I've been married to my husband for a little over two years. When I initially met my SIL, let's call her Dawn, we got along pretty well. We're very different people with different interests, so I knew from the beginning that we'd never be close friends. Still, we'd go out to yoga together, lunch, etc, a few times a month. She'd join us on vacation, family gatherings, friends events, etc. Never had a problem with her.
Dawn lost her job two months ago. At the time she was living with a roommate and could no longer afford her side of the rent. My husband and I have a fairly large house, so he offered to let her stay with us in the basement for small rent fee. I was in agreement because I got along with her and wanted to be accommodating.
After she moved in, things started to go down hill.
It started by her NEVER locking the front door when she left. My husband and I had a talk with her about the importance of locking the door. We live in a safe upscale neighborhood but it's pointless to leave the door unlocked when you're not home. We both felt very uncomfortable about this and Dawn agreed that she'd lock the door from now on. That lasted about three days. We asked again, she ignored it. Finally we installed one of those self locking deadbolts because she refused to compile with our wishes. Now she talks about how "annoying" it is.
Since she had a lot of stuff from her previous apartment, she asked to move some of her kitchen stuff upstairs. We saw nothing wrong with this since she's living here and enjoys cooking, and it would be unfair to expect her not to use her own stuff. Once we agreed, she went through our ENTIRE kitchen and rearranged EVERYTHING. She took out some of our appliances, claiming that we "never use them" and boxed them up into our garage. I finally stood up to her and told her that the dishes, cups, silverwear, etc, are to remain where they are. She complained that "well that's not where they're suppose to go in a house." My husband was also fed up by this behavior and finally told her to leave things be.
To this day, we find things missing. My husband likes to fish and this weekend he couldn't find his flaying knifes because guess what, Dawn moved them to the garage because she thought "we never use them." I'm not even sure what's where anymore.
We offered to put her boxed belongings in a storage space in our basement but she complained that there "is no room" (there is, just stuff needs to be moved around) and how she needs access to the stuff or whatever. Our basement living room how has various boxes scattered about, making the space unusable. We put a lot of our own stuff in storage to accommodate her. We're all busy with work so I understand that unpacking and rearranging is a slow process but her refusal to store things is just creating a mess.
Oh yeah, and she also threw away all my food in the refrigerator while I was on a business trip, and continues to do so every time I'm out of town. I literally came home last weekend to a refrigerator with nothing but butter and condiments. She claimed that it was all expired, which is bullshit because things like my unopened protein shakes were missing as well. Even still, you don't just throw shit away without permission. I spoke to her about it and she said "you should always by fresh ingredients" or some other bullshit.
Recently one of my cats had a UTI. We don't let the cats in the bedroom or guest rooms because they're shedding but Dawn is ok with letting them in her room. Apparently my cat with the UTI was peeing on her dirty laundry (she has dirty laundry everywhere in her room and ironically complains to me about how our house is dirty). I took my cat to the vet immediately. He's on antibiotics and has used the litter box ever since. I apologized to Dawn and explained that he had a medical condition that was being promptly taken care of.
Dawn won't let it go. She continues talks to me cat by saying "you're such a bad kitty, peeing everywhere" in front of friends and other family members. It's been a month since the situation was corrected but she brings it up EVERY TIME we have someone over. I've had my cats for eight years and they never once have purposely peed on something. Both my husband and I have explained this to her but she won't quit. I'm pretty sure now everyone that comes over thinks that my cats just pee everywhere. She even points out water droplets on the kitchen floor and immediately thinks they're cat pee and doesn't hesitate to tell EVERYONE around her. I finally snapped at her last night because she was discussing "theories" about why the cat peed in her room. She's been ignoring me since.
I admit that was a big rant. I'm just so annoyed and have no one to talk to about this. I've discussed some of my frustration with my husband, who agrees with me on everything, but she doesn't listen to either of us when we discuss our concerns. I don't want to be constantly complaining about her to him so I mostly just keep it to myself now.
Luckily she works and goes out all night so we don't see much of each other, but the frustration is really starting to eat away at me. What can I do? I want to remain cordial because we all live together but this behavior is so sickening to me.
tl;dr: SIL moved in and her petty behavior is driving me insane. I want to be civil, but my discussions with her are ignored.
Submitted May 26, 2016 at 01:01AM by totalcatlately http://ift.tt/1saxiyW relationships
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