My sister-in-law had really bad postpartum depression. Her aunt and family was helping her care for her girls, but were overwhelming her with some really bad parenting advice. I never said anything about their advice and only asked, “is that what you and your pediatrician want you to do?"
At the christening, her aunt was giving me dirty looks. We leave for the reception afterwards, and I am still getting dirty looks. Five days later, I receive a letter in the mail from my sister-in-law. I am no longer allowed to see my nieces or my brother. I'm not allowed at their house, and I'm not allowed to know anything going on in their life. In the letter, she states that her aunt overheard me talking poorly about my nieces and how she is raising them. She claimed I said nasty things about their home and their lifestyle. I never said a thing.
Luckily, I had my brother's work cell phone and we talked. He believed me as the things I allegedly said he knew I would never say. So when his wife would go to work, he would call me up and we would get together with the kids so we could still have family time and not deal with her and her family.
One day, she came home early from work and found me there. She would not look at me or talk to me. I finished bathing the girls, folded the last of their laundry I helped my brother do, and I went in by her and told her good night that everything was set up for her in the morning and I left. She didn't talk to me again for six months. I was heartbroken as I really wanted to be part of my nieces lives, and my family finally came around to the fact that I honestly did not say these things.
Ironically, it was a wedding shower invite that broke the ice. It was a two-hour drive away, and I knew both of us were invited. So I called her and said I would pick her up and we would drive together if she was okay with that. She agreed. And we talked, and talked, and cried, and talked some more. She realized then that she was wrongly manipulated by her aunt who by then was trying to alienate her from her own family. Even her mother was separating herself from that aunt.
Someday when my nieces ask me why I wasn't at any of their birthday parties early on, I will have to explain. But right now things are great between my nieces and me and my family and we couldn't be happier and more loving.