i can't stand my sisters in laws

[sara]

I used to be best friends with my now husbands sister we met in collage but I knew him to see him, when I started going out with my husband I asked her permission cause I didn’t want our friendship to be affected. Making a very long story short there is no contact between us now, she make some very bad mistakes in her life and my husband just won’t forgive her, but before this happened I had fallen out with her because in our circle of friends things she said about me got back and I just thought it would be better to stay out of her way,, u know the saying “with friends like that who needs enemies”
After she made these “mistakes” and my husband stopped talking to her she contacted me to arrange a meeting, so I just went along with it thinking everything would sort itself out,, she blamed me for everything and said it was my fault her brother wasn’t talking to her. I told her that I probably could have gotten around him but her attitude was disgusting and I wouldn’t put my very happy relationship in danger because of her.
Now none of his sisters will talk to me, one of them wrote all over my facebook wall so I had to shut down my account.
Our relationship with his parents is strained because of what his sisters talk about around the kitchen table, I try my best but I just hate being stuck in this situation, I now stay away from all their family functions at first my husband use to go without me and bring our little boy with him and I used to encourage this but then my husband just stopped going and I know the blame for this is being placed with me. I used to text thank yous to their phone at Christmas and birthdays when a present was bought for our boy and when I bought presents for their kids I never got the same gratitude so I just stopped all contact with them because It make my life a hell of a lot easier.
My husband and I talked about having another child but I used to always come to the conclusion that why would I put another human life in the mix of all this, but ive just found out im pregnant this should be such exciting news but I just keep thinking about the birth/christening/ and anything else involving them and feel sick in my stomach instead of butterflies! Anyone going through something like this? I love to hear from them

[Ticktock]

Families! Can't live with them, can't lock them in a room full of tigers...

My experience of this sort of behaviour is that it is usually driven by some sort of sibling rivalry, as you said your former friend has made some mistakes in her life, and your husband has shut her out. This has forced the family to take sides, and it is all too often the one who is doing alright who has to make compromises and say sorry to the one who has been badly behaved in the first place.

You obviously don't want confrontation, but the first thing to remember is that you don't have to put up with them moaning behind your back at events. If they can't behave they don't get invited, and I would read the riot act to the parents to make this clear. They are the one of the keys to solving this because this is about their children and they are probably the only one's who can bash heads and sort it out. That is of course if they aren't the source of the problem, I have been involved in a couple of matriarchy's where the children compete to see who is the best, and anything who doesn't meet approval is neatly shut out.

The other key to this is your husband of course, is he really bothered, or will this be you trying to persuade both sides to be good and getting pulled to pieces in the process, as has obviously happened already. He needs to support you because this obviously matters to you, family, any family is important to you and you don't want to have to explain to your kids that one or another person is shut out for arguments which years later are meaningless.

A new baby is the ideal opportunity to get this sorted as you are pregnant so irrational demands that must be obeyed are expected, take advantage, push them all around and blame the hormones.