For starters, I do have a history of abuse in my past which I am in counseling for and have been formally diagnosed with PTSD. This is important just an FYI.
Anyways, my fiancés family ( been with for 9 months) dislikes me. They have never been outwardly friendly to me- except his Mother, and that is only on occasion. They have also only met me a few times and have not tried to get to know me- even though I have tried as hard as I could to get friendly with them (I’ve come to family cookouts, gone with fiancé, his brother and his sister/her BF to universal, gone to Virginia to visit them with fiance, etc. You get the point).
About a month ago, we went with his family to Universal for a weekend. First, his sister absolutely blew a gasket when I wanted to take a nap after settling into our room. (I have 2 toddlers and very little time for sleep. I didn’t have them this weekend so prime sleeping time). She then got offended when I asked her to not make fun of my children. At Universal- me and fiancé decided to leave early- we were both exhausted, my back was absolutely killing me and I was on my period (I have endometriosis so periods are absolutely brutal for me). None of that mattered to his sister as she absolutely blew a fuse that we left early. She also made the statement to fiancé that “You’re leaving because of -my name here-, aren’t you? You know she can leave on her own volition and you can stay.” To which I told fiancé that he absolutely could stay if he wanted- he’d just have to point me in the direction of the exit and let me drive his car back to the AirBNB. He didn’t love that idea and again reiterated that if I was leaving, so was he.
Fast forward to today- his sister sees my post on FB regarding getting our passports because we are visiting Iceland in June. She then calls fiancé full on crying and screaming that I am “ruining fiancés life and am toxic”. She starts spewing off things about my prior abusive relationship which make me “too broken to love” and thus I am “not good enough for fiancé”. She stated that I am “preventing him from attending college” by planning to move with him wherever he gets accepted to school and stating that “You’re just gonna be a step-father and go to school?! How does that make sense!!” That girl and those kids aren’t your family. WE ARE”. Followed by “Family is forever and that girl isn’t”.
She states “what happened to my -insert fiancés name here- you aren’t the same person anymore?!?!” Again, she is pitching a fit like a 2 year old at this point. Fiancé reiterates that his academic and professional plans are as they were before he met me. All that’s changed is a few new family members. He tells his sister that “I like her a lot” (we’ve been saying I love you since a month in so why he felt the need to use “like” as opposed to “love”, I’m not sure. Anyways, he hangs up the phone. And tells me his sister does have a point as far as my control issues go. (Which yes, I do have some control issues as a result of my mental illness and am in therapy for. Fiancé knows this and has stood by me while I get better). Thrn, before he hangs up the phone- sister tells fiancé “Dad says he won’t pay for your law school if that girl goes with you”. So basically- either he dumps me and doesn’t struggle to pay for school, or he stays with me and does struggle.
After getting over the initial shock, I texted fiancés sister my side of things. Hoping she’d try to understand. But nope. All that ensued is her cussing fiancé out because he told me what she said. So I’m needing advice on how to handle this problem. I just want my relationship with my fiancé to be peaceful and not laden with family drama.
TLDR; Fiancés family dislikes me because I suffer from PTSD and is coercing him into dumping me.
TIA for any and all advice
4 comments
I don’t think you should get involved. Let him manage his own toxic family. If you need to, talk to him about how he intends to protect you from his sister in general. Beyond that, there isn’t much to do. Although it does worry me that you two are engaged already, when you haven’t been together that long.
>Thrn, before he hangs up the phone- sister tells fiancé “Dad says he won’t pay for your law school if that girl goes with you”. So basically- either he dumps me and doesn’t struggle to pay for school, or he stays with me and does struggle
Here’s the thing, though: if his parents are going to use controlling tactics like this, you can *never* win, because there’s always that leverage. The only way for him to be truly ‘free’ to make his own decisions is to call his parents’ bluff and say ‘alright then, I’ll have to arrange other financial plans to go to law school’. If he’s not prepared to do that, then you will lose out.
That doesn’t mean that I agree with his parents’ manipulation of course, but this is the situation. This is what you have to work with. And it would undoubtedly be the same way if he was dating someone else who happened to rub them up the wrong way… Or if he was doing anything else that offended their sensibilities as much.
I think you are rushing things when you have 2 toddlers already. You need to be spending time healing yourself and being the best mum you can be before you start another relationship. Of course his family are concerned that he is looking at taking on 3 dependants and starting a degree at the same time.
I’m being biased as someone who has cPTSD. You need to focus on healing. This is way too much drama that you don’t need to be involved in and I think it’s a very valid reason to leave this relationship. His family is his problem