Don't get me wrong, he has defended me to the best of his ability in the past during some of their worst times, like when his crazy, jealous teenage sister attacked me a month before our wedding, the dramas his parents or younger brother create, etc. BUT, there comes a time when telling them off, or stopping talking to them for a while isn't enough, especially when their behaviors continue and worsen.
His brothers and parents seem to think that when they're up here (they live down South for military and school) that they have free run of our home. When his eldest brother visited last year with his own family, for lack of a better word, he was supposed to stay with someone else. That fell through so he invited himself and his family to stay with us for a week in our 1 bedroom apartment, which turned into 2 weeks. With his constant fighting with his baby mama/on-off girlfriend, their lack of parenting for her kid and theirs, etc it was not a fun time 99% of it.
His younger brother has no respect for me. Last year after he screwed us in a deal, he started sending nasty messages mostly directed at me, starting with how useless I am. My husband defended me, told him off, and stopped talking to him and his parents for months following that. Then his parents, who our biggest problems with them come from his mom's constant need of drama, her meddling, and the fact both of them expect us to parent their grown children have mostly been behaving themselves for the last year until this summer...
His dad and brother scoffed in front of the whole family about my photography business (full time I work with children who have Autism, on the side/occasionally I do my photography) I suppose because I'm not making it a full-on career and making lot and lots of money from it. If that's what I wanted, that's what I'd do. When they were all up for settling his grandmother's estate (wonderful woman, but she was a hoarder, and died in June) everything was fine at first. Had to bite my tongue a lot being around his sexist, rude, know-it-all younger brother, but the sister has learned that she doesn't have a place in our lives as consequence of her actions and we're generally civil now. His parents act like they love me, and brag about me to whomever will listen, but that I suspect, is more about them than me.
His mom and brother invited themselves for weeks on end to our place after asking for ONE night, his mom threw stuff of ours away that she didn't like (old baking sheets, his socks, etc), washed SWEATERS of mine that had no need to be out and were handwash/dry clean only, etc. Then she called my husband after she left to tell him all I had done wrong, how she didn't like how I treated him (how dare I ask him to take out the trash), all my flaws, and how she didn't want him to get beaten down like a family friend who is currently going through a divorce. I spend most of my energy showing him my love and trying to make him happy, and the rest goes to work and taking care of pretty much everything errand, house, and bill wise.
His brother treated me poorly the entire time, even hacked their mom's Facebook so that he could publicly attack me, and especially during my family's emergency during a storm that left them without power, food, running water, and gas for a week (his opinion was that they didn't have anything to worry about unlike him, and it's not like they had to work), and my frustration mounted with my husband and the fact he neglected me largely during all of this because he feared his 21 year old brother would get lonely. So we ended up fighting the most we ever have, I didn't always handle my stress and resentment in the most non-confrontational way either, and while things have improved this past month with them all being back home, we are still fighting more often than normal, mostly because I can't say ANYTHING serious or about how I feel about ANYTHING without it becoming a fight.
He defended me in both instances, but nothing is going to change, and he still talks to both who have not apologized like nothing ever happened. He swears he loves me, wants our marriage to work, made some improvements with some things (like helping me around the house for a week), said & did the right things, but then we would fight and suddenly I am to blame for everything, he hates me, etc. He wonders why I don't believe the lovey dovey stuff, but when someone tells you they hate you with such heat, and has such an apparent resentment of you, it's hard to buy that it just goes away at the flip of a switch. He had sworn he would set boundaries with his family, but that has yet to happen, and the few times I have brought it up, he tells me to let it go, it's in the past, or that he will when the time's right. I think he sees my problems with his family now as MY problem, and that I should fix it on my own. Not how that would blow up in both of our faces, or set me up to be the you-know-what.
SO, how do you help your spouse see the importance of boundaries so that your marriage isn't completely ruined, and how do you set boundaries with people who seem to think the boundaries you set up in the past were for everyone (like MY family that has a history of abuse) but them? I even bought the book Boundaries, but he listened to one chapter before getting irritated with me. It's almost as though he thinks that if I could just let things go, and be laidback like him, and generally be their doormat, we could all be one big happy family.
Last edited by Mizpah; Yesterday at 12:59 PM. Reason: typo
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