AITA?
AITA- I (F24) am in a long term relationship with my boyfriend (M24). To describe our relationship, it is nothing short of perfect… but there’s a catch- his family. I will keep the detail minimal for the purpose of keeping this anonymous so bear with me. His family is very ethnic and, well, I’m just American. No one told me that ethnic background plays a HUGE part in their identity and it has created many hurdles for me. The biggest hurdle to jump has been the sister-in-law (F28, also same ethnicity) that just recently married into the family.
Everything started off fine… so I thought. I met sister-in-law (who I will call Sarah) when she was still the girlfriend. I thought we kicked it off really well in the beginning, although she did act very strange. She is super enthusiastic and coined the phrase “my friend” with me - which at first I thought was really sweet. Then, if it were anyone else around the four of us (Sarah, boyfriend’s brother, boyfriend, and me) she’d have crying fits. For instance, we hung out with their cousins and Sarah cried in the front of the restaurant for 45 minutes before joining us. That evening I approached her with an apology if I did anything wrong and she responded “oh, I just had a bad day” but my boyfriend talked to his brother (Tim) and Tim said it was because I didn’t compliment Sarah…
My reaction: ??????????? Because what??
From that day forward she talks POORLY about the cousins we were with, but I am to think that Sarah and I are on good terms…
Life goes on and so does the behavior, but it multiplies especially when they got engaged. Every family function there is, she pulls Tim to a private space to ‘talk’ to him while in tears. I really didn’t catch onto any of it because I thought ignorance is bliss. The major red flag appeared when we went out of state to a family member’s wedding. The entire trip they avoided all of our invites for meals, car rides, activities, and so on… they didn’t even sit we us on the plane ride. The entire time we were at the wedding she dragged Tim underneath the staircase in the reception hall to cry to him. Then when she was all done crying, she raced around the venue taking pictures of every decor for inspiration for her own wedding. I couldn’t shake the feeling of guilt because I thought I did something wrong.
When we made it back home, my boyfriend talked to his brother to see if everything was alright… it wasn’t. Tim was brutally honest and told my boyfriend that Sarah hates me. She doesn’t like that I have a better college degree, my own apartment, two dogs, a nicer car, and I’m good at socializing. But Tim clarified that it shouldn’t be taken seriously because she doesn’t like any female… not even their 11 year old niece because she’s too “proper”.
How can you dog on an 11 year old????
After that, I decided I was going to work my way into Sarah’s heart. She asked me to do a couple of things for her wedding so it made this goal very easy to accomplish. I made her bridal shower favors, desserts, balloon arch, set up, and clean up for bridal shower. To my surprise, it didn’t work. I come to find out she’s talking crap about me to my boyfriend’s mother. I can’t win.
So I take another approach, distance myself because I was just used for labor not friendship. Well, that didn’t work either. In fact, Tim approach me and ask why I didn’t say hi to her at a birthday party that day. I told him to bring Sarah in because it was a complete lie. She came in and immediately started apologizing because she “forgot” that I said hi. I fully believe she just didn’t know Tim was going to confront me with it so she couldn’t get away with it.
After that, Sarah and I tried to mend the rough patch with a coffee date. I met up with her and all she did was talk poorly about my boyfriend’s entire family saying they were too involved with the wedding planning that her mother is paying for and they have no right to do so… mind you, boyfriend’s family paid for $10,000 bridal shower and had to give Sarah’s family money for the wedding- which was used for their kitchen remodel. The rest of the money from Sarah’s family was the second mortgage they took out on their home. To go back on topic, no, we never went out for coffee again.
Obviously, everyone in boyfriend’s family has gotten the same treatment of disrespect. Yet, my boyfriend’s mother is still her #1 kiss-ass while making me feel like the bad guy. I made the boundary of being cordial but I will not force a relationship with anyone. But, boyfriend’s mother values and respects Sarah more- which I’ve been told is solely based on the fact that Sarah’s the same ethnicity as all of them.
Sarah asked me for more and more favors until the day of their wedding, where I made up great excuses to say no. Then, she never said hi to me at her wedding and hasn’t texted me since. A few months have passed now and the happily married couple are asking for a double date… what do I do in my position?
Edit #1: I also would like to add that Sarah got mad at me for not liking her Instagram stories. AITA for that? I usually just tap through stories. I recently deleted instagram because it was too much stress. How do I navigate the social media aspect? I don’t want to be disingenuous or fake because then she’ll think I’m her friend- I don’t want that.