My Former Sister-in-Law

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sighyoung
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My Former Sister-in-Law

Post by sighyoung »

If there's anything worse that a grifter during a pandemic, it's a family grifter during a pandemic.

My sister-in-law cut off contact with my family after a bitter divorce about a decade-and-a-half ago, and we all accepted that we would never see my nephew again--at least until he grew up. The divorce was really ugly, and she REALLY, REALLY HATED my entire family, and we became pawns in the divorce fight. (She tried to argue in court that my parents were deranged child abusers, which wasn't true.) I felt badly for my mother, who really loved my nephew, but we realized there was nothing we could do, and we moved on.

The only times my former sister-in-law contacts me--which is once every three or four years--is to suck me into some fight between her and her ex-husband. She has never asked about me, my wife, her niece or nephew, and, until last year, my mother. She would only write about herself, or use my nephew as a means of talking about herself.

Anyway, after the pandemic started, and after ignoring my mother for eleven or twelve years, she began sending me strange e-mails asking about my mother's health, saying how much my nephew missed her, and if there were to be a funeral, she would like my nephew to participate in it. It was really, really tone-deaf, and she didn't even preface it with some explanation of why it took her a decade to check in on my mother. Instead, my sister-in-law pretended that I was the one who cut off contact. In the meantime, I checked on Google, and some reality tv show had reported the death of a woman with my mother's name, but it wasn't the same person. But it became clear that she was angling for money, and so I ignored the e-mail.

Mind you, I had helped care for my mother for ten years, and I couldn't visit her in her nursing home because of the coronavirus until her death in December. Additionally, my mother almost died from a series of mini-strokes in late November 2019, and was suffering from dementia, and had no memory of my sister-in-law or nephew by this time. I didn't want her bothered or affected by any of this at all. And my nephew--21 at that point--still had never contacted me.

So, last week, my sister-in-law wrote about my mother again, and I mentioned simply that she had died in December from the coronavirus. (There was no funeral because of the coronavirus. She was cremated, according to her wishes, and I will inter her with my father at another time.) Then she began peppering me with questions about when she had died and where, and had there been a funeral, and demanded to see some sign that my mother had loved my nephew.

I didn't know how to respond, because again, it was pretty clear that she was seeing my mother's death as a payday via my nephew. Additionally, silence from my adult nephew.

After 25 hours, she wrote a second e-mail entitled COMPLETE SILENCE, addressed the e-mail to SiGHYOUNG FAMILY (well, by last name, but specifically her older brother and me), complaining how we had "ghosted" her son, and railing that SOMEBODY should tell her nephew how and where my mother had died, and under what conditions, and to include him in the funeral and "show him some sign that his grandmother loved him!"

So I wrote the following e-mail to her, then blocked her:

X is an adult. If he wants to ask for this information, he can. If he is afraid to, it's not because of anything I have done.

You severed all contact with my mother and the rest of my family after X moved to California over a decade ago. It is not my responsibility to rebuild that relationship. Since you have no ties to the family, you have no right to any information about a woman you characterized as a serial child abuser in divorce proceedings.

Finally, you only contact me when you want to include me in some fight between you and my brother.

This is between you, your son, and your ex-husband. You rebuild that relationship. Leave me out of your fights.

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MrCrowesGarden
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Re: My Former Sister-in-Law

Post by MrCrowesGarden »

That truly sounds awful, Sigh. I think you handled it with grace.

I've had some cousins that I've also cut out entirely from my life, but I also know it's for the best. I don't feel bad about it because their mother divorced my uncle (my dad's brother), and my uncle has been dead for some years now. I thought they would try to crash my mother's funeral last year, and I wouldn't have hesitated to get physical if they did.

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Jocephus
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Re: My Former Sister-in-Law

Post by Jocephus »

agreed, you handled it with grace sigh, per usual.

i feel very lucky that my family, as far as i know, doesn't have these kinds of issues and/or "trouble" relatives, etc.

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G. Keenan
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Re: My Former Sister-in-Law

Post by G. Keenan »

Good for you, sigh. The last thing you need is to be sucked into someone else's personal psychodrama. That she was making weird demands for information related to your mother makes it especially distasteful of her.

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Joe Shlabotnik
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Re: My Former Sister-in-Law

Post by Joe Shlabotnik »

Well done Sigh. I think you handled it perfectly.

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CardsofSTL
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Re: My Former Sister-in-Law

Post by CardsofSTL »

I don't like sucky people.

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heyzeus
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Re: My Former Sister-in-Law

Post by heyzeus »

Good job Sigh. You did what needed to be done, and you were direct but not inflammatory. It's so insultingly tone deaf when a person like that starts making demands and pretending they care so much when, like you said, you were caring for your mother for a decade, then grieving over her loss during these unprecedented and difficult times to lose someone. Then she swoops in and makes herself out to be The One Who Cares and acts entitled to some sort of special treatment.

Unfortunately, I had a similar situation, kind of. I have a cousin through my uncle's second marriage who, unfortunately, has had a lot of personal and drug problems in her life. We didn't grow up together; we don't know eachother well. But over the years, she sends me (and everyone else in our family) messages asking for money in calls or texts that include horrific but most likely made up scenarios. I had to cut off contact.

Bottom line, you did what you had to do to protect your well being by cutting off contact with a toxic person. It's harder than anyone would think, because of the manipulation such people employ. I'm glad you were able to do it.

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