"Throughout my engagement, people joked about how I'd lucked out in the mother-in-law department because my husband's mother was extremely chill and not obsessed with the idea of grandkids. My husband and I are dedicated to being child-free (he got the snip in college), and it was a relief to us both that his mother was fine with that. I never expected that the problem would be with my (younger) sisters-in-law!"
"They constantly bring up the subject! I have deflected, defended, and tried to change the subject, but I finally lost my cool when the youngest called me "unnatural" and said her brother would regret marrying me and not a woman who would give him kids. I told her the only thing unnatural was her sick obsession with her brother's vasectomy. She started to cry, and now my in-laws are acting like I am a movie villain who just attacked their daughter out of nowhere."
"She is 18 and her sister is 20. I understand that they are the babies of the bunch (my husband has two older brothers as well) and are used to being coddled and getting their way, but this fixation is bizarre. I told my husband that he needs to stop slacking when it comes to their harassment. These are his sisters, after all. It's his job to tell them to back off."
The couple is firmly child-free; the husband had a vasectomy in college and both welcomed his mother's acceptance. The husband's younger sisters repeatedly pressure the wife about having children and call her 'unnatural,' saying the brother will regret marrying her. The wife defended their choice, then called the youngest's focus on the vasectomy 'sick,' which made the sister cry and led the extended family to vilify the wife. The sisters are 18 and 20, described as coddled and fixated on grandchildren. The wife wants to avoid them but cannot because the family business runs from the parents' house where they live, and she asks for options beyond relying on her husband to intervene.
Read at Slate Magazine
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