Now, she may be a genuinely annoying person. Selfish, spiteful, cruel. Worse, she may have parents and brothers and sisters that are just as bad, that she insists on dragging along to every one of your family functions. This has been known to happen. This is one of the worst scenarios of your sibling marrying someone you don't like. They have a couple of kids; now kids are in the picture. What can you do? What should you do?

I think one pretty obvious thing you shouldn't do is stoke the fires of controversy, as it were. That is, you probably shouldn't try to get your brother to dislike his new wife even more. Ideally, the marriage should improve, because that means your sister-in-law would improve, and everyone would be happier-especially the new little wee children running around. The main goal, then, is to aim for happiness, rather than increasing misery.

This may seem like an all too obvious point to make. But the evidence is out: usually when a sibling marries the wrong person, that is, someone the other siblings don't like, the other siblings rush in to make their dislike known as cruelly (if subtly) as possible. This is a big, big mistake. This is the sort of mistake that brings woe unto the generations. A much better idea, a much better plan, is to (corny as it sounds) try to see the good things in your new in-law. Even if your brother can't see them, you try to see them, and relate them to him, and be an example by bringing those good things out into the open.

If your sibling marries someone you don't like, try to build on common ground with this person that you don't like. After all, you're stuck together-in a sense. You don't have to crawl into bed with them at night, thank heaven. All you have to do is summon up the courage to be decent and charitable at family functions, at dinner on Sunday. There's got to be something you have in common with your new, disliked in-law-it could be as simple as your both liking the color red. Yes, you can actually build on the flimsiest of foundations. Remember, it's for the sake of the family, the sake of the children, your brother's sake, your own sake.

Now, there's no call for you to force yourself to become best chums for life with an in-law that you just don't like. In the first place, there's no way to force a friendship, and in the second place, it's your sibling's spouse, not yours; you have enough misery as it is; don't feel as though you've got to ride in on a white horse and save the world. The basic thing is to be kind. Treat them as you'd want to be treated yourself: with courtesy, respect, and a modicum of genuine affection, even if it's solely because you like red T-shirts and so does Sally over there.