BIL continued...

Some things happened between Bill and MIL before I was involved with Steve - something about SIL's birthday party; MIL and George wanted to go down and take a cake and take them out to supper but SIL doesn't like to celebrate her birthday; I dunno, the story never made sense to me. Then when their first DD was born in Sept 97, MIL went to stay with them for a few days to help out. MIL insisted that the baby was cold, but SIL insisted that just a onesie was enough. The baby ended up coming down with pneumonia a few months later. Personally, I don't think it was related the amount of clothes the baby was wearing, but I also believe in swaddling. Whatever. There were more hard feelings about that and other similar small incidents.

Meanwhile MIL and her sister were not getting along. Her sister actually grabbed MIL's hand and bent her fingers back as far as she could. She also clawed MIL's thigh under the table. All this was in a restaurant while having lunch with their mother & aunt! Gee, how old is she?? Anyway, it turned ugly (they're still not on speaking terms today). Bill is partial to his aunt over his mother and MIL knows this. Since things were very ugly with them at the time of DD's christening, MIL thought it would be best not to attend since she knew her sister would be there. Apparently there was no right answer to this problem because Bill was very angry at MIL for not coming but also said he wouldn't tolerate MIL and her sister fighting, which MIL was sure her sister was going to attack her again, at which George was likely to defend MIL and escalate everything.

In trying to explain why she decided not to go to the christening & why George was so upset with MIL's sister, MIL tried to have Bill put himself in George's shoes and said "Well, how would you feel if somebody attacked Andrea like that?" Well, Bill took that the wrong way and started yelling at MIL "Don't you dare threaten my wife! How dare you! I can't believe you just said that! I don't want to talk to you anymore!" etc etc.

After a cooling off period, MIL reached out to Bill again. They all agreed to go to counseling to try and work things out. That turned into a George-bashing session. After Bill & Steve graduated & left home, George quit the police force and started a series of self-employed ventures that were highly successful in the beginning, then ended up going bankrupt, always someone else's fault. Bill took that tidbit and ran with it. He insisted that George either get a real job or MIL leave him, saying it just wasn't right that MIL still had to work at her age. He had a point, but I don't feel that he had the right to put demands on his mom like that. None of his business in my opinion. At MIL's inquiry about the next counseling session, Bill told her that he doesn't have time for this crap;he has his own family to think about now. And they didn't speak for several years.