Sister-in-law’s decade of mean comments stop cold when target reveals trust fund lifestyle and casually flaunts luxury items she was hiding for years: ‘she's always throwing jabs, 'jokes' about how I'm not good enough for her brother’

Author image for Etai Eshet
Etai Eshet • Editor
Feb 19, 2025 9:00 PM EST

Ever wonder what happens when someone mistakes decade-long kindness for weakness? Sometimes the answer comes wrapped in Chanel with a side of delicious karma. The art of tolerating a jealous sister-in-law or any other petty person traditionally involves taking the high road, smiling through backhanded compliments, and pretending not to notice when their clearly plotting your social demise during family dinners.

But there's a special kind of satisfaction in watching someone who's spent years trying to make you feel inferior suddenly realize they've been playing checkers while you've been capable of chess all along. Especially when your chess pieces are all designer brands they can't pronounce, let alone a(Tom)fford.

One woman finally snapped after ten years of enduring her sister-in-law's constant jabs, mean-girl tactics, and weird obsession with her own brother. The simple, quiet luxury solution was just to stop hiding her trust fund lifestyle and start casually dropping brand names that cost more than her sister-in-law's monthly salary which is a really low move but I guess it wouldn't be any fun without some low blows. 

Suddenly, those spiteful comments about not being good enough transformed into silent seething as our protagonist casually reapplied her Louboutin lipstick while discussing her misplaced Byredo perfume.

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  • "SIL has been mean to me for years and jealous for no reason, so I've finally decieded to give her one"

    "She can be mean to me all she wants but the second I felt like she was trying to come between me and someone I've decided to dish come back"
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    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • Nobody else in the family even notices the psychological warfare being waged through casual mentions of Dior dresses and diamond rings. It turns out the perfect revenge isn't served cold it's served inside a Hermès handbag and a smile that says the words “my darling” for no apparent reason my darlings.

  • This post will be a bit longer than most because I'm not usually petty and I want to make the reasons for my behaviour very clear, since I don't ever act like this normally and I'm a but disguisted by my own behaviour Imao, but she poked the bear and brought out the pettiness Imao
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  • We'll say my name's Becca, we'll call my boyfriend John, his younger sister Drizella, and their older brother's wife will be called Fiona. Drizella was just a child when I got with John, but she's a full grown adult now. She's 6 years younger than John and I and we got together at 16, and it's been 10 years since.
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  • I've always longed for an older sister so I treated her the way I'd want my imaginary cool older sister to treat me - I would take her to the mall, I'd buy make up and perfumes for any occasion. that warrants a gift, I'd do her
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  • makeup and hair, I'd give her nice clothes I grew out of and so on. I've noticed she started copying me as soon as I appeared in her life and I found it endearing, like I've said I'd always tried to help
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  • her any way possible, and if that meant helping her find her style through copying some of mine, that was fine with me, I was honored to be idolized by another girl, it made me feel cool.
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  • If she heard I was using a product she could afford, I'd find it in their bathroom the next time i visited. When John and I were still teenagers I made him a skincare package one time since he
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  • struggled with skin problems, and Drizella took it all and used it all up etc, so clearly she was influenced by me. I got a tattoo dedicated to John at 16 (nothing tacky like his name or anything) which he found adorable at the
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  • time because we were kids, and the second she turned 18 she got a tatto 'dedicated to her brothers', and it was tacky and they both really didn't care for it Imao. You see the pattern.
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  • I've also noticed her mean comments early on, even when she was as young as 11 or 12. I'd prepare food and she'd make mean comments about the taste and/or texture (still would eat the full plate and ask for seconds
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  • It may be what makes the world go around, but it keeps sister-in-law's frozen right in their place

    10
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    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • though lol), one time I took her to the mall and I broke something at a store and wanted to make fun time out of it so I was like 'run' and we ran out of the store laughing our off
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  • (it was a franchise, not a small shop so no harm done), I thought that was a nice funny bonding moment, until the very next time we had family dinner with their folks she goes 'well, guess what BECCA did the other day',
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  • condescending and all, making fun of me in front of everyone and trying to humiliate me... I was mortified. Lots of juvenile sh like that, you get the gist, and I was
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  • like oh well, she's just being a bratty puberty kid or whatever. and it'll pass, still I was nice to her as on the first day.
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  • The thing is, everyone else from John's family adores me, I'm very communicative, I can find common ground with anyone and I know how to talk to people of all ages, plus I'm a catch (I'm
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  • nice, I'm pretty, I've graduated at uni with honors, I'm a trust fund kid and most importantly, I'm a great partner to their son and we love each other very much) so his parents, grandparents, his
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  • brother and Fiona all seem to like me, they have literally no reason not to and I have formed a bond with with every one of them, especially Fiona. This will be important later on.
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  • A decade has passed, but Drizella never really grew up and she became a very bitter adult in the meantime, and while John and I moved in together and Fiona and BIL moved further away and had buttload of kids, she stayed in the same place with her parents, she
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  • enrolled in a college (her mom tried to persuade her to go to my uni but she didn't meet necessary requirements and she doesn't speak english while the majority of books were not in our native language and so on), and she's never had a boyfriend.
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  • Now she's always throwing jabs, 'jokes' about how I'm not good enough for her brother, and she tries to provoke me from time to time but honestly she isn't a very smart girl so her jabs just don't land well either and I don't even
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  • dignify those pathetic attempts with any response. Here are some random examples I've memorized, I've forgotten most of them though because I've always tried to brush them off: I'd
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  • say the dress I wanted was sold out and she'd happily say something like 'ha, karma!' (girl, karma for what, like do you even know what that means lol). Like it honestly brought her joy that I couldn't buy a dress I wanted. Or,
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  • I'd take photos of the practically new luxury clothes I wasn't wearing anymore and send them to a group chat with her and Fiona before selling them, in case they liked something, and she'd make fun of the clothes with very
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  • hurtful comments about my fashion sense, which everyone else always compliment me on btw (she'd still take half of the clothes though)... one time she even tried provoking me by proclaiming over family dinner how 'she's going to marry rich',
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  • Probably shouldn't have done that. Anyway loo what I got.

    HD
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    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • which was more an insult to her brothers than anything Imfao, while staring me in the eyes and everyone at the table got very uncomfortable, her parents look ashamed even. Once she told me to come to her birthday party an
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  • hour before the party starts, to do her hair which I happily accepted, and then she didn't show up at the location until 45 minutes later, making me sit there like an idiot and coming with her hair already straight ironed. One time John and I were
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  • hanging out with Drizella and some of her friends and they've been talking boys, so I jokingly mentioned the girl John dated prior to hooking up with me. Drizella's friends, nice girls, got in on the joke and were like 'ewww, how could you John??' and
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  • Drizella said, and I kid you not, something along the lines of 'l support you John, my dear brother, I support you always' while being de d serious and with the mean glare pointed at me. Again, you get the gist, those are just some mild examples I've memorized, there were even worse ones.
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  • A few months ago, Fiona was talking about the clothes she wanted to buy and a top that was sold out and I was like 'no way, I bought that top!' (Fiona understood I was surprised because we have very different styles), to which Drizella jumped
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  • in with the 'oooh, do I hear the SIL's fighting?' and not like in a funny way, again she was very obviously enjoying the thought of me and Fiona not getting aling. After that Fiona confided in me that Drizella's been mean to her in the same way for years which
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  • ped me off so bad, because Fiona is such a sweetheart and would never talk back, even if she wanted to she's just so nice she doesn't know how.
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  • That was the last drop for me because she can be mean to me all she wants but the second I felt like she was trying to come between me and someone I had a good relationship I got angry, so I've decided to dish come back.
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  • Now, I've always kept a low profile when we were talking about girly stuff, because as I've mentioned I'm a trust fund kid and her family is not that well off, so I've never bragged or even mentioned the pricey brands I buy and wear, because it's tacky, I
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  • was raised better and also I know how lucky I am and how rare that is, so even when asked about it I would come up with an affordable dupe as an answer because whichever product I mentioned, as I've stated, would
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  • magically appear in Drizella's bathroom the next time I was visiting, so I never wanted to make her feel bad by mentioning stuff she couldn't afford.
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  • Well, since she's been a little b for so long, and since she's tried to pit me and Fiona against one another and has literally bu ied her for a decade, I've decided I'll be a b granted I don't even any in effort to too, have to put her off.
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  • When Drizella, Fiona and I were talking the next time we all saw eachother, Fiona asked for skincare tips and I mentioned which products I really use, with each serum and facecream costing more than Drizella gets paid in a month at her job, and guess who didn't have much to
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  • say that evening? I made sure to lay all of that out in our bathroom the next time she visited too. When her mom asked a couple of days later about my secret to shiny hair over lunch | told her which hair care brand I'm really using, again batshit crazy
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  • expensive, and Drizella, who hasn't even heard of it until then, googled it quickly on her phone and again, went silent as a silent night. Whenever makeup is mentioned I start namedropping hard and shamelessy, but also seamlessy since it's what I
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  • honestly use, Chanel, Dior, Shiseido, Sisley, Estee Lauder, Lancome and so on... she gets RED in the face when I pull out my Louboutin lipstick after a meal to touch up.
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  • 'You like my perfume? Oh thanks, that's just my Kurkdjian, but I only use it because I've misplaced my Kilian.' Tears almost appeared in her eyes. 'Where did I get my dress? It's Dior, but I can lend it to your mom so she can study it and maybe sew you something similar. This bag? It's just Vivienne Westwood,
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  • nothing crazy like that one Chanel bag my dad got me that one time'. I swear she dies inside every time, just like I was dying inside for years when she would imply I'm not good enough for John (who she obviouslt has an unhealthy obsession for).
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  • And for that reason, my personal favorite over those past few months has become telling her about all the gifts John's bought me over the years, which I've never mentioned before (since she always asks her brothers for something crazy expensive for her birthday and they never get her what she's asked for because she's r de and greedy in her requests - BIL and Fional
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  • have 5 kids and John is currently working a blue collar job, so it's really unreasonable), and I've started proudly flaunting jewelery John bought me - 'This ring? Why yes, those are diamonds, but it isn't a proposal ring since John wants to get me something much bigger and shinier when he proposes, cause he says I deserve nothing less isn't he, like, the best - boyfriend ever').
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  • Oh, she's also asked her struggling parents for a camera that they told her is unreasonably priced... guess what I bought myself on a random tuesday as a little treat as soon as I've heard, and then promptly posted on my instagram story?
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  • She's been really quiet ever since, didn't try to insult me (or Fiona for that matter) single time and the best thing about this is that no one else really notices what I'm doing or that I'm being petty because they are all normal people who don't really care about price tags (as I don't either, I just like the products and happen to have
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  • enough money for them), MIL and Fiona are not that into makeup or jewelery and boys are just boys, so she's the only one that actually cares about the prices or even knows what I've said. I'm being a colossal b and I feel a bit bad tbh, but it's got her to stop insulting me so I guess that's nice.
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Tags

management boss workplace-stories hr toxic-workplace manager bosses work PTO managers supervisor workplace Horrible Bosses work-life balance
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