My husband's sister is my age, almost thirty.
Wanda is a chatterbox like no other I've ever met. But as long as we only saw each other once or twice a year, this trait of hers didn't bother me. We seem to communicate well, so it was easy to scratch my tongue one evening. We mostly met at Christmas and my mother-in-law's birthday.
My mother-in-law and I live in the same city, so Wanda would come visit her mother and stay with her. We would visit each other, talk, and then I would go back to my quiet apartment with my husband. Sometimes even in the evening Wanda could tire me out, she was too sociable, clearly not at my level.
For about a year, there had been talk of my sister-in-law and her family moving out. Wanda had moved to another city with her husband, who worked there. There was a company apartment there, their children were born there, and they were saving up for their own apartment. A year ago, my sister-in-law's husband's job situation started to deteriorate and there was nothing to hold on to.
At first, they lived with their mother-in-law because they planned to buy their own apartment in the near future, and renting for a short time would be stupid.
-Guess what I'm telling you now? – Wanda was standing on the doorstep of my apartment, excited – We're going to be neighbors! We bought the apartment next door!
This news didn't initially make me feel negative. It's good that my family will be living next door. I could ask them to babysit or go to the grocery store or even help with something – everything is close by. But Wanda quickly crossed out all the obvious advantages.
I'm just finishing my maternity leave. I mean, I'm officially on maternity leave, I still have about six months left, but I've been working from home part-time for about six months. The money isn't much, but it's definitely better than nothing and it helps me adjust to work, otherwise all I have in my head are songs from boring children's cartoons.
Wanda hasn't found a job since the move and I haven't noticed her looking for one. My sister-in-law has enrolled the kids in kindergarten, and her husband works, so she has a lot of free time. She dropped her husband off, took the kids to kindergarten, and then had the evening off. I'm surprised she has so much free time. The house is being renovated, and after the move everything has to be sorted out. But she acts like she doesn't care.
The first time she came over was around nine in the morning. My husband was already at work, and I was rocking the baby. Wanda had breakfast with us. We sat down, drank coffee, ate sandwiches, and talked about nothing. Then we went for a walk together, came back at lunchtime, and in the evening I wanted to sit down to work. Wanda wasn't going anywhere though.
She sat there and bombarded me with tons of unnecessary information. When I stopped and said I had to work, she nodded at me and continued talking. It was rude to push my sister-in-law out of the apartment, so I continued wasting time. Okay, not entirely. While Wanda was spouting another portion of chatter, I managed to wash the dishes.
I said goodbye to the idea of working in the afternoon, Wanda didn't leave until late in the evening. By the end of her visit, I felt like I was mining coal in a mine, not having a polite conversation.
I had already asked my husband to talk to her, because she was his sister. He did, but my sister-in-law wouldn't let up. How else can I influence her without completely ruining the relationship? I don't want to argue with her at all, I just want to reduce the percentage of her presence in my life.
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