I was friends with my husband's cousin before we were dating. Unfortunately, I learned (the hard way) that was a very toxic friend (jealous, competitive, selfish, user, narcissistic). She piggybacked off of my friends and spoke bad about me behind my back (it's not just saying something negative, like "oh she's ugly", which in that case I don't care but more planting seeds in people's heads, manipulative, etc..) I find her very immature (constantly needs an unofficial "baby sitter" bc she lacks responsibility) & just someone I don't want to associate with. It's been more than 7 years since I've gone "no contact" with her, meaning I just avoid her at family events. ( She doesn't even know how to be cordial; her ego is just bruised that I stopped being her doormat). I also had a conversation with her before I established "no contact" and it was the same old denial, backtracking and temporarily nice when she needed something from me and discard when not needed.
Months leading up to the wedding, I found out her husband went to my best friend's house to ask to get a job (for him) AND that he was scheming for me and his wife to be friends again. After the wedding he told me, "this is why we all have to be family and be there for each other." It was his passive way of saying, "now that you're married into this family, you have to be my wife's best friend." I don't appreciate her family's attempts at passively forcing me to be her best friend. We're in our 30's and she acts like she's in high school. Apparently, after my bridal shower (that I had to politely invite her to), she wrote a passive aggressive post about me with pictures from the shower & everyone was texting me about it. Because it's been years since I removed myself from that friendship, I actually felt validated bc for the first time, I felt that I was in a different space and was not bothered by this potential social media sabotage. It's been hard recently bc my close friend (her acquaintance) just got married - she happened to be invited. She was "drunk" (sometimes she exaggerates her drunk-ness to appear more outgoing) & started talking about my exes in front of everyone (from more than 10 years ago) - MIND YOU, I just got married. She then said, "omggggg, i'm so glad you broke up with john! He was such a weirdo! Do you remember that YOU set me up with him?" I corrected her, "no Donna -that was YOU who wanted to date my ex-boyfriend and I just tolerated it." Clearly everyone around us felt uncomfortable. I look at her husband and he's laughing thinking that this is cute. I plan to have a discussion with him and establish my boundaries with, "when i said my vows to Dave, I vowed to be his wife; NOT to be dave's cousin's new best friend. Stop forcing this on me and it is inappropriate to bring up past events. You don't know my past & friendship with you wife, so stay out of it." Let's see - if he's stupid enough to laugh at that, he may take it personally & I started WW3 with my husband's narcissistic family.
Any advice?
PS: Also - when husband & I first started dating, his cousin led all other cousins to be passive aggressive bullies. I was so hurt that they didn't accept me but it was a blessing in disguise bc I bettered myself and situation. If she was really worried about losing a friend, wouldn't she have fixed this years ago? Why now?...when i'm doing better in life with better friends & opportunities?
