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Bitchyness; Is there a cure? [in-law edition]
Chalkbot
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So I have a really big bitch in the family, my wife's sister. It wouldn't be a big deal if the family wasn't so close, we do things together all the time. That is not something likely to change any time soon, so suggestions that I avoid her forever are not helpful to this particular situation. (Not for lack of willingness on my part though :P)
Background:
We typically get together at least once every two weeks. When I say "we" I mean, my wife and I, her sister and her husband, and my wife's parents; six adults. My wife's mom is the former queen of bitchyness. She developed her own school of emotional abuse and taught her daughters well. She is getting old now, so she's passed the torch to her oldest daughter (my wife's sister) and totally approves of her attitude. Being raised in this sort of environment, my wife was quite the bitch when I met her. Of course she was totally oblivious to that fact. I was un-willing to be subjected to that the rest of my life, so we worked hard to cure the bitchyness, it took about 2 years. Now that she's been cured, being in the company of her sister is ESPECIALLY eye-opening for her. She has become obsessed with how much of a bitch her sister is, it's seriously making my wife crazy. She worries for her sister's husband, and their little daughter, who are constantly on the recieving end.
Having been cured, my wife wants to start some kind of cleansing campaign on the rest of her family, starting with her sister. She's constantly asking me what we can do about it, and I honestly don't know. I'm not sure if there is anything we can do, but offer our support and advice to my wife's husband, who has actually confided in my wife and I on a couple of occasions. (He seems desperate at times, and I am not un-sympathetic)
The symptoms:
I know there are as many types of bitchyness as there are strains of the flu virus, so I'll try to explain what we're dealing with here.
Mostly the bitchyness is aimed at males. They are considered stupid (despite the males in our family all being very successful) and incompetent. If anything goes wrong, (ANYTHING, like a lightbulb burns out or something), it is always the fault of any given male in the room with her. She will point out how stupid they are, and encourage the other people in the room to join in with her. She is especially cutting when there is a male in pain (emotionally or physically). That is like blood in the water to a shark.
Examples:
My father in-law nearly cut his finger off in a freak accident during a family gathering, there's blood dripping everywhere, people panicking, she's just standing there mocking his stupidity and cursing him for "ruining everything". He wasn't doing anything stupid to incur the injury, it could have happened to anyone.
She's opening a gift from her husband. He's obviously stoked about it as he's talking a mile a minute about the great lengths he went to get it, how she's worth all the effort, how he knows she'll love it, etc. As soon as she gets it unwrapped (in a crowded room mind you) she frowns and says "Awwww, that's not the one I wanted, but thanks for trying." Then talks for the next ten minutes about how he could have made such a stupid mistake. It was totally exchangeable, there was no reason to make a big scene about it, but he was obviously emotionally invested in this gift being a success, so she just goes on and on about how terrible it is compared to the one she wanted.
We're out with a large group of friends celebrating 3 birthdays, her's included. After a nice dinner on the town, everyone starts asking what we should do next (we all car-pooled ). Naturally we ask her first (essentially being the main birthday girl) She says she doesn't care, so the decision falls on another birthday girl who wants to go to a Karaoke bar. Everyone packs in and drives over there. As soon as we get inside she starts complaining about having a headache, and moves to a table away from the rest of the group. Her husband is now doing a social juggling act moving back and forth between the tables, trying to have some fun with the group, and keep her from getting upset at her table. I overhear them talking about how she wants to go home and never wanted to come here. He asks her why she didn't say anything when the question was on her, and she replies, "I shouldn't have to say anything!" Everyone (12 people) has to leave 10 minutes after getting there, she says nothing to anyone.
Her husband has a drink on the coffee table. It's not the only one on the table, and it's not unusual to have drinks on the table. The dog jumps up and spills his drink everywhere. Immediately she starts screaming at him for putting his drink there, essentially standing over him and yelling while he's frantically cleaning the floor and apologizing. The floor is a hard wood floor.
Edit:
There are a couple of things I neglected to touch on that make it a little more complicated. The nature of her "bitchyness" (for lack of a better term) is to attack her victim's self esteem directly. That in itself usually makes it hard for the victim to respond to her with any sort of authority, but on top of that she will immediately direct the question to the other people in the room. "Can you believe he put his drink there? What an idiot, right?" Then stroke the self esteem of someone else in the room, "I know you wouldn't have put your drink there, right *NAME*?" The other people are inclined to agree with her, to avoid being the next target, so she has essentially brought the entire room against you in a matter of seconds. For this reason I feel I (and everyone else) am helping her abuse people just by being in the room when it happens. She is dragging us into it.
These are barely scratching the surface, but I think they are good examples.
So what do you guys think? Is there anything we (my wife and I) can do to help the situation? My wife wants to confront her about it directly, but I was afraid that might make her more determined to resist the change. I pointed out that my wife only changed her own attitude because she wanted to, and that's obviously not the case with her sister. Or is the exact opposite true? Does she just need someone to put her in her place when she get's out of line? People are basically just tripping over each other to satisfy her whenever she goes into bitch mode, which isn't helping matters. I'd love to hear from anyone who has had some kind of success in this situation.
tl;dr
Sister in-law is a selfish bitch, everyone suffers. Can my wife and I help her (or her victims)?
Background:
We typically get together at least once every two weeks. When I say "we" I mean, my wife and I, her sister and her husband, and my wife's parents; six adults. My wife's mom is the former queen of bitchyness. She developed her own school of emotional abuse and taught her daughters well. She is getting old now, so she's passed the torch to her oldest daughter (my wife's sister) and totally approves of her attitude. Being raised in this sort of environment, my wife was quite the bitch when I met her. Of course she was totally oblivious to that fact. I was un-willing to be subjected to that the rest of my life, so we worked hard to cure the bitchyness, it took about 2 years. Now that she's been cured, being in the company of her sister is ESPECIALLY eye-opening for her. She has become obsessed with how much of a bitch her sister is, it's seriously making my wife crazy. She worries for her sister's husband, and their little daughter, who are constantly on the recieving end.
Having been cured, my wife wants to start some kind of cleansing campaign on the rest of her family, starting with her sister. She's constantly asking me what we can do about it, and I honestly don't know. I'm not sure if there is anything we can do, but offer our support and advice to my wife's husband, who has actually confided in my wife and I on a couple of occasions. (He seems desperate at times, and I am not un-sympathetic)
The symptoms:
I know there are as many types of bitchyness as there are strains of the flu virus, so I'll try to explain what we're dealing with here.
Mostly the bitchyness is aimed at males. They are considered stupid (despite the males in our family all being very successful) and incompetent. If anything goes wrong, (ANYTHING, like a lightbulb burns out or something), it is always the fault of any given male in the room with her. She will point out how stupid they are, and encourage the other people in the room to join in with her. She is especially cutting when there is a male in pain (emotionally or physically). That is like blood in the water to a shark.
Examples:
My father in-law nearly cut his finger off in a freak accident during a family gathering, there's blood dripping everywhere, people panicking, she's just standing there mocking his stupidity and cursing him for "ruining everything". He wasn't doing anything stupid to incur the injury, it could have happened to anyone.
She's opening a gift from her husband. He's obviously stoked about it as he's talking a mile a minute about the great lengths he went to get it, how she's worth all the effort, how he knows she'll love it, etc. As soon as she gets it unwrapped (in a crowded room mind you) she frowns and says "Awwww, that's not the one I wanted, but thanks for trying." Then talks for the next ten minutes about how he could have made such a stupid mistake. It was totally exchangeable, there was no reason to make a big scene about it, but he was obviously emotionally invested in this gift being a success, so she just goes on and on about how terrible it is compared to the one she wanted.
We're out with a large group of friends celebrating 3 birthdays, her's included. After a nice dinner on the town, everyone starts asking what we should do next (we all car-pooled ). Naturally we ask her first (essentially being the main birthday girl) She says she doesn't care, so the decision falls on another birthday girl who wants to go to a Karaoke bar. Everyone packs in and drives over there. As soon as we get inside she starts complaining about having a headache, and moves to a table away from the rest of the group. Her husband is now doing a social juggling act moving back and forth between the tables, trying to have some fun with the group, and keep her from getting upset at her table. I overhear them talking about how she wants to go home and never wanted to come here. He asks her why she didn't say anything when the question was on her, and she replies, "I shouldn't have to say anything!" Everyone (12 people) has to leave 10 minutes after getting there, she says nothing to anyone.
Her husband has a drink on the coffee table. It's not the only one on the table, and it's not unusual to have drinks on the table. The dog jumps up and spills his drink everywhere. Immediately she starts screaming at him for putting his drink there, essentially standing over him and yelling while he's frantically cleaning the floor and apologizing. The floor is a hard wood floor.
Edit:
There are a couple of things I neglected to touch on that make it a little more complicated. The nature of her "bitchyness" (for lack of a better term) is to attack her victim's self esteem directly. That in itself usually makes it hard for the victim to respond to her with any sort of authority, but on top of that she will immediately direct the question to the other people in the room. "Can you believe he put his drink there? What an idiot, right?" Then stroke the self esteem of someone else in the room, "I know you wouldn't have put your drink there, right *NAME*?" The other people are inclined to agree with her, to avoid being the next target, so she has essentially brought the entire room against you in a matter of seconds. For this reason I feel I (and everyone else) am helping her abuse people just by being in the room when it happens. She is dragging us into it.
These are barely scratching the surface, but I think they are good examples.
So what do you guys think? Is there anything we (my wife and I) can do to help the situation? My wife wants to confront her about it directly, but I was afraid that might make her more determined to resist the change. I pointed out that my wife only changed her own attitude because she wanted to, and that's obviously not the case with her sister. Or is the exact opposite true? Does she just need someone to put her in her place when she get's out of line? People are basically just tripping over each other to satisfy her whenever she goes into bitch mode, which isn't helping matters. I'd love to hear from anyone who has had some kind of success in this situation.
tl;dr
Sister in-law is a selfish bitch, everyone suffers. Can my wife and I help her (or her victims)?
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I might be with you if you came up with an example that pertained to you, but everything you said happened to someone else. If your wife wants to confront her, that's up to her. But you? Stay out of it.
Also, "cure her bitchyness" and "does she just need someone to put her in her place" makes you sound like a very silly goose. And creepy. Like you're viewing your wife and her sister as animals that need to be retrained.
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It is his business now, his wife is comming to him for help. Her family is close despite the women being aggressive and toxic. She has become a strain on the relationship with the rest of the family, and if not handled properly I suspect would turn the rest of the family against them.
Man, I feel for you cause that is a tough situation to face. Since breaking ties with her completely you either have to tolerate it or confront her about it.
If you, or your wife, are going to confront her is to just lay it out there. I would also suggest you do it at a time when it is just you and her, maybe the 4 of you (husband and wives). This will let her know that her actions are unacceptable without embarrassing her infront of friends/family.
I don't suggest talking to other people about it since I see it coming back to her before you can confront her about it, thus making you an asshole that talks behind her back. You might be able to set up a sort of intervention, but that may be embarrassing for her causing her to feel betrayed. You may even be able to get a proffessional to help with that, someone who specializes in interventions.
OR you could wait(invite) for some third party to tell her she is a super bitch and doesn't know how people can stand to be around her. She will naturally explode on that person, then proceed to talk about his nerve when they are gone giving you the opportunity to say "Hey, Bitchy McGee, you can be pretty bitchy and sometimes you turn into a super bitch without warning. It can be difficult to hang out with you sometimes because of that."
There may be better ways to lay it out to her. Good luck, I hope she doesn't turn into the "I just won't talk to them for 20 years! SEE HOW THEY WILL LIKE THAT!" I have a friend that has an Aunt that is a super bitch that noone has talked to for 20 years, it's sad really.
I apologize for the poor choice of words. Generally the reaction (and I definitely fall into this camp) to her outbursts are total silence and stunned glances back and forth between witnesses. Nobody has ever said to her "Hey, I think you're making too big a deal out of this", or "Okay, calm down, we can work out a solution here". That's what I meant by the phrase "put her in her place" the place being reality. everyone just lets her go without a word. Should someone be saying something?, is the question I was getting at. I also had no intention of getting directly involved myself, I only act as a support character and was looking for anything I could do in that role. I feel like people are looking to me (my wife, and her sister's husband) for advice about what to do, and I am really unsure of what to tell them.
That being said, are you still of the opinion that I should not do anything? What do I say when asked about it?
Well, like I said in the first couple sentences; not hanging out with her is not an option. We are a close family, we love her and I love hanging out with my only neice, she (my wife's sister) is actually really fun to be around in those few instances when she's not a bitch. Nobody is saying that they don't want to be around her. Believe me, I am the expert at cutting unwanted family members out of my life. That's not what I was going for here.
Thanks Buddies, that was actually really helpful. I think getting the four of us together for a chat on the subject could be what he (the husband) is looking for. I will ask him if he would like that, because I know he's essentially begging us (my wife and I) to help him somehow.
Seriously. The sister-in-law isn't the only one in need of an attitude adjustment here. That being said, your solution? Stop hanging out with them. You and your wife are freaking adults. If you don't want to hang out with someone, just stop doing it.
If anyone asks why, by all means, share. But otherwise, go on about your business.
Why is it sad?
I'd say do nothing unless she directs this right at you. If she unleashes on you, then by all means tell her what you think, but try to keep it constructive and non-accusatory or she'll become defensive.
Beyond that, if you want to be proactive about this, your wife is pretty much the only person that can broach the subject with any likelihood of keeping the situation calm. And she needs to do so alone, or else the sister will feel like people are ganging up on her.
OP, I guess the first thing you and your wife should do is try to get the husband to confront her about it in a non threatening way. I couldn't give you details, I usually just tell people to shut their lousy mouths.
PSN/XBL: Zampanov -- Steam: Zampanov
In the meantime, I would advocate for interrupting her when she begins her rant. Redirect the conversation and don't give her a chance to finish, or even really begin. She is an adult acting like a petulant child, and sometimes adults need to be retrained, or rehabilitated, or whatever you want to term it. People undergo training and rehabilitating to modify their behavior all the time.
If the family is unwilling to take the steps above - or they aren't effective - then you and your wife need to have the resolve to step away from going out with them and work on the relationships from a distance. Constant exposure to this sort of attitude can have an effect on you - and not a positive one.
You can have a similar plan for your sister-in-law, mutually agreed upon by your wife in the case that she directs her behaviour at either of you. Otherwise, as other people have said, everyone is an adult and thus needs to take their own initiative and responsibilty for their reaction to your sister-in-law. You can give them advice if asked, but otherwise I suggest that you stay out of it. If anybody confonts her directly, it should be your wife, not you.
Pretty sure by "put her in her place" he doesn't mean backhand her and tell her to get back in the kitchen.
If her attitude is directed at the OP, I'd say he has every right to put her in her place, with something along the lines of "I don't care who you think you are, but you don't ever get to speak to me like that, so take your attitude and jam it sideways up your ass".
However he should really stay out of it unless it is directed at him.
I'm an asshole though, I would have dropped the Goose's Golden C-Word on this gal a long time ago then thrown up my hands like Costanza and napped in the car for the rest of the gathering. And continued to do so until she learned not to goose with me.
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Yes, I think you have a pretty good idea of how to handle someone like this. There are a couple of things I neglected to touch on that make it a little more complicated. The nature of her "bitchyness" (for lack of a better term) is to attack her victim's self esteem directly. That in itself usually makes it hard for the victim to respond to her with any sort of authority, but on top of that she will immediately direct the question to the other people in the room. "Can you believe he put his drink there? What an idiot, right?" Then stroke the self esteem of someone else in the room, "I know you wouldn't have put your drink there, right *NAME*?" The other people are inclined to agree with her, to avoid being the next target, so she has essentially brought the entire room against you in a matter of seconds. I probably should have elaborated more on this aspect in the OP, but this is something that is challenging to put into words.
Now, her husband is the most frequent target (with dad getting his fair share), and he is the one tentatively asking people for help (he's asked my wife and I, and I've heard he's made the same pleas to dad). It seems impossible to stand up to her when you know everyone else in the room is immediately going to take her side. How would you modify your approach to account for this? Seriously, his self esteem is so battered that I can't imagine he suddenly starts challenging her in these scenarios.
Oh, and I was never considering confronting her myself, as many people seemed to have assumed. I am pretty much the most non-confrontational (to an un-healthy degree) person in this family. That is another issue entirely.
Thanks DiscoZombie. I don't think it has anything to do with people feeling sorry for her, there is just a really big emphasis on family in this family. We've all enjoyed her company at times, she can make or break any gathering and everyone seems to cater to her knowing that. She currently has the only child (grandchild for the parents, niece for my wife and I) in the family and it is important to everyone to be a part of her life as well. There really isn't a way around being with her.
Other then that, just don't put up with either one of you being the target of it.
In my opinion, trying to get a whole bunch of people who aren't great at standing up for themselves to try and deal with a loud and negative person isn't going to work. You'll get people conspiring behind her back, making each other angry about how they're experiences are ruined. Likely, instead of doing anything, they'll keep bottling it in because they aren't confrontational and want to follow the same pattern, and then all blow up together.
Talk to the husband. I would leave terms like "being a huge bitch" out of it. She may be tearing down others out of anxiety/depression/stress, who knows, but I wouldn't combat negativity with negativity.
If your wife is concerned then she needs to have a private, one-on-one talk with her about constant negativity and her need to demean other poeple.
And if her husband is concerned about it, then he needs to talk with her about how it makes him feel - and if she doesn't see it that way then they probably need to see a marriage counselor, who might be able to see how she hurts everyone around her.
As for the "none of your business" and "jettison every relationship you have" crowd, all I have to say to that is "what the fuck?!" When people who you value or those who are close to people you value engage in destructive behavior do you just walk away and erase them out of your lives? Or do you try to get them to help themselves stop being destructive?
Well, if this were happening in my in-law family, I would have spoken to my spouse ahead of time and agreed that he would speak up gently and say that he doesn't want to hear his family being insulted like that, and ask the person to please stop talking like that. I would be there to back him up and support him, and ready with the plan I had above if the person then lashed out at us instead of at the original victim. I'd probably add a "You don't deserve to be spoken to like that" to the original victim at some point as well. That way you can be a role model to the others for rejecting the hurtful comments without being angry or controntational, and supportive of the people on the receiving end.
It's hard, I know how hard it is to be an in-law and deal with this stuff. There are many times when I really want to give my mother-in-law a piece of my mind, especially about the way she treats my father-in-law (it's much more subtle than what your sister-in-law does, but I hate it all the same), but I've agreed to do things my spouse's non-confrontational way in return for not needing to spend too much time with them. Things would be different if they lived nearby, let me tell ya. I think whatever you do you just need to make sure that you and your wife have a united front and that she be seen taking the initiative. The last thing you want is for your sister-in-law to try to drive a wedge between you and the rest of the family because she's singling you out as the Big Bad Guy. I mean, she could try to do that anyway, but if you and your wife are strong and united, she won't have the power to do that.
Also, if she's making general disparaging remarks about men, I say by all means speak up about how you find that kind of attitude disprespectful. I hate that gender wars shit, whether it be directed towards men or women, and I don't think it's crossing the line to speak up about that issue.
Try and help them, but lets be honest here, people only change if they truly want to. If you confront the person and continually try and invoke change in this person and it is going nowhere, at some point you need to cut ties. Yeah the nuclear option sucks, and it should be a last result, but you have to be willing to use it. My life and my well being come first and if someone else is continually fucking those things up despite my efforts then I need to do what is best for me, and what is best for me is removing the cancers in my life.
That said, I don't think the OP or anyone in the family has really done much of anything to address the situation. Start with nice love, move on to tough love if needed, then brutal fucking honesty, then nuke from orbit and walk away if all else fails.
Have you ever tried doing this? You know, when someone is upset for no apparent reason, talking with about it and opening a dialogue is usually a good thing to do. Instead, everyone interacting with her has apparently been letting the trainwreck happen, then looking at one another and going "Oh the horror, the horror", but still doing nothing about it.
Make sure to observe what she is after in each outburst. It sounds like she is mainly after reassurance that her feelings about a given event are justified. From what you've said, her reactions to accidents and negative events is over the top. She needs to be made aware that her reactions are inappropriate.
Have your wife speak to other members of the family about not supporting her hurtful behavior. Her behavior IS hurtful and inappropriate. If they are unwilling to support a positive atmosphere then you can either deal with it until you snap or find new friends to hang out with.
Do this. If it doesn't work then don't hang out with her. I don't care how "important" family is. There is no excuse to be around someone who makes you miserable. Being related to an asshole doesn't somehow make you cosmically owe them your company.
but they're listening to every word I say
PA standard template advice to any social problem is "ABANDON SHIP!".
However in reality most people want to remain involved in their family. Even when some of them are bitches.
My advice:
you aren't going to be able to cure her. Not you or your wife. A heart to heart talk from your wife might result in a falling out.
However you may be able to reduce her bad influence over social events if next time she tears somebody down you say "eh, it was an easy enough mistake to make" or some such downplaying and support of the victim.
https://medium.com/@alascii
Sister: "X, would you have have put it there?"
You/Wife(interrupting, standing with target): "I would have, and can't think of any reason why not, which sems to be the consensus based on all those glasses on it (try to link glasses to people, so she'd have to attack them too). Can you give a reason?"
Sister: [Chokes on outrage and throws out bullshit explanation]
You and Wife: [laugh in her face]
Sister: [tries to claw your motherfucking eyes out, is physically restrained]
She would never live that down.
She sounds like a complete and utter silly goose.
Except that would obviously make things worse.
https://medium.com/@alascii
That's really all that needs to happen. Over and over, "no, you're wrong and this is why". Use a calm tone, act genuinely confused about why she's acting that way, say something nice about her target, wander off smiling before she can recover.
Her husband really does need to stand up for himself more as well, though. Hot damn, but I'd have something to say if my partner rubbished a gift from me in front of other people.
First of all, whether intentional or otherwise, I think the tone of the OP (as in original POST, not POSTER) is a tad misogynistic; it's not in a GET BACK IN THE KITCHEN way, but in a "women are bitchy and I fixed my wife but these other women suck so how can I fix them?" way. If these are really the terms in which you think, you're never going to be able to approach these people reasonably. It may be wise, if only for your own outlook, to revise this a little.
Second, you don't need to make a scene, or have your sister make a scene, to be involved. You keep talking about how your wife's sister tears people down publicly to the point where people go along just to avoid being a target. I think it goes without saying that you shouldn't feed into that at all by so much as chuckling while she's embarrassing someone, but maybe next time she tears someone down, you can help build them up. If she's yelling at her husband for cutting his finger, take a moment to speak with him about something positive with his job, or a hobby he has. It's not really the same as if his wife were doing the talking, but he should know that you and your wife, if no one else, value him as a whole person and find him interesting. When you are given a gift by someone who is regularly targeted, make very sure that the person knows how much you appreciate it. Don't let her dictate a negative atmosphere; be relentlessly positive.
And as Scalfin pointed out (maybe without the eye-clawing), when she asks a question like that, a simple "Yes" will go a long way. If she calls you stupid too, you can smile and shrug and say "I guess I'm stupid then." Then you move on and change the subject, or go back to your conversation with the person sitting next to you, or whatever.
The point is, don't let her wreck your time. It is probably the control she feels she has when she ruins someone's day that she's getting off on; don't let her ruin yours, and at least in part, she's failed.
If the dog does the drink spill thing again
say "it could have been anyones drink" with a smile and then help clean it up
just be better than her shit
brush her off, like noquar said
That means, don't hang out with them, ever again. Make plans with the parents (or just the father). Just all out ostracize her from doing anything with you and the wife. If questioned, just inform her you don't appreciate her constant misandry, attitude, and the constant put downs to everyone but the females. Leave it at that and continue going on with your life.
Chances are you're not going to be able to tame the beast or cure her, so to speak, but you can get rid of the stupid bullshit in your own life.
1) Just stop hanging out when she's going to be there, and make it known why. Also try to arrange for times when just your family and your wife's parents can hang out, so you're not cutting them out.
2) Call her out on her bullshit. If she says something is stupid, say it was an honest mistake. If she says ten minutes in that she doesn't want to be there anymore, tell her where the car is and to go lay down. Most likely this route will lead to you having no choice but to do 1), which is a win in my book. Life is too short to spend it around miserable people.
It really sounds like the most important part for this woman is the part where people agree with her. I think you guys saying "no, it seems like an honest mistake" every single time she goes off will eliminate the support she is getting and probably decrease the behavior. Yes, you will turn yourselves into targets, but you know going in that everyone in the room other than her is really on your side no matter what she says. Do this without the daughter present and talk with all the other adults before you do this.
I know a lot of people have talked about bailing but it is an option, and can be very effective, even temporarily. You do not need to see this woman to see your niece. It sounds like you are on good terms with her husband, make plans just with him and the niece. When she gets older (she sounds young right now) make plans to see her by herself.
Sorry that my OP offended some people. I was not trying to take credit for curing my wife of bitchyness, all I did was support her along the way and go to counciling with her every week. I think it's a monumental achievement, and she appreciates it when I tell people about how she changed, so I try to remember to do that whenever it's relevant. She's actually already tried to get her sister into couciling and to try medication (mom is on a lot of meds, and my wife was on them for a couple months during her transitional period which helped her a LOT). Sister rejects both of these ideas outright.
I think (hope) once it's harder for her to build herself up by tearing others down, she might start to realize that there is a serious problem and may become more receptive to those ideas.
Thanks again everyone, when you're in the thick of it, it's really hard to see what's actually going on. Having people on the outside is really valuable.
Verbal bullies are still, in the end, just bullies. They don't want a fight, they want to feel superior.
In a situation such as this, then stand up for him, but don't make the issue her attitude. Say "Yes, I would have put my drink there, just like everybody else has. It's a non-issue and no damage was done."
You risk turning her wrath on your at this point, but if that happens, then you have leave to tell her to quit being a bitch.
I think if this genuinely is a close family, one in which she will no more abandon you for trying to tell her something, than you would abandon her for being annoying and bitchy then the correct response is to have your wife talk to her in private and say 'I know it's just your way, but being around you when you are being cruel to people makes my husband and I uncomfortable. This isn't an ultimatum, we're just letting you know we'd appreciate it if perhaps you'd tone it down a little bit'
Honestly, she's an adult, and can do as she pleases.
Failing that, you just wait until you and your wife have kids and then use the 'I'm a parent and know what's best for my child' logic to say 'Sister in Law, your negative outlook is upsetting our kid and setting a bad example, please stop'.
This would never, ever work. She needs to learn it's objectively unnacceptable behaviour, and serving it up to her like this as a subjective problem the OP/his wife has makes it into their issue. It's way too wishy-washy.
What the OP needs is strength. Call her out when she belittles others, tell her it's not acceptable and demeaning, and that her need to put down others speaks poorly of her. Don't shout, don't get angry. Be firm and accept no argument, don't let her drag you down into her stupidity. Do this consistently and never, ever let her get away with bullying. She won't be able to fight this.
Furthermore, be positive. Don't let her be the center of attention, don't let her dictate your life. Good luck.