As many of you know, my SIL is one of those awful ones you could write a book about; jealous, insecure, resentful, always looking for ways to seek revenge for completely imagined 'crimes' in this silly competitive war she wages over her 'most important role as DH's sister' and therefore in her mind should come before me, DH's own wife...

She endlessly looks for ways to get back at DH and most especially me, and uses BM among other things as a way to do it (invites BM to family get together's for DH's side only of the family, brings BM up endlessly on the occasions she's not at one of those family get together's, rienforces how she and BM and just the bestest of friends and most recently of course, moved in practically next door to her)  all the while she barely acknowledges that I exist, openly excludes me at these same get together's, will even go so far as to rudely put DH & I down in front of others including in our presence, and on and on

DH & I have put up with just a ton of this nonsense over recent years, and have always taken the most non-confrontational, classy and upbeat approach of ignoring it, avoiding being around her/BM, etc... and have always tried to take the high-road

Well, yesterday we had a get together at OSD's for Christmas lunch. Dh & I arrived before SIL, I was making a salad that OSD had requested and generally we were all having a fine time, OSD was even acting somewhat mature and decent herself

And then SIL arrives. Within minutes she literally starts the same old crap

She starts conversation with OSD only while were right there, about BM (whose place she was at the evening before for Christmas Eve) not only excluding DH & I from the conversation but really rubbing in our faces the great time she had and "wasn't it funny OSD when this happened with BM" "and did you notice when that happened at BM's" yada yada yada

I actually wasn't really aware of the conversation because I've learned to simply tune her out, but DH had finally just had enough of this crap and looked directly at SIL and told her to "park it"

Everyone was shocked but the bluntness of DH's statement and tone

SIL stood her ground and said that DH 'didn't tell her what to do" and while I don't recall what was said after that, I do know that it finally shut her up

Yay!

It was tense and uncomfortable after that, leading up to lunch. And during lunch SIL sat there in stoney silence - the rest of us actually had normal conversation about regular old events and everyone else at the table, including DH & I, were able to participate for once! 

After that it ended up being okay, SIL even warmed up to the general conversation a bit, and it was an okay visit

Although that was not the way I would have handled it, I have to admit, that seemed to put a sudden and direct stop to the childish behaviour from SIL!

I would love to think that she might have just gone home and stopped to think about why her brother so directly told her to stop, and maybe consider that her behaviour is not appropriate, but sadly I think that would be expecting too much of her. 

But here's to hoping she will think twice about starting it up again the next time we're all together!