give give give give give arrrghhhh!

[Guest guest]

ok so I have to vent.

its the time of year of giving right?

apparently.

I just want to complain about my SIL.

firstly i need to outline that my husband, i and our two wee kids live

in the same house - different independent level - of my husbands family.

His parents live here but his siblings all have their own places but

come home for the holidays (still have their same rooms ...how nice!!).

My sil is the obvious favourite in the family. the only girl and the

youngest.

She is 25 and has her own apartment nearby but still has her own room

here with everything in it as it was - basically double of everything

- and the parents paid for it too. ok im digressing, thats not the

point here.

She irritates me for many reasons - (although i do accept and love her

too and have learnt coping mechanisms in the past 4yrs we've been

living here) - she is moody irrational and outright annoying at times

when she is streesed or pmt/pms.

My annoyance is at her lack of giving or caring for others around her

who give so much to her (either visible to her or not at the time)

E.g. We give gifts at xmas, as usual, and this year she got no-one

anything. ok well she gave my dd a small finger puppet. and then said

she would give us all something after xmas when she goes shopping. i

know now that will never happen. my other BIL said the same thing the

year before and after speaking with MIL she convinced him it wasnt

necessary??!!

Now where i come from (not always a good place to start with here on

this board ) giving and receiving should be about the same, someone

at xmas gives you a gift and you give one in return or something of

similar value i.e. your time to look after their kids if they need it etc.

Anyway, basically SIL seems progammed to take take take and im

programmed to give give give but it hurts me when its not

reciprocated. What seems to annoy me the most at the moment is when

she needs something (a tampon, or some paracetamol, antiflam cream)

its taken and often not replaced (i would say NEVER but then that

sounds harsh, but honestly it IS never replaced).

Then when we (my dh and I) need time for a 'date' we dont go to her to

ask her bc it would be a drama (because she has to study for exams or

its that time of the month or shes sick or whatever!!) she is not

willing to give. i cant ask her for anything bc it would be a pain in

the arse and my dh reckons its best not to even go there bc it would

upset her or cause drama (something we both dont want or need) but

arggghhh!!!

ok so its not all sil fault. she has been programmed to be 'special'

the only sibling that gets more gifts at xmas or any at all for her

birthday (my PIL are not big on giving gifts at birthdays, but it

always seem OTT when it comes to SIL's birthday!)

my feelings:

im jealous

im envious

im angry

im annoyed

im sad

and it all comes down to having again tip toe around a female in our

lives (or my life) because she acts like a child and throws tantrums.

now of course shes not all bad. i paint a bad picture because im

pissed off a the moment, tired and sick but arrghhh!! *sigh*

just venting

i know that if i try to have any rational convo with her she will end

up crying and pull in MIL (who is totally passive and wants to always

keep it calm) and then my DH will get pissed with me for just not

leaving it alone etc etc, so I need to get it right in my head and not

think I have to change her or the situation again, which goes against

a bit of what I would like to have. The control of changing something

that I can't is a battle I have everyday!!

any suggestions?

x