It's my in-laws. Specifically my sister-in-law. I'm not really sure what her problem is... I mean, yes, she has some mental deficiencies (she claims bipolar disorder, but I think it's more of an extreme case of straight-up bitch than anything) and yes, her living situation completely sucks, but she chose her living situation and from my understanding bipolar people have good days and bad days... not just 5 years of bad days.
So what's the problem you ask? Well, after Christmas she stopped talking to me for no apparent reason. I don't call her because she doesn't like it when people call and that's fine, so I tried texting when I had a question regarding some gathering (I can't remember what it was for at this point). No answer. At all. I thought hey, maybe one of her two children flushed her phone down the toilet, so I Facebooked. No answer. At all. At this point I was pretty sure that I was being ignored, but I gave her the benefit of the doubt. It wasn't until we attended a family gathering a couple of weeks later that I was sure she was ignoring me. The lack of greeting, avoidance of eye contact and zero communication was what gave it away. She did throw me a few dramatic sighs when she clearly disagreed with something I had said.
I'd like to throw out that she's also pregnant with child number 3. On state tax-payer funded health insurance. Living in a 2 bedroom apartment in my (our) father-in-law's driveway. Oh, and she's 22. Impressive, no? Sorry, none of that really has to do with the story, I just wanted to lay groundwork for what a stellar person she is to begin with.
A little more back-story because I'm bitter and angry at her right now, I'd like to mention that baby #1 came along when she was 18 and baby #2 when she was 20. She got married to my brother-in-law at 21. The first pregnancy was announced shortly after my husband and I got married. At the time I recall that she was acting oddly and being... well, a bitch... because of the attention we were getting. I guess the baby was her way of directing the focus on to her, but she didn't anticipate that the parents of her teenage boyfriend wouldn't be thrilled that she turned up pregnant. We had to change our plans for our first baby because I was upset over the events because #1 I thought we'd have the first grandchild on my husband's side and #2 I am NOT a fan of teenage pregnancy, especially unwed teenagers. It just sets a bad example in the family that my children will grow up looking at and knowing about and feeling is right. Basically, it's against my morals. I think the baby was a way of "fixing" her relationship with my brother-in-law, which was pretty shaky at the time, but he didn't wind up marrying her until after baby #2 was born.
Anyway, I digress. Back to my story.
So after the obvious silent treatment I was getting, nobody in the family that witnessed it and knows it's going on said anything to her. The response I keep getting is, "she's young and doesn't know any better..." or "she's pregnant and she'll be better once she's back on her meds..." or "well, she's just being herself...". None of those excuses -- and that's what they are -- are good enough. We've been playing this happy dance for 5 years now. Five long and extremely annoying years.
I told my husband that if this witch with a capital B had been around before we got engaged, I would have said no. Had she been around before we put the deposit down on our venue, I would have cancelled the wedding. As it is, I have dreams of leaving the family over it. My husband won't stand up to her and manages to make excuses for her in the name of keeping the peace.
So now, after about 4 months of this crazy silent treatment going on I still don't know what sparked it. On top of that, she unfriended me on Facebook. Classy. Perhaps she didn't think I knew she was ignoring me? She had to unfriend me to make it final? Who knows. I know that Facebook isn't the end of the world, but for her to go that extra mile really says something. It says she has no intention of ending this childish nonsense any time soon and she has no intention of becoming a better person. It tells me that she doesn't care how our relationship is despite the fact that we're sisters-in-law.
I've been doing my darndest to just ignore her and living an hour away makes that pretty easy, but my mother-in-law has this annoying way of trying to host family get-together's twice a month in which case I must come in contact with her. So far I've been just ignoring her. I have no interest in making a pretense of trying to talk to her to be met with a blank stare and silence or at best a 1-word monosyllabic response if my brother-in-law is nearby. No thanks.
Here's the really funny part. I know that my mother-in-law is going to try to tell me to "be the bigger person" and give her another chance because she's pregnant and off her meds, etc. etc., but I've given this chick so many chances it isn't funny. I've turned the other cheek several times. I've forgiven, though never forgotten and it's gotten me nowhere. If anything, she treats me even worse now. Sorry, but I'm done with her. If my husband can't deal with that, he can find another wife. I know it's horrible to let my crazy sister-in-law come between me and my husband, but she really has. He refuses to take my side or be the one person in the family willing to stand-up for me and I can't do it all alone. I just can't.
So if anyone reads this and has made it through the whole thing, thank you. Thank you for listening to me as I ranted -- probably incoherently at times -- about my dysfunctional family.
If you have any advice on how to handle the situation, I'd love to hear from you. Even if it's something totally weird and involves chicken blood and voodoo. All suggestions are welcome at this point, I'm THAT desperate.
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