So I think my marriage is finally over.
She's always had issues with pride and control. To the point that she basically ejects anybody from her life who criticizes her or refuses to operate on her terms. If she can't do this directly (if they're my friends), she makes the relationship so painful that people choose to break it off on their own.
Now we're in the process of buying a house, and she's conveniently choosing this moment to start a fight with my family over something minor my sister did.
Now we've never had a good relationship with my sister. I've had serious issues with her since we were kids. But my parents take her side always, and will go to nuclear extents when pressed on anything involving her.
We were still living with my family when my wife and I had our first kid. The last time we had a fight with my sister, it was because she had dogs that she didn't take care of. At all. They pissed and shit all over the carpets. It was disgusting. We took serious issue with this when we had a toddler crawling around. We refused to take care of her dogs for her, and my parents refused to do anything about it. We threw a major fit when we found our kid actually eating a dog turd, and my parents responded by kicking us out.
So after that, I gave up on conflict with my sister. That situation is fucked up, but it's the only dysfunctional thing about my family. My parents are otherwise amazing, and have done a lot for me. I've basically chosen to pretend my sister doesn't exist as much as possible, and leave it at that.
My sister has a kid now. Last week, my kid and hers weren't getting along very well. My sister asked our kid to stop and he blew her off. So she got right up in his face and used some strong language (basically that he was pissing her off and needed to take her seriously). My wife and I were right over in the other room. It would have been better for her to come get us to deal with it. Her bathroom is also the most central in the house, and is supposed to be the designated guest bathroom. Apparently, she's been refusing to let our kids use her bathroom, and they've been unsure what to do, given the choice between the bathroom in the dark scary basement or my parent's bedroom, almost leading to some accidents.
So yeah... problems... regular low-level conflict... but not the end of the world. Except any conflict with my wife is the end of the world if she doesn't win it in the end.
She blew up that night big-time. Left abruptly and dramatically, and then called my mom and my sister and bitched them out after leaving. Then demanded that we have a serious talk about it. I told my wife that this was going to go badly.
That she needs to keep it strictly about the issues in question and getting those resolved. If it turns into anything more than that, dredging up the past or more general criticisms about my sister's character, it's going to get ugly and I'm not going to participate. That's exactly what happened, and I walked out when it started getting bad.
She says that after I walked out, my mom and dad laid into her hard and said all kinds of horrible things. She now doesn't want anything to do with my family. She's pissed at me for walking out, saying that they got fierce because I wasn't there to witness it, and that I should have done more to mediate. My mom says that's not what happened and all. My dad hardly said a word to her, and she mostly tried to end the discussion and move on, while my wife kept pressing things. I saw both sides getting increasingly aggressive towards each other before I left. Either way, I'm pissed, because I told my wife nothing good was going to come out of this fight, and she needed to drop it. But she couldn't do that for me. She forced me to sit between her nuclear offense and my parent's nuclear defense. She blames me. Says I should have been able to diffuse them. But I was angry at both of them, and anything I would have had to say would have set them both off anyway - between joining in the complaints about my sister or telling my wife that she was being ridiculous. I said the only thing I could have said. That this shouldn't be happening and all, and I refused to be a part of it.
I had a big long heartfelt discussion with my mom on the phone today coming clean on how I feel about everything, and I don't know what to do to prevent this from turning into a huge rift in the family. We talked about having another big discussion.
But the more I digest this... the more I really don't want to work it out. My wife has driven away everyone from our lives that I've ever been close to, that she couldn't control. I have practically no social life. No one that I confide in. If she ever finds out that I vented to a friend about her anger issues or anything else, they're gone. She's created distance between me and my family, too, but has never tried to completely break that bond. I think because she knows it would be beyond the pale, and also because they give us support. But she chooses this time, when we're in the process of buying a house together and must move out by the end of the month, to start a fight like this. I think she's finally trying to get rid of the last people in her life that she's never been able to control, and is taking it for granted that I'll see the current situation as leaving me with no choice but to go along with it. Fuck that. I can't get over this one. I've been stewing on this for almost a week now, and the only thought that brings me any peace is letting this mark the end of our relationship. I've put up with the anger issues and the isolation for so long, and this is just too much.
I just don't know how it's going to fucking work... we've already invested almost $1500 in the process of buying this house. Most of it is set and done. We HAVE to move out by the end of the month. And she's going to make my life hell.
And the thing that's kept me this long... fear for my kids. I've always dreaded the thought of leaving them to her alone.
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Topic: Things that made you sad today thread. (Read 9500209 times)