Hello yall!
So, I gotta gripe. I can't help it.
My SIL and I have never been very close. It came as a surprise when I married 7 years ago but now I am over it. She is a very very private person and does not like to share her personal business with anyone in her family. I did not realize until I married my DH that he and she are not close, and neither is she and her dad. So, I've grown accustomed to pretty much having no idea what is happening in her life at all. For example, when she got engaged, I had not idea until quite a while later. And when he broke it off with her, again, I had no idea until months later. I think this is way too private but whatever. Still, I did not expect that all this would go down, as I am about to explain.
So my DH and I got a letter in the mail from her this week. In it, she writes that "Dave" (obs not his real name) and she are expecting a "bundle of joy" and that my son will soon have a little cousin to play with soon. I opened and read the letter before my husband got to it. Confused, I look up at him, and ask, "Huh, your sis is pregnant and you didn't tell me?" He looked at me in shock -- he clearly did not know anything about this. Attached to the letter is a post-it: "Please don't tell anyone about this exciting news until we are ready."
OK. Several things here. First, I had no idea she was even seeing someone, and both my DH and I have no idea who "Dave" even is. Second, we both find it totally bizarre that she would break this kind of news in a letter, instead of calling us, especially since she must be aware that we don't know who "Dave" is. Both of these issues are irksome but what really bugs me the most is this: I have invited my SIL to family functions and she usually attends, but the last two functions she no showed with no warning or notice and we did not hear from her at all unti this letter. The first function was my son's birthday (and he asked for her all day) and the second, my daughter's baptism. My son's party was 4 months ago and he was very disappointed that she did not show. I am fine that she doesn't attend these functions, but I find it inconsiderate and rude that she did not attend AND she did not contact me or my DH in any way to at least inform us that she would not attend. Even after the fact, it would have at least been nice to at least call and explain yourself in some way.
So, she is apparently pregnant, and she failed to contact us before, but she's got the time to contact us now. I assume that she is thinking we will now contact her back to congratulate her or something.
I know that the right thing to do is get over my offense and just call. I understand that this is what family does, and it is the most polite and respectful thing to do. But, I can't help but feel so offended! I mean, what the hell is going on??! I want so badly to call her and be like, "what the hell is going on with you?' but since we've never been close I feel it is not my place to do. My husband told me he would call her but he hasn't done it yet. I am trying to stay out of it all but all of this is bothering me. So, I gotta gripe.
Not necessarily asking for advice or anything, but I am curious about what you guys think about all this.
Hi Moms!
I was not asking for advice, but I am glad I posted, because I got some great responses anyway! Thanks for listening and giving me your great opinions. Actually, it did NOT seem obvious to me at all that she may have already been a few months along when she wrote us. To me, the wording sounded like she just found out...but, it does explain her two no shows, if she is already at the "showing" point.
Don't get me wrong ladies -- I WILL congratulate my sis, since she is so apparently happy that she is expecting (and I say WILL because frankly I don't think I can talk to her right now without asking what the hell is going on -- I need time to get over this a little). I understand that I am being judgmental, probably too judgmental. However, it is hard for me as it is for all of us that she is this way. I've never had a sister and was so thrilled when I married that I would have someone I could actually really call a "sister." I know that my FIL wants to kindle a closer relationship with her, and my son asks for her all the time. My DH seems to want to stay out of it, pretty much. He still hasn't called her. But, I want to be closer to her, and it hurts when she acts this way. As much as I want to be closer to her, I feel that when she does stuff like this I cannot feel like I can trust her enough to be closer to her. I can't help but wonder, "what else is she not telling me? Is she married? Is she expecting twins?" Honestly, I wouldn't even put it past her that she may not be pregnant at all (she never used the word "pregnant") but, rather, she is adopting or even acquiring a stepchild through marriage. I dunno!!!
I know to pretty much stay out of it and play my position -- kep my opinions to myself, yet be supportive. And that is what I will do. AND, I will try not to be intimidating in any way (maybe I should botox my forehead so I will keep myself from raising an eyebrow, lol!).
I always try to sit back and think, " I wonder what she is going through or has gone through?" Be careful not to judge or jump to conclusions until you try to understand that first.
Seems like she didn't go to the family functions because her pregnancy must have started showing and she seems to have wanted to keep her pregnancy mostly private. I thought that was very obvious from the letter she wrote you guys.
1) she lacks social skills
2) she is very private
3) she does not have the 'normal' way of telling people things about her personal life
4) she is just this way
5) don't expect... anything of her. Because, she does not operate or conduct herself, as most people do or assume she should do.
She is this way.
It just is.
5) it is probably not a personal affront to you.
6) not everyone is a warm and fuzzy and cuddly, person.
7) not all people, become BFF's
8) she does not contact people, consistently. So this is just her... being her. Although it is not, what most people do.
9) She obviously, has a different ethos, than the majority. And who knows why. She seems to have been this way all her life. Not just since you married her brother. So, it is not a personal affront.
She is an eccentric, person.
Not behaving the way you think she should.
Again, she has always been this way.
Your SIL sounds as detached from her family as I have been from mine over many years. Your post gives me some surprising insight into 'what the hell' might have been going through various family members' minds, including feelings of a 'right' to information that never occurred to me at the time. So thank you for expressing yourself with such honesty.
And let me suggest what, indeed, might possibly be going on with her, if it is anything at all like my own motivations when I detached from my family. The family I grew up in was pretty dysfunctional, with badly mismatched personalities. We, as a family, were not mentally healthy, and nearly all the lessons I learned about how family members interact were examples of co-dependency, emotional enmeshment, lack of boundaries, neediness, demand, and (shudder) duty and obligation.
I'm sure there was love, but it was tangled in so many uncomfortable dynamics that I couldn't recognize it as having any value by the time I first married at 18, a desperate and secretive move, designed primarily (though I didn't realize it at the time) to get me out of that household. My mother was shocked to learn I was planning to marry, and furious that I had been so secretive. But I had no faith by then that my own needs counted for $#!@, and am pretty sure that had she known about my boyfriend or my plans, she would have fought me with everything she had, which was formidable. Her intent might have been to protect and love me, but to me, it would have been more of the same wearisome thwarting that I expected from her. To my mom, my secret made her feel deeply unloved and disrespected. But I had no way to understand family love as a good thing.
I'm not suggesting that your husband's family is that dysfunctional, but it's possible that your SIL is poorly matched, emotionally, to her family, and is most comfortable with a big separation between her and other family members. She may be by nature a more private person. Or have been more sensitive than most to dynamics of need, obligation, or duty. And those pulls can be exquisitely uncomfortable, the stuff of stress and anxiety.
And there is some possibility that she is not emotionally healthy enough to even understand how her behavior affects other people. I know that my mother was unhappy about the distance I put between us for a dozen years. But my self-esteem was almost non-existent, and so I would not have expected that I was in any way important to her as a unique individual, loved by her as a separate person. I would have understood it then ONLY in terms of escaping her grasping emotional needs and demands.
I hope you will allow that your SIL, for whatever reasons, may simply not "understand" the expectations or needs of the larger family, no matter how legitimate they " may seem to you. I would have been amazed if my youngest sister, the one to whom I am still closest, had ever said to me anything like, "P., I love you and miss you, and would love to get to know who you are now." But I'm not at all surprised to hear from her what she and her family expect from me, or that she asks me for emergency loans, which she has done a few times (only a fraction of which have ever been repaid).
So I guess I wonder whether you'd be willing to look more closely at what you 'expect' from your SIL, from where those expectations originate, and how that might look or feel to her. And when you do make contact with her, do you make a point of wondering about her as a person? She may have a fascinating story about what family means to her, and why. She may see herself as basically invisible to her family, and be amazed to learn that other members have loving feelings toward her. She may not even have 'normal' emotional function; as (for example) Asberger's types or certain personality disordered-folk often don't.
But the one truest thing that I have learned in my 6 decades is that human behavior arises from needs we are trying to meet, whether we're 2, 30, or 70 years old. And that our needs may not even be clear to us. So your anger at your SIL (I'm still marveling at your intensity) arises from some emotional need in you that you may not understand as such.
And her apparent need for secretive behavior? She may not understand why she has that need.
She does not owe you an explanation, for any of her choices. She is an adult. There is really no reason, for you to be offended. She doesn't handle things the way you would. That's her business and choice, not yours. You're wasting energy, on something that you don't need to be.
I would think nothing of it, because it's not personal. You can't expect everyone to behave as you do.
Has it occurred to you that perhaps your SIL is intimidated by you, and wants to be involved in your family but feels that she doesn't live up to the expectations you and your husband may have of her? She may have had self esteem issues and felt like she didn't have anything in common with you either. Now that she is pregnant, perhaps she feels like she is a "somebody" because she is connected to someone and has a baby on the way.
I would take this opportunity to be the change that your family needs and reach out to her WITHOUT judgement or asking her "what the hell is going on with you"!
I can share that my own early experiences with my husband's family and sil's were rocky and very uncomfortable. One never shared anything and didn't talk to me at all. When I would come to their house, she actually would walk away and didn't talk to me...ever! She never even called my husband, he always had to call her. I tried to encourage him to call her but eventually he gave up because he felt he was making all the effort.
Well, long story short, her husband started to vent all his health problems to me the next time we were together at a family event (I am a nurse). I initially just sat and let him tell me whatever he wanted to tell me, and on a whim, I offered to help him figure out his meds or any questions he had about his many doctors before I walked away.
Later that week, my sil called and said, "My husband has a question...." I used that opportunity to answer her questions and asked her "how are you?"; she answered, "I'm Ok" and was quiet, and I said, "No, really, how are YOU doing? I did hear about your hubby's stuff but you have never shared what is going on with you. Tell me what you have been up to..."
It was a short uncomfortable conversation but I ended it with "I really enjoyed talking with you. Thanks for sharing with me.. I hope we get to talk again soon." I followed that call with a card two days later saying the same thing, and two years later, we share one or two calls a week, and I count her as one of my best friends.
You never know what could happen. You may just be the first woman in her life who recognizes your sister in law as a woman who counts as something important. You haven't shared what her relationship with her mother was but sounds like she is looking for your approval.
I am so happy that somehow our family was able to get beyond what was in the past so we could build a future ....I pray that you and your DH can reach out to your SIL, her fiance, and their new baby and start a new tradition in your family.
Good luck, and let us know how things go...
Hugs, B.
There are people who are very private.
That doesn't make them bad or wrong.
Given that she keeps things about herself so guarded, announcing a pregnancy in any capacity might have been a really difficult thing for her to do.
Thus....she said it in writing in case there was a look of disappointment or confusion on your face or you had questions that she might not feel comfortable answering.
I don't know how far back the events she didn't attend go, but it's possible she was pregnant at the time and was not necessarily being rude to you, but avoiding the situation as far as a kid's birthday party or baptism being turned into "What the hell? Pregnant? Who the hell is Dave?"
I mean, that IS your reaction upon hearing the news....maybe she didn't want to deal with that in person.
No offense to you, just saying.
Maybe writing it the way she did was her way of breaking the ice about it in such a way that she was a safe distance from the you-know-what hitting the fan.
It's just a guess.
I don't think you should be offended by this. Let your husband contact her when he's ready. Once she knows you're over the shock and the inclination to pelt her with a hundred questions, she may be more open to talking to you about it. Then again, maybe not.
Wish her well. Maybe this "Dave" guy is really great and she will finally have some happiness and want to be closer to her family.
Just my opinion.
Your sil doesn't think or do things the way you do. Please try to accept her for who she is, even if she is different and you don't "get" her. She has reasons for being the way she is, and she may not understand it herself. But she is reaching out to you by sharing this happy news with you.
If it were me, I wouldn't be offended, I'd feel blessed that she chose to share with me before other family members. Since she is so private, she is taking a risk by trusting you with her secret. Open your heart to her, try not to have any expectations and see if you can have a warm, though unconventional relationship with your husband's sister.
Well SH said it right, but that is very rational and logical and I can't always stop myself from being hurt, upset, mad, etc. when I deal with people like this, even when I know what SH is saying is true!! ;)
I'd keep asking your husband to call and if he doesn't and you feel the urge you should do it. It's weird. Totally. I'd be irritated too. She probably didn't come to the party and the baptism b/c she was pregnant and didn't want to spill the beans. Obviously she's still keeping it secret and maybe she told you guys first b/c she sees you as her best allies. Maybe it was a surprise from this guy she was just casually seeing and now she feels stuck. Who knows, but she's pregnant so you gotta give her a little slack! ;)
makes me wonder what has happened to her in her life to need to be so private.
I feel people keeping their pregnancies quiet for the first three months generally is a smart idea. Not sure why you would send a letter or tell people you aren't at all close with first (was she implying she is closer to ya'll than you inlaws?)
Maybe let it sit a week and then contact her, by carrier pigeon.
I hope "Dave" isn't abusive.
Well, with people like that I ASSUME they're not coming. Then IF they do, we can all be pleasantly surprised. Se didn't say she wasn't coming, but she didn't say she was either.
Maybe she was sick as a dog, maybe her life was in turmoil...who knows?
As for "Dave"....I guess you'll meet him soon enough.
As for the method of contact..a letter isn't so bad....would you prefer a text or FB status update?
And yes, you should call & congratulate her, because now you DO know, and it would be the polite thing to do. This is family, after all! She wouldn't be the first woman to do an about face once she has a child and understands exactly what that involves....sometimes single women are clueless about disappointing kids, etc.
Send her a hallmark congrats card and leave it at that. :P
FYI - you will get advice, even if you put the ever famous "not looking for advice" disclaimer at the end of your post. You're also going to get opinions that agree with you & that don't.
Some people are private, and there's nothing wrong with that. I don't think anyone has an obligation to give the whole family a play by play of their weekly goings on. That's just me. I tend to be a somewhat private person, so I get it. So, she's different than you, but it doesn't make her an evil person.
You stated that she is not close with your DH or yourself. Well, then why would she call him excitedly to tell him about her pregnancy? She wouldn't do that, because they're not close, and because she's private. The letter is not the normal protocol for something like this, but it's the way she was comfortable in making this announcement.
I'm surprised that you just haven't accepted her for who she is, honestly. You will never be close with her, but I don't really see why you dislike her so much. It appears that she hasn't done anything cause it, at least from the info you gave. Okay she ignored & flaked on a get together. Most likely she had a good reason, but she didn't feel like having to disclose her personal life, so she opted for the no communication route. I can think of any number or reasons why someone may not want to explain not wanting to go to a party, honestly.
What I think is that she is reaching out to you, in a manner she's comfy with. You can either run with it, or analyze it to death & hold onto whatever ill feelings you have towards her. My guess is that she's scared & confused about an unexpected baby & is looking for support. Your children will be cousins, and that's a wonderful thing. Start fresh & move forward & give her a call. That's what I would do.
She sounds a bit strange, but some folks are just like that. I am a private person myself...although not to the extent that your SIL is. With my first pregnancy, we told DH's parents when I was about 9 weeks since it corresponded with their annual visit. The next thing I knew, FIL was sending out mass text messages to all of the extended family about my pregnancy. Granted I was happy to finally be pregnant, but I was not ready for wide-spread announcements yet. I was horrified and offended since this really wasn't his news to share.
As you know, you need to just stay the hell out of it. Nag your husband to call and ask her who Dave is and the other stuff.
Some people are just plain weird.
Yes, it's wierd. How does she think that your son will have a cousin to play with if you never see her? I would be a little offended too, like "I'm having a baby but don't bother to congratulate me, it's a big secret." I'd want to offer congratulations but I'd feel like she didn't want me to know. Some people are just odd!
We are all different folks...not a single one of us behaves exactly like someone else does...not do we do things in exactly the same way that someone else expects us to!!
My husbands' family is SO different than I would have expected...we have been married for 42 years and I am STILL surprised at how things go on in his side of the family. We can go YEARS without speaking to some of the family members...and then when we all get together for some reason or another...they act like we are the ones that they absolutely love the most of anyone there!!! My MIL had surgery last year..we found out about it 6 months later!!! They just hadn't wanted to "Bother us ". What the heck?!?!?!?!
I have learned that it is best to just "go with the flow"...why beat my head against a brick wall, trying to change them or trying to understand them. I Just chalk it up to "the way they are"...and move on with my life.
If I were you...I would relax...it is pretty obvious that your SIL has ALWAYS been this way...(Just like it is obvious to me that my inlaws have ALWAYS been this way....they offered to come to our wedding IF we paid for 3 FIRST CLASS round trip airline tickets!! Too bad...they didn't make it to our special day!!).
Do not make any negative comments about her pregnancy or the way she chose to tell you...instead...be positive...upbeat and be pleased that she chose to tell you at all!!! It is obvious that the two of you are probably the only two people that she has confided in...take that as a compliment and a possible building block to making an even closer relationship a possibility.
I would call her...or email...or whatever way you have of getting in touch with her...I would congratulate her on her pregnancy...get excited about being an Aunt...do what you would do if any of your other friends or family was pregnant!!! Don't let her odd behavior change the way YOU react!!!
