Questions to Ask Your Sister in Law
Questions for the woman who married your brother, or for your spouse's sister, once the polite phase has gone on long enough. They cover how she found your family, what she would change about family occasions, and the practical things in-laws usually route through a third person rather than ask directly.
The questions
Open any question for the note
How did you two actually meet?
Why ask it
Families circulate a short official version of this story. Asking her for the full one gets details the sibling never mentioned, and it puts her in the position of narrator rather than newcomer.
What did you make of us the first time you met everyone?
Why ask it
Almost always funny, and almost always slightly unflattering. Whether she feels able to be honest here tells you how much room she thinks she has, so laugh at the accurate parts rather than defending anyone.
What are the holidays like in your family, compared to ours?
Why ask it
You learn what she is quietly comparing every December: the timing, the volume, whether people give speeches, whether anyone drinks. Most in-law friction comes from these unstated defaults rather than from disagreement.
How did you two land on what to call each other's parents?
Why ask it
A small, real question that nobody asks out loud. Many people avoid a name for years because they never settled it, and hearing that she has been dodging it is useful information you can act on.
What are you working on at the moment?
Why ask it
Keeps her a person with her own week rather than a fixture at family events. Ask about the current project rather than her job title, since that is what she has actually been thinking about.
What were you like at twenty?
Why ask it
Gets you the version of her that existed before your family met her, which is the part relatives tend to have no picture of. Expect a different person than the one who behaves carefully at your mother's table.
What do you and I have in common that nobody would guess?
Why ask it
Assumes there is something, which is a friendlier premise than fishing for shared interests. If you find one, it is the thing that gives you a relationship independent of the sibling who connects you.
What's actually useful as a gift for you?
Why ask it
Cuts through years of polite candle exchange. Ask for something specific, and offer the same information back, since in-law gift-giving is one of the few problems that a single blunt conversation solves permanently.
What's the easiest way to reach you?
Why ask it
In-laws often communicate only through the sibling in the middle, which makes every message an errand for someone else. Having her number and knowing whether she prefers text changes the relationship more than any deep conversation.
Would you like us to see each other outside family occasions?
Why ask it
Worth asking rather than assuming in either direction. Some people want a friendship; others are content with three good afternoons a year, and knowing which prevents you reading her limits as a slight.
What do you wish someone had told you before you joined this family?
Why ask it
Invites her to say the true thing about your relatives, which she has probably only ever said to her partner. If you are the one who married in, flip it and ask what she wishes she had known about you.
Is there anything we do as a family that strikes you as strange?
Why ask it
Every family has customs that look bizarre from outside: the seating, the arguing, the not arguing, the birthday rules. Asking gives her permission to name one, and you will probably not have noticed it.
What would make family occasions easier for you?
Why ask it
Answers tend to be small and fixable: a later start, somewhere to feed a baby, not being asked about children, an hour of quiet. Ask, then actually change one thing, or do not ask.
Do you feel like you can say no to an invitation from us?
Why ask it
In-laws frequently attend things out of obligation and are then read as reluctant. Saying out loud that a no is acceptable does more for the relationship than the next three invitations combined.
How do you two decide where to spend the holidays?
Why ask it
Ask her rather than your sibling, since she is usually the one negotiating with two sets of parents. The answer also tells you whether the current arrangement is a settlement or a source of tension.
Is there anything you'd rather raise with me directly than through him?
Why ask it
Names the awkward habit that most in-law relationships run on. Offering a direct line is a concrete gesture, and it prevents small misunderstandings from arriving secondhand and inflated.
Is there something you could use help with that you wouldn't ask for?
Why ask it
In-laws ask each other for practical help last, after friends and their own families. The answer is often specific and small, a lift, an afternoon with the children, a job reference, and easy to say yes to.
What do you hope your kids take from this side of the family?
Why ask it
If there are children, this is the question that treats her as a parent making choices rather than a passenger. What she names as worth keeping is also, by implication, a comment on what she is leaving behind.
What do you want to be doing in five years?
Why ask it
Ask about her rather than about the couple. Many in-law conversations only ever address her half of a joint plan, and hearing the individual version is often the first time anyone has asked.
Is there anything you assume I already know about you that I probably don't?
Why ask it
A good closer, because families pass around partial information and nobody checks. Answers range from a career she had, to a language she speaks, to something significant that everyone believed had been mentioned.
Building a relationship that doesn't run through your sibling
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Adjust the questions to your situation
If she married into your family
She is the one being assessed at every gathering, and she knows it. Questions about how your family looks from outside land well, because almost nobody has asked her for that opinion.
If she is your spouse's sister
You are the newcomer, so reverse the direction: ask what she wishes she had known about you, and what she was told before you arrived. It is a more useful conversation and a more disarming one.
If one of you is much newer than the other
A first year in-law and a fifteen year in-law need different conversations. The new one needs practical information; the established one usually appreciates being asked something that is not about the family at all.
Where these conversations actually happen
- In the kitchen during cleanup, when everyone else is at the table. It is the reliable moment in every family gathering when two people end up alone.
- On a walk or a drive, particularly one you volunteered for. The absence of eye contact makes the more honest questions easier.
- By message between visits. A short note about something she mentioned last time does more than an hour of politeness at the next event.
- Not in front of your parents. Any question about how this family operates gets a different answer with your mother in the room.
What to avoid
Questions about children
Whether they are planning any, when, or why not. This is the single most common thing in-laws complain about being asked, and there is no version of it that is your business.
Comparisons to a previous partner
Even a favorable one. Mentioning your brother's ex, or noting that she is nothing like her, guarantees the comparison lives in her head for the rest of the visit.
Recruiting her into family disputes
Asking her to take a side, or to report on your sibling, damages the relationship you are trying to build. She will not forget being asked.
Passing anything on
If she tells you something about their marriage, their money, or her health, it stops with you. In-law confidences that reach a parent are almost never repaired.
If the relationship is already strained
- 1Start with logistics rather than feelings. Agreeing on gifts, timings, or who hosts is easier ground and it builds some evidence that you can cooperate.
- 2Ask one question and let her answer at whatever length she wants. A list of questions to someone who is wary reads as an interrogation.
- 3Do not use the sibling as an intermediary to raise a grievance. Whatever you say to him will arrive with a worse tone than you intended.
- 4Accept a polite distance if that is what she wants. Reliable civility over years does more for family occasions than one attempt at closeness she did not ask for.