I love my in-laws, but my one SIL I am having a hard time tolerating anymore. She is constantly asking for help/hand outs and I just can’t take it. For some reason, my in-laws seem to think my husband and I are loaded compared to them and we are not; We just make smarter money choices.

So a little back story; starting back when my SIL (husbands sister) first found out she was pregnant, she has constantly had her hand out asking for money, items and favors. She wanted to find out ASAP what she was having so “people could start buying her stuff”. She had the blood test done as early as she was able too and started letting people know the gender. I think this was 8 weeks?

She wanted me to plan her baby shower and asked to use my house. I asked her how many she was wanting to invite bc if it was too many my place wouldn’t be big enough, and I was also providing all the food. She told me 20 which was fine. I made her invites so she could create the FB event. She invited 50ppl, PLUS their families. The headcount was close to 150, even bigger than my wedding. She told me “I was so excited to invite all these people to see how much I get off my registry”. I told her I can’t accommodate that many people and she’d have to figure something out with the food. I also called her mom and told her she needed to say something to her bc that is ridiculous for a baby shower and I can’t do that. SIL corrected her invite so it wasn’t families, just that specific person and we managed to get lucky enough that a lot of ppl were declining. However, since I was part of the event, I could see she was starting to invite more ppl when more would decline. I told her it’s getting too close to the actual date and to not add more ppl.

Since we put a stop to adding ppl and too many weren’t going to be able to attend, she then posted her baby registry to FB and said “in case anyone wants to get something for baby and me!!” Personally, I thought that was extremely rude bc she was asking ppl that were not invited to her shower to get her stuff. Some ppl even thought that was her baby shower invite bc they were asking when it was. SIL just never responded to those comments.

After the baby arrived her sisters and mom took turns staying the night at their apartment to help her with the apartment and baby. This seemed normal to me the first week maybe, but there was someone there constantly for over 2 weeks. Her baby will be 1 year old next month and she still has her sisters stay as often as possible to help. Some are still in school but they make sure to stay Friday night to Sunday night. I would like to mention that she is married so she does have a husband that is there and available to help. However, as much as he acts like a doting father when we are all around, he actually doesn’t do anything to help with his child or even around the apartment. Which is another thing; They have a 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom apartment. Super small and no yard work to ever be done. But again she is constantly saying how much help she needs to get stuff done around the house or with her baby. I helped her those first couple weeks but I stopped offering after a while. I don’t see how she still needs this much help. Especially bc up until a month ago she was a stay at home mom. I am NOT belittling that job bc I know it’s hard, but my point is she is home all day anyways; I don’t know how she isn’t able to get one thing done.

The stay at home mom thing is another area; ever since she was 3 months pregnant I suggested she started to look into childcare. She just kept telling me “I’m sure dad or someone in the family can watch him for me” and never looked into anything. Once her maternity leave was up, she couldn’t find anyone to watch him and thought the daycare was too expensive so she had to be a stay at home mom. She was upset with a lot of us bc she thought we would help her, but we all work or the sisters are still in high school. Being a stay at home mom cut their income in half, so then she started asking for more help. We gave her some money, but then I found out that was mostly being used to buy her husband cigarettes or video games. I told my husband we are not ever giving them money again, but I will buy baby formula or diapers if they absolutely need it.

Christmas time, she gave us all lists of stuff she needed/wanted for her son which was fine. I made sure to get exactly what she asked for, and the clothes I got a size up like she wanted. I did my shopping on Black Friday so I could get more for cheap. By the time she decided to have him try on the clothes I got him, they were already too small and it was past the time I could return the items. She asked if there was any way I could get a bigger size and I told her no, too late to return and I can’t spend the extra money right now.

At tax time they got back a lot of money. They decided to use that to buy my SIL a new car. Instead of finding something that did not require payments, or smaller payments, they got something they have to pay $500 a month on. And my SIL didn’t know if she’d even get her job yet and still didn’t have someone to watch her son. One family member finally said they would do it. But then she found out they were taking him places without his car seat so she found someone else. When that person told her it was going to be $25 a day she was outraged bc she thought that person would do it for free. Again, she’s upset with the family some bc she’s going to have to do a day care that costs more than she likes.

And for the most recent, final hand out that has me upset; her son will be 1 year old next month. She asked if they could use my house for his bday party and I said that was fine. She then started sending me pics of decorations, food and the cake she wants. She wants ME to get and pay for all this stuff. So I told her “if that’s what you want to do for the party just make sure to order it and then we can set it up the day before”. All she said was “oh”. I told her that I’m happy to make a side dish or something but I can’t pay for his entire party. We are going to have more than one niece/nephew someday and I can’t keep affording to pay for everyone’s baby showers and birthday parties”. She hasn’t said anything to me recently but I know she’s going to say that she can’t afford to have the party so now they won’t.

My husband doesn’t fully agree with a lot of their choices, but was raised with the mentality that “family is family and you help them no matter what”. So I can’t even begin to explain my level of frustration to him. I just had to let it all out on here.