My sister’s husband has made her ill

Living in poverty is a bit dramatic.

At worst she might be council housed, not begging on the street.

Some people act like being housed with the social is the worst thing that can ever happen

Ok but lots of people don’t have the luxury of “falling apart” to be honest. I’m heart sorry for this woman but she’s very lucky to have her family around her. I feel more sorry for her children who have effectively lost both parents and won’t understand why.

When I was 18 my Dad did exactly this except he buggered off to France and Italy with another woman. He was away six weeks. Told people he was dying of cancer. Told me he was going to kill himself.
Then he re-appeared and my mother let him come back. Not a word said, no apologies, we were expected to act as if nothing had happened.
He wasn’t depressed or ill. Just supremely selfish.

Astonishing that someone can read the OP and their first thought is for how the poor man is feeling.

Could you play nice positive mediations in her room for her. You can even get subliminal ones that have positive affirmations under the music. Nice aromatherapy smells and fresh air. Fresh new bedding. Just thinking how to make her bedroom nicer if that’s where she is most the time.

You are right to support your sister. I think people can’t comprehend how shattering this is. Not only has she very suddenly lost her husband, And the kids’ their father, in a traumatic way. But she has lost her ability to support herself and the kids. It sounds like they had a very affluent life and she is now looking at living in poverty. Realistically, she is likely to lose her friendship circle and community too, as well as her home. This is a devastating amount of multiple loss to suddenly face.

You need to make sure she gets the best financial settlement from a divorce possible. Some women when they get depressed don’t fight for themselves and get shafted. He has doubtless already planned how to shaft her financially. She’ll need you to support her in navigating the divorce negotiations.

Fuck my life, some of the comments on here.

It’s ok to not cope when you have a life changing situation thrown at you.

The most earth shattering event has just happened to this woman. She needs to be able to fall apart and know that there are people there to help her build herself back up.

It’s perfectly normal to fall apart. When I found out about my ex’s affair there were days that if the DC were fed I counted it as a win as that was all I could manage. I couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep and lost a huge amount of weight.

Fuck being strong. It’s the same as people saying ‘you’ve got this’, without actually being of any use at all.

So what’s the MIL saying to things?? My MIL would be in Sweden dragging my husbands arse back home to see his children. If she’s doing anything less than that, then she’s as bad as he is.

(His whole family are - not just her - but I note that she is the only one mentioned)

The post is about the O.P's sister and the terrible state SHE is in! Don't think we need to be worrying about the husband.

Yep. Agree. And if OP’s sister’s GP is a good one, the circumstances, and the continuing appropriateness of the prescription will be regularly reviewed.

perhaps someone can talk to BIL's mum about whether BIL's parents can step in to help pay the school fees?

I don’t think that’s great advice. As someone else said, now she is on them, coming straight back off then is likely to make her feel even worse. Or if she is taking them erratically. I appreciate that situational depression isn’t the same as clinical depression.
I took sertraline for a while after my marriage broke down (nowhere near as traumatic as what the OP’s sister is going through but he was abusive and I had a small child and had to move out etc)
I personally think I used it correctly. It gave me enough of a boost to be an effective mother, to carry on working and to move home and I came off it 6 months later and haven’t been back on it since.

I know, this is the problem is the withdrawals.
I personally don't think she should have been put on them in the first place because it is a situational depression not clinical. This is how drug companies get so many people dependant for life because they become addicted and struggle to withdraw. As I said I'm not talking about true, clinical depression or mood disorders.
All it will do in her case is mask the emotions which is natural to go through then once she comes off it will all come back and she could relapse.
I know in the scheme of things 6 weeks isn't a long time, but as a mother her sense of protection should have overridden anything else she is feeling by now.
I think she needs to get off those meds they're probably making her feel worse. Unpopular opinion I know. There was a mother in my area who had post natal depression, she went on anti depressants and 4 weeks later jumped off a motorway bridge. It was awful and right before Christmas as well.

Medication won't help fix things but it can take the edge off while going through the trauma. It's a tool, not the be all and end all.

A bit of chemical help is no bad thing if she’s this distressed. It doesn’t need to be long term - just to get her over the worst bits until she’s ready to face things. Sertraline is a very effective drug, it just takes time to work. And taking her off it six weeks into treatment is likely to make things worse, not better. The withdrawal symptoms aren’t very nice either.

My DH takes Sertraline to help with bipolar disorder, and it’s very effective. She’s only been on it six weeks - in some people it takes longer to work, it just needs time. Not saying that family support isn’t the most important thing, but this is similar to a bereavement, and many people need support in the form of this kind of drug. And taking her off it now will cause more harm than good, because she’ll have withdrawal symptoms to cope with on top of everything else.

I would urge you to look at the book ‘runaway husbands’ and the website that accompanies it.

Written by a woman who went through the same thing and containing the stories of many others. It will help her and you all feel much less alone and provide much needed hope.

I echo what other posters have said that this is worse than death. If someone dies they’re gone but you’re not faced with your whole past that you knew being destroyed and being totally betrayed by the one person you probably trusted most in the world. It is a loss of the past as well as the present and future.

It is a different level of trauma.

I did get up and go to work but I lost two stone, I contemplated suicide. I didn’t have a very supportive family and without my friendship group and a new partner I’m not sure I’d be here.

I would advise her to read the book. To feel less alone. To see the stages she will go through. To get her outside each day and most of all to provide her with hope. One day she will feel happy again. Most likely she will realise lots of things weren’t what she thought and he wasn’t the man she thought.

sending lots of love for the journey.

All of this.

You can't medicate your way out of life's unexpected albeit traumatic events.
The shock will subside naturally, humans are built and designed to deal with these things without the use of drugs. She is not ill just experiencing a trauma.
It's obviously horrible for her and the children but with your help she will pull through this and come out the tunnel the other side.

And at least if he’d died, she wouldn’t have all the financial turmoil/worry about what to do… assuming they had life insurance etc.

She sounds like she's had a complete breakdown. Please ask the GP to visit her if she won't go to the doctor herself l. Please be there with her because she's unlikely to be able to describe her current condition or will give a misleading statement. She's needs urgent professional medical help - she won't be able to get better by herself.
And big credit to her wonderful family (you guys) for the support and intervention

I agree. I think it’s harder in the sense that as well as processing the grief you feel at the end of your life as you know it, you have a sense of rejection by your partner because they have left voluntarily.

I don’t know anyone who has been bereaved of a life partner and been back at work the following week.

She’s probably grieving not only him but their lives. It sounds like things will have to change like schools, home unless she can get legal help to claim money from him.

He is one of the biggest pricks I’ve ever heard about on here. How he can just not contact his children? Does his mother know the little girl is vomiting herself sick with crying? She needs to. If I was his mother I’d go and drag him back from Stockholm to face his responsibilities or he’d never see me again.

I hope she gets out of the hole soon. Try and make her see he’s not worth ruining her life.

I wonder if something like this is harder than a death, in a way. If he was dead through an accident, at least she'd know where she stands and could process more readily. Someone being dead is so final, you know what you're dealing with, you know what needs to be done and that there is only one way forward. The not knowing is more like having a missing person and no answers. The uncertainty and not knowing could be so much harder.

The family should. Because if that is the case, he’s going to come slithering back at some point begging for forgiveness. And it sounds very much as though if that happened in the near future he’d worm his sorry arse back in.