Help. Cosis apparently hates me.

Hello Ladies!

I've been a silent reader but I am finally posting about an issue with my elder cosis because my DH, myself and my PIL are frustrated with her behavior towards me and just trying to find a way to resolve the situation without it creating a long term rift between the brothers. BTW, my PIL only recently became aware of her behavior towards me and it's not because I complained to them, but because my DH was so fed up with her behavior that he finally mentioned it to MIL. Apparently, MIL has had her own set of issues with my cosis but I don't know the details since I don't pry and nor do I care to learn about them. My MIL is livid with the way my cosis is behaving.

Time and again my cosis has mistreated me. Despite this, I always speak to her and BIL respectfully because I don't base my actions on the actions of others. I also never want to stand in the way of my husband and the relationship he has with his brother. Now, over time, my husband has witnessed (even stood up for me) and despite my letting him know that it's her issue with me and that you can't force anyone to love/respect someone unless it comes from within, my husband reached out to BIL and her recently to find out what was wrong but she basically lost her temper at him and hung up. This happened after she began avoiding speaking on the phone with me several times, even during anniversary or birthday or new year.

The biggest fault of mine is that I am not the most talkative person and that I rarely talk/call people on the phone. The reason for this, as I've explained to them in the past, is that the type of work I do doesn't permit me to by the time I come home (often late at night) it's too late to call them as they live in a different time zone hours ahead and they've gone to sleep with their baby. Before marriage, BIL and she had called a couple times but I was unable to have much conversation or call them back at times because I was working double time on two projects where I barely even got sleep. But I have always been respectful towards them whenever we have spoken. And we often speak to them almost every weekend when my husband and I are together at home.

She uses this excuse to this day to mistreat me, ignore me and exclude me. She will largely ignore the good things that I have done, and even go as far as taking some of the good things to twist them around into completely the opposite which are crazy.

She:

• Refuses to speak with me
• Refuses to answer any emails
• Doesn't send me emails and stopped sending pictures of her child (she copies everyone else to those emails except for me, even my husband)
• She poisons the BIL with her irrational thinking and forces him to obey. Sometimes, this translates into BIL saying to my DH that my parents don't do enough whereas hers (who are in India closer to my in laws) send sweets every festival. My parents are straight forward, respectful folks and my father will speak to my FIL every so often. My inlaws have never complained about me or my parents. Fortunately my in laws and DH are competent and sensible — they don't fault my parents or me.
• Expects a formal thank you for every small thing she's done or gift she's given. We've always acknowledged her gifts, but recently their package didn't arrive in time to us despite it having shown delivered on their tracking status. However, as soon as we got it, we called to let them know and during that time, my husband also told my BIL that we hadn't received the package yet. However, she believes that I purposely didn't call her 4 days late… But even I have sent/given them many gifts and given them sincerely and purchased with my own hard-earned money but never expected anything from them in return. i don't understand the notion of formal thanks in family?
• I called her many times since then and she doesn't answer the calls. I even sent her an email to wish Happy New Year and encourage her to speak, especially to work out our problems, and to let her know that if there's anything done that's upset her that I hope she realizes and knows us well enough to understand it was not done so with intention. She basically exploded after having read the email, she and BIL called my husband wanting to speak to him alone and he refused saying that I'm his wife and we can conversate openly. Crazy thing is that she twists even the good things I do into bad and doesn't acknowledge the other good things. She has even convinced my BIL that it was an offensive email. No one, not me, not my DH and not my PIL or anyone else has found any offensive tone or offense in that email.
• She hurled a lot of insults at me and "my nature", even my BIL joined her. My husband was blown away and he tried to defend me but I said let me speak to her because this is her issue with me. She threatened that the relationship between them and me is over. They basically keep faulting me for "being this way because I was raised in US and don't know culture/tradition" but this is not the truth. It's only because of how I've been raised that I am not petty or seeking attention or disrespecting them even now. It's only because how I've been raised that I have not talked back to them and roasted them as I really could have. It's because of how I've been raised that I continue to push my husband to not ruin his relationship with his brother and to remain respectful and that I will do the same. My DH and PIL see this and appreciate this.
• They continue to point out faults in me basically saying I don't respect them as I should respect my elders but they too have not acted "elderly" in the sense of how they treat me or forgive any small mistakes or be supportive.

I thankfully have no issues with anyone else in my DH family, thankfully. Everyone has been wonderful and no one has any issues with me. Only she has issues with me and they are just…nonsense. And I well understand that not everyone will like you and you can't force at. The thing is that it is causing a rift between my DH (who is 150% on my side having seen the situation, and even my PIL see the truth) and my BIL (who disappointingly gets manipulated, even changes the truth in front of her and has his own faults. But I still respect him. As disappointed as my Dh and I am, and my DH is so surprised to see his brother acting this way… but I have defended his brother to my DH saying that I don't condone what they're doing/saying against me but we also aren't aware of their circumstances. I genuine care about his family as if they are my own. I draw no distinction and my PIL and DH see this. Infact, recently my PIL became involved due to my DH and they are really disappointed with my BIL and cosis behavior).

My dilemma is this. They are celebrating their daughter's first anniversary soon and neither BIL or cosis ever invited me. BIL only emailed an invite to some folks, and only emailed my husband, not me. This is a small thing but it speaks volumes because he usually would have included mea nd I could see that he has his wife copied on that email. Despite not having a "formal" invitation, I was the one who immediately booked the flights ahead of time even though my husband is so angry that he doesn't feel like attending. I have said that "no, he's your only brother and he's your family. No matter what they do, we should remain good, true and respectful in all accounts" and thus, I am trying to ensure that the relationship between DH and his brother goes unharmed. I do this because I'm aware of how small fights can lead to a lifelong rift (witnessed something similar happen to others).

I have no idea what to expect and am going realizing that it's going to be an uncomfortable situation. They have never come to visit us after our marriage despite me having invited both of them so many times. I also feel that when the time comes for my own child to be born, they will never come to visit even though my husband and I flew there for their first born. I consider that I will go to their event but not eat anything at their party because I don't know when "the meter is running" with her…because she will try to say that "I came without invitation" and unfortunately I can even see them fussing about "oh, well, she even ate our food" based on their past behavior. There's a fine balance between self-respect and enabling poor behavior. I want to make sure I am doing the best to my ability without enabling poor behavior to continue. I also don't think ignoring it is going to make the problem going to go away.

So please share your thoughts on how you would advise approaching this situation if it were you. What would you have done in my place? How would you conduct yourself if you were to attend this event of theirs without having been given any form of invitation?

Everything else in my life is wonderful. This only bugs me because I want to ensure my husband and BIL keep their relationship intact and because we must go attend our niece's first birthday to give her our love/blessings.

A little bit about me:
I married into the family about 2 years ago and it was a love marriage. I was raised in US but am very understanding and receptive to other folks and cultures. My husband and his family is from India. I'm thankful to I've actually been blessed to have a truly wonderful husband, and great PIL who are lovely, understanding and sensible. My husband and I both work hard and are happy, successful folks fortunate enough to be doing what we love.

I am fairly good at reading people and when it comes to my cosis, I feel from a very deep level that she hates me and has intense issues with me. I'm not sure why my cosis hates me as I've never spoken poorly with her nor have I spoken poorly about her to anyone (I'm not a gossiper) I don't know if it's jealousy or insecurity or what — she has come across as dominating, insecure and controlling. She had been married for 5 years before I came into the family but she never pursued a serious profession until lately — she's been studying for a degree and now she recently had a child. I have tried to be encouraging and supportive of her — even offered her help if she needed. But nothing. None of her actions or mistreatment of me is justified at all…I just can't understand (nor can DH or PIL and we're not sure how to proceed, really) and am trying to remain the best person I can be so I can have peace of mind knowing that I have tried to the right thing on my behalf.

Help and thank you.

 

Thanks for the posts, ladies, and I understand that my OP may have come across as me chasing down someone who doesn't want to speak and I realize that it takes two hands to clap (great quote).

I just need to know that I've done my part and as I said in my OP, I know you can't force love/respect but I need to have peace of mind knowing that I've done my best especially before I arrive to the point of no return (because there is no coming back from there). But I and DH have stood up at extreme points of mistreatment.

There were two things that were driving me trying to contact her.

One was that before marriage and shortly after, she and my BIL tried to call me during a time where work and time zone differences made it difficult for me to connect with them and they, on their part, were trying to "welcome me" into the family. But actions otherwise have all gone downhill from there.

Secondly, I hope you guys realize that this experience and type of relationship is new to me. I haven't grown up around my relatives so I don't have anything to relate this sort of interaction to. I haven't never come across anyone who has taken such an intense dislike or has twisted actions based on good intents into those of bad intent. I don't understand that mentality. My purpose for reaching out to her was to get her to open up, pinpoint the exact issue, and discuss directly with me what the problem is especially because it is affecting the DH and BIL relationship. I don't like to talk behind someone's back or have anyone "speak for me" so that was the intent. I haven't been fanatically calling her, either. More like once every 2-3 weeks unless my DH calls them (which is has not been doing lately either). Lately I and more of an urge to contact her because I was hoping to clear the air between us in the New Year especially before this pending visit coming up.

Believe me, I really want to just "walk away" and "ignore" inside, it didn't feel like that was right answer at this time (given the distance and really all we have to rely on is communication). As I said, there's plenty I could have said back but I'm trying not to have my actions or words come from a place of hate or ego. I've witnessed brothers who used to be close to rift apart because of their wives and I don't want that to happen for my husband and his BIL. However, I do let them manage it — but you're all right. I can't be the only one responsible for keeping the peace but I want to make sure that I did my best to amend things.

What I was hoping to understand is the perspective of what might make someone to take such a strong dislike to anyone and whether any of you had faced anything similar, then how you have or would have dealt with it. They spoke to my PIL after my MIL became aware of the situation and I guess whatever they said to them didn't resonate with my PIL. They found it all to be small petty stuff and nothing to justify this behavior. I guess the answer is that you can't rationalize the irrational.

I have let my DH and PIL know that I will continue to do as best as I can, but I too have boundaries. And if that boundary is crossed and my patience is depleted then there will come a point where I will refuse to engage further.

Thanks, ladies.