Sometimes you just have to "cut bait"

So, we dropped the bomb this week that our evil sis-in-law is no longer welcome in our home.
This Sunday we will be celebrating Olivia's b-day, as well as mother's day(she was the BEST mother's day gift EVER) and Tim's brother was informed that what his wife did to us on Christmas was the very last straw so he and the kids are welcome but she is not. The fallout has begun. Our other brother-in-law stopped by last night and tried to talk us out of it.
After hearing a bunch of things that have happened that he was not aware of as well as the
fact that our decision was made and final, he gave up. Not sure if he realized it was futile,
or maybe we had a point after hearing the whole story but this was never a decision we took
lightly and we knew it would not sit well. Here's the thing. Most people in this family are willing to live their lives by sis-in-law's rules, just as her own family has always done, for the purpose of shutting her up and not having to deal with her if they don't. We don't intend to live our lives by her rules. But when someone gets away with bad behavior all their life, they continue to push the envelope further and further. Kinda like a kid who doesn't get disciplined. Then one day, someone says, "enough is enough" and that person is totally shocked cause they've always gotten away with everything up to now. Their first response will
always be to try to blame the person who is finally taking a stand to take the attention off their own faux pas.ie. "I am not the problem, you are over-reacting." They have no viable excuse for their horrible behavior so their only option is (when they are not big enough to take responsibility for their actions) to try desperately to shift the attention to someone else.Well certain people with lower IQ's may fall for that. Those of us with half a brain know exactly what is going on and expected it all along. It's psychology 101, people. I did something this past Christmas to make it as joyful as I could for Tim, Olivia and myself which when living under the cloud of cancer, is not
an easy task. This sis-in-law simply cannot tolerate not being the center of attention so she
crapped all over it as soon as she walked in the door. There is only one possible reason for saying the
horrible thing that she said, and that was to hurt our feelings and tear this down however she could. We don't get a do-over. She ruined our special day and the damage was done. The fact that certain folks are not happy about the step we have taken obviously is more about THEM not wanting to be uncomfortable at family functions. It's inconvenient for them. Apparently, it doesn't matter how WE feel, what this did to us, and how stressful it would be for us to have to "break bread" with this person again. Despite my long time aggravation about how things work in this family, my husband has always let things roll off. While I was tired of being slapped in the face by people in his family, he kept turning the other cheek. It always seems to be my cheek that things land on though. What people didn't realize was that that changed when he got sick. His time, his holidays, his vacations are now a lot more precious to him and he is no longer willing to see them ruined by the tantrums of others. We do not want our daughter witnessing all this and she has already seen and heard too much. Your priorities shift when cancer walks in the door. Nothing is the same. YOU are not the same. And I've said it before, there
becomes 2 types of people in your world: those that are with you, wish you well and you know you can trust......and those that aren't. Anybody that thinks they are gonna jump in our boat and row against us.......well, all I can say is, they better be a strong swimmer.
MAN OVERBOARD!