My (30F) sister in law (35F) talks about herself and her kids so much that she ruins family gatherings for everyone

Okay so when I first met my current SIL, we instantly clicked. We have similar world views and interests. So we often had long talks about all things politics, family, our childhoods, etc. This family spends a lot of time together - we live in the same city and we share a summer home which we all go to most weekends 3 months a year. So yeah, we have had a lot of time to get to know each other. She is extremely book smart, hard working, caring, thoughtful, and I look up to her in many ways. However, over the past 5 years (since her first child was born) she has become more and more unhinged in a social setting. She was always a talker and kinda loud. But now she talks about herself and her kids constantly. Every story or comment you have will somehow remind her of her own experience. I get that its a normal way to keep a convo going but its so excessive, no one can get a word in. It is to the point where everyone in the family avoids her and I am usually the one who is stuck talking to her the entire time. She repeats the same stories over and over, normally they are about how smart her kids are or how well she's doing at her job. She always manages to squeeze in comments about her daughters high IQ (shes 5 years old) and she does this in front of the other children in the family. You guys, it is SO cringey and over the top. I am not nearly as book smart as she is but I have high emotional intelligence and I am so flabbergasted by what comes out of her mouth. Another example - there was one time at a launch party for my husbands company where she cornered me and talked incessantly about her genius daughter who at the time was probably 2. She proceeded to list off all 60 words that she knew.............what. the. fuck. Any sane person would realize that no one would want to hear that....even if they love the baby.

Having kids has changed her so much. I thought I might understand more once I had a baby and then I did and it actually makes me understand less lol. Its truly bizarre the way she behaves and no one can stand it. I do love her and she has amazing qualities, but its really hard to be around. There was an incident about 6 months ago some drama went down because she made some ridiculous comments about how much our wedding cost compared to hers. My husband was fed up and confronted his brother and basically spilled everything about how hard it is to be around her and the constant bragging about how smart her kids are has to stop because its not really healthy for all the other kids to be hearing (some of the other cousins have delayed speech). His brother completely agreed and just kept saying "I know, I know" to every single point he brought up. Their convo ended really well and he said he would talk to her. We were all really hopeful that we would see some change and that family gatherings would be more chill.

It became clear right away that his brother never actually talked to his wife, or if he did, she didn't listen (knowing his personality, I don't think he talked to her). Nothing has changed at all.

Anyways, does anyone have any advice on how to handle this? Summer is coming up and we are about to all be together A LOT. Do I just suck it up and realize that she may never change? I am so bad with confrontation but part of me feels that family should be brutally honest to each other if it means keeping the peace. My in laws are so fearful that she is going to cause a divide in the family and that no one will want to get together.

Is there a nice way to tell someone you love to shut the f up and have some common sense???!!

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TL;DR: Sister in law causing drama/divide and not sure if I should try to talk to her about it or learn to live with it.

Submitted March 20, 2022 at 10:56AM by Pristine_Balance5404 https://ift.tt/OXlE3mj