SIL makes excuse

[Call Me Cordelia]

My DH was just traveling for work to the city overseas where his sister lives. He goes there maybe twice a year, spending a week. He and his sister have never been close, to put it lightly. They never had conflict, but were simply living parallel lives and never had much to say to each other. The parents 100% brokered their relationship. I don’t have any relationship with her either. Never really did. Which is super weird, I suppose, but at this point I just don’t know I have it in me to try.

Anyway, DH has been trying, a little bit. At least the two of them usually meet up one evening when DH is in her city. This time she begged off due to stomach ache. Ugh.

I’m not really looking for advice, exactly, as this is what it is. I’m just feeling disappointed and sad. SIL is one relative who never took sides between us and her parents, never tried to fix it, and still actually has any contact with DH. The rest all dropped him completely. So I guess I had in my mind she was the one relative who had a chance at maybe someday…? I really don’t know. But this stinks. Not that annual visits with minimal effort to her is a huge deal, but it was something. Maybe it was a one-off. Who knows. Blah.

The thing I keep thinking is she is protecting herself from being pushed into pre-holiday flying monkey duty.

[SonofThunder]

Hi Cordelia! 

Im sorry SIL ditched her brother on his visit to her city.  I believe your analysis is a good suggestion, regarding her potential avoidance of attempted pre-holiday flying-monkey duties and the harassment over any non-compliance. 

Sadly for me, its many times just easier on me to just not visit my sibling in-person, and so we talk mainly by phone/text.  I have to weigh the benefit of a in-person sibling visit with the huge FOO dust cloud of PDf manipulation and PDf victimization that one single sibling get-together can stir up. The PD aftermath is just not worth the gain of the in-person visit. 

Do SIL and MIL live in the same country?   How did your DH react to his sister's cancelling their get-together?

SoT

[Call Me Cordelia]

DH, SIL, and MIL/FIL all live thousands of miles from each other. SIL usually goes "home" for Christmas. So it wouldn't surprise me if she would have been grilled about every detail of her time with her brother.

That's a shame about your visiting your sibling causing that kind of dust-up. I would suggest simply not telling your F about visits if he's going to react that way. In this case, unfortunately it is known that DH will be in that city on a fairly predictable timetable.

True to form, DH sort of shrugged it off.

[SonofThunder]

DH, SIL, and MIL/FIL all live thousands of miles from each other. SIL usually goes "home" for Christmas. So it wouldn't surprise me if she would have been grilled about every detail of her time with her brother.

That's a shame about your visiting your sibling causing that kind of dust-up. I would suggest simply not telling your F about visits if he's going to react that way. In this case, unfortunately it is known that DH will be in that city on a fairly predictable timetable.

True to form, DH sort of shrugged it off.

I wish I could visit the sibling without everyone knowing, but their homes all share the same driveway  .  I just stay away.  Thanks for clarity and fully understand the SIL grilling over a holiday visit. 

SoT

[Cat of the Canals]

It sucks how often there's collateral damage in sibling relationships in PD families. Our relationship with my husband's sister isn't bad, but it's grown more distant as I've put up more boundaries between myself and MIL. We have reason to believe there's been some attempt at a smear campaign (though MIL smears everyone, so it's not necessarily all that personal, lol). And my husband has always commented that while MIL will try to strongarm him into speaking to various relatives on the phone, she never pushes him to talk with his sister. Never asks if they've been in contact, etc. He thinks she likes being the go-between, because then she has that little bit of control.

[Call Me Cordelia]

Late catching up, but yeah my IL family definitely has that "gatekeeper" vibe to it. Even when I was engaged MiL took it upon herself to handle all of the communication with DH's extended family. I merely thought she wanted to be helpful and my mother did the same thing, so I thought it was normal. Down the road, she got majorly upset when DH and I tried to make plans with some of my husband's aunts and uncles without her input.