Over the years I thought that my sister in law and I had a decent friendship. Not necessarily know all the dirt and still accept each other kind of friendship, but something more than surface level "hi, how's the weather". From overlooking every accomodation made to meet her/her family's needs, waiting 4 hours to celebrate Christmas because she *just* couldn't get out of bed, to a variety of things over the past 10 years – it's been all about her and it's becoming ridiculous.
Add to that my calling her out (re: my miscarriage) and yet another bow out from attending one of our (J, K and I) get togethers, in addition to not responding to any emails, I'm finally getting a good idea of where I stand with her. In relation to sister in law's life, I am inconsequential. I daresay, she may have similar feelings toward J and K, but I can only speak from my perspective. Apparantely, I'm slow on the uptake (that's another post).
I don't want to incite conflict and prefer to just go with the flow, seeing smiles instead of grimaces. I will deal with conflict when it comes, albeit not very gracefully, and would rather just say what needs to be said, get on and over whatever it is. So it is with some difficulty that I accept where I stand with sister in law; I wanted to get to know her more and have "relatable" experiences, etc, blah-blah-blah, but that just isn't going to happen. I will admit that I'm starting to strongly dislike her. With each passing day, I'm finding more faults and things I don't agree with that she does or doesn't do – it's making me mental.
In addition, it's not fair making J and K bend to her/her family's needs. The most recent event was K's birthday party. She requested making cupcakes to bring because her daughter has a peanut allergy. I was fine with it because we certainly didn't want anything bad to happen, but I kept the order for K's birthday cake anyway. Then, 3 hours before the party she said they were sick and did I really want them to come? This pissed me off on many levels:
1. She was bringing the cupcakes – if I hadn't kept our previous order for K's birthday cake, he wouldn't have had anything!
2. She puts it on me to decide whether to willingly subject K to her sick kids! Now, I've reconciled myself to the fact that K is around other kids at preschool and can pick up a million germs while there – that is an unintended side-affect. However, by her asking if I'm okay with her bringing her kids over who are knowingly sick – well what the fuck?! Yes, please bring them over so that I can knowingly and willingly infect my son with god-knows-what.
3. Three hours before the party she decides to call! I really shouldn't be surprised by this – it's quite common for her and her husband to wait until the last minute.
4. On K's birthday, when it should be all about him – it becomes all about her.
I get it now.