DH's younger sister has always been a bit tricky since early adulthood - she behaves in a fairly entitled way, messes up and never faces consequences, is fairly selfish but is never picked up on it. Due to family history, MIL and FIL have tended to enable her, and pander to her as they had a rough time when she was a teenager, so I suppose they wanted to look after her, even though it's backfired a bit, and made her this way. Her behaviour has escalated since she got together with her DP who behaves pretty appallingly [but that's a whole other story!] He seems to have brough out the worst of her selfishness as he is very selfish himself.
Basically, DH now feels his relationship with his sister is at an all-time low, and he feels very angry with the way she [and her DP] treat him, and the rest of the family. They behaved very badly to PIL about six months ago, and PIL did actually confront them, but DH's sister threw a huge strop and wouldn't speak to them, swore at them etc.
Really, DH now feels that if he continues to be civil to his sister it will be for the sake of PIL, as a family feud between their children would upset them, as there are several other family feuds in the family. However, seeing his sister behave in this way is really eating away at him [he's a very decent guy and finds it hard to see someone treating his family like this]. Sometimes he talks about confronting her about everything she's done. However, from her behaviour six months ago, it's unlikely she's going to take any of it on board, and she'll probably just have a tantrum and disengage, and PIL would be sad.
We don't see them often, probably 2-3 times a year, with PIL, and it's tense, though all are polite outwardly. I tend to think that we should just go with the flow, nod and smile when we see them, be civil, keep the peace and save our sanity.
But really - can DH really stand by for the rest of his life and let this bad behaviour go? It really gets under his skin. Any advice about how to handle this situation would be appreciated, because quite honestly, his ranting about it, while completely understandable, is starting to get to me.
What to do?! Thanks for listening to this, sorry it's a bit long
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Relationships
DH's difficult relationship with sister [sorry, bit long]
8 replies
CoffeeMum · 31/12/2012 07:56
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