[PeoplePleaser]

Hello, everyone!
Firstly, I would like to apologise for not responding to your replies - the truth is, I thought I'd subscribed to the thread, and when I didn't get any notification emails, I figured no one had replied! Stumbled across the site again today (having a bad day) and voila... replies! Yay!

You have all written some very good points and made some very valid arguments/opinions on my situation. I hope I won't bore you with long post, but I just want to reveal a little more about me, so here goes....I'll start with why I feel on edge today.

One year ago, things were on an even-keel with my in laws and me. DH and I lived here with just his elderly parents, and although his mother did my head in (constantly wanting my company), it was bearable. But then something went tits-up. My oldest SIL's husband told me some stuff that pretty much punched me in the guts. He told me that SIL talks about me badly behind my back, that her whole family (mother, 2 sisters, nieces, etc) all say I'm lazy, don't pay my way, don't help out enough, blah blah, even though during that very same week, I'd cleaned MIL's house top to bottom.
After telling me this, seeing me cry over it, he then made a subtle pass at me. His exact words were, "I wish I'd met you before I met *****" (wife's name).

I was stunned and embarrassed, and at the time, just laughed it off, but later on, I confided in DH, and he hit the roof. Things went even more downhill when we discovered that the same SIL and BIL were giving up their own home to move in here (supposedly to care for my MIL/FIL) and upon discovering this, my DH made the fatal error of telling his mother what his sister's husband had said to me.
The **** hit the fan.
To cut a long, long story short, tempers flared, SIL confronted me, told me that I was a "family-wrecker" and that she and her entire family hated me and wanted me out of their lives.
And then they moved in with us.
It was sheer hell for over 6 months - even though my MIL continued to speak to me like nothing had happened, I was constantly on eggshells around SIL and often walked in to find her talking about me to her mother or on the phone to some distant relative (DH's family like to spread their muck about as far a field as they can). It was almost unbearable.

Then, in September last year, after returning from a trip to the UK, DH and I were confronted by my FIL. "Someone" had "discovered" a bag of marijuana in our "living room" while we were gone.
Well, it took no amount of time to guess that SIL had actually planted the weed in our room, after she'd been through every personal drawer and cupboard we own. She had also broken into our bedroom and gone through our personal marital items, photos, legal paperwork, the lot.
SIL stayed quiet throughout the whole accusational conversation, only passing comment about it on her Facebook page, claiming that "someone I love and have always trusted is now the biggest liar and is threatening not only my family but my freedom aswell". She was referring to her brother, my husband.

That incident floored me. I sobbed for days, I wanted to pack up and go home to England forever, but a small part of me felt defiant - it was obvious that SIL only moved in here because she has her heart set on her parents house when they die, and she would stop at NOTHING to get DH and I out.
But in October, after the birth of SIL's first grandchild, I wrote her a letter apologizing for the hateful things I'd written about her and her family in my Myspace blog (I'd done it the night her husband made a pass at me, and I'd written about how they're all squalor-living pigs with more issues than anyone I knew.. etc) and that I would like it if we could try and rebuild our relationship. In a nutshell, she read the letter, called me over to her and gave me a hug, where I whispered, "I'm sorry" and she just said, "Me too".
And the whole incident was NEVER talked about again.

So... that is what I am living with. I do not trust my SIL, I do not even particularly like her because of how she spends her day bitching about other family members and backstabbing people with her mother. The pair of them are like two old witches (SIL is 51, her mother is 77) and while all of this is going on, I'm sitting in mine and DH's "lounge" room upstairs, wondering if their latest attack is aimed at me.

I cannot get past the part where SIL told me that everyone wanted me gone. She even threatened (on 2 occasions) to contact Immigration and try and get me deported. Yes, we have good days where we'll joke around and laugh, but then on days like today, where she's lying on the couch downstairs with her mother, ignoring anything anyone says to her, not smiling, not looking at me when I speak to her.... it's tearing me up wondering if her latest mood is somehow to do with me.
All of what happened last year has set a permanent rock in my stomach, a feeling of insecurity and dread that never goes away.

We're due to fly to the UK for Xmas this year and will be away for 2 months, and already, I am sick to my stomach thinking about it, wondering if something else will be done behind our backs to damage relationships even further, or worse still, get us kicked out of my parents-in-laws' home.
I feel on edge, worried, persocuted, over-sensitive, and I don't know what to do to stop feeling this way.
I don't even know for sure what it is I'm afraid of... it's not like SIL is going to kill me in my sleep, so WHAT is it I'm on edge over?

I'm so sorry that this post was long, but I just needed to enlighten you all as to my reason for being so sensitive and for always trying to "please" people. It doesn't matter how much someone hurts me or is rude to me, all I yearn for is their approval - even their friendship, and when I can't get it, I'm left feeling nervy, unliked and socially inept. The worst thing is, most of the time, I don't even LIKE the people who's acceptance of me I crave!

Why the hell am I like this?
Oh and PS... Phil Watson, LOL... Funny you should ask that, but I read the replies in a British accent for some reason! I've lived in the States for almost 3 yrs now, and have no hint of an accent at all!