defending his sister

Hi teal,

Welcome to A2K.

Is there anything she does besides the gift exclusion that bothers you? Is this the only issue? How often do you see her?

Besides the gift exclusion: No, she's not currently doing anything. She did quit that, too. The real issue is that he continues to defend the indefensible, including things much worse than that, and now wants ME to fix this problem between her and me, even though I did not start it, even though I have not retaliated EVER, even though she's never apologized or recognized the severe damage her actions caused (things other than the gift exclusion). He wants to be able to have a normal relationship with her-- even though they never were friendly, go figure!-- without feeling he's betraying me. The problem of course is that I DO feel betrayed when he doesn't care if someone hurts me, and defends them and unjustly blames ME for what I didn't do. He wants me to 'be civil,' although I've never been uncivil I can guarantee he's never asked her to so much as apologize, nor to fix things.

Do I see her? Never. She doesn't call or e-mail here. She sends the kids Christmas and birthday cards. My husband sees her every 2 or 3 years when he goes home.

Other problems? Yes, a few. One is his determination to 'solve' our problems by ignoring them-- no, they just fester. Another is his tendency to keep secrets and be less than honest-- in his mind it's 'to keep the peace,' but it leaves me not knowing what the truth is on any given matter. The worst is his tendency to be unnaturally quiet about young cute female friends he has at work, and then tell me I'm being ridiculous when I ask questions.

I have tried to keep this short, but I have a LOT of resentment and anger over these things. I am trying to focus on the positive (I could give you a lengthy list, including that he has removed said just-a-friends from his e-mail address book and requested that the current one stop e-mailing him). I am immersing myself in my own interests. But I'm still struggling with at times overwhelming anger over these things.

So my two questions, again, were: 1)why would a man continue to defend his family being cruel and petty to someone he claims to love? and 2) how can I cope with what to me is a huge emotional abandonment?

Hmmm...

There seems to be a whole lot going on here, so it's hard to tease out each strand to respond to it separately.

Did you ever have a chance to with your husband when he goes home? If so, why did you decide not to?

Can you give some more specific examples of his missteps?

The gift thing, as laid out, doesn't seem like it is necessarily that bad. It depends on a lot more things, I can be swayed either way. But my three main reactions are, 1) I don't think it's ever fair to be upset about a gift you get (or lack thereof) unless it's actively hostile (like, a severed horse's head in your bed...) Nobody MUST give gifts to anyone. Especially 2) someone you just don't have much of a relationship with. It sounds very possible that she felt snubbed by YOU at some point -- because you didn't come to visit, whatever -- and she decided to only give gifts to the people she had a relationship with.

3) I don't really understand why you think your husband should be the one to fix things. It does seem to be between you and his sister -- why can't the two of you figure it out without involving him?

Again, I'm only going by what you've said here, which has focused on the gift exclusion. You refer to "severe damage [that] her actions caused (things other than the gift exclusion)", that may change my perspective.

Did you ever have a chance to __? what went here?__with your husband when he goes home? If so, why did you decide not to?

Go with my husband to Ireland? Financially, no, it hasn't been an option. We have too many kids for all of us to go, so I have stayed home alone with some of them so that he and two or three others can go. Honestly, I don't think I'd go anyway, because after what happened, his family's silence, and my husband's negative comments about one of his friend's opinion of me... honestly, I'd feel extremely uncomfortable there. I just can't see anything good coming of it.



A fair point. I do feel, though, given the previous events of her visit, the things that followed, and her personality (very forceful which is not necessarily a bad thing) that giving gifts to every single person in the family except me was actively hostile. On pure courtesy alone, my mother would never have allowed me to do such a thing, & I know equally well that my husband would have a very different opinion if I had been the one sending gifts to everyone but her. Also, she'd never met most of our kids at that point, so she didn't exacrly have a relationship wth them, either.

We had been back in the states a very short time when she came to visit, and were living on $12-18K/year at the time. That my husband had been able to visit his family once already was a sacrifice for us; so she can't have felt snubbed because there had been no time and there was no financial way for me and the 2 kids to go. The initial events took place on her first visit here, and I was genuinely thrilled that she was coming. We had gotten along fine when I was in Ireland. I did everything in my power to make her visit pleasant. We/I literally dropped everything to accommodate her when she wanted to be driven to Canada (a 3 hour drive) to visit her aunt and uncle, when she called at the last minute to be picked up again (another 3 hour drive), and when she wanted to take a road and camping trip. In return, I was criticized for having left a small pile of clean folded laundry on her bed when we got back from this drop-everything-and-run 6+ hour round trip; she called her other (nearby) aunt and uncle to come and get her and told them I'd been horrible to her. To this day, no one has been able to tell me what I did that was so awful. The worst thing I have been accused of is not taking her on a road trip although 1)we DID go on a road trip, and 2)I'd suggested half a dozen places prior to her coming, and my husband ridiculed every one of them. So I finally waited for him to come up with an idea.

I believe that the real problem was she realized her brother was never coming back to Ireland, was understandably upset, and wrongly took it out on me. I have a clear conscience that I genuinely looked forward to her visit and did everything I could for her.

I guess my answer is threefold. One is that the problem does involve him: her behavior would have been no problem had he not taken her side and defended her all these years. I recognize in that sense, as I said, the problem is really him and me, not her at all. As I said, when I am unjustly accused by HIM, I feel anger and resentment. I feel that he will defend any future nasty things they choose to do.

Two is that, HE is the one who wants it resolved, so that does make it his problem. I am fine having no contact with her.

Three would be to ask in return why he thinks it is my job to fix what I didn't break. She has made no effort ever to apologize for any of her behavior. I feel if he wants it fixed, he should either fix it himself or request that the perpetrator fix it. I feel it's akin to being stabbed in the back and then told to go 'fix it' with the mugger.

The gift exclusion only happened to be a recent discussion, which came up because he views this as a one-time event 12 years ago, ignoring that she continued to get in her digs many years after her visit. (And as I said, I do consider that exclusion a deliberate and ill-intentioned act, given all I know about her). And again, it goes back less to what she did than the fact that he defends it. I can't even imagine my sisters doing something so petty to him, & I can't imagine defending such behavior if they did. I can't imagine him thinking it was no big deal if they did it to him.

As to the earlier actions/ consequences, they involved pressuring him for hours to divorce me, slandering my character, and lying to his family about how I treated her on her visit. The upshot was a 9 month separation, a mountain of debt as a result of the separation, and things on that level. Her (nearby) aunt refused to have me in her house the rest of the time-- 10 years-- we lived there, ostensibly because I had to work one night when they invited us to dinner & couldn't make it.

You're right that there is a huge mess here. I am trying to work out and find a way to live with the problem areas one by one. And right now, it's how to accept that he defends his family's lousy behavior. I do believe I have a duty and oblgation to be respectful & kind to his family. I would not expect him to defend me no matter what I did. But I have not done anything to deserve these things from his family, & it leaves me feeling they can do or say anything to/about me & the one person in this world who should have known me better & shoud have stood by me... will abandon me.

Well family is family and theres no choice about that, you have to love your family in some way no matter what. One of my friends hates his mom with a passion and calls her dirty names but you can tell he would be hurt if you were to repeat what he said. My aunt has been outcast by my direct family but you can sense my mom understands why she acts like this. Not sending a present sounds like an easy way to aggravate someone, i've known people that would send one present to a family then write the persons name they don't like off to the side, I don't understand people who do things like that as they get a kick and get caught up in aggravating other people.

I agree. Again, it's not so much about her doing something petty and stupid. There's absolutely no way it could be construed as anything other than a dig-- and an undeserved one as I truly had not done anything to her.

But as I said, I'm not bothered by what small minds do or that one incident as such. What really hurts, what I find almost intolerable to live with, is that the one person in this world who should protect, defend, and take my part... consistently doesn't.

I'm not asking him to disown his sister or hate her. But would it kill him to pat my back and say, "That was really crappy; she needs to grow up"? Would it kill him to write her or call her and say, as kindly as he possibly can: "Please treat my wife with respect."?

You may be asking a little to much of your husband, i'd say just give him some credit and have faith in his actions, perhaps the only reason he doesn't do the things you want him to is because he knows it will be a fruitless endeavor, he's been dealing with her all of his life and he's gotten a system down to the point it's probably the only thing that is effective.

I've been reading but not posting, not least because the situation reminds me fairly painfully of some of my old family stuff.

I come from sincere grudge holding people. Not that I put this situation all down to that, exactly.

This is by way of bookmarking, I'll be back later.

Have you spoken to your hubby about this when you are calm and able to give your points in a non-threatening manner?

Don't insult his family. Ever. He can hate them all he wants but you will always be an outsider and for you to say the things you did, it's no wonder he took offense.

Not to mention, you aren't entitled to a gift from anyone.