When I moved to (European country) boyfriend and I lived with his parents for 8 months, along with our newborn baby. We did not pay rent during this time. We offered and they refused. 

My in laws, though generous, are mean-spirited. His mom is truly unable to understand or care about other people’s needs, and values people only insofar as they boost her ego. His dad has severe anger issues and is openly racist. The only people able to tolerate them are each other and only sometimes (the dad is only home on weekends and they mostly avoid each other during those two days). 

I nodded politely for 8 months straight. As far as I figure it, you’re allowed to spew as much vicious hate from your mouth as you want in your own home. They had no idea I thought they were miserable people and obviously were thrilled to have an open ear for the many things/people they dislike.  

One of those people was my FBIL’s (half brother of my boyfriend) then girlfriend, now wife. I’ll call her SIL. 

Now, I’m of the firm belief that not everyone is this world is smart and beautiful (because those are relative concepts) and that’s okay. SIL is technically morbidly obese. She wouldn’t be attractive even if she were thin. She didn’t go to school past age 16 (normal in European country). These things aren’t cause to dislike someone, but in fact I do dislike her because she acts superior to me. I have an accent and make grammatical errors in her native language, and she might not understand that’s normal when it’s not your first language because it’s possible she has literally never spoken to another foreigner, or she might be racist (she has said racist things about other ethnic groups but not mine in particular). When I say things directly to her, she sometimes responds, sometimes stares at me expressionlessly for 20-30 seconds before moving on as though I said nothing, which is disconcerting. She might also have disliked me because BIL clearly had a crush on me (would stare at me from a distance and smile, blush when speaking to me) although I actively discouraged this. But it seems very likely to me that he’s on the spectrum and has difficultly controlling is reaction to other women and this is probably not an issue particular to me. So that sucks for her but i s not my problem. 

The only time I think it is was fair to criticize her intelligence (or not?) was when their baby almost completely slept through the first 4-5 months of his life and they did not notice it was because she wasn’t producing milk and the baby was slowly starving. This was obvious to me as I was also breastfeeding and I gently mentioned it a few times (which I regret, but at the time I didn’t feel it was my place to be assertive about it). Eventually they took the baby to the hospital because they were sure he was constipated, and the hospital gave them a glycerine suppository and sent them home. It took more tests and another week because someone figured out the baby was malnourished. 

However, BIL was equally, dangerously stupid. Their misplaced self assurance nearly cost their child his life. But it’s clear the medical system also failed them - in European country, midwives visit you regularly after birth and someone should have noticed she wasn’t producing enough milk. 

In any case, the in laws didn’t care much about this because they didn’t care much about the child from this union. They have relentlessly criticized her appearance and intelligence. They have repeatedly stated that they hope BIL leaves her. When he decided to propose to her instead, they were devastated. They couldn’t even manage a “congratulations” when he told them. They lamented that he was forced to propose due to pressure from her family/village culture where unplanned pregnancy = wedding. 

They made repeated snide comments to her face about her weight and occupation (she previously worked as a butcher), like for example commenting that eating meat excessively causes weight gain, or making faces when she took a second helping, buying her fiction books and taking joy in the fact she is unlikely to read them, when they have seen her struggle to read her parenting book. 

Some time after we moved out, I went NC with the in laws. They drove our child without a car seat in their car (after lying and saying they would take a tram) and continue to insist that they did nothing wrong and it is totally fine to not use a car seat. Later when my boyfriend told them I was pregnant with my second child, his mom went on a tirade about how I needed to get an abortion, for literally hours. (I understand he’s also at fault for continuing to debate her and not just shutting this conversation down). 

After other smaller weird shit I just decided it was too much stress for my pregnancy and I was going to talk to them in January (a few months after the birth and after the holidays - since they also complain that everyone is greedy and just wants stuff from them - so I wanted to make sure we got exactly nothing in gifts from them that they can hold against us). 

During this time BIL and girlfriend got married. They now have the only grandchild that they have access to. The in laws have become much much nicer to SIL as a result. This seems to have gotten to her head. 

She sends a message to my boyfriend that since they’re family now (I guess I’m not family because we’re not married) she feels like she can speak honestly with him. She tells him it is WRONG to keep the children from their grandparents! They NEED their grandparents!! Why has he not talked about this issue with tschuessischlampe and told me it’s not okay? This is CRUEL!! 

Boyfriend does not want to deal with this BS. I should have ignored her but did not. 

In my response I told her that of all people, she should be the last person to defend the in laws. That they have endlessly criticized her weight and intelligence and said that they hoped BIL would leave her so they wouldn’t have to see her again. And even though they seem nicer now and are turning their hatred toward me, they can and probably will and probably still are continuing to speak badly of her.
 
Was that out of line? If someone tells you shitty things in confidence, are you obligated to keep that to yourself? 

