How can I stop caring so much?
I am wondering how I can kind of protect my mental wellbeing from being constantly hurt because of my mil’s and two sister-in-law’s behavior. My fil died four years ago, and I think the situation was already toxic in some ways but it has become worse since that since the dynamic changed. The youngest sister-in-law is the golden child and everything she does should be pitied all the time, according to my mil. Mil and two sister-in-laws live in the same city now and mil constantly takes care of the youngest sister-in-law’s children. The sister-in-law and her ex take turns having the kids, the only one who doesn’t take turns is my mil, she has the kids over most nights regardless and is almost like a second mother to them. Me and my husband live two hours away and are expecting our third child. We have very little support. I have noticed that I am mostly ignored in the family chat by the sister-in-laws and often by mil, too. If I share something about our lives it mostly gets ignored, a cute picture of my child gets ignored and instead they post 10 pictures of the other grandchildren, which usually get likes and comments etc. I even feel uncomfortable when visiting mil because she constantly looks after the other grandchildren and the other sister-in-laws stay in some room having adult conversations – actually often I or my husband have been the other ones looking after the kids alongside my mil. Sometimes when we visit my mil (maybe one weekend every three months, not often) she has agreed to go to the youngest sister-in-law’s home while we are visiting to put those kids to bed and very often she has to babysit those kids in her apartment even though we are literally at her place. My mil comes and helps out at our home with our kids if we really need it and ask well in advance but I feel like she is unenthusiastic and can even say she was having doubts as the youngest sister-in-law has to take both of her kids to some event because of it – not leaving one of her kids with mil like she always does. 99% of the time we take care of our kids all on our own. Then it even feels like mil is trying to one-up me in how stressful the youngest sil’s life is at the moment – though honestly it’s a ridiculous comparison, the sil just spent a whole week in France with her friends and constantly gets all the help and more than she needs, she can really do anything she feels like, while me and my husband have been taking care of our kids every day pretty much for 8 years. It would be completely fine if mil and sil’s didn’t behave this way: mostly ignoring us, treating us very obviously like we’re less-than, constantly preferring the other grandkids and not really listening to how our kids are doing but just talking about the golden sil’s (and sometimes the middle sil’s) children etc. I feel like I get hurt and then successfully ignore the family chat etc. for a week or so but then I somehow get my hopes up again and start with some kind of fawning behavior and try to have a conversation and engage with them again – only to get really hurt again. How can I lower my expectations and shelter my own wellbeing from this?