What will be your reaction?

Priya16 · Apr 6, 2010

Dear Friends,

I have this situation and I don't know what will be best way to handle it and I am looking how other people react to this situation and trying to understand the dynamics of a particular situation.

We are 3 sisters and one brother. I think for the sister after the marriage they will be become more buddies compared to brother. So all 3 of us (sisters) communicate well.
My elder sister and me live in USA and second sister and brother lives near by one hour driving distance.
Since we are here we don't expect anything from my brother and SIL like normal formalities, which typically all people fallow in India especially on the event of childbirth and other things, which brothers will take care of it.
But my second sister had some issues with my SIL in case of formalities and they both have some clashes before.
My elder sister and me don't have too much communication with SIL at the same time we just maintain cordial relationship.
This is my feeling on her. She just maintains kind of ok relationship with us just because she expects something from both of us all the time.
There are the times where I will send more gifts to my SIL than my own sister just to maintain cordial relation with her. Other than that I don't have any other feeling about her.
Now the current situation is my second SIL in-laws died recently and my SIL nor even called her nor visited her. My elder sister and second sister were hurt badly with this and they said it was human curtsy to visit people who are in trouble and I would do same thing even for my neighbor too.
My mother is not in picture at all because she is such an innocent and don’t know how to handle lot of things, which goes around her.
Here are my questions:
Is sisters do support each other when one person is in trouble and hurt by SIL actions?
Do I have to change my relations with my SIL? Most of the times I will try to be nice with her irrespective of her actions because I only visit her once in 3 or 4 years or talk once in 3-4 months.
Right now my brother and father have a good understanding each other. If my fathers needs something and calls my brother, he would be there for him.
Do we have to ignore this and move on just because of my father and brother relationship?
I am not sure how other people reaction for this kind of situations.

Thanks,
Priya

Gooseberry · Apr 6, 2010

Priya16 said: ↑

Do we have to ignore this and move on .....
Priya
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Priya, We just need to move on. Really, you cannot do much here. If you do anything like talking about this to your SIL,brother or even your parents then it will only cause friction in the relationships.
We all understand your sisters' hurt condition but if you bring it up with your SIL, she will have her own story to justify her indifference shown.
So, better leave it as it is and move on. You maintain your relationship as it is now with your sisters and your SIL and thats all you can do.
We cannot be responsible for how others act. Can we?....NO!!
Can we talk to them especially relationships like SIL,MIL,FIL,BIL and change them? The truth is NO!!
So, if I would have been in your shoes, I would have felt bad thinking how my sisters feel but would never bring it up with them on my own neither with my brother. And never reacted based on this with my SIL either.
We have to just swallow somethings no matter how bitter they are.

Good luck!

BeeAmma · Apr 6, 2010

Priya,

Let it go. We cannot expect people to behave as per our wishes all the time. When we let bitterness brew within us, we will hurt ourself more than the other person. It is in your self-interest to ignore the episode and move on.

Foundlove · Apr 6, 2010

Priya,
It all depends on your opinion.I think being indifferent; just wait and watch.
My opinion is I would stick with my sister only if I think she is right.Other option instead of fretting just pick up the phone ask your SIL and brother directly.

Sorry couldn't help more.
FL.

Priya16 · Apr 6, 2010

Thanks Gooseberry,BeAmma,FoundLove.

As FoundLove mentioned may be I need to wait and watch.It just happen recently and its very hard to move on.So I will just wait and watch how things will turn around though.I don't have any need to communicate with my SIL right away.

I do agree we can't change someone’s mind.
My SIL acting indifferent to my second for many years now and I ignored lot of times saying to my second sister that ignore and all these pretty things like not inviting second sister for her sons birthday and calling all her people.
The only reason I can see that my second sister family is not well off. Me and my elder sister are financially ok and we send gifts to them and also sometimes we help my brother financially. I believe because of this reason she behaves well with us.
Suppose if we were in situation like our second sister then the situation would have been the same.
MY SIL enjoys her sister company and parents company all the time. Most of the times her parents live with her and she visits very often her sister.
She doesn't have anything to loose overall.
But for my second sister, we both live here and my brother doesn't invite her to stay in there house even for holidays and my parents visit both of us often. So second sister feels she has no family to take care of her in hard times.
I talked to my father about this and he came to know that she didn’t visit my sister that her mom has to give her something (some custom which we are not aware of it and it’s not there in our family), some kind of sari things before she visit my second sister. I believe it’s kind of made up thing but atleast she should have given a call.
I didn’t bother for many things, which happened before, but this was a major thing to show any courtesy for any human.
Calling and talking to my brother will be of no use. Because there marriage was a love marriage and they both married at very young age even before the sisters marriage (elder than my brother),So I feel them as irresponsible persons.
The truth is my second sister in-laws committed suicide both of them because they have some issues with there grandson.(There daughter was died and they raised there grandson for 25 years with lot of pampering and that guy was giving lot of trouble to them because of that they did that).
It’s really hard on me and on my second sister family and all of us but I will wait and see how my mind will turn into.
Only concern,I don't want to do any injustice to my brother and he is kind of ok and we never complain to him about the SIL.So in this battle is my brother get hurt?

shrutidunwoody · Apr 6, 2010

I think in this situation you just have to let go. Dont bother yourself much about it. You said that your second sister and your sil had clashes before thats the reason they are not getting along properly. your sil should have called your sister but since she didnt call you just leave it. Dont think why they are not talking etc. I personally dont talk to my sil that much, neither is she that much interested in talking with me. Whenever she calls , my dh talks to her nicely and whenever my sister calls me i talk to her. Neither of us bother each other as to why we are not talking to each others sisters. In this kind of situation you just have to remain cool. Dont call your parents and tense the situation. Just give each other space and dont stress yourself and feel bad.

Foundlove · Apr 7, 2010

Dear priya,
What I can add is please call your second sister and reassure her that you are there for her.She does not feel lonely.

Second of all why help your brother and send expensive gifts to them if they don't deserve it.Send it to your sister from now on wards.

Don't bother about this too much.I am very sorry to hear about your sister's in laws though. Let their souls rest in peace.

Take Care.
FL

kinjal · Apr 7, 2010

Priya,

There are so many ppl around us like your SIL who respect only those ppl who are richer than themself and can help them financially.

We can not expect them to change their behaviour. This is how they are.

If i were in your situation i would not discuss anything on this topic to brother/father/mother.

I will try to provide her emotional (or whatever support she need and i can provide) support in her hard time and would suggest her not expect things from SIL. So that they both will have atleast cordial relation as well as my relationship with brother and SIL is not affected.

ShilpaMa · Apr 7, 2010

Priya, I've seen indifferent people in my life too, their reason being:
1) They dont know how to react or console a person if their near & dear ones are dead or tragically end their life... they choose to remain silent instead of blurting some wicked vocab.

2) They look at life with materialistic gain and never invest in a relation which shall never give returns of their desire.

3) They're terribly upset with that person for a genuine reason or a cooked up story.

If I were you and at a freindly note with my bro n SIL then will give a call to them and tell them hey boss give a quick call to sis or mother and mention this positive line or wish them... and he does so and thanks me at a later stage cos many a times he doesn't know how to react or forgets events.. and my SIL need not always carry the burden of expectation.

relations become a battle if you look at them with expectation.. even basic ones...
Regarding her positive orientation towards people who are well off and are always filling her with goodies is a normal human behaviour or maybe a weakness.. very few have a even heart or matured attitude towards the less prvileged... does it make a big difference to you if this is the only reason she's pally with you? Whats the final motive of life... to live in coordial relation if you can afford to give away goodies or harp dismay for events that dint happen directly between the two of you :idea?

Priya16 · Apr 7, 2010

Thanks Foundlove,shrutidunwoody,kinjal,ShilpaMa and your replies is lot to me.
This forum is very good to distress our self and get emotional support from others.

Shipma,

I believe my SIL attitude is the second case

2) They look at life with materialistic gain and never invest in a relation which shall never give returns of their desire.
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If I would know that she didn't call before then I would have done something like calling my brother and SIL and checking with them. But it's already late and I came to know very late.

I am not really an emotional person but on other hand my sister is very emotional person and she gets hurt for lot of things that happen around us in day in day out business.

But my sisters feels, see she is doing all these things to me and you guys are not concerned about me and you still go and talk to her. That’s what her feeling.

Me and other sister give lot of emotional support to her and we do things which in our hands. But sometimes, some situations are very difficult to deal or handle.

Anyhow the amount I communicate with SIL is very minimal but at the same time I don't have any complaints on her too.

When I visit India, since SIL and brother live near to my parents house, she try to accompany me in all the shopping and that's what irks my second sister. So how nicely she is doing all these and she never ever bother about me.

Indeed a difficult position.
Thanks you guys for all your words.I think I can just went out here but in practial it's difficult to handle this situation.
May be I can just reduce my little bit my nice behaviour with her and don't check with her what she wants from here (gifts).