When my brother’s wife, Rachel, tapped her glass with a teaspoon to give an impromptu speech at my wedding, I assumed it would be about my new husband Andrew and me.
Instead, she stood up and announced that she was pregnant with her second baby.
There were gasps and an awkward moment of silence as no one really knew how to respond, realizing that this was far from ideal timing. And after what seemed like an eternity, there was a wave of applause, ending in rather faint cheering.
As for me, I tried to hide my shock and swallow my tears.
It felt so pointed. We never got along and here she was trying to upstage me on the most important day of my life.
Rachel, ever an attention seeker, wouldn’t have cared about pulling my nose out of joint. If she had any idea of the real reason I was so miffed, she would have been even more thrilled about stealing my thunder.
You see, Andrew and I had our own little announcement planned. Under my wedding dress I hid the smallest imperfections; I was ten weeks pregnant with our first child and our plan was to wait until we returned from a honeymoon in Italy a few weeks later to share the happy news.
Considering that Rachel and my brother Ryan had only had their first child six months earlier, I didn’t expect them to expand their family so quickly—or for her to use it against me on my own wedding day.
Maybe she was jealous of the grand country house wedding we had paid for ourselves. Unfathomably, she had also turned up inappropriately dressed in jeans and a blazer, knowing it would infuriate me.
Eleven years after her wedding day, my sister-in-law continues to be a troublemaker. She talks over everyone and makes the conversation revolve around her, says Claire Hall (photo taken by models)
Mom looked at me knowingly from across the room as Rachel made her announcement. Andrew was furious, but I begged him not to make a scene: “That’s exactly what she wants – a big argument to completely ruin our wedding. We have to let it go.’
This was just the beginning of a rivalry that became increasingly bitter during our pregnancies. Instead of bonding over the shared experience, Rachel used it as an opportunity to claim superiority at every opportunity.
Ryan, a marketer three years younger than me, first introduced Rachel to the family when they started dating at the age of twenty. I’ve never really had a warm heart for her. Even in the beginning, she deliberately talked over Mom – and she still does. I sat there and thought, ‘Wait a minute, let my mother speak!’
I used to make Mom say, “Excuse me, let me finish!” But she never did, which annoyed me a little. Why did Rachel have so much control?
My three younger brothers and I have always protected Mom, who has been on her own since our father committed suicide when I was sixteen. But Rachel, a private caterer, never let anything stand between her and the spotlight – and showed little empathy for anyone.
But when she and Ryan had their first baby – a first grandchild for my mother – I was over the moon to become an aunt. As the eldest of four, I had always enjoyed being around the little ones, ever since I was a child helping Mom with my younger siblings.
Since I don’t have sisters, I would have loved to be close to my sister-in-law, especially when we were pregnant at the same time. It could have been a great opportunity for me to seek her advice and reassurance, as she had been pregnant before.
Instead, she viewed me as an archrival and belittled me about everything from morning sickness (she gloated that she didn’t experience it for a second, while I was terribly bothered by it) to my nursery plans and even the birth.
When it came to getting ready for the baby, she showed off their expensive double stroller and made fun of our “cheap stroller” (her words). She compared her belly to mine when we were eight and five months pregnant respectively, and commented, “Look how much neater mine is than yours!”
Whenever she saw me ordering a starter or dessert during a family meal, she deliberately used it as an opportunity to put me down: ‘Oh, eating for two again? You’ll learn.’
As someone who has always been slim, this made me seethe with anger.
Worst of all, when my baby was born four weeks premature by emergency C-section and taken to the special care unit before I could even hold her, Rachel’s first comment when she arrived at the hospital with my brother was: “I see you took the easy way out then, rather than a natural birth.” Three months earlier she had had a natural birth.
I was hurt and furious in equal measure, but chose to keep my anger to myself rather than cause a scene.
She then criticized our parenting skills, from the way we changed diapers, breastfed my baby (when I had trouble getting her to latch, she told me I was stressing my daughter), and held her during naps. She always knew best; I tried to avoid her as much as possible.
And you can probably imagine the fuss she made around her son’s first birthday, intent on showing us off. While we had a simple afternoon tea party for our daughter, they organized a garden party with beautiful bell tents and a caterer.
Every year she is on a mission to outdo whatever simple party we have chosen for our two children, who are now ten and seven, always bragging about the costs: hiring a marquee and entertainers cost them £2,000 for one party.
Then there would be a big reveal of the expensive gifts, including an electric Mercedes (these children’s cars can cost up to £1,200) and designer clothes.
As always, my brother comes along for an easy life and for that reason I don’t tell him about the dynamics.
Meanwhile, Andrew and I never feel the need to compete, despite our high-paying jobs for a pharmaceutical company.
But the fact that she goes out of her way to make us feel just a little bit is a stain on every family occasion—even my own children’s birthdays, when all my attention should be on them, not her.
Eleven years after her wedding day, she remains a troublemaker. She loves nothing more than to come uninvited to our home or to my mother’s when there is a family gathering. She then talks over everyone and makes the conversation revolve around her.
I have a nice relationship with the wives of my other two brothers. So it’s definitely her fault and not me.
As told to Sadie Nicholas
Claire Hall is a pseudonym. Names and identifying information have been changed.
