Need some support, advice, something

[saintfrancis]

Hi everyone. I don't have much enthusiasm or energy to explain this whole mess right now, but I could really use some advice or support. Here's the basic story, and as I come back to the forum I'll try and add more detail if requested to. I'm really just too heartbroken over this right now to write too much.

 

My sister and her husband have been married 8 or 9 years. Her husband is a real a**h***. He is a control freak for one thing, and vindictive like I have only seen once before in my life (an ex-boyfriend of mine who had to control every move I made -- I dumped him!). Basically, before the wedding my sister, mom and dad, and her then to-be husband had some problems, some major and some minor, that set a pretty bad tone for the whole relationship and wedding. The problems continued into the marriage. The DAY he met my parents, my sister's husbnd called them controlling. He didn't even know them, but he just didn't like the fact that, because it was a short engagement, my parents, being good parents, asked him all about himself, trying to get to know him. Well he took that as my parents being "meddling" among other things, and there were many incidents like this. I can tell you, my mom in particular can be no picnic to be around, however she loves her children and throughout all of this, she only wanted to be involved in the engagement and in the wedding plans. She never wanted to run anybody's life, but that's not how it was perceived.

 

Anyway, the upshot of all this is that my sister and her ass of a husband now have a two year old boy, whom they refuse to let my parents see much of or babysit. Mind you, my parents and my sister have had their problems, but my parents are two of the best people on earth, they never abused us in any way or any of that crap. They love us beyond life itself. But my sister has no spine whatsoever and so when her husband started shutting my parents out of their life, and their boy's, she did and still does nothing at all to stop this insanity.

 

Her husband is just evil, the things he is doing to my parents. it's killing them to have their daughter turn their back on them and to have no relationship at all with their grandson. My sister's husband is doing this out of spite, nothing else. I'm telling you, he is evil, and I'm not even a religious person.

 

Last night I held my dad in my arms as he broke down crying over all of this. I'm so angry with my pathetic sister that I want to go shoot both her and her pathetic husband. Of course I'm not going to do that, but honestly, I have no desire to have a relationship with either one of them. I can't just sit by and watch them destroy my parents, and for what?? All because they didn't do EXACTLY everything he wanted, and because of some he-said she-said bull**** that he is STILL holding a grudge over after 9 years!!

 

I don't know if any of that makes sense, I have left out so many things and it's not all chronological. I don't know if I can explain it better right now, I'm so upset. All I know is that, I don't want to become vindictive myself, but on the other hand I simply cannot have a relationship with them while they do this to my parents (they have always been nice to me - distant but nice).

 

On top of all of this I have a friend, well probably ex-friend now, who basically up and left my apartment - literally - when I was feeling ****ty about all of this, and about him. I was in a bad mood and very quiet over this and some other things, and I guess he didn't appreciate the fact that I wasn't talkative, and didn't feel the need to be supportive. F*ckhead.

 

I'm really a mess today. I can't stop thinking about my poor father bent over my arms crying yesterday. Don't even bother suggesting family counseling. According to my brother-in-law, my parents are 100% to blame, and he himself has no responsibility in what has transpired all these years (yeah, right). He and my sister refuse to budge. I always thought this guy was kind of a jerk, but when I heard my dad telling me all this things he said to my dad, I truly beleive he is a cold-hearted manipulative bastard.

 

Anyone out there have anything thoughts??

[saintfrancis]

Wow, that was long. Sorry.

[moimeme]

I'm going to suggest family counselling - for you and your parents. You need skills to cope with this situation, and a good therapist will be able to help you with this.

 

Clearly, you are not going to be able to change your sister or brother-in-law, so you are all going to need to deal with this in a healthy way. Think of it as a breakup with any other beloved person; no matter how much it pains you, you have to learn to live with it and move on. You can continue to rail against it and torture yourselves over it and the only people getting hurt will be you.