Carolyn Hax: Managing a hyper competitive sister-in-law

Dear Carolyn: I just got engaged to one of four brothers who are very close. My fiance’s oldest brother has been married to “Jackie” for a year. I sense Jackie is used to getting a lot of attention for being “the daughter we always wanted” to my future parents-in-law, and may also have some vision of herself as the up-and-coming family matriarch (gag).

I don’t care about any of this; I am just doing my own thing and hoping to get along with everyone. I happen to be a nurse practitioner and the first medical professional to join the family. I do not brag about this or really talk about it, but the family likes to bring it up when introducing me to new people.

Jackie seems to find it threatening and has started telling everyone who will listen that she also has a “nursing degree,” which is technically true but pretty misleading. She has an associate’s degree from a college where she took some pre-nursing courses, but her degree itself is in something else and she never attempted any licensure exams.

While I get these weird misstatements are about her and not me, and are not hurting anyone (unless she tries to intervene in someone’s medical emergency), it drives me crazy that she’s trying to make a competition out of something that isn’t one, and I’d really like to nip it in the bud. Any suggestions? – It’s Not a Competition!

I hear the rest of the family in the kitchen making popcorn.

But I also hope you and Jackie deny them that satisfaction.

If it’s not a competition, then prove it by forfeiting – or outright losing. Voluntarily, kindly, joyously, every time.

Please take this in the spirit it is intended, as an attempt to be helpful from someone who has spent a lifetime managing (or failing to manage) her own competitive impulses: Jackies can only drive you crazy if you do “care about any of this,” on some level.

You can see through Jackie’s attention cravings, not care to be anyone’s matriarch, not need to be the daughter anyone “always wanted” – I believe you on all counts, by the way – and still not like the sensation of someone else thinking she beat you. So admit that to yourself. You can know intellectually you’re not competing and still feel a mad impulse to say, “HA HA, LOSER, I DON’T EVEN CARE.”

So that’s where you can make a difference in your relationship with Jackie. Recognize the competitive feelings she triggers in you with her competitiveness; be prepared with a healthy outlet for those feelings so you don’t react in the moment (laugh them off, walk them off, repeat a restorative mantra, resuscitate someone); and adopt the type of cooperative mindset that eases insecurities versus inflaming them. Such as:

Give her time to adjust to you.

Don’t judge her forever on her struggle with this.

Remember her humanity.

Note her strengths.

Seek her opinions.

Learn when and how to change subjects gracefully.

Nurture an alliance, if not a friendship.

Swear off pettiness in all its forms.

Marriage into a close family comes with a duty not to be the reason it stops being close. If you can’t be pro-Jackie, then be as Jackie-neutral as a person can be.