I don't know if this is the most appropriate place to post this discussion or not, but I could not find anywhere else to post it. My in-laws are driving me crazy. My husband and I ,as well as our brothers and sisters, have all gotten married and had our first children over the past 4 years. We all love our children very, very much....the thing is, it seems like ever since they were all born it has just created this intense sense of constant competition between all of us. I don't know, my husband and I may be the only two who notice it. Things really aren't like this on my side of the family. I have toddler twins who I love more than anything, and my sister has a beautiful one year old. We go places and do things together with my mom and everyone, and we have fun and always enjoy our time together. Things are much different with my husband's side of the family. His brother and his wife have a little girl around the same age as my twins...about 6 months younger. Before our kids were born, we all got along great. We went places together, hung out together on weekends, everything. Ever since the kids came along, somewhere along the line we have just became two couples with absolutely nothing in common other than the fact that the husbands are brothers. My husband and I constantly get this vibe from them that they are competing with us and trying to "out-do" us on everything we do. And the really frustrating part is, they always do end up out-doing us!! We got married first, then when their wedding came along it had to be bigger and fancier. We bought a house first, then when they did it had to be better. I was "in the spotlight" for a little while when my miracle twins were born...but then 6 months later their daughter was born. They have and always will have MUCH more money than we do, so when their daughter was born they made sure to have the most extravagant things for her..since they knew our twins' things would be very basic since we don't have much money anyway, plus having to buy everything double....thus once again taking us "out of the spotlight". Don't get me wrong, I am not in constant need of attention....but if someone is going to deliberately try their hardest to be better than me, well that really gets under my skin. I don't know why I let it bother me so much, but I do. Every aspect of their life is better than ours. Everything works to their advantage. They are the couple who, when at a restaurant, they waitress will forget to charge them for their dessert...while we are the couple who is always charged twice for something. It just seems like thats the ways things happen for us and them....all the time. You know the saying...the rich get richer...well thats how I feel with them. Not to mention the fact that my sister-in-law is a teacher...so she is in constant "teach mode" around their two year old...so she has become this 23 month old "whiz kid". I feel like I teach my girls what they need to know for their age level...and they are very smart..but every time we are around my niece she has learned something new that I haven't even thought of beginning to teach my kids yet. I know that all kids and parents are different, and I know that I'm a good mom...but I just feel like I can't get ahead and everything I do is wrong. Or "out-done" by my brother and sister-in-law. She is also one of those people who don't care what they say, no matter who gets mad about it. Believe it or not, none of us have ever argued face to face. I don't know if she does these things to make us mad or if she just has no clue. I know we should talk about it but I'm one to not want to rock the boat. I'm not good at confrontation. I'm just curious if anyone else has had similar situations with in-laws. My husbands parents are great...oddly enough they are not the in-laws that I have a problem with. It's my husband's brother and his wife. I guess I'm just so frustrated, for one reason, because their daughter is just so darn well-behaved that it is sickening. She is even potty-trained at 23 months.(even though they have been working on it since she turned 1!!! yeah don't get me started on that one). Seriously though, I have never seen the girl hardly cry let alone throw a temper tantrum or cause a scene. Everyone tells me, oh it just seems harder for you since you have two two year olds...and I know that but sometimes I don't think a lot of people do. I feel like people look at me like, why can't your toddlers be well behaved like all these others?? People who have never had twins, triplets, or more just will never understand. Even those with children of different ages...its not the same. I just feel like people are thinking, well that doesnt' make any difference that they're twins they should act the same as this two year old only child. Well that is not the case. Another thing is, I know that it is natural for a mother to be more drawn to her own side of the family. But my sister in law just has this complete disregard for me, my husband, and our kids. It really makes me sad. Sometimes it's almost like she doesnt' even consider our kids to be her daughter's cousins. They are so close in age, they could be such good friends..and they get along great when we are together but anymore it seems like they only get to see each other once every couple months....and they are ALWAYS having get-togethers, going out, etc...it just hardly ever includes us. And we only live 10 minutes apart!! But of course it does include her sisters, nieces and nephews from her side of the family. Am I being irrational to think that she should spend more time w/ us and want our kids who are cousins to grow up together?? It's not even just that....sometimes she just makes the rudest comments...and I don't know if she does it deliberately or if she even realizes it. Like I said, we've never argued with each other, but it seems like she's almost trying to passive aggressively get under my skin. Which she is. I just can't figure her out. One day her daughter had on an outfit that I had just coincidentally bought the same one for my girls. I told her that and told her that I really liked it. I thought it was a really cute outfit. Anyway, we went on doing whatever it was we were doing. Later on we were eating lunch and her daughter had spilled something on her shirt. My sister in law looks at her and says, "well good thing that's not one of your better outfits." Now I know that you're probably thinking thats stupid of me to be mad about that...but to me that's implying that she looks at my definition of "cute, good clothes" as being her definition of "play clothes". My husband and I used to live in a not so great neighborhood. It wasn't terrible, we had never had any problems there and felt moderately safe. One evening my sister in law and her husband were visiting us (rare occasion) and she needed to go out to get something from their car. She told her husband to go to the car w/ her (which was about 10 feet from our door) because she didn't want to get kidnapped on her way. Come on, are you kidding me? It's that constant I'm better than you attitude that annoys the living daylights out of me. Well anyway I will stop rambling on...I think I just needed to get a lot of this off my chest. If anyone has any advice please let me know.

I understand how you feel. We bought a house with my husband's cousin. Its a good size, nice house. But his cousin's girlfriend is so competetive about EVERYTHING. Anything anyone here does, she has to do the same only better. The funny thing is, she doesn't have a lot of money (she works at McDonalds). She puts her image before her sons needs. She bought a new entertainment center before getting him a new car seat (after he turned one). She put gold jewelry on him before worrying about him having a crib. Anytime I buy something, she goes out and buys the same thing (i.e. I bought a nice $100+ knife set, two months later she bought one too...my husband and I guessed she would within three months..hehe). The one thing for me is that when she moves my things to put her stuff instead or she puts things everywhere without asking, we have had "house meetings" about it and have made agreements only to have her break them. We agreed to switch floor cleaning or the kitchen and the downstairs bathroom/laundry room-which happenes to be close to our living room. She stopped cleaning the bathroom floors so I stopped the kitchen floors after talking to my cousin-in-law about it a few times. Now there is a note on the frige about keeping the floors clean...blah blah blah. So I make sure that I don't pay any attention to the floors, if she wants "ownership" over them, she can have it and be the sole cleaner of them. We live in a house not a museum. Everything is about image for her, putting her son second to cleaning. She had even locked him in his room because he wouldn't stay in one place while she cleaned, for as long as 30 mins. What I have started doing is logging everything that she does, things we have made agreements on, or things of mine that get moved etc, on the computer. If I hear a complaint about me from my husband's cousin, I will print it out for him to read. I am not saying that is right for you since you don't live with them and have to deal with them making comments about you or abusing your things. What I feel you should do since you are not sharing a home is just forget about them. You are letting it bother you too much. Just be there when they invite you. Otherwise, don't bother thinking about them or letting them get to you. I know its easier said than done, but you are letting them control how you feel more or less. Just consider yourself lucky you dont live together ;-) As for me, I hope that soon we will be done with this. However the way the housing market is now, we cannot sell the house. We have to refi and then figure out who stays here and who is moving out. I just wish my cousin-in-law would tell her to leave, she is making rifts in his family and even he doesnt like her and only stays for their son (thats what he told my hubby).

Momoftwins,
As someone who deals with these kind of issues professionally and as a parent and spouse, I want to address some of your concerns. Hopefully you can take from this something that might help you. Most women of a certain age have encountered if not this problem, something similar, as I have. Here are my pearls of wisdom:

1. Have you seen the bumper sticker, "Thinking it does not make it so"? We have the tendency to think that what we are telling ourselves has to be the truth. Our thinking can be very distorted.

2. Maybe you are jealous of her. After all, she lives in a bigger house, good job, smarter child, etc. I am not saying these things to upset you, but you are letting the envy get in the way of your relationship and it is distorting your perception. Let these things resonate with you-face them and accept them. I know women are competitive with each other, but it is to our disadvantage that we are.

3. She had her wedding, bigger and better. That does seem as if it was in reaction to your wedding. So what? That might have had something to do with competing with you and maybe not. Not everything is in reaction to you and yours. Was your wedding what you wanted? If so and if you felt good about it, you would not care what she had. Do you like your home? Are you happy? If you are, then comments about the neighborhood should not bother you. Face these internal demons, if you will.

4. What is the relationship with your husband and his brother? This could be at the core of the problem that you might need to address with the dh. Women have the tendency to deal with the relationship issues. It could be a hubby family issue at the core.

5. My ultimate advice is this: she might be jealous of your marriage, the fact that you know you can handle twins, etc. etc. Ignore the snipes, and be kind to her. You don't have to love her, hang out with her, she does not have to be your best friend. I know we want people to like us, but I think that is not always possible. Deal with the jealousy within, be kind to her so you don't have to feel guilty about anything, and talk to your dh about your feelings. Be careful about attacking the brother in law and taking snipes at the sister in law. And finally, don't let this conflict dominate your life, you will get through it. It is how you do that that will determine how good you feel about yourself. Ultimately, that is all we can control. Good luck!