The original post: /r/amitheasshole by /u/Apart_Relative_2161 on 2024-10-12 17:39:26.
Using a throwaway. I (31F) have two daughters with my husband (33M), Elsa (8) and Anna (6). We’ve been no-contact with his family for years.
His parents were extremely pushy and didn’t follow any of the rules we were trying to make for our daughters. For example, when my oldest was a baby, i got called into work. I told my MIL we needed her look after Elsa. She’d been sick, so I didn’t want to leave her with a sitter. MIL agreed but said she had already had plans and would have to take the baby. Since this involved taking Elsa out into the cold and into a stranger’s house, I wasn’t comfortable with that. She did agree eventually.
We set a clear boundary around social media. No posting pictures or sharing ours, or commenting or liking them, because they would show up in other people’s feeds. Several times I had to remind her not to comment, but she did anyway, so I unfriended her.
It was lots of stuff like that. We would ask for help or make a rule, then have to justify it. We felt like our children and family weren’t a priority, so right before Anna was born 6 years ago, we cut contact with the whole family.
This spring, my husband decided it’s not fair for our daughters. So, I agreed we could try it again with the understanding that if things hadn’t changed, we’d go back to the way we’d been doing it. Things were rocky at first but now his family are excited we came back. Everyone is willing to let the past be the past, except his older sister (37).
His mother arranged a get together. SIL didn’t come. Then his uncle wanted to do a BBQ for Labor Day and she didn’t come to that, either. She went kayaking with her cousin instead (I saw on her SM).
She’s been like that since we got back. My MIL is really upset. I know SIL has gone to lots of things we’re not at. But she doesn’t come to things we’re at. The only time she’s seen us was for Anna’s birthday party. She was polite, and brought her a nice card and present, but left as soon as the party was over. She didn’t post on her socials about Anna’s birthday or anything.
Finally, last week we called her about it. She was quiet for a while and then said that she felt like she couldn’t trust us anymore, and that she had had be the one to hold things together when we left the first time, and she didn’t want to open that door again, and she hung up.
My husband is really mad. He says they were close as kids and she’s always been dramatic and a diva but this is unusual. She doesn’t seem like she’s angry, she just acts like we don’t exist. With the holidays coming up, she told MIL she’ll do birthdays and Christmas with us for the kids, but that’s it. We were just trying to protect ourselves, but now she’s acting like we did it to target her. Are we really TAHs here, or is she just being dramatic like my husband says?