Here's the way I do it... it stops at the point where "I don't know you at all." That's pretty simple. My brother's wife's siblings and their spouses are family, but my husband has sisters with husbands and exes I've never met. This comic is from Randall Munroe at XKCD.
I have a sister in-law.
ReplyDeleteShe has a husband.
End of story.
His brother is not my brother in-law.
Where it gets gnarly is when the great big nasty D.I.V.O.R.C.E creeps in.
I don't take sides on these matters but offer help to both if need be.
So I have a mate who is my ex brother in-law on my brother's side.
My sister got married once. Her husband became my brother-in-law. She later divorced him, which would have made him, I guess, my ex-brother-in-law; but I preferred to refer to him – if I ever did – as "my sister's ex-husband".
ReplyDeleteAnd since I haven't seen or heard anything of him in something like 30 years .... p*ss on him anyway.