longer had to felt like I was put in the middle. Also, if she never does come around, just keep reaching out to your brother, because he needs to feel your love and care. Right now it is his duty to stand next to the woman he married.

My Advice...Stop Trying! She is never going to change...who she is...is who she is! The single most important thing to remember is...your brother 'Chose' her to be his wife! That is all that really matters...She is your brothers wife. As far as the 'back biting' she'll continue to do it no matter what you all say so stop being privy to it. Each particular instance needs to be handled promptly by the person she is trying to involve. Do NOT absolutely DO NOT confront her as a group or individual nothing will alienate your brother faster than if he feels you all ganged up his wife...regardless of the situation. Each person that she tries to engage in a conversation where criticism or degrading others is the topic needs to quickly try to change the topic ( best way to change the topic with someone like her would be asking her 'how are YOU doing?'...find out more about her - what are her interests, hobbies etc. then bring those up in conversations with her) AND if she doesn't change the topic and still wants to talk about others the person or person(s) to whom she is talking need to end the conversation...not stand around and listen. You say your family is close but you need to remember not all families are the same. It is very very normal when a man gets married that he becomes more a part of his wifes family than his wife becomes of his. No matter what she does or doesn't do it is up to you as family to look for the positive in her and work hard to concentrate on those things and nothing else.

Oh my! I'm so sorry. The best thing I can recommend is: Killer her with kindness, (that is genuine kindness). I know it's easier said than done, but don't let bother you or allow it to ruin any family gatherings, simply ignore it. The sad truth is that sometimes people don't change or realize they need to change, its only a few that actually do. Let her see that your family isn't what she state you are. It's great when your actions can prove the truth rather than some spread gossip. Look at this as an opportunity for everyone to grow. If everything was perfect, their would be no excitement to life. (I know this may not be what you wanted to hear). But simply try to look at this from a different perspective. After all your brother did picked her, so in respect do the best you can to love her into the family, apparently she hasn't been converted to the idea that you are her family now, not his and hers anymore. Good luck my friend!

I totally agree with Nan. I wouldn't talk to your brother because then he will probably talk to his wife and she'll feel like everyone is talking about her and feel even less like hanging out with you guys. It would just put him in a tight spot and would probably do more harm than good. Don't give her another excuse to not want to come to family functions. Only say positive things about her to your brother like' "it was so great to see you guys last weekend! I know so-and-so really enjoyed talking to your wife about blah blah blah...She is really great.." You know, stuff like that. It will get back to her and she'll begin to feel more accepted.

Dear T.,
First off, I can not believe your brother would condone the actions of his wife towards his family.
Second, you have to let him know in detail what has been going on, so he can handle it.
The bottom line is, your brother should be handling his wife, and telling her, he will not tolerate the way she is abusive towards his family.
And then, give him the chance to handle it.
If it continues, then, as a large family, you have enough power to end this thing.
The next time you are altogether, sit down, ALL OF YOU, and confront her about the hurtful things she has been doing.
If your big brother gets mad, well he has to get glad in the same shoes.
But, you all need to get a backbone and tell your brother so he can tell her, that her behavior has got to stop.
And yes, it sounds like she is very jealous of the bond you all have with each other.
Good luck

Hi T.. It is likely that this woman is mentally ill, possible borderline personality disorder. You can't help her by being nicer, or any other personality strategy you come up with, because she lives in her own mind and doesn't notice things about others that she might aspire to. Long-term therapy could help her, but these types don't usually seek it out. They are usually raised by other BPD people, and their children often become BPD.

It's curious that your brother married such a damaged woman, but my brother did as well. I'm truly glad that the rest of your family relationships are great. Read a little about BPD to shed some light. God bless you all!

It sounds like you really need to confront your brother. I don't think there is any other way. Otherwise, anything you say to her will be fodder for her behavior towards you.

T.
I really see where your coming from. First, I don't let it go without saying something as soon as something is said. WHen I told my huuby how i was feeling about different things that had happened or was said, he told me to speak up, if anything his parents/family would be more respectful of me for voicing my feelings/opinions.
so call your sis in law on her bad talking as soon as it happens. and talk to your brother, let him know that you've tried to make his wife comfortable and welcome in your family but that you feel like she doesn't want to spend any time with your family. only hers. and talk in the "I feel..." context. i feel like she...and your brother will likely be more receptive to what you need to say and less defensive. hope this helps.
A.

Big Brother needs to be confronted. He needs to be the one to talk to her and tell her that her behavior is completely inappropriate. She needs to learn that her name is safe in your home...you don't spread rumors or talk badly about her, and when someone does you defend her...she needs to have the same courtesy for others. She has a wonderful opportunity to be part of a group of people who love eachother. She already has one? You can never have too many. If she doesn't get that, she's immature. Tell brother that she brings contention with her and you'd prefer she not come until she shapes up. If he wants to see his family...really wants to be part of their lives, he'll do something.

Talk to your brother, and have him sort things out with her. He should be bold enough to talk to his wife. Let him know that you miss him and wish you cold have a good relationship with his wife.

It sounds like your sister-in-law has some major insecurity problems and is projecting them onto your family. I think communication is key as to avoid resentment and weird feelings. Is your brother open, could you talk to him about it? When/if you do approach her/them, try to come from a compassionate place. Best of luck.

SIL behavior sounds pretty passive-aggressive. I believe in speaking to people privately about things that bother me. I usually try to get to a place of feeling calm and love (usually not in the moment of upset). Then I speak with the person about my feelings using lots of "I" language.

E.g. "When you say unkind things to other people about me and my family, I feel ...."
"I love you, but your words are hurtful to me."
"What I would like is..."

Then I solicit their feelings. "What are you feeling?"
"Have I or any other family member done something to hurt you?"
"Would you share with me what's going on with you?"
"Would you be willing to work together to improve our relationship?"

Good luck.

Talk to your brother. Let him now that you are missing him and would like a healthy relationship with his wife, but you can not continue to interact in this way. Beyond that... she has to change not you. If someone calls to tell you what she has said, tell them you are sorry they were brought into the situation but this is how she is. Know in you heart you are a kind and loving person trying to maintain relationships and she can't handle it....good luck.

There is a great saying.... "Kill them with kindness". Often those who are hurting other people are the ones who are hurting the most. Not because of anything you or other family members have done, but just because for some reason she is hurting inside. I would say to try to love her to death!!! Every time you see her give her a little gift. It could be a little nick nack that you don't need anymore, or a $5 gift from Wal-Mart, or whatever! Tell her, "I was thinking of you, and thought you might like this." The Lord says to Love.
Hope it helps!!!