Puzzled how lovely DB ended up with awful wife

ASD? Only at ease with your DB?

Maybe its just you and your mum she doesn't like OP?

A passive, but secretly aggressive partner though, ( I not saying OP’s DB as how could I know), often helps create harridans out of their spouse.

Oh and out of dh and his two siblings, we are the only ones in a solid relationship!

I think it’s pretty common. You often see a difficult, antagonistic person with a decent, pleasant person. It was flabbergasting the first time I saw it, but I e seen it so many times now. These mean and difficult people aren’t going to marry eachother as it wouldn’t work.

Maybe he is too quieter/accepting and so he finds her forcefulness and fierceness a solace.

Is he by any chance too passive and using her as his alter ego, forcing her to be this way by default? ( This is only a suggestion based on some personal experience of dynamics between couples.)

So basically a narcissist?

I feel for you all.Do they have DC yet? That may help smooth the waters! She sounds rude and unpleasant esp to your poor DM .Its difficult as she may feel your animosity of course and be picking up on it. At Christmas do they ever go to her parents.Maybe you could alternate years just for Boxing Day maybe ?

My husbands family probably could have written something similar about me, none of them have an opinion about anything, cannot make a decision, cannot run a piss up in a brewery, all of them bimbled along.

I am quite highly strung, dramatic, opinionated, and a decision maker! Because of this, my husband has excelled in his career, we are mortgage free, go away several times a year - me and my husband are great together - we have a great life, he grounds me - when I am putting the house on the market and wanting to backpack round the world - I take a back seat so he can excel at work - go on the overnight trips etc - do the housework so he can put 60 odd hours in etc

We have been together 30 years - I genuinely dread spending time with his sister as she is boring, cannot make a decision and has no opinions on anything!

So maybe think about how she grew up, what her 'normal' was like and why that may well have made her into the person she is now.

Possibly borderline personality disorder. I bet she has no family or friends?

My DP can come across negatively to others but is not like that in the home. He’s not perfect of course but he listens and is kind, looks after us and is funny. Outside of the house he comes across as rude and intolerant. He just doesn’t particularly like people and hates crowds. I just try abd keel him locked in the house lol 🤣

I would assume your brother is happy unless you find out otherwise. Any chance you can go LC with his wife? You don’t have to like her.

4 posts in and someone found a way to blame the man. Well done

We have a SIL like that in our family, always been a bit odd. Seems ok with dbro, although my dad always thought she was controlling. It was like she was always stirring trying to provoke a reaction and we wouldn't rise to it/would just laugh it off.

It is strange now their dc are adults in their 30s, at family events when she is rude, especially to their gran, her dc, who have not inherited her ways, will pull her up on it while dbro is still blind to it.

Maybe like a mechanism to her?. If she doesn’t get on with her own family maybe she sees it as her family ie husband and children “against the world” and she’s used to being rude and stand-off ish for her own protection and obviously kind to her little unit behind doors? Just a theory.

First of all, they have to start winding me up. So overtly racist comments and right wing views about immigration and race. Then it's the uncompromising left-wing side of me that comes out to uniquivocally state my POV, regardless of how many of them there are. And I won't back down. I don't get angry ever, as I only lose my temper a couple of times a decade.

Sometimes, if I don't repsond, FIL gets more and more intense. He also does it to DD1 as she is vegetarian. She just gets really upset afterwards about why he insists on repeating the same story about how some cultures slaughter animals, usually over dinner.

I think they are not keen on me at all and never have been. I think I was meant to suck it up from the start, but I don't.

I know a few men in marriages with women who sound similar to your db’s wife. From my observations, the men are all quieter, laidback, easy going types who don’t mind/want to be bossed around and have someone else in charge of decisions. They do see that their wives can be argumentative/forthright/outspoken to others but accept that part of their personality. One woman I know sounds exactly like your sil and her husband, and just like your db everyone feels sorry for him and thinks he’s hard done by. I thought the same until I spent a lot of time with them recently and whilst I appreciate she can be a bit of a dragon towards him (and others) at times, I can also see that 1) he is very happy and content with her 2) she isn’t a bad person and a lot of what she says and does comes from a (heavy handed) place of love and care.

My dh is like a bull in a china shop at times, demanding, outspoken, loud, very vocal when he’s not happy. I’ve had people telling me they don’t know what I see in him, that he must be hell to live with. And yet, whilst I do see why they might think that, I also know him as a hardworking, kind, loving, respectful man who adores me and our children. Out home life is calm and happy and quiet. If he’s being ott then I’ll tell him in private he’s being ott, and he takes on board what I’ve said. I see his faults but I also see his strengths. I guess what I’m trying to say is that your db is obviously happy with her, and maybe he does pull her up on some of her behaviour in private, and he may not like all her behaviour but there are also other sides to her that makes him want to stay.

It's very very commmon for men (and it is always men) to marry women that do not get on with their family (particularly female members of the family - the mothers and sisters but all of them fathers, brothers and sisters in law included). Prince Harry and Brookyln Beckham current illustrations. Beckham is a good example because the Beckhams' seemed like a very close family before he got married. Harry, William and Kate seemed close as well.

I think there are two big factors in play.

One is that subconsciously the men are acting out - choosing someone unlike their family or previous gfs who have fitted in - precisely because they want to make a statement, 'show them', or feel like they weren't the favorite and want a woman who is 'different' and prioritises them (for which read love bombs them). I don't think it is a conscious thing; none of them would recognise it but that is what is going on. Subconsciously they want to make a 'break away' statement because they feel slighted in some way - a sibling is preferred or they weren't the centre of attention.

The second is that some women (not all, but some) are insecure and competitive. This can depend on their own experiences of family but can't accept that you can love more than one person and loving a wife is not exclusive of loving a mother or a sister. This competitiveness means the wife repeatedly and unnecessarily forces a flex where the man has to show his wife she is more important. Over time, unsurprisingly, this causes conflict and resentment with the birth family.

Simple example is mother's day. Plenty of women can't accept that a man may want to spend time with his mother on mothers day and NEED to have a demonstration that they are more important. So engineer a situation where he has to go to the wife's mother, or when they have children, has to solely focus on their children.

This situation gets repeated in many situations where there is specially generated competition - I expect you my husband to come with me to this party instead of your parents for Sunday lunch; to take me away for the weekend and miss your sister's birthday; to not invite your parents for dinner because... and so on.

It's really really sad and very painful for the birth family but fractures like this are standard sadly. It's even more painful where you were close to the son/brother to start with and end up virtually not speaking. Prince Harry & Brookyln Beckhams families are probably really sad about it all.

Sometimes we see partners as difficult because they are standing up for the person that they love. I am also known (like your brother) as the kind, hardworking and easy going one in our family. As it is my brother gets a lot of support, help and leeway. My partner sees how are family dynamic is and knows that whilst I keep the peace is does upset me. And he pushes back with my family on my behalf.

Are you sure that you don't like your SIL because she disrupts the easy life your DB has always facilitated.

the way you describe your dh is the way my dh's family would describe him. He'd never rock the boat, he's not antagonistic or confrontational. He just goes with the flow. But they all seem to assume it's a wonderful coincidence that what he wants always is the same as the flow or they just don't care about his opinion or feelings. It drives me mad. So they're sitting there slagging him- "banter"- because it doesn't bother him, except it does bother him. But you're not allowed to rock the boat. Because they're not a confrontational or antagonistic family. So from my point of view that means put up and shut up.

I met my friends dh when they were going out and thought he was awful and then a number of times I heard them joking together or her being upset and him saying totally the right thing for her and I remember telling all my friends I was pretty sure we didn’t have to worry. You’ve seen a facade, there’s a chance you don’t know the real her. Maybe she tries to give an outward facade, or maybe she’s nervous and acts like that. Maybe she is like that and he was blinded by her but I’d assume she’s actually fine. Other thing is maybe you can’t see anyone being good enough because he’s been so good to you, in which case you might be blinkered (not an insult)