Kill 'em With Kindness

OK, I swear this is going to be my last in-law related post...this blog is not going to turn into a rant on my sister-in-law.

But just to close the loop on this whole "issue," after my last posts I did some soul-searching and decided I had two choices: 1) I could let this animosity continue to eat everyone alive or 2) I could suck it up and try to make the best of an annoying situation. Considering the fact that, whether I like it or not, SIL is family and she will always in our lives, I decided to take the high road. My mother always taught me that the best way to deal with difficult people is to "kill 'em with kindness." In other words, be the better person so they can never speak poorly about you (and won't know what to make of your unexpected kindness).

So as hard as it was for me, I decided to take the first step and extend an olive branch by seeing if SIL would like to get together for a playdate with the kids. I didn't tell DH I was doing it because I wasn't doing it to "prove" anything to him or make him feel like I was doing it for credit.

To make a long story short, SIL seemed interested, but in the end flip-flopped over several days and finally bailed-- not by telling me directly, though, but by sending her father (my FIL) with a message that she wouldn't be able to get together on the date we had finally settled upon after she had already changed her mind several times. And there's been no communication since (she wasn't at our standard Friday night dinner this past week). So I'm sort of in limbo...do I take this as a hint that she doesn't even want to try to get along? Do I wait for her to come back and pick up the conversation to attempt to reschedule? Her big trip and our vacation is coming up so I'm just leaving it alone for now. When we all get back work will get busy for her and the kids will all be back in school (her kids are in school five days a week) so there's really no chance to get together. I guess maybe that's the way it'll end.

And now back to your regularly scheduled program...