The Vine: June 20, 2012
I’m getting married to a hilarious, brilliant, gentle, just generally awesome guy. As the wedding approaches, my therapist has helped me prepare emotionally for obvious potential conflicts: what to say when religious family members notice our officiant is not a priest; what to do when certain people realize they’re not actually invited; how to compartmentalize and continue enjoying the night when my emotionally-manipulative boundary-hating mother gets drunk and cries during the reception, etc.
But my fiancé’s family is relatively new to me, and…well. I’m a sensitive person, and their side is pretty devoid of sensitive people. Their world of stony silences and grudges is a totally new universe for me.
My fiancé’s sister is a…challenging person to be around. She lives in a different country and we only really see her a few times a year, so it’s usually easy to just accept that things will be ridiculous when she’s visiting, do our best to remain zen, and then move on. But this last visit was particularly taxing.
It was the first time we’d seen her since the engagement. I don’t talk to her much, and we hadn’t interacted at all since we got engaged. I assumed I wouldn’t get a “congratulations” or a “let me see the ring OMG how exciting” or even much of an acknowledgement, because anything we do is usually poorly conceived and kind of stupid in her eyes. And I wasn’t disappointed in that regard.
Things went from, “Oh, you’re going to Spain on your honeymoon? Feh. Spain’s so boring,” and “Gee, brother, it’s pretty clear who wears the pants in THIS relationship,” to “you guys are JUST like Mom and Dad” (their mother is very unkind to their father) and “You know, our grandfather and his brother didn’t speak for thirty years and it was because his wife had TOO MUCH INFLUENCE over him, insert meaningful eye contact and glaring,” pretty quickly. I just pretended I didn’t notice the hard edge on the things she said, smiled, changed the subject. But it felt very aggressive, and now that she’s back from whence she came I still don’t know what to do with these feelings. I mean — what kind of person does she think I am?
My fiancé has lived with this dynamic his whole life. He values her opinions, loves her, but also has learned how to have his own ideas and ignore/let go of some of the more overtly disrespectful things she says/childish fits she throws. I’m not as used to it, and his “ignore it and don’t let it hurt you” methods don’t really work for me. He understands and sympathizes that I’m hurt, and sees why I’m worried about where this might go wedding-wise, but doesn’t have any further suggestions on the matter.
Since we aren’t taking sister’s advice as to how our wedding should go (yeah, she was generous enough to scrap all our stupid ideas and re-plan the whole thing for us at dinner the other night) I know there will be further conflict. And because she started getting kind of aggressive on this trip, I’m afraid that she’ll get worse as things get closer. My greatest fear is that she will come at me, judgy-fists flying, on a day close to the wedding when I’m already at my limits, and I will finally stand up to her and say, “Listen, bitch, stop being a baby and keep your opinions to yourself.” And then shit will BLOW UP, because standing up to her is not a thing anyone has ever tried, ever, in the history of this family. Pretty sure this would end any kind of civil communication between us, and I would be forever cast as the manipulative succubus who drove the fatal wedge between wise sister and helpless brother.
Normally I’m better at boundaries and letting stupid things not matter than this, but I am completely unprepared to deal with this woman’s glaring, disrespect, unkindness, implications that I’ve emasculated her brother etc. My fiancé points out — and I know he’s right — that the okaysauce is going to have to come from me, because she’s always been like this. But Jesus, Sars, this is a whole new flavor of crazy! What do I do?
Thank you, thank you, thank you for any advice you might have for me.
TK
Dear TK,
“Pretty sure this would end any kind of civil communication between us, and I would be forever cast as the manipulative succubus who drove the fatal wedge between wise sister and helpless brother.” And this is a problem why?
Seriously: why? She’s a twat — and I’m not a big fan of the “helpless brother”‘s role in the situation either, I have to tell you. It’s great that your fiancé is “gentle” and can let his sister’s shit go and blah blah blah, but it doesn’t change the fact that 1) she bullies him, and 2) he lets her bully him and you. And if that’s how he wants their relationship to go, fine — but it’s really not okay for her to speak to you as dismissively as she does, and if she takes it too far, you have the right to call her on her shit.
And you expect him to have your back. Period.
That’s the issue I see here; it’s obvious you view a showdown as inevitable, and it’s just as obvious you don’t think Fiancé will support you, come the day. I think you would feel a lot less agita surrounding the prospect of drawing a line with Sister — and might be able to let her crap slide more easily, ironically — if you knew that Fiancé would take your side in the event.
You need to tell him everything you just told me, and you need to tell him that, if shit goes down, you expect him to side with you. You need to point out that his shrugging attitude towards Sister’s bullshit is fine for him, but not everyone is that evolved (or conflict-avoidant), and you’d like some acknowledgement of the facts, to wit: 1) her behavior and comments aren’t appropriate; and 2) if you reach a point where you can no longer ignore them, you expect him to defend you, to her and the rest of the family.
Because he should do that already. Sister’s territorial hostility towards you is creepy, and I don’t want to come down too hard on Fiancé, because with certain personality types (read: “disorders”), it is just better to keep your head down until the visit’s over. But he does need to signal to you that he gets that not everyone can do that, and that not everyone should have to do that, and if you can’t do that, it’s not you who’s the problem.
You might also consider that the family has probably waited years for someone, anyone to empty both barrels into this hag, and that it might not go as badly for you afterwards as you think…but regardless, it’s time to talk to your fiancé and to set boundaries about Sister. She’s an asshole; you resent having to put up with it, you’re tired of having to be the bigger person, and you don’t want to have to worry about what happens if you crack. You’d like him to say, in so many words, that he’s on your side — and you’d also like him to delegate a family member or groomsman to deal with/contain her in the run-up to the wedding, for everyone’s peace of mind.
There’s letting shit go…and then there’s letting shit go. It’s not always a good thing, and if his sibling is acting a fool to his future wife, Fiancé doesn’t get to be all “not my problem” about it.
Tags: boys (and girls) the fam
I absolutely hate the “she’s always been like this” mindset, which I have to deal with daily at work. That kind of passivity is ridiculous and gives the misbehaver too much power. You don’t have to let someone get away with her behavior just because she’s always been allowed to get away with it.
I’m with Sars – why bend over backward to maintain civil communication with someone who isn’t actually civil? Sister obviously doesn’t respect you, so say what you need to say.
Reading this letter is sad for me, because this is MY sister all around, and I’ve been dealing with this stuff my whole life. She’s become much worse in the last few years since she began having babies and became convinced she was invincible.
I still have lots of problems dealing with her, so I can’t really give any advice on what to do, but I can advise you in what not to do. The family is NOT waiting for somebody to go off on this woman. Everyone has tiptoed around her for entire life, because she is hard enough to deal with when she’s in a good mood, but if she is angry and defensive, LOOK OUT. She is not reasonable, and you will not win. And if or when you do unload on her–even trying desperately to be even-tempered and constructive!–the inevitable fallout will be your fault (in the rest of the family’s eyes) for poking the bear. At least that’s how it shakes out in my family.
I think Sars’ best idea is getting someone else to wrangle her during wedding times and then dealing with her as little as possible from then on.
I don’t know. Maybe I’m just as conflict-avoidant as the fiance, but I’d say keeping a lid on it until after the wedding is the right choice. Cry after her mean comments in private for now. Smile big on the day and enjoy yourself. Then with the event successfully behind you as a good memory you can focus on phase two (Operation Stand Up to SIL) and deal more easily with the ensuing blow-out this could cause in your new family.
I just think it’s a little easier for everyone to retreat to their corners between rounds and collect themselves when there isn’t a wedding looming a couple of weeks after confrontation time.
When you discuss this with fiance, maybe go over some potential things you might say to SIL and talk about it before shit hits the fan. You may respond more smartly to her if you do some role-playing beforehand instead of going off the cuff in the heat of it. To tack onto Erin W’s “LOOK OUT” perhaps it’s best to make sure there are witnesses (fiance’s family) to make sure the aftermath isn’t just your side of the story vs. her side of the story. It may also help you keep what you say in check even if you are super angry or emotional. Knowing there are witnesses will hold you to responding in the most respectful way that you can.
I’m not usually an advocate of conflict-avoidance, but having been in this position fairly recently, I tend to think a day-of wrangler is the way to go. Don’t engage or psych yourself out for this, just have someone delegated to deal with her. It could be a friend of yours, a groomsman, whomever; delegate and move on. Odds are good there won’t be time for her to say anything much to you, unless she’s involved in the ceremony or toasts in some way?
I’m sorry you have to deal with this, but I agree that figuring out a way to have other people between you and Devil Sister between now and the big day is probably your best bet.
The Devil Sister in my family is of a different stripe, but I was SO RELIEVED when major medical problems kept her from attending our wedding, especially since she’d already made a huge stink within the family behind my back about the fact that I hadn’t asked her to be a bridesmaid, even though she’s nine years older than her brother (they’re not very close) and I had met her exactly once in my life. Sorry, lady, didn’t realize our day of love and happiness was all about YOU.
So anyway, yes, I sympathize and I’m so sorry you have to worry about this. I think the family’s likely reaction to a blowout is really the best gauge of whether you should proceed with ripping off this bandaid before or after the wedding. If it’s just going to put HER in a raging snit, wherein maybe she skips the whole affair and the family will roll their eyes and say “Well, her loss” then by all means, give it to her with both barrels. But if you get the sense that the “succubus who drove a wedge” paintbrush will be embraced by the family at large, then maybe just try some hardcore avoidance until after the big day.
@Haras: I think the issue here is that TK’s not sure that she’ll be able to keep a lid on it when she’s already under so much stress from other areas.
While I’m not sure that I agree with the ‘maybe her family has been waiting for this for years’ bit, I do think that Sars is dead-on with the rest of her advice (that TK has to speak to her fiancé in advance and that he *has* to have her back, with his sister and with the rest of his family. I also think that using the word ‘bullying’, as Sars did, might help make the distinction in Fiancé’s mind between his sister’s (ridiculous, gross, but apparently unfixable) personality and the actions that his sister is taking against TK. Sister can be a seahunt all she likes in her own head and on her own time, but the second she starts spilling that shit onto those around her, it’s no longer a mere issue of ‘personality’.
(1) Fiance needs to have your back on this. Would you be cool with his passivity if it were anyone but his sister treating you (and him!) this way? If some tangential friend or random stranger said these horrible, judgy things about your wedding, would he let it slide? Or would he have your back? We let so many people we know well/love get away with “just always being that way” and bend over backwards to accommodate them–when in fact, all it can take is a few instances of “I feel hurt when you say things like this to me/this person. We appreciate your input, and we’ll take your views into account.” (THEN DON’T TAKE THOSE VIEWS INTO ACCOUNT) before the person will realize they can’t get the reaction they want out of you and give up. (Hopefully.)
I recommend coming up with some scripts for you BOTH but mainly HIM to use. You don’t have to be combative or confrontational! And BTW’s, you’re already in confrontations with this woman–they’re just one-sided. Give her cool, calm and collected responses before it turns into a knock-down-drag-out, and you’ll be surprised at how effective that can be.
(2) It’s scary planning a wedding that you fear others won’t approve of. My non-religious karaoke dance party ceremony and wedding was the exact opposite of what both my husband and my family would have preferred. But you know what? They LOVED IT. They had the BEST TIME. Why? Because husband and I were having the BEST TIME. Own your weird! Once family members see you and your fiancé on the happy day, being happy, loved-up people, they are probably just going to love seeing you that way and forget that you didn’t have a priest.
(3) GET A DAY OF WEDDING PLANNER WRANGLER PERSON AND PAY THEM TO DO HARD STUFF. We scrimped on almost every aspect of our wedding, but we paid a responsible, brilliant sister of a bridesmaid $500 to answer every single question that day–from “Can she really walk up the steps in THOSE HEELS?” to “Where does this table go?” Best money I ever spent.
I’m going to assume Sister isn’t going to be a bridesmaid, and that’s good because this is EXACTLY what bridesmaids can do for you: run interference. In between all the running to get you a drink before you die, following you into the bathroom so they can get you put back together so you don’t walk around with your dress tucked into your pantyhose, passing your music requests on to the DJ, and tracking down that one cousin who WILL disappear before every picture you want to take, your bridesmaids will be perfectly situated to drag you out of bad conversations and head off the unpleasant people. “Oh TK, thank goodness I found you, the photographer needs you by the cake RIGHT NOW.” “Whee, isn’t this fun! Have another drink, ooo I LOVE this song, let’s go dance RIGHT NOW.” If you aren’t having bridesmaids for this ceremony, recruit a bunch of friends to do the same thing. You basically need a wall of taffeta between you and Sister, and if your wedding is anything like mine you’ll be so busy saying hi and thank-you-for-coming to people you won’t remember two days afterward that you’ll never notice her sulks.
I don’t necessarily agree with the other commenters about avoiding a blow-up. So long as you’re cognizant of the potential outcome/consequences, and ready to deal with those consequences, I think it’s way more important to squash any notion that sister can do her superior dance all over your back for the rest of your lives.
Aside from that, though, I think the most important thing right now is that your fiance has your back, whether that be in private just between the two of you (at least for now), in public (with a verbal smackdown of his sibling), or somewhere in between.
It’s great that he’s had a lifetime of learning how to deal with her; you could probably watch how he handles things, and take a lesson or two. However, do you want to marry someone who will roll over and play dead when someone else is attacking you? Whether that person is a member of his family or not? Your soon-to-be husband’s number one priority should be you, and your feelings, and your future together, and he should at the very least be willing and able to state calmly to his sister (and to anyone else who needs the message) that you are the woman he loves, you are going to be his wife, and he will not tolerate anyone’s disrespect of you and your relationship. If not, then you might have a bigger problem than just his sister’s aberrant behavior.
Good luck.
I don’t think that your choices for ways to deal with her in the days before the wedding are limited to a) do nothing and b) fly off the handle. Can you find a few ways to gently shut her down when she starts in on picking apart whatever it is you’re doing at the moment? “Thanks, I’ll think about that!” or “Thanks, that’s helpful!”, etc., then come up with something else that urgently needs your attention elsewhere. It doesn’t give her any traction, but it also doesn’t provoke a fight. I don’t think there’s anything to be gained by having a major showdown right before your wedding.
As for the actual wedding, it’s surprisingly easy to not have much contact with any specific person at your own wedding. You’ll have a lot to do, a lot of people to see, pictures to take, etc. Just don’t put yourself in a situation where you’re stuck sitting with her for a long time and the rest will take care of itself.
And while I don’t want to minimize the extent to which family dynamics can be really, really taxing during big events, I wonder if you aren’t putting a bit too much emphasis on planning your defense against the various bad things you think will happen at/around your wedding. There’s being prepared, and there’s buying trouble before anything actually happens. Believe me, I get it – I am *horrible* about enacting mental versions of conflicts I think might happen weeks before they do (generally family/in-law related) and working myself into an absolute lather about them. The thing is, though, that this practice doesn’t do much other than sow seeds of dread in my brain long before anyone has actually done anything to me. When I let myself do this, I show up to events expecting the worst and acting accordingly. Please don’t spend so much energy anticipating all of this potential wedding drama that you end up on your wedding day prepared for battle.
I’d like to co-sign Erin W’s comment: “The family is NOT waiting for somebody to go off on this woman.” The family has, in fact, created this monster by enabling her horrible behavior. (Seems like most of us have a Devil Sister of some sort in our families…)
Some of them may be secretly psyched if/when you tell her off, but do not expect anyone to back you up (except your fiance, with whom you’re having the discussion that Sars suggested). They’ll happily reap your emotional dirty work while simultaneously working the opposite angle — i.e. continuing to dance around her in order to placate her. That way, they get the vicarious satisfaction of seeing her put in her place as well as the favorable comparison to Terrible You.
Sorry to be a buzzkill. :-( But be prepared. I don’t know if your fiance is into therapy as well but he might benefit from a chat or two with Family Systems therapist.
“My fiancé points out — and I know he’s right — that the okaysauce is going to have to come from me, because she’s always been like this”
No, he’s not. It’s HIS sister, not yours, and it’s HIS responsibility to stand up to her and tell her, to her face, that it is NOT ALRIGHT for her to bully the most important person in his life–you. Yes, that’s right…sister is no longer the most important person in his life, and she (and he) need to begin dealing with that.
I’m with Sars, tell him what you’ve said here, and that you need him to back you up. But be prepared for the consequences. He might back you up, and sister and he no longer get along. He might back you up, and sister backs down (out of shock, if for no other reason), but then it’s a one time thing and the dynamic quickly goes back to what it was. He might not back you up, in which case you have to decide what’s important to you…is his lack of support something you can live with, given his other wonderful qualities? Or do you need his support, and not having it will mean problems down the road?
And of course this will trickle into the rest of the family. You and he need to have a frank discussion about all this, and you might want to do it with your therapist, if you’re not sure you can do it alone.
Your own family dynamics are difficult enough to deal with. You shouldn’t have to deal with his.
Even if you resolve all the issues with future sis-in-law, I would like to take the opportunity to draw your attention to another possible issue:
People often develop communication habits that mirror what their family of origin does. My family: very understated, calm, mostly rational, few overt signs of emotion. Some might call us cold. My now-ex-husband’s family: pitching a hissy is a daily routine. We got along great through the wedding, and the first year or so of marriage. At some point, there were things that I needed from him, and so I told him so, in my usual non-confrontational, matter-of-fact kind of way. He didn’t really react, and I think that this was largely because of my lack of hissy-pitching. I wasn’t yelling it, so he didn’t hear it. Right up until the point where I asked for a divorce. Then, he didn’t seem to understand why I was upset, when I had been telling him about things that were missing for me for months. Our communication volumes were just different. By the time I cranked up to what was “I want the hell out of this” for me, I was just barely getting to something that might someday be attention-worthy (for example, the oil needs to be changed on the car) on his family’s scale.
Maybe I should have learned to yell a little more or to rant more, but that just doesn’t seem like a healthy response to the dynamic. My point being: it might become important to pay attention to how his family communicates, because it may be how he “hears” you most effectively. My suspicion would be that your communication about FSIL will tell you lots about this.
I, too, had a crazy-in-law, and my then-husband throwing me under the bus when she refused to respect my boundaries was a huge source of stress, and eventually, illness for me.
Enlisting the fiance’s support is a terrific idea, but be prepared for that to evaporate when Malificent goes off. Victimized Person is Victimized, and that can take years to un-learn.
And also, Yoshi’s use of “seahunt” is my new favorite thing. I work in academia, and very much look forward to slipping that little lovely into conversations.
I think Sars is right; this is not just a personality, this is a personality disorder. My mother, her sister, and her sister-in-law ALL seemed like this to me, as if there was a contest to see who could be most destructive, most cruel, most manipulative. I think you shouldn’t worry about her casting you “as the manipulative succubus who drove the fatal wedge between wise sister and helpless brother” if you have it out with her. Because she is going to do this anyway, sometime, whether you call her on her behavior or not. I know, that sounds really horrible. But she is venomous and she will continue to act as she has always acted. She will be a poisonous snake EVEN IF YOU DO EVERYTHING THE WAY SHE WANTS!!! Avoid her when you can.
I agree entirely with Sars here, but the other temporary approach you could take until the wedding is to kill her with kindness. Compliment her, ask for her help with things (that you don’t care about), act like you don’t pick up on her negative comments, etc. I had a friend like this and we eventually had the big blow out and were no longer friends, but if you just want to get to the wedding, it might work. I think there’s something called the Ben Franklin effect (or something like that) that shows that when you ask someone for a favor (putting yourself in their debt) that psychologically it often makes them like you a little better because the cognitive dissonance of doing a favor for someone you don’t like is just too much for the brain to process. Something like that. I probably just butchered that quite badly, but pop psychology is fun and I have used it and it does seem to kind of work. Anyway, I hope you have an awesome wedding no matter how you choose to play it!
I’m having a thought and I’m not even sure I endorse it myself, but I’ll throw it out as food for thought: Why not even the tables victim-wise? When Sis starts in, could you channel your ‘step off, missy’ into a lip-quivering eyes-welling, throat-catching, more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger public display of how wronged you are? “I can’t believe you’d say that, when all I’ve ever been is nice to you!” or some such. The more public, the better. And if you’re not somebody who does that much, it should have even better impact.
Otherwise, enlist somebody in her fam (does she have a hubby?) or a bridesmaid to run interference till you’re on the other side of W-Day.
Have a buffer, definitely. Ask a good friend or attendant you trust to run interference between you and her on the big day. Just someone who’s going to be business like if sister starts behaving badly. “Jessica, I say this with the utmost respect: if you don’t keep a lid on your complaints, I’m going to ask you to leave the wedding”. Technically, this should be fiancee’s role, but if he’s never stood up to her his whole life, good luck getting him to nut up now.
After the wedding? Tell her where to stuff it if you’d like. That said, as a formerly super sensitive person, I suggest you do try to put her behavior in perspective: it’s not about you, it’s about her, and making it about you is giving her power you don’t want her to have over you.
Humor helps a lot with these kinds of people: start seeing everything they pull as over the top and bordering on attention getting, and noticing how ridiculous that makes them. It helps.
If that doesn’t help me, then I try to assume that when I ignore their obvious attempts to antagonize me, they actually go home pissed that they didn’t get the attention they craved. It’s kind of a “neener neener” strategy of last resort, but it did help me deal with a couple of toxic people I couldn’t get away from in the past. :P
First off, Sars is 100% correct that your fiance needs to be backing you up. And he needs to know that you will have a serious problem if he can’t/won’t stand up to Her Majesty. Another suggestion-is she actually staying with you before the wedding? Because maybe a polite fiction can be made about why it just isn’t possible to host her this time so you can limit your exposure.
Etiquette says that you shouldn’t go off on people, no matter how deserving, and if you do go off on her, she’s won. Because she has succeeded in making your wedding day All About Her, which is what she wants. If you lay in and rip a strip off her, that’s what everybody’s going to remember about your wedding. Don’t give her the satisfaction.
However, there are ways to say “shut it, bitch” politely and calmly that will make you look like a saint in the eyes of anyone who’s opinion is worth caring about and her look like the giant douche she is. To wit:
“Blah de blah, it would be SO MUCH BETTER if we do the processional my way”-“Thank you for the suggestion.” (said in a flat, disinterested tone) and continue with it your way.
“Nag, nag, nag, passive aggressive bitchiness”-“Thank you for your concern” (said completely coldly), then subject change.
“Comparison to her parents unhappy marriage”-“What an interesting assumption.”
“Thinly veiled stab at your character.”-“Why would you say that to me? It’s hurtful and makes me feel bad at what’s supposed to be a happy time for me.”
and my favorite, when she says something really out of line, stare her directly in the eyes and don’t say anything. Then turn around and walk away.
And finally-the ultimate weapon, to be used only if absolutely necessary. Kick her the fuck out. And this is definitely where you need to prepare fiance in advance that you will not hesitate to do this if necessary. You are the hostess, and it’s your show. And actually-if someone is so unpleasant they are ruining the event, it is both your right and duty to your other guests as a gracious hostess to remove them. You don’t do it in a rude way, but you do it firmly. “I am so sorry, but obviously it’s not a good time for you to visit right now. I’m afraid you’ll have to leave.” During the reception? “I’m so sorry that we can no longer accomodate your presence. Please leave.” And if it gets to that point, have fiance ready and waiting to back you up, because you’ll need him.
But whatever you do, don’t let her make you lose your cool in public. I understand how tempting it is and how deserving she is, but remind yourself that you want people to remember how great your special day was, not The Huge Drama With Demonspawn. Don’t let her steal your happiness; she’s not worth it.
Got to agree, that Sister may be the fireworks here, but Fiance’ is where you need to direct your attention.
Growing up with this delightful person has obviously been a big factor in how your intended deals with stress and conflict. And expecting him to do a personality 180 and change how he faces stress isn’t very realistic.
But what you can expect, from the man you are about to marry, is that he puts you first, just as you would him. That doesn’t mean backing someone’s obviously hurtful and crazy schemes, it means “your opinion matters most. You are my spouse and the one I pledged my troth to.”
Maybe the way he backs you isn’t how you dreamed it would be, but the fact of it better be there. Otherwise, his sister isn’t the problem.
So you’ve got to sit down and tell him this. “Your sister isn’t acting at all kind towards either one of us. I understand you’ve dealt with her all your lives, but the usual ways aren’t working. We’re about to join our lives together and trust each other.
“So I have to know that if I shut her down, you’ll be there to back me up. I won’t expect you to get in a big screaming fight, but I will expect you to stand by my side. I have no desire to blow up at her and I will try to avoid it, but if it happens, you are going to have to be strong. If I say something truly bad, call me on it, but don’t expect me to apologize or kowtow to someone who does not wish us well.”
It seems to me you’re talking about the importance of this situation for the wedding but not the marriage–maybe because you’re using the first as an indicator for the second? But the problems you’re discussing don’t matter only at the wedding or even the most at the wedding, so maybe if you start thinking of them less as wedding problems that would remove the deadline flavor that seems to be imbuing the conversation. I mean, Sister isn’t going to be fixed after the wedding, or shut up after the wedding, or avoid telling you about what your plans for family should be after the wedding. Now, if the wedding is significant because that’s an event where you get a considerable cultural mandate for telling the groom to grow up and back his wife if his sister goes Linda Blair on her, that’s valid, but that’s about you and your fiance more than your SIL-to-be.
I also think that you used “sensitive” in a way that kind of confused me (it seemed a little like “never make people mad”), and that you didn’t seem to acknowledge much territory between head-down acquiescence/avoidance and shit-flipping, so you may well be bringing your own idea of emotional registers into this. Which we all do, but it might help you to think about your own emotional dialect here too.
Oh, and “what kind of person does she think I am?” She thinks you’re not her; she’s not thinking of you as a kind of person at all. So don’t take it as a comment on you personally, because there’s nothing you could have done to make that different.
I agree with Erin W. The reason why people don’t poke the bear is because they have nasty scars from back in the day when they tried doing it. Families evolve in the way that they did because they figured out what worked and what didn’t, and odds are that confronting the FSIL only blew up in their faces. Or in this case, doing anything that made her more upset made things get worse. You can’t win with crazy, and as an in-law you have less power and reputation in the family. I fear that if you seriously get into it with her, you’ll only end up the villain–which is easy to do with someone who isn’t blood family. And yeah, that’s how it’s gone with mine. She who isn’t blood is easier to make the scapegoat, the bitch, the one who destroyed the family, the one who couldn’t just get along.
If you must have a showdown with her, tread extremely carefully. Remember that anything that comes out of your mouth will probably have lifelong repercussions, and you’re probably better off trying to cut the emotion and drama out of your responses to her as much as you can. I’m a big believer in “never let them see you cry” or that you’re hurt or pissed off. Some jerks are deliberately trying to get a shitty reaction out of you, and that may be what FSIL is going for.
@Kits: Thank you! But I have to give the credit to Mary from Junee, a 70-something-year-old lady who was a frequent guest on a radio program in Australia about 10 years ago. She was fantastic: a total cuddly nanna type, but she’d come out with some incredible comments, including once saying she’d had ‘a real seahunt of a day’. The presenters – two young, swear-y comedians – were *floored*, and it passed into the lexicon. I still smile every time I use it, and I’m glad it’s still flying around the world.
I agree with finding someone to do SIL wrangling. I know you say the “ignore it and don’t let it hurt you” isn’t your way but it is worth a try on some stuff at least. Is there someone in the family who seems sympathetic or at least acknowledges SIL’s ugly comments as being ugly? Maybe that someone could be recruited to diffuse tense situations or try to veer SIL off if there are certain things that she is more vicious about.
I’m approaching this differently as my sister and I do feel that my SIL has changed my brother so some of the mean comments from above have been made by one or both of us. So things that in their minds might be him supporting her look to us like him being her hen-pecked servant. Not that this makes it better but we do keep our comments away from where either Brother or SIL can hear them. And we were not at all pains during the wedding, maybe not as enthusiastic as we could have been, but pleasant.
Anyway, Good luck!
So, I kind of agree with both the commenters and Sars. Yes, it is one thing to blow of someone talking shit about your choice of vacation spot. I mean seriously, if your life is so sad you need to do that to feel better about yourself, then fine. It is another can of worms to be expected to blow off thinly veiled personal insults and threats.
Granted, right before the wedding might not be the time to actively take on this beast, a bit of short term killing with kindness might not be out of order. “I’m so glad you’re interested in our plans, that is a really good idea, but well, I think we’ll do it this way.” *sticky sweet smile* To a comment like the stupid “who wears the pants” “I’m sorry, I don’t understand?” *sticky sweet smile*
I mean, it doesn’t sound like you’ll have to put up with two much face time leading up to the ceremony, so hopefully she won’t have too many opportunities to snot all over everything. At the same time, I think Sars is right that you really do need to have a talk with your fiance about a contingency plan for if Sis really does cross too big a line or if you just lose it and lay into her. He does need to back you up and he does need to say so then do it. You also do need a buffer person and it needs to be someone who will do it.
Now, after the big party that’s another story. You do not need to tollerate that kind of behaviour and you shouldn’t. You don’t need to go off and lay into her or anything, but as Sars has said so many times before, you make the boundaries and you don’t let people cross. Veiled insult? Call her on it, you don’t need to blow up, but just refuse to take it. “That was very insulting and I don’t appreciate it. Please stop.” “Well, I don’t think Spain is boring and Bob and I are the ones going, so that’s what’s important.” Do your best to just shut it down. If she blows up she’s the one blowing up. I know all this is way easier said than done, but it is easier to just let her know where your line is than to try to really change her, you know?
Arrange with someone – either your fiancé, or a friends who’s responsible for sister-wangling – to draw up some bingocards with Awful Sister Behaviour. Squares for everything she can criticise, squares for every patronising comment. It’s a LOT easier to tolerate this kind of stuff when you’re already laughing at how awful she is.
And you know, don’t feel terrible about letting her know afterwards that that’s what you were doing.
Two thoughts:
(their mother is very unkind to their father)
You are now going on two generations of women who are openly unkind in this family. I’d be very surprised if you are going to turn that around before the wedding, or at the wedding. Your fiance has learned to accommodate that from his father. You would be asking for a very sudden, very different kind of behavior from him. He would have to learn how (like, therapy, play-acting, rehearsing boundary-setting) after decades of life where the men just get along. He has had the good sense to find someone kinder, but that’s a work-around, not a fix.
For the wedding, I’d say to get a wrangler. The only different advice I could give from all the good stuff above is, when you are asking people to do difficult, sensitive work, pay them. Hire someone for this, so you have reason to think it will get done right.
Would your fiance be OK with a random wedding guest who behaves towards you as his sister does? Or a neighbor or coworker? Or would he shut them down? Sorry, but I would say postpone the wedding until he understands that it’s his responsibility to have your back (and yours to have his if he steps up and his family gets involved). If he doesn’t want to stand up to Bad Sister he’s not going to have your back in the marriage. He can still love her but sometimes loving someone means a boot to the backside with an extra whack on the ass from the screen door. You might want to have some counseling with him and explore what managing this relationship will mean to the marriage because even if it’s only a few times a year, she’s still going to be in your lives and you need a united front on how you’re going to handle that relationship.
My boyfriend’s s-i-l is a lot like this, except she usually spreads her poison behind people’s backs using third party whining and email. (She doesn’t acknowledge me when I’m in the room for some crazy reason no one who’s asked her about it understands, and after hearing what you put up with I’m kind of relieved about that.) I second what people have been saying — you shouldn’t have to take her nonsense. Arrange the wrangler for the wedding.
However, even if he sticks up for you you’ll still have to deal with her idiocy on some level. I’d consult your therapist for distraction ploys — mine suggested writing all your anger and irritation at the lot of them out somewhere safe, bringing along some knitting or distracting but not obviously rude thing to family get togethers to distract yourself from the nastiness, or even having a “safe word” (heh) so that you or both you and fiancee and get the hell out of there if you’re feeling attacked and unhappy. Just remember: it’s not your fault and you’re not alone.
Agreed with Megan. My father’s sisters were similarly dismissive of my mother right off the bat. They weren’t just dismissive, they were at times skating on openly threatening (they weren’t as good at hiding it from the kids, thinking we wouldn’t notice, so I have first hand memories of that kind of unpleasantness).
My mom was more fortunate in that respect, in that my father did not let that crap fly, whereas my mom, who had grown up with three older sisters of her own, hoped that if she ignored them they would just stop. They didn’t, and what’s more they tried to find ways around my dad, for example by cornering my mom alone. After all, that was something they also did to their mom when they thought their dad wasn’t looking, though my grandpa was more like your fiancee, in that he tried to ignore their bad behavior whenever possible (again, people in my dad’s family seemed to be unaware that even preschoolers have a grasp of what bullying behavior is, so they pulled that stuff around my brother and I thinking we wouldn’t notice a thing).
Not gonna lie, after a particularly bad incident involving THEM, as my brother and I had referred to them for as long as we could remember (in my imagination they were not far off from gorgons honestly), my dad threatened to cut off his whole family to make them stop, and he then followed it up accordingly when they didn’t take that warning seriously. I don’t think he talked to anyone in his family until his older sister unexpectedly passed away, and that was merely a ceasefire in the long run, not the end of it (turns out his younger sister was a pretty good bully all on her own).
Hopefully it will never get as bad in your case, but you two need to have a discussion now about what your lines are, what you agree to do about it together, and what that entails. Someone up in the thread suggested a family therapist, I’d second that as well, because your future husband’s pattern of rolling over when it comes to family bullies is not going to be something unlearned after just one honest conversation.
I agree with just about everything that’s already been said here, but here’s another suggestion: in addition to a SIL-wrangler, recruit a bridesmaid or other close friend to make sure you’re okay. Fiance should have your back, obviously, but it doesn’t hurt to have more people on your side. A friend of mine’s wedding was not all that long after her parents’ acrimonious divorce, and we actually got the photographer she’d hired in on the act, too. When the bride’s parents started sniping and the bride needed to get away, the photographer would pull her away under the guise of needing to take more portraits. Twenty minutes later, the bride had calmed down and could cope with things again. It worked out well, all things considered, and I’d suggest a similar arrangement for your situation.
I’m cosigning the comments from ferretrick and Beth C. You and your finance need to develop a polite spine. Practice saying those responses with an even tone and a neutral face.
And find a wedding wrangler to build that “wall of taffeta”.
When my husband and I were leaving our wedding receoption, my father in law said to me “you are Mrs (husband’s surname) now!”. Devil Sister-in-law marched up, pointed her finger in my face and hissed “NEVER!”. Until that point I was intending not to take my husband’s name…
Just saw that captain awkward had a question about dealing with an annoying in-law, while not a direct match for your situation it gives examples of how you have more options than silent tolerance / scorched earth.
http://captainawkward.com/2012/06/19/272-when-you-see-darth-vader-coming/
Finding a wrangler for FSIL is a good plan, but if noone is willing or able to take this on, find her a low-key, non-critical, but nonetheless timeconsuming job to do (making sure everyone has signed the guest book, keeping track of the presents, looking after an elderly relative) so that she stays out of your face.
Also, I’m fully on board with you talking about your issues with FSIL and how her family treat her with your fiance privately and setting some boundaries, but I would highly recommend that you do what you have to to keep a lid on your emotions/temper between now and the wedding. Big family occasions like weddings (especially weddings) are crucibles of the family dynamic and how it (dys)functions. You don’t want to go down in family lore as the bride who bitch-slapped her SIL, or irretrievably damage your relationship with the whole of your husband’s family for the sake of one day. Let this one play out naturally over the long term.
Teflon sphinx! It can be incredibly effective in dealing with someone going off on you. You’re already at an advantage because you know that this woman is awful and awful to you and you couldn’t give a fig if she’s in your life.
You Teflon sphinx by smiling and, sometimes aggressively, letting things slide off you. It’s rubber-and-glue territory and it can work really well with people that are that kind of godawful because it can put everything back on them.
One of the tactics is also just to deal with surface of the comments and refuse to deal with any deeper interpretation. You know, our grandfather and his brother didn’t speak for thirty years and it was because his wife had TOO MUCH INFLUENCE over him, insert meaningful eye contact and glaring.
Wow, I hadn’t hear that! I didn’t know you were interested in that/close to your grandfather? Once you accept that you don’t actually care about the conversation, it’s much easier to pick which parts you deal with.
Teflon-sphinx means only dealing with the surface and only giving them a surface (and a slippery one at that). It doesn’t matter that you know (and that they know you know) that they’re trying to wound you, because (I speak as a middle child), a very large grin can answer better and drive the person absolutely insane. And then you have the satisfaction of knowing that you’re getting to them more than they’re getting to you. It won’t stop them trying to pick at you, but it will stop them being satisfied by it and –as anyone who has siblings can tell you- you can smile until somebody else blows up at which point you’re justified in telling them where to get off. Because one of the big secrets of family, yours and others, is that you don’t actually have to engage with them, even when you have to deal with them. You can treat them like a bitchy drunk on a flight and give them a Pan-Am, airhostess plastic smile.
And the next time she says something like, “Oh, you’re going to Spain on your honeymoon? Feh. Spain’s so boring.” You can smile and say, “Not for us! Who can’t find something fun to do in Spain on your honeymoon?”
I like Kemmi’s idea: “Who can’t find something fun to do in Spain?” Bonus points if you throw in a little winkwink nudgenudge, “It’s our HONEYMOON! I’m sure Fiance and I could find plenty of fun things to do anywhere we go [big grin].”
Speaking as a sister with a brother, I can attest to the fact that the thought of your sibling getting up to some jiggery pokery is enough to shut down any conversation.
I’m late to this party, but I offer a mix of the above suggestions: a) KILL her with kindness. Go ahead and respond with the stuff like ferretrick recommends, but NOT coldly. Do it as sincerely as you can, keeping “Spain with hubby” in mind as you do it. Then, have a wingman your age, if you can swing it, like a bridesmaid, who can deflect as needed. But THEN, do you have a sympathetic aunt or older lady friend? THAT’S where the ice should come form. She will be elegant and sweet and mannerly toward virtually everyone, and when Bitch SIL says something stupid, she stiffens, looks down her nose, chills the room to a refreshing 25 degrees and says, “Why on EARTH should anyone pay attention to what YOU want? It’s THEIR wedding, after all.” Sniff, turn of back, click of heels as she walks away to shower you with compliments.
Bitch SIL might still turn into Dramarama, but: not your fault. And? Not your fault. And? Fun to watch!
I wouldn’t marry someone who let his sister act like such a twat to me. Obviously he would choose sister over wife in every dispute after marriage, since he won’t even stand up to the sister before the marriage. Ugh.
I agree with what Sars said and having a wrangler is a terrific idea on the day of the wedding. The most important thing is not to engage with the crazy FSIL. I’m not saying to avoid her – that’s just encouraging her to keep poking in an effort to get a reaction.
Having a sister that is quite similar to your FSIL has given me years of experience with this type of behaviour. I’ve found what works best is to either smile and giggle and tell her “okay, that’s funny,” or ask her to repeat what she’s said and then say something like, “hmmm, interesting” and either walk away or turn and begin speaking with someone else. It infuriates the person trying to create the conflict and it’s fun watching them continue to try and get a reaction that leads to drama. Even the craziest of the crazy give up when they realize their attempts to manipulate aren’t having the desired results. Sure, it may lead to some sulking or pouting, but who cares. If she ends up sitting alone in a corner pouting, that’s okay too.
Best of luck and congratulations on your pending nuptials. I’m sure you’ll have a terrific day and create a lot of wonderful memories.
Cora, I am wishing that I was related to Maggie Smith, because she would be the perfect person to deliver that ice.
I hope we hear back from the OP about this situation. I agree with just about everyone that this has more to do with your fiance than his sister. I bet her barbs and hostility would bother you a lot less if you were confident that your fiance had your back and would shut down rudeness and hostility on your behalf. In 99% of circumstances, the people closely related to the offending person has to take the lead in shutting down behavior and/or setting boundaries. Sister lays into you because its clear to her that brother won’t make a peep in your defense. What about your kids? Will your fiance stop his sister from bullying a child or not?
Feel sorry for her. You think she has all the power now, but turn the tables and feel sorry for what a small person she really is thinking she can bully a grown woman over wedding plans and life. You and your fiance have a kind and equal relationship (as far as you described), so you have the upper hand. Feel pity for someone who can only cope by cutting others down, and who has no appreciation for choices that are different from her own.
And absolutely have someone ready at the wedding to divert and/or handle the sister. I served that role for a friend at her wedding–the groom’s parents had divorced long ago, but one party was still desperate to get the other back and wasn’t above making a scene, so I did a lot of mindless chitchatting and elbow steering throughout the event. Since I wasn’t a relative, I didn’t have to take any snarky or mean comments to heart.
I have been reading TN since the beginning but this is the first time I have responded to a letter. TK, my friend, I am you fourteen years later. I tried nice, I tried cordial, polite, cold and indifferent. Although changing up my approach has helped me deal, it changes things not one bit.
Be absolutely certain that you want to marry this man. A person’s upbringing and family-of-origin directly affect his approach to marriage, parenthood and you. I agree absolutely that you must know – without a doubt – that he will choose you over her (and the rest of them because, let’s face it, they created this monster.) He also has to acknowledge, unequivocally, that all of this crap is pathological. It took my husband about 10 years to get to this point and, to be totally honest, if I had paid more attention to how truly awful my sister-in-law was/is, I would not have gone through with my wedding. The Thanksgiving dinners, the baptisms, the way the parents-in-law allow the bullshit, – it’s painful, man. Taking the high road? It’s lonely up there. Being the better person? Doesn’t make you feel any better. She’s horrible, she’ll be your child’s aunt and you’ll have to deal with her. So, no matter how great he is, can you handle that?
Sorry for the harsh reality sister, but I think that’s why you wrote.
Bria, Megan, Vivyenne, and NiceGirl….they said it first and they said it best. I can echo NiceGirl in that I tried for double-digit years to get things to be different, and what I learned is that family dynamics often stay unchanged because the people involved get something out of things as they are. Nobody cares what the interloper (ie us) thinks. This is a primary relationship and it shaped them. It won’t change unless they want it to, and if you’re doing the asking, it’s not coming from them.
But Bria is right, you can get through the wedding (and also, don’t go hunting for trouble with pre-planned scripts is the most awesome advice ever…roll with it, chica). Maybe it won’t be so bad in your situation because you don’t see this person often. I just hope you won’t go asking your husband to have your back when she comes to visit, because he will not. It just doesn’t work that way. Sorry to burst your bubble.
Just want to second all of those emphasizing that families of origin REALLY affect a marriage. My dad came from a family with issues – including that his mom seriously favored some of the 7 kids and largely neglected others, like my dad. My mom always says that she loves my dad but it was really hard to be married to him for a long time because he internalized their conflict styles, etc. to such a degree that it made things so difficult. Eventually, my parents moved away from his family to get everyone away from the toxic influence. My dad would occasionally talk on the phone to his parents or siblings, but we didn’t do holidays or anything like that with them.
As I got older, my mom always suggested that one of the best things I could do would be to find a spouse who came from a normal, calm family without issues.
That all being said, I think the suggestions are good that you and your fiance go to therapy. If he can start recognizing his pre-programmed responses and working to try others, it will help you in the long run. And consider whether he’s willing to put distance between you and the family – can you live farther away? Choose to do holidays on your own?
I can’t imagine what it must have been like for your fiance growing up in such a dysfunctional family. It’s understandable that this would affect the way he deals with conflict.
But it still boils down to this: if you aren’t confident he’d have your back, it might be good to postpone the wedding. The effects of bullying can take a long time to overcome, and the victim first has to realize that there is a problem. His current method of letting everything go doesn’t really help you. I think you have to be united in your goals and approach to conflict management if you want to survive being in this family. (After all, you can’t make him cut them off.)
Your intended needs to grow a pair. His family = his responsibility, just like your mother will be your responsibility if she does get drunk and messy at the wedding (and I trust that you’ve got some strategies in place to reduce the risk of that happening).
I’ve got two things to say about the broader ‘getting married’ issue, though:
1. Your wedding day is the start of your married life together. YOUR wedding day – you should do whatever you want. If people actively disapprove of the choices you make on that day, politely tell them that they are not obliged to attend. If you’re old enough to get married, you’re old enough to cope with disapproval! Two other options – and ones that I know have worked for friends of mine: a) eloping with really good friends and leaving the crazy families out of it (and telling them why); and b) throwing a big no-pressure pre-wedding party, inviting everybody, and then having the celebrant there and getting married on the spot. Apparently this worked incredibly well in a situation where all of the family members on both sides were totally mental and couldn’t stop interfering.
2. Your wedding day is just one day. Don’t over-think it. The point of the exercise is to get married. That’s the bit where you and your intended’s focus should lie – you need to start talking about how you plan to deal with both families’ influence/involvement. Believe me, this stuff won’t get easier if, for example, you have kids.
Finally, stop caring about what the horrorshow of a sister thinks about you and your choices! She sounds vile. Don’t jump on the crazy train by giving her any power over you.
Good luck with the wedding and – much more importantly – a lifetime of wedded bliss.
NiceGirl said it best. Please, please, please reconsider marrying this man. This is not a family dynamic you can fix, and it’s not something you can endure either. This will end badly, and the worst case scenario involves it ending badly after children have been brought into the picture. Somewhere out there is a man who is a better fit for you.
I think recommending the letter writer doesn’t get married or puts off the wedding is a little extreme, given that the annoying future sister-in-law lives in another country. It would be pretty unusual for either of the couple not to find any relation in the extended families a pain, and modern life doesn’t force much togetherness unless you actually seek it out. Living a reasonable distance away, being ‘very busy at work’ at all times and not having an answerphone is a great help! It doesn’t sound like the letter writer’s own mother is a bowl of peaches, either and the ‘religious relatives’ mentioned may be on her side, not his. Perhaps they should elope somewhere nice and stay there!