I'm a decade into this marriage and nearly two into the relationship. His family lives far away, so I rarely saw them in the beginning, and SD always managed to be there causing havoc. If we flew there for a visit, SD managed to get off work and be there as well, watching, sometimes flipping out on me when it was just the three of us, interrupting conversations, demanding alone time with daddy while I sat in a hotel which inevitably caused a fight between husband and me. As a result, I didn't develop strong individual relationships with any of his family, nor did my husband and I develop a relationship as a couple with them. I associated visits with them as enduring her and I soon backed out. For years now he sees them alone and I don't really see them at all. It's easy for me to avoid visits because they live far away.

Over the years, I tried with his daughter and dreaded seeing her until I finally disengaged last year. It's what she wanted - now I don't see his family when she's there and I don't go with him to see her. In her world, I don't exist and in his family's world, I don't exist. But it's been less stressful for me.

As the only female in husband's extended family, SD relishes (even at 30 and married) playing the coquette to uncles, daddy, and male cousins. She is thick as thieves with them and launched a pretty successful campaign against me over the years that I didn't fight - a thorough poisoning of the well. I don't doubt they've all run me into the ground behind my back, as I've heard them badmouth absent family members with merciless vitriol. And I know they team together when SD spouts off about me because some of his family "liked" her nasty Facebook entry about me years ago - so boldly advertising it was OK to malign someone in her active campaign. That made it easier to just give up trying with all of them.

But I feel obliged to some of them when she's not there for my husband's sake. In the last 12 months, this happened only once - I recently saw my husband's brother and the brother's son. I felt anxious, awkward and tense; it seemed everything I said came out wrong and I could almost hear the ugly retelling to SD. Of course, that only makes me say dumber things because I get more nervous. I had trouble looking them in the eye and felt tolerated merely because I'm married to my husband.

I am never so clumsy and socially awkward. Other people even like me sometimes! I don't know how this discomfort with his family has multiplied when I see them less often. It's my own self-fulfilling failure and I don't know how to stop them from getting in my head and putting me on end like this.

I know I can't crack their mean girls' clique and I shouldn't worry about what others think of me. But I feel so maligned and misunderstood. I tried to explain it to my husband - he suggested I discuss it with my brother-in-law. I was sort of shocked by this "solution." He does not see that his family are not my friend and anything I say would probably get back to SD, giving her the power of knowing she's shaken me and giving them all a big horse laugh at my expense. And yet he returned from a summer visit with them and was disgusted at their badmouthing other family members.

So how do I shake this and keep my cool around people I'd never endure if they weren't family? How can I get back my confidence when I deal with them? I feel a little bad for my husband because he spends a lot of time with my family. Of course, my family treats him like a king. He doesn't demand that I see his family, but I'm not sure if I'm making too much of this. How do you negotiate such a complicated dynamic of one against so many? Does it even matter?