Re: Upset..need advice
After having read your complaints about your in-laws, I felt that I should really say something. Far be it for me to not take a woman's side, but the things you've said have prompted me to be VERY furious with the way desi women handle things.
She's divorced. We get it. You, as a family member, need to be supportive of her during this hard time. Instead, you're being selfish, and ONLY thinking about the matter through your perspective. The only nasty thing I've seen you report of her is that she told you she's jealous of you. Except, I have no idea what tone she used or what circumstance that came up in. Regardless, you really should stop and think about those words. You're a married woman. She isn't. Her marriage fell apart, and she has a child to take care of, and on top of that it sounds like she works since she's out of town often. That's NO EASY position to be in. Especially for a desi girl. Its imperative that you undertand these things, before God forbid, fate decides to make things humorous and put YOU in HER position.
She asks your husband if you guys can take care of her kid. I don't know what neck of the woods you come from, but that's called being there for each other as a family. In my family, we take care of our cousins all the time, if parents have work obligations and they need someone to babysit. Its not a big deal. You get to spend some time with your 7 year old nephew. How bad is that, really? Lets say YOU were in the hospital, or YOU had to fly out for a work conference, or whatever, and your husband is working, and you need someone to watch your kid. Wouldn't you ask some family member to help out? So WHY is your SIL such a bad person for asking her family to help her? As for changing her mind and sending the kid off to the father's - again, how is that a bad thing? If you find it troublesome to babysit a child, then shouldn't you be happy that she took the load off your shoulders and put it on the kid's biological father?? Isn't that the responsible thing to do??
As per points 1 and 2, you simply have a zilch argument against your SIL. You're doing nothing but whining and complaining, and in the process, you're hurting your husband. That is the family he grew up with and YOU chose to marry into this family. Now you have to accept that their ways of living might be a little different than your family's ways, and that doesn't make it WRONG.
Really, desi women. Some of you have so much to appreciate, and you can't SIT STILL without making trouble in your homes.