I (30F) have been with my husband (31M) for almost 18 years—we were best friends for a long time, and then got together in 2021 while he was in the US. We had a love marriage, and while we knew there would be some family drama, we didn’t expect it to be this bad.

Before our wedding, my in-laws pretended to be sweet and supportive. But when my husband came to India for the wedding, they completely changed. They started creating drama every time he tried to meet me, throwing tantrums and trying to control our time together.

It got worse: my MIL publicly shamed me in front of my then-fiancé, took gifts meant for me, saying, “Why are you gifting her everything?” She sabotaged our honeymoon plans and created unnecessary drama during the wedding itself. My FIL is no better—he gaslights us and brushes everything under the rug.

There was also this one incident that really stuck with me: I had severe menstrual pain and couldn’t go on a trip that was planned. My FIL taunted me, saying their plans were ruined because of my “excuse.” But when Ananya, the golden child, had the same issue (pain), they panicked and rushed her to the hospital, treating it like a medical emergency. The double standard was glaring, and it made me feel completely invisible and unimportant.

Now, in 2025, my husband’s sister—Ananya—is getting engaged. She’s always been the golden child, receiving preferential treatment from my in-laws. She wasn’t getting proposals because she’s a very “homely” girl (as they say in our culture), and ironically, my mom helped find her a match.

There’s also the incident with Ananya where she went on an outing with my brothers and my fiancé’s friends. We all went, but she felt left out because she wanted all the attention. She made it clear that she was upset and complained to my in-laws afterward, claiming that my husband “didn’t take care of her” and “ignored her” the entire time—none of which is true. The reality was that she wanted more attention than she was getting, and when that didn’t happen, she threw a tantrum. She later lied about the situation to my in-laws, making my husband sound like the villain.

Now, with the engagement coming up, my in-laws are expecting us to travel to India twice (for the engagement and wedding), buy expensive gifts for a lot of people, and act like everything is fine. This, despite the fact that my husband and I were jobless for some time and didn’t receive any support from them.

To make things worse, Ananya didn’t even mention us in her engagement invite. No acknowledgment, no thanks, nothing. She hasn’t even addressed it, probably because she knows what she did.

We’re now debating whether we should inform her in-laws about how toxic my in-laws have been, so they’re not blindsided by the drama. We also decided not to attend the engagement. My in-laws are ultra-conservative and see “the son not attending his sister’s engagement” as a huge disgrace and loss of social status.

So, WIBTA for telling my SIL’s in-laws the truth about my in-laws and deciding not to attend the engagement?