I feel like my husband has been having a long term emotional affair with his brothers wife.

[understanding4you]

I used to feel very confident in myself until I met my husband. His behavior and views on things would start to wear on my self-esteem and make me feel insecure in our relationship. Just some background history: When we first started dating, he would still hang around with a female I knew he slept around with. She was a part of his “circle” of friends. I wasn’t very comfortable with this, but being young and early on in the relationship, I tried to not let it get in the way of anything. Just dealing with this so early on made the relationship not feel right to me. I expressed my concern to him about how I felt. He just couldn’t understand how it made me uncomfortable and it made him upset. I feel now as an older adult, I should have just walked away at this point if I personally couldn’t accept it. He would tell me she was an important person in his life and I would have to accept that she would always be there. I was not happy about what felt like an ultimatum from him. He didn’t tell me to leave, but it sure felt like that was the only choice I was given if I wasn’t going to be ok with this. He then tried to get me to hang out with her and his other friends, but it was not a pleasant experience for me.
 

This girl clearly felt a certain type of way about me being his girlfriend, which further validated my concerns about staying friends with someone you mess around with. This girl would be rude anytime I was around her. I’d say I tried about 2x to hang out with her and she wouldn’t even look up at me to acknowledge my presence of even being there so I could greet her. I told him I didn’t like it to begin with, but I’m trying to force myself to be and was done trying to be ok with it at this point. She wound up messaging me on social media to tell me she didn’t know what her problem was with me but that my husband had said something to her about it and she was ready to be over whatever her problem was bc she has to “accept” me???? I didn’t understand, if they wanted to be in each other’s life so much and slept around, why aren’t they just together then….Fast forward a couple months later, my then bf (now husband) broke off our relationship. He mentioned not being happy with me and didn’t want any problems about who he "hung" around with. I was devastated, but respected his decision and walked away.

Fast forward about 6 months down the line, I would curiously look him up on social media from time to time to see what he was up to. I did still miss him, but I would have never reached out to him again. I noticed there were many pictures of him hanging back out with “the girl”, plus another girl (the bulk of this story pertains to her) which appeared to be her friend, along with other guys. I noticed pictures a couple months later of him just hanging around solo with the other girl, the new one. I could clearly see from pictures that she was friends with the girl he slept around with. Although odd, (because she’s friends with the original friend he slept with), I assumed him and the new friend most likely had something going on once I noticed he made their picture his profile picture, but none of my business anymore right…just a mental note I kept. It’s now going on almost a year later and I was beginning to move on emotionally at this point, when I received several messages from him telling me he feels he made a huge mistake and can’t stop thinking about us, needed to see me, etc. Long story short, being the vulnerable girl I was, I met up with him and the rest is history. We wound up getting back together. His “friend” that he slept around with called him a few times while I was with him, stirring my bad feelings back up again, but then it seemed to stop for good. HOWEVER, there was her friend, the other girl lingering around now—the one from his profile picture. This is where it gets odd to me.  He told me they started hanging around a lot while we weren’t together and that she was really cool, I’d “love” her and he wanted me to hang out with her. I really, really wanted to love her. I tried talking to this girl and she was just very standoffish with me from the beginning. I would try making conversation with her, get to know her, but she was extremely quiet around me and very one worded. Naturally, I asked him if he had anything going on with her while we weren’t together, but he told me no. Come to find out within a months time later, he discloses to me that this girl is all of a sudden pregnant with his brothers child (whom was already engaged to another woman). I was in complete shock. I didn’t even know she knew his brother, let alone was sleeping around with him while he was engaged to someone and now pregnant?! I had so many questions ~ Why did my husband fail to tell me the part that she was messing around with his brother when I questioned him if HE himself had anything going on with her? Why were there so many pictures of them together and not even one of her and his brother if they were the ones messing around? Why did he take her to his Christmas work party when she was messing around with his brother? It seems the other way around, that he had a relationship going on with her instead. The whole thing was weird to me and just rubbed me wrong, but I began to second guess myself and try to convince myself of over analyzing the situation too much. 
 

So now his brother kicks the girl he was engaged to to the curb and marry’s this girl within a few months. I found it odd how accepted she was into the family and just moved right into my husbands house as he and his other siblings still lived at home. I felt even more leary about this girl knowing that she slept around with a man that was to be married, but everyone welcomed her with such open arms, I felt like I was truly missing something and was the only one that felt very estranged with this girl. When I mentioned to my husband, how could she do that, he defended her saying she wasn’t aware that his brother was engaged and she’s having the baby. My now husband (still then BF) and I wind up moving in together around this time and decided to make our first big purchase together, buying a car. We were still in the process of looking as we hadn’t found anything we loved and we both agreed on yet. Well one day he called me while I was out somewhere and let me know that he decided to bring this girl with him to look for our car that day. He also thought he found the one, even though I was not there with him and was very impulsive about going with the car they found together and wanting to text me pictures of it to see if I was “good” with it because he planned on making the deal right then and there?! I was livid. Was I wrong in being mad about this? At first i asked him why he decided to bring her with him to look at cars and also how he could even think about making this purchase without me even being there and test driving the car, getting in it, etc. All I was going to get were “pictures?” He in turn became upset that I was upset and said out loud with her sitting right next to him, now you’re mad because I took so and so with me? It upset me that he vocalized in front of her that I was upset about him taking her with him. He just couldn’t understand where I was coming from and why that bothered me. That was one of the first incidents I’ve encountered involving this girl. I feel like there are boundary lines that are being crossed and neither of them see that. I don’t like their relationship with one another and I don’t like the vibes she gives off to me. I just get a bad feeling. That was the only incident that I voiced my concern that I was not happy about and over the years all the other things I’ve encountered between them i began to internalize and keep to myself, but it has ate at me and I wound up having a falling out with this girl years later due to her continued stance and off-putting behavior with me. I find her rude and disrespectful and I don’t like her relationship with my husband at all.

Here are a few more things that has happened over the years:

-She got into a fender bender and was all choked up and decided to contact my husband about it instead of her own (my husband’s brother.) My husband left his job to run to her rescue letting me know he had to “console” her when getting to her because she was all “shaken up”.

-When she found out I was expecting our first child, she put her hands over her eyes and started hysterical crying and our announcement became about her as my husband grabbed her and started hugging her to console her. It was the oddest moment. My husband didn’t even hug me when I announced my pregnancy to him. This girl would not stop crying, but showed no love towards me. Not a hug or anything, she was just focused on my husband. This made me feel very bad and just completely confused. I wound up losing that pregnancy in my 2nd trimester and when I did and was a royal mess, I didn’t even get an “I’m sorry for your loss” from her, a person who was so emotionally invested by crying when she found out I was expecting.

-She would have texting conversations with my husband throughout the years. I would monitor his messages from time to time. I didn’t see anything wildly inappropriate in the messages when I had looked, but didn’t like the overall nature of their conversations. They just seemed overly friendly with alot of playfulness and “hahahaha” going on in the messages.

-one day I was out somewhere and when I called my husband just to say hello, he told me she was at our house with her kids (she now had 2 by his brother by this time). I thought it was odd that I never received the memo that she was coming over my house in the first place and coincidentally while I’m not there. Why didn’t she contact me as her sister in law, as a woman, to tell she she would like to come over my house. And why didn’t my husband give me a heads up that she was coming over either? Why was this something planned through her and my husband, yet I didn’t know about it until I called him just to say hi and then I’m finding out she’s physically in my home as I’m talking to him?! This also happened the other way around where I would call my husband around the time he’s supposed to be heading home from work and there were times he would tell me he stopped over at his brothers house before heading home. I’d purposely ask how his brother was as an indirect way of knowing if anyone else was in the house with them and he would tell me that his brother was at work and not at the house yet. Therefore he would just visit her and his nephews.

-another time we went to a family party at a park and he told me he had to use the bathroom. He was gone a little while so I went to eventually look for him. After searching different areas of the park, I spotted them both on the other side of the park talking in private. When I walked up to them they just stopped talking and wouldn’t carry on the conversation. This made me extremely uncomfortable, but I was afraid to confront it again to my husband because he’s allowing it all so I just felt like I was in a bad situation and I couldn’t trust if he would run back to her and tell her I said something about it. I didn’t want her having the satisfaction of knowing she was making me feel uncomfortable. 

-another time I happened to walk into a room right when he was passing by her and for some reason he felt the need to graze his hand along her lower back in passing.

IS ALL THIS NORMAL??!?! Could these incidents be purely innocent and I’m being over the top or looking too deep into them? I’d never want to believe my husband has a thing going on with his brothers wife, but could this be an unspoken “emotional affair” that they both have going and think because it’s not physical, they can both just get away with it in public and I’m made to look like I’m crazy in what I’m observing?? I eventually brought these things up. He told me that they planned on getting together to hang out one day with her, our kid and her 2 kids. Sarcastically, I asked if I was invited to hang out with them. I then at that point brought up what I’ve observed over the years. I told him I get weird vibes about them and I didn’t understand why she always feels the need to go through him and I’m constantly excluded from every interaction. He became agitated by what I was saying and told me he didn’t see a problem with their contact. He then rolled his eyes and walked away from me. I took that as the ultimate form of rejection and just a lack of respect for me.

My last straw WITH HER was when she invited my daughter to sleep over her house and my husband told me about it. I said did you tell her to contact ME about having our daughter sleep over her house or is all that going to just be arranged between you and her? I said I’m not sending my daughter over to her house while she won’t communicate with me, it’s absurd! He told me he let her know already to contact me because he knew how I felt about it at this point. I waited the entire week to hear from her and when I never did, I decided to reach out to her telling her my husband mentioned to me that she asked for my daughter to sleep over her house. She responded back to me with, yes, he did ask me to inform you but honestly I didn’t feel a need to since I’ve already discussed it with him. It was at this point that I had had it with her. I asked her what her issue was with me and I also mentioned how awkward she has made it over the years by contacting my husband only. I didn’t even make mention of all the other things listed above. She then continued to tell me she had a close relationship with my husband and doesn’t see anything wrong with their contact and will continue to just go through him. I showed her response to my husband in disbelief and asked HIM wth her deal was because since they’re “so close” he should know what the hell is going on here. He just said, I don’t know. The next day this woman contacted my husband AGAIN, and met up with him while he was at work to vent to him about me because I told her my daughter WILL NOT be going to her house and that she’s to go through ME from now on instead of contacting my husband all the time if she wants our daughter to be around her cousins and that pissed her off. When my husband told me he met up with her the next day, I asked him WHY he felt the need to leave work to meet up with her so she can talk about ME, HIS WIFE and why she feels so COMFORTABLE & ENTITLED doing so. I told him THIS HERE. This is the problem. You don’t respect me and you’ve been communicating that all along in your actions and what you allow. It has been years since this happened and I have refused to allow my child around this woman, therefore my daughter hasn’t been around her boys either. This has caused major issues in my marriage as my husband does not agree with how I feel and says he just can’t deal with it anymore bc my daughter isn’t growing up with her cousins.
 

He recently asked me for a divorce. He betrayed me 4 years ago by sexting and receiving nude pictures of his ex girlfriend. I wound up finding out I was pregnant with our 2nd daughter just a few weeks after this incident. I didn’t know what to do. He apologized profusely. I wanted it all to disappear and I tried to accept his apology and move on from it. Just a few months ago something told me to look in his phone and lo and behold I see dirty messages between him and his coworker where she was asking him to play in her wetness to which he responded that he would love to. When I confronted him about it, he told me we’re done, hasn’t been happy with me in a long while and wants a divorce. That divorce turned into an “I’m not sure if I want to be with you anymore” on his end and it’s been that way for going on 2 months now. We are completely broken. I can’t help but just reflect on my last 13 years with this person and wonder how the hell I ever got here? I feel like a nobody and just completely confused by it all. 

[stillafool]

I think you know by now your marriage is never going to work.  Your husband is seeing mulitple women on the side and he nor they have any respect for you.  You need to stop trying to fight for him and let him go.  Seek an appointment with a divorce lawyer to find out your rights.  Your husband is more than likely the father of this woman's baby and she considers him her man.  He's not worth you trying to hold  on and you deserve better.  Please plan your exit from this marriage or you will never  be happy.

[glows]

Where is your husband’s brother in all this? What does he think of the close relationship between his wife and your husband? 

Since he wants a divorce, speak with a lawyer of your own in private and seek legal advice regarding your property and kids.

You’re hurt but face it: you’ve been hurting for a very long time. This wasn’t a thorn in your side but a knife stuck in your back and it’s been stuck there for years. The marriage has festered for awhile and limped along but it wasn’t flourishing. He looks for every reason to cheat, flirt, sext, spill his emotions and thoughts in a park to another woman, anything he needs to do to feel like he’s not married to you he’s down.

Try not to get stuck in the pain and betrayal. Find out what you’re entitled to legally and start discussing with a lawyer what you want to see. I’m sorry to hear this. Put aside the pain and deal with what’s happening. Be strong for your kids.

[NuevoYorko]

Is there a Cliff's Notes version?   My main takeaway from what I was able to absorb is that you have no baseline of trust with your husband and it must be a very unfulfilling, uncomfortable relationship for you.  Why do you stay?  And what about his brother?   He just kind of disappeared from the plot.

[understanding4you]

[Thank you for your responses]

I feel like him and his family don’t see anything odd about it. I don’t have a relationship with his brother at all. He has been rude to me since the day I stepped foot in their house and would never even say hello to me. I met my husband through the girl that he was engaged to. She was my friend for years, but he never talked to me at all. I would ask my friend why he was so strange around me. She would tell me he didn’t like me because I was her single friend and thought I was a bad influence on her. This is when we were 15-17 years old. I knew my husband through these years as well as we were all in high school together, but we didn’t officially start dating until I was in my early 20’s. From the day I started visiting their house he still wouldn’t even look at me/say hello..all these years later. It was WEIRD. Husband wouldn’t even acknowledge it. I would ask why it was that way as it was very uncomfortable. He couldn’t tell me anything. It wasn’t until I became pregnant that he told his brother, you need to atleast say hello to my wife when you see her ??? So to answer you question, I don’t have a relationship with him to even have that kind of talk with him. But what I can tell you, is I believe he looks at their relationship as good. I don’t know the real dynamic of the relationship she had with both my husband and his brother throughout the time we were broken up. Like I said, he was engaged so there was no trace of her whatsoever with the brother, but she had pictures galore with mine. Hence, why I was so shocked when he told me she was pregnant and by whom. 

When I told this woman my daughter wasn’t sleeping over and she’s to from now on go through me, she told my husbands brother what was going on and he was annoyed by it and contacted my husband via text complaining that I’m the problem and I disrespected his wife. I saw these texts in my husbands phone at the time between him and his brother.  His wife apparently told his brother that when he comes to visit their house to “see their kids” that he lies to me sometimes and tells me he’s driving home, but is really there as to not get me upset about the fact that he’s at their house. He was trying to make a point to my husband that I’m a controlling person that doesn’t respect him to the point that he has to lie to me when he goes there and that I’m the problem here. So he thinks it’s NORMAL. Another thing i do know is his brother thought I was being unreasonable for not liking the fact that his wife went car shopping with my husband bc I read about it in the same message as well as he was trying to prove a point to my husband that I have a problem with his wife. My husband really vocalized to both of them that I was upset about it, smh once again, making me feel like he goes against me and doesn’t respect me. When it came to the park situation, his brother was not there nor was he there when I had announced my pregnancy and she had the crying episode. It seems like he’s always working or busy so that’s the reason why he’s not around through many of these instances. I feel like she has this thing with my husband where he’s her emotional connection and my husbands there for it, willing and into it just as much as she is. It would make me wonder, why didn’t she just sleep around with my husband since she was doing so many things with him and enjoyed his company & obviously years later still shows this attachment to him..

Edited November 7, 2022 by a LoveShack.org Moderator
same response to many posters - combined to one

[ExpatInItaly]

10 hours ago, understanding4you said:

When she found out I was expecting our first child, she put her hands over her eyes and started hysterical crying and our announcement became about her as my husband grabbed her and started hugging her to console her. It was the oddest moment.

This was your cue that their affair was physical, too. 

This is the reaction of an Other Woman who was told his marriage was sexless or dead, only to find out in no uncertain terms that he was indeed still having sex with this own wife. She wasn't crying tears of joy for you. She was crying because she realized he'd been lying to her. I would bet the farm on it. 

10 hours ago, understanding4you said:

He recently asked me for a divorce

This is absolutely the best way forward. You have never been his priority. He's always had another woman in the background - and as you have realized, there has been more than one inapprorpriate relationship. It's beyond time to put this marriage to bed so you can move on and someday find a man who truly loves and respects you. It doesn't sound like this one ever really has, sadly. You won't get any better out of him. Speak to a lawyer today about proceeding with a legal separation and start laying the groundwork for a formal dissolution of the marriage. 

[IrinaM]

10 hours ago, understanding4you said:

I expressed my concern to him about how I felt. He just couldn’t understand how it made me uncomfortable and it made him upset.

I didn't read your whole post but this right here in the beginning is enough^^. He absolutely could and did understand why you didn't want him hanging around a prior sex partner. He understood just fine.

[understanding4you]

29 minutes ago, ExpatInItaly said:

This was your cue that their affair was physical, too. 

This is the reaction of an Other Woman who was told his marriage was sexless or dead, only to find out in no uncertain terms that he was indeed still having sex with this own wife. She wasn't crying tears of joy for you. She was crying because she realized he'd been lying to her. I would bet the farm on it. 

You think? She was already married to his brother and 7 months pregnant at this time. She found out she was pregnant in May by an engaged man and by July he married her. 🤯 truly blows my mind.  I remember her blaming her tear jerk reaction on being hormonal. 

 

[ExpatInItaly]

13 minutes ago, understanding4you said:

You think? She was already married to his brother and 7 months pregnant at this time. She found out she was pregnant in May by an engaged man and by July he married her. 🤯 truly blows my mind.  I remember her blaming her tear jerk reaction on being hormonal.

I absolutely think they were having a physical affair at that time, yes. 

Her reaction was not hormonal-based joy. 

[Will am I]

I didn't have time to read the long story with the care it deserves but I spot so many red flags. 

 

If I may respond to a very particular piece of the post:

11 hours ago, understanding4you said:

When she found out I was expecting our first child, she put her hands over her eyes and started hysterical crying and our announcement became about her as my husband grabbed her and started hugging her to console her. It was the oddest moment. My husband didn’t even hug me when I announced my pregnancy to him. This girl would not stop crying, but showed no love towards me. Not a hug or anything, she was just focused on my husband. 

This must be one of the weirdest things I've read (and this forum gives you a daily fresh dose of weird stuff).

To me these tears (combined with the utter lack of care for your feelings) can only mean one thing. She wanted that baby in her womb, not yours. 

Did she have any children at the time? 

And your husband? He's allowing and even encouraging her to cross all these boundaries and walk all over your marriage.

I'm not making any assertion on whether or not they're in some sort of affair. But he sure likes her attention and he's not being a committed and loyal spouse to you. 

[Will am I]

By the way, your opening statement:

11 hours ago, understanding4you said:

I used to feel very confident in myself until I met my husband.

These words alone are enough to stop and reflect very seriously. 

 

[Will am I]

12 hours ago, understanding4you said:

IS ALL THIS NORMAL??!?! Could these incidents be purely innocent and I’m being over the top or looking too deep into them?

No, NONE of what you write is normal or appropriate in cross-gender friendships.

 

* the car accident and the fact that your husband had to be the hero (and not her husband) -> red flag. First because it shows there are no boundaries there at all. And second (my personal perspective, maybe projecting) that need to rush over is a strong suggestion of romantic interest.  

* baby announcement -> I responded to that already, it's pretty outrageous in my opinion.

* text conversations -> in the very least this is a clear sign of missing boundaries. I would look if they developed some sort of secret language where little words contain references to shared experiences. Because that's what lovers do more than any other relationship. I remember when I was in an affair, xOW and me had some of that. A single word or even emoticon and I knew EXCACTLY how she was feeling. 

* her visiting him while you're out -> I consider that inappropriate in itself. Other people may have other opinions and find it somewhat OK. But the fact that it was planned behind your back en kept hidden is a HUGE red flag.

* the private little date at the theme park -> that's romancing. 100%.

* touching in the lower back when going by -> a mild reference to sexual attraction right there. I'm amazed that he'd be so blunt to do that right in front of you.

 

I think it's really good that you turn to this forum and try to validate your insecurities. I think your husband has been gaslighting you by constantly telling you that everything is normal and that's just how they roll in friendships and you're being paranoid when you feel uncomfortable. Over time that can make you doubt so much that nothing is really clear anymore. Overall I feel that your concerns are legitimate. Each of the six events you mentioned are at least inappropriate and some of them are strong suggestions of an affair. If there was only 1 it could have been a situation that you misread. But this is a long list and it's very consistent. I hate to accuse people but all the signs point to an ongoing affair between your husband and his sister in law.

[JTSW]

I can guarantee that all her children are your husbands.

He has very clearly NEVER been faithful and never had ANY respect for you.

You were just a safety net.

I don't know why you stayed with such a rat.

Speak with a lawyer about your options and full custody of your daughters.

 

[Wiseman2]

How is your relationship with your brother-in-law? Can you speak frankly with him about your concerns regarding your husband and his wife?

[ExpatInItaly]

54 minutes ago, JTSW said:

I can guarantee that all her children are your husbands.

That crossed my mind too, I'm afraid to say. 

[Will am I]

The strangest part is the role of the brother in law. I mean, where is he in all this? He should be right in the middle. It's his wife and his brother being inappropriate, surely he would have an opinion on that.

Edited November 7, 2022 by Will am I

[understanding4you]

2 hours ago, Will am I said:

I didn't have time to read the long story with the care it deserves but I spot so many red flags. 

 

If I may respond to a very particular piece of the post:

This must be one of the weirdest things I've read (and this forum gives you a daily fresh dose of weird stuff).

To me these tears (combined with the utter lack of care for your feelings) can only mean one thing. She wanted that baby in her womb, not yours. 

Did she have any children at the time? 

And your husband? He's allowing and even encouraging her to cross all these boundaries and walk all over your marriage.

I'm not making any assertion on whether or not they're in some sort of affair. But he sure likes her attention and he's not being a committed and loyal spouse to you. 

This was exactly how I felt. She was 7 months pregnant at the time with his brothers child and blamed her sudden outburst on being hormonal. I remember just sitting there confused, not feeling good. My husband laughed at her reaction and grabbed her to console her and his mother who was sitting at the table too found it cute/funny her sudden reaction. I didn’t. But that’s what would make me second guess myself, because everyone around me took it NORMAL. At the time, I didn’t even link her response to having feelings for my husband. I couldn’t even put my finger on why I found it odd, but I just did. It wasn’t until a couple years ago that I kept reflecting back on just everything over the years and that moment stuck out to me in a different way. 

[Will am I]

4 minutes ago, understanding4you said:

[...] his mother who was sitting at the table too found it cute/funny her sudden reaction. 

I wonder more and more what kind of family your husband came from.

She's obviously crossing boundaries by the dozen and your MIL finds it funny? Do they even have boundaries in that family?

 

4 minutes ago, understanding4you said:

I didn’t. But that’s what would make me second guess myself, because everyone around me took it NORMAL.

Let me reiterate that it is a powerful move from you to come over here on this forum and read a spectrum of other peoples' opinions on your situation.

The consensus is clear: whatever your husband makes you think is perfectly normal, it is not normal by the other standards.

My thought was that he has been gaslighting you: making you belief all is safe and well, and all your doubts are crazy.

But reading how much his mom and brother seem to be backing him up, it strikes me that maybe he really doesn't know better than this. It sounds like he came from a place with no boundaries.

[understanding4you]

There are a lot of crossed boundary issues within his immediate family. I do not see eye to eye on their morals and values at all. His other brother cheated on his wife, before marriage and after marrying her with different woman, trying to impregnate them and eventually had another baby and his wife just ACCEPTS it. The whole family acts like it’s normal. It SCARES me. His mother seems to show love to her grandkids and the other daughter in laws but was very standoffish with me no matter how hard I tried to “fit in” to their family. I never felt like I belonged. There were things done over the years that began to validate my feelings, that would make for another long post—I’ll spare you. 

[understanding4you]

25 minutes ago, Will am I said:

I wonder more and more what kind of family your husband came from.

She's obviously crossing boundaries by the dozen and your MIL finds it funny? Do they even have boundaries in that family?

 

Let me reiterate that it is a powerful move from you to come over here on this forum and read a spectrum of other peoples' opinions on your situation.

The consensus is clear: whatever your husband makes you think is perfectly normal, it is not normal by the other standards.

My thought was that he has been gaslighting you: making you belief all is safe and well, and all your doubts are crazy.

But reading how much his mom and brother seem to be backing him up, it strikes me that maybe he really doesn't know better than this. It sounds like he came from a place with no boundaries.

If you’re bored and want to hear about my MIL and the dysfunctional and disrespectful relationship there I actually made a post on it 5 years ago if you go to my profile, you’ll see the story under—“should I allow my 3 year old around my MIL”. I started writing in this forum many years ago because of what I have dealt with.

[ExpatInItaly]

OP, someone mentioned it a couple posts back, but have you ever wondered whether your brother-in-law's kids are actually your husband's? 

In this whole screwed-up situation, I do have to wonder if one of those children was actually fathered by your husband, with your sister-in-law passing it off as his brother's. 

[Will am I]

15 minutes ago, understanding4you said:

If you’re bored and want to hear about my MIL and the dysfunctional and disrespectful relationship there I actually made a post on it 5 years ago if you go to my profile, you’ll see the story under—“should I allow my 3 year old around my MIL”. I started writing in this forum many years ago because of what I have dealt with.

Glanced over the opening post of that topic. My jaw dropped open, she's worse than the stereotypical evil MIL in a rom-com.

I wonder if your husband was an abuse victim in his childhood and teenage years. This could be sexual abuse (the ultimate lack of boundaries between generations) but also frequent exposure to age-inappropriate subjects, parentification, children needed to support or comfort their parents etc. 

 

[stillafool]

So what is your plan now that your husband has asked for a divorce?  Have you talked to an attorney yet?  Are you planning to stay in the home or move out?

[understanding4you]

2 hours ago, ExpatInItaly said:

OP, someone mentioned it a couple posts back, but have you ever wondered whether your brother-in-law's kids are actually your husband's? 

In this whole screwed-up situation, I do have to wonder if one of those children was actually fathered by your husband, with your sister-in-law passing it off as his brother's. 

Yes the thought had crossed my mind. My husband and I got back together (as boyfriend and girlfriend) back in February 2012. It wasn’t until 3 months later in May that he broke the news that she was pregnant and she was only a few weeks along  (she had the baby in January) so although the thought crossed my mind, just because for a whopping 3 months I had NEVER seen her around his brother at all, it took me by surprise. I remember him just saying she was pregnant. And thinking in that very moment, ok why is he telling me this. Strange..I hung out with her and their friends maybe twice within that 3 month period, I never saw her with or heard of her being with any guy..she always appeared single. Then a few seconds after just saying she was pregnant, he went on to say, my brother got her pregnant. I said what?! I don’t understand. He’s engaged…I didn’t even know she knew your brother. I’ve never seen her around him before. They’re messing around ?? Since when?? And that’s when he told me they had something going on on the low so not many people knew. I remember thinking, well you apparently knew. Why didn’t you say anything when I asked if YOU had anything going on with her since you guys were hanging around each other so much. Wouldn’t that have been the perfect opportunity to say no, she’s actually messing around with my brother.  And I was also taken back by the fact that she was messing around with someone that was planning on marrying someone else. And I brought that up but he defended her of course and said she never knew which is a load of BS bc if that’s the case why would it be so HUSH HUSH to the point where there were no traces AT ALL of them even around each other. Her first child looks identical to her. Literally not one feature that looks like his brother nor my husband and her 2nd child looks very much like his brother. That also reminds me….another thing, she asked my HUSBAND to take her to one of her prenatal appointments Bc his brother for some reason wasn’t able to take her once and she didn’t drive at the time. Again, another thing where I’m like WHYYYY out of all people my husband to take her to her appointment. My husband was not able to take her because he had to work so HE asked me if I would take her, not even she would ask me, which I did wind up taking her. It was so weird that she wouldn’t just ask me before asking my husband. I felt like she was very emotionally reliant on my husband and I did not like it at all. I would tell myself, you need to be understanding of the fact that while we weren’t together she was hanging out with him and obviously they formed a bond. But deep down I was not comfortable with it and when I just slightly voiced my concern about it in the VERY beginning before all the other things started happening, he seemed annoyed and just ignored me when I would voice my concern. It brought me back to the very beginning with the girl he slept with when he acted the same way. I felt like I was being an annoyance, a nag and I began to just observe and internalize anything I witnessed from that point on, which went on for years. I also expected her to have some respect for my own relationship in the sense where even if she felt she became “close” with my husband as “friends” when me and him stopped talking for that year, you’d think she would say to herself, ok now that he’s back with his girlfriend so let me not overstep some boundaries and be respectful of their continuing relationship and fall back from “needing” him.  

[understanding4you]

2 hours ago, Will am I said:

Glanced over the opening post of that topic. My jaw dropped open, she's worse than the stereotypical evil MIL in a rom-com.

I wonder if your husband was an abuse victim in his childhood and teenage years. This could be sexual abuse (the ultimate lack of boundaries between generations) but also frequent exposure to age-inappropriate subjects, parentification, children needed to support or comfort their parents etc. 

 

He’s never confided in me abut any sexual abuse that went on in his childhood, but he would disclose his childhood experiences as in having to take care of his 3 younger siblings, which weren’t significantly younger than him. They were all back to back in age, but being the oldest, his mother would make him do a lot of the parenting duties early on—he told me when he was around 8-10 years old he was having to cook for his siblings, wash their clothes, clean, etc. and didn’t have a normal childhood. His father was in and out of his life and the mother worked and also wanted free time so she would leave him home with to care for his siblings while doing those things. There was a lot of resentment there growing up.