My fiancé (M26) and I (F24) recently got engaged after being together a little over a year. He’s the youngest of three, and both of his older brothers are married. I’ll call their wives SIL A (30) and SIL B (29).
We’ve never been particularly close. At family dinners, it’s been hard to connect…SIL A tends to focus on negative things going on in our town, and SIL B usually talks about social situations and conflicts within her circle that I don’t really relate to. They’re closer to each other, especially because SIL A has a young daughter who SIL B is very attached to.
For context, my fiancé and I are temporarily living with his parents while we renovate a home we just bought (this was planned and agreed on). Before that, I lived independently and only moved in once his parents were okay with it, as I was over all the time anyways. It was easier as both of us work in the same town. (At one point, SIL A apparently brought this up in their family group chat which I’m not in, saying she “wasn’t going to pretend to be blind to what’s going on,” which felt like she was implying I was taking advantage of his parents. This was my first indication she did not like me.)
When we got engaged, my fiancé told his family the next day at dinner. His parents (knew from the day before) and the rest of the family were happy for us, but both SILs (and SIL B’s husband) reacted negatively.
SIL B looked like she got punched in the gut, didn’t say anything, and both her and her husband distanced themselves the entire night. I had previously thought she might be someone I could eventually build a relationship with, but she can be very opinionated and tends to have strong expectations for how things “should” be done, which has made it harder to feel comfortable around her.
SIL A was upset the proposal was a “secret” (meaning my fiancé didn’t tell his brothers beforehand), then started questioning me about my career (I’m leaving for military training in October and will be away for about 6 months). She said she was “of course going to be skeptical” and even added, “you guys know I’m going to be an asshole about this.”
It has been almost 3 weeks and since then, my fiancé and I have both been avoiding them because the reaction honestly felt hurtful and hostile. SIL A sent my fiancé a text asking just him to visit her (in a cryptic text) but he ignored it.
What complicates this is that SIL A can be very aggressive when she doesn’t get her way or when someone contradicts her, and she’s previously threatened to limit access to her daughter as a way to control situations within the family, especially with my future MIL. That makes me feel like anything we do could escalate things.
I know we can’t avoid them forever, but I’m unsure how to move forward. Part of me doesn’t want to include them in engagement/wedding events because I don’t feel supported, but I also don’t want to create long-term family issues or lose a relationship with our niece.
Has anyone dealt with difficult in-laws like this early on? How do you set boundaries while still keeping things civil long-term. Should we communicate how their reaction affected us?