Infertility is heartbreaking for anyone who desperately wishes to become a parent. But while everyone grieves differently, lashing out at others with children or mistreating the children themselves is not an acceptable response.
A parent tired of their sister-in-law's behavior around her child turned to the "Am I The A**hole" (AITA) subReddit for feedback.
Issues_infiritl_3697 asked:
"AITA for telling my sister-in-law (SIL) to leave the group chat if she can’t handle seeing pictures my kid?"
The original poster (OP) explained:
"This has been going on for like 5 years, and I feel like a d*ck."
"My SIL has been struggling with infertility. Before people get on my a** for saying she struggles with infertility, she has an actual diagnosis. She’s known for a long time that having kids naturally would be difficult. I believe she found out in high school or college. My brother has been tested and doesn’t have this issue."
"She is married to my brother, and they both want children. Unfortunately, it has not happened. Around 3 years ago, she had a miscarriage around 4 months in. This has been very hard for her."
"The issue is that she doesn’t want to see anything related to kids. I understand why, but it can be frustrating. For example, she thought it was cruel of me to post photos of my newborn daughter in the family group chat. I told her I would be more mindful because, at the time, she had just experienced a miscarriage around the same time my daughter was born."
"But I had just spent 16 hours in labor and more than 24 hours awake when I sent that. She wasn’t on my mind at all. My mind was telling me my family needed to know that the baby was born in the easiest way possible so I could go the f*ck to sleep. So single text in the group cat vs sending over 20 texts to different family members."
"My daughter is the only kid of the family so far."
"At family events, she ignores my kid. My brother says she just can’t since it is a painful reminder, she is being a bitch about it. If I walk over with my daughter she will straight up walk away.
"She refused to go to any of my kids milestones, so for her birthday my brother came and she didn’t come. She asked me last year if I could not bring my daughter to Christmas."
"It was a text. If she said that in person or on a phone call, I would have lost my sh*t. Also, I was at work and could not lose my sh*t. It was just sent to me. I ended up screenshotting it and dealt with that issue after work."
"My mom shut that one down. The Christmas one pissed me off. My other SIL is literally pregnant right now, and the baby will be born around Christmas. More kids are joining the family."
"I doubt the baby will be at Christmas since fresh out of the oven, but my point stands. That will be interesting. I wonder if she will be better with the new kid…"
"I think part of the issue is that I gave birth to my daughter like two weeks after she had the miscarriage. So I think my kid reminds her of the miscarriage."
"I talked to her once about this, because she is kinda treating my kid like the plague. She ended up crying, and my brother was mad at me. I have talked to my brother more times than I can count, and it comes down to she is having a hard time."
"It’s fall, people have been doing fall activities this whole month. Yesterday people in the family group chats were giving pictures of what they did. Like pictures of apple picking, pumpkin carving, and so on. Everyone was doing it. My sister-in-law and my brother had sent pictures when they went to a local farm."
"I sent three pictures of my family and I at a pumpkin patch. My daughter was in the pictures. This photo dump of everyone is not really common. It started because my mom showed off a pie she made."
"This is the first time I have sent pictures in the group chat since my daughter was born."
"I got a call from my SIL asking not to post pictures of my kid in the family group chat. I had enough and told her no. That if she has too much trouble seeing pictures of my kid, then she can leave the family group chat."
"She hung up and my brother is pissed at me. He told me I made her cry and I told him that isn’t my problem."
Redditors weighed in using the AITA voting acronyms:
- NTA - Not The A**hole
- YTA - You're The A**hole
- NAH - No A**holes Here
- ESH - Everyone Sucks Here
- INFO - more information needed
Redditors decided the OP was not the a**hole (NTA).
"NTA. Your sister-in-law needs professional psychological help." ~ EndielXenon
"Exactly. Reading the story, I went from SIL needing a bit of understanding, being unreasonable, going full a-hole, to finally, she really needs professional help higher than the Reddit pay grade. Still NTA." ~ tango421
"Yup. I desperately wanted to be a mum more than anything in the world, and unfortunately it was not to be ... and I am now of an age where it will never happen. I spent DECADES feeling a horrible, almost physical twinge of envy and grief every time someone I knew had a child, even long after I thought I had come to terms it."
"I completely understand how that kind of grief can bring you to your knees."
"But I never EVER took it out on anyone. If I needed to express my grief, I cried privately to my mother or a close friend. If I needed space, I took it. But I never made any child in my extended family, or their parents, feel anything but loved or supported (and I meant it, because why on earth would I want my pain to hurt an innocent child?), because they hadn't done anything to me, circumstances had."
"I have so much compassion for SIL, but she is being unkind at this point, and that's not okay. She needs professional help to cope. She deserves THAT support, for sure." ~ Sorry_I_Guess
"I hear you. I also wanted to be a mom all my life and it never happened/can't happen now for me either. There are times I've been envious of my sibling and their 2 kids, or of my friends who've had 1, 2, 3, 4, or even 5 kids."
"But I've never told them I'm envious or treated their kids as plagues or non-entities. I've tried to find as much comfort as I can in being the adored auntie who spoils the kids and then sends them home. And when I can't manage that, I keep it to myself; maybe not the healthiest thing to do, but at least I'm not dumping it on someone innocent."
"This SIL definitely needs professional help. And I think the brother (her husband) does too. He's probably also struggling with grief at his wanted but unrealized desire for fatherhood."
"It's commendable that he has shown up solo for his niece's events, but now that she's getting old enough to start noticing what's going on around her (and that her aunt avoids being around her) he needs to do something else/more." ~ Pleasant_Prize_464
"Agreed, sympathy is one thing but being rude to a child and trying to pretend like they do not exist is frightening. As a parent please address this ASAP as I would be in fear for my child with this behavior." ~ Next_Toe_U
"It probably isn't just the SIL. It's like-minded people who share her infertility issues who feel the entire world should revolve around their issues. That every family member should consider their devastation before anyone or anything else, including an innocent child."
"Rather than they themselves doing the work necessary to deal with their emotions about their infertility. God forbid they be accountable for their own emotional needs and do the work themselves." ~ CommunicationGlad299
"Agreed, and OP's brother needs to help SIL get help! By the sounds of this, all he's doing is making excuses for his wife, even when she's basically trying to ostracize his niece from family events."
"Asking a parent not to post pictures of their kids in a family group chat is honestly a wild request by itself. That's basically what group chats are for." ~ Ace201613
"At this point the SIL's emotional state could be interfering with her ability to conceive. The interesting thing is, if they adopt, that may break the logjam. I've seen it happen. Pressure it off. Now it 'just happens'." ~ illegitimate_Raccoon
"As someone who also lost a baby at 16 weeks, I didn’t expect the entire world to revolve around our loss." ~ Pwachhh
OP nor their child are to blame for the sister-in-law's situation. If she can't be around a child, as an adult, she needs to remove herself, not keep taking things out on the child.
