Grief is not easy to deal with, and every person handles it differently.

So when this woman’s sister-in-law kept making snarky comments during family gatherings, they ignored it at first and gave her a lot of grace.

Until her comments became increasingly offensive.

How would you deal with the situation?

Keep reading for the full story.

AITA for telling my grieving sister-in-law I wont invite her to things if she keeps up her attitude?

I (51F) have been married to my husband Albert (60M) for almost 24 years now.

We have two kids, Josh (22M) and Jessica (20F). My brother is Alex (49M) and his wife is Anastasia (48F).

My husband’s brother, Levi, passed away last October at age 61 of cancer.

His widow is Christina (69F), who has always been very bossy, rude, will do favors for people they didn’t ask for and be annoyed at them when they aren’t overjoyed.

Also, if anyone dares to call her out on anything, she refuses to speak to them for some time (included Levi at times).

She always had this toxic behavior, and they were aware of it.

She had an unhappy first marriage and moved to the US from the UK about 28 years ago to try dating over here (and left her then teenagers over there with their dad).

When I was pregnant with and later had Josh, she genuinely pretended that Albert and I didn’t exist, or would make snide comments, and unfortunately, Levi never asked her to stop.

They moved back to the UK in 2005, came over to see my in-laws and us once every six years or so, and then back to the US (Nevada) in 2022, and these past few years have come to us in Oregon for holidays.

She continued with her usual routine.

One Thanksgiving she yelled at me that she wasn’t being “acknowledged” enough by Jessica, which made me mad bc I know for a fact Jessica said hi and talked to her a bit.

Nowadays: Levi’s passing has been hard on Albert. I miss him as well, as does his mom Joanna (88F). I genuinely do feel for Christina in this regard.

But last Xmas, Christina made rude comments on Jessica’s croptops, saying “Oh, look whose stomach’s out again”.

Right before she left, she told her “your stomach’s out again, and it’s getting chubbier too!”.

She didn’t realize people were upset, either.

I was so shocked in the moment I didn’t know what to say.

Jessica was pretty upset and wished I had said something, and I should have.

Now Christina’s up here to visit for 3 weeks, saying she’s “bored now”; we don’t know what to do with her because Albert and I are both employed and our kids are in school, but anyway, the conflict:

Our kids, plus Alex and Anastasia were over last night, and Christina told Jessica at dinner bc of her tank top that she could see her “huge shoulders & arms” and that the food would “keep adding to it”.

This time, they decided to address it.

I confronted her about that right then and there, saying that I get that she’s grieving, but it doesn’t give her the right to be rude, and that we won’t invite her to stuff if she has this attitude.

She gave me a look of anger, got up and left the table, refused to speak to me for the rest of the night, and went back to Joanna’s house (where she’s staying).

Albert says he agrees with me calling her out, but says I went too far by saying I won’t invite her to stuff.

They might have been too harsh.

Alex and Anastasia disagreed and said that she has been needing a reality check for a while (as both love my kids a lot).

Albert is frustrated though because he feels that Christina was his brother’s wife for 24 years and thus deserves some grace.

It’s just such a messy situation, and maybe I did go too far. She’s here for the next few weeks.

AITA?

Starting the three weeks like this won’t make it easier. It’s better to sit and talk.

What did Reddit think?

A reader shares their opinion.

Yikes.

Something to consider.

Another reader chimes in.

Someone shares their experience.

She’s not the best at deescalating.

But the environment was getting toxic, and they couldn’t ignore it anymore.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a guy who was forced to sleep on the couch at his wife’s family’s house, so he went to a hotel instead.