Hi folks,
Apologies for those who have since enquired how things are going, it’s very kind of people to check in, I just had to stay away from this thread for a good while as the situation took too much out of me.
It’s been a funny old ride since then. In terms of her parents, we haven’t seen them since the day they stormed out of the house, over four years ago. My OH went to see a therapist as a result. I tried my best to support her, then had a breakdown and ended up seeing someone too (actually one of the best things I’ve ever done, pretty convinced she saved my life, and it’s made me much more resilient and able to look after my mental wellbeing both personally and professionally).
I can’t remember what I originally shared, but we did try everything to try and be the bigger people. My OH went round to put a card and gift through the door for her Father’s birthday in the first year, but the sister came out, verbally abused my OH, then slapped her. So she came back in tears and that approach was binned. She also sent them a letter explaining how they’d made her feel, but that was ignored. Then when Covid kicked off, I (against my better judgement) wrote a note and put it through their door saying that if they needed any shopping etc, I’d get it for them/would support them. I heard nothing back. We reached the conclusion that aside from apologising for being abused, there was nothing more we could do.
Her Mother (and Father) have pretty much followed the playbook, in that they’ve done everything except acknowledge how they’ve behaved, apologise, and commit to some positive change to move forward. Same with her sister, complete silence (I expect they confirm their own misguided thinking in a feedback loop). The ‘everything other than’ includes sending expensive gifts on my OH’s 40th, with smiley face messages on them etc. The flying monkeys have also been out in force over the intervening years, including my OH’s auntie who took it upon herself to continually send messages telling her to reach out to her Mother “before it’s too late”. This got increasingly abusive culminating in a Christmas Day message last year stating she wouldn’t talk to her anymore as she wasn’t engaging with the Mother. When my OH said it was sad she felt that way, and was only basing her view on one side of the story, the response was that she knew “everything.. and I mean everything. Your grandparents (now deceased) would be ashamed of you”. On Christmas Day. Other notable mentions include the dictatorial boyfriend of my OH’s sister, who neither of us have ever met. I genuinely believe her mother has a personality disorder, and that’s being kind. Another part of me thinks how she’s treated her own daughter is evil.
I ended up dreading birthdays and Christmas, as there was always a coms grenade (always from someone else) of some sort thrown over that would upset my OH, and then stress me out too trying to be supportive. I love my now fiancée, but feel sad that neither of us have that connection. From a purely selfish perspective, I think I’d make a good son in law, and it upsets me that I can’t have that. It’s lonely. That said, there’s too much gone on for me to ever want that with them, they’re too hostile and abusive, it’s a more abstract thing, if they were different people. I can’t go through what I did again, it was genuinely frightening how dark things got.
More positively, and perhaps most importantly, we’ve got on with life. We live in a nice house we’ve done up, we’ve been on several great holidays since, experienced new things together, weekend breaks, nice meals, that sort of thing. Things are calmer now than they’ve ever been, but my god, it’s been hard.
So yeah, thanks again folks. Your perspective at the start of it all was invaluable, and gave me strength when I didn’t really have anything left.
