Hello everyone,
I am just at my wits end with my friend. I love her to bits but sometimes I just want to wake her up!
I have known my friends for the past 8 years. She is head over in love with her husband, who she has been dating since they were in college. His family are horrible, when my friend had an accidental pregnancy, his mother arranged a secret wedding for them (after my friend's family refused to allow her to marry the now husband- even though she was expecting their first child). Her mother in law kept her imprisoned in their home, to which my friend was not allowed to contact her family, I was the gatekeeper in communication, her mother would speak to me but through to my friend and back. The mother in law is a horrible person who denied my friend of finishing the last year of her degree. The husband was no better as he practically didn't do anything to stop his mother and as he said "well... that's how she is..".
Anyway, my friend, fast forward, managed to escape the mother in laws house and fast forward later, she is currently living with her husband and is on the way to have a third child.
The husband spends a lot of money on drugs (mainly weed and vapes) and spends a lot of money on electronics/latest gadgets whilst my friend majority pays for the rent, clothes, food etc. The husband may pay here and there but it all falls down to my friend. Also, her husband had anger outbursts, she says he is on edge when he doesn't have his weed.
So all to above, my friend had a strained relationship with her own family. Her family feel she doesn't put up in the effort with her, she feels the same way about them. She doesn't really have a good relationship with her family and she blames them for past trauma (emotional) and both sides have said nasty things to each other.
My friend recently told me that she was told that her younger sister, who she doesn't really get along, is having a wedding and she invited her along. My friend said she didn't want to go as she didn't, basically get married with respect, didn't have that big wedding and will feel uncomfortable going as relationship has not been good on both sides. I told my friend that she should do and take the kids if she wants (my friend does not want her children to have a relationship with her family- particularly the mother and sibling).
Another reason why my friend said she didn't want to go is that her husband and his family would throw a fit and of course I said all the usual stuff to her, that she wouldn't let them control her no longer yadayada. Anyway, my friends family must have sensed this as a couple days letter before the sisters wedding, my friend sister and her mum came to the home to beg the husband to allow my friend to go to the wedding, he of course didn't say much but when closed doors were shut, he told my friend that she would be "stupid for going, that (her) family didn't marry them with respect!). Blah blah
Anywho, my friend didn't go. I'm not going to lie, I was disappointed but thought ok Tia her choice, she said she doesn't want her marriage to break and her family haven't really don't much for her so why should she go, she also said that she didn't want to cause arguments in the household and she would soon be having her third child.
I just cannot be bothered. This is the friend who phones and cries to me that her husband has done this, her mother in law has done this, that they say she is good for nothing, the mother in law would stalk them and demand to see her in her house. Would AIBU to not entertain this anymore? I advise her, I tell her this but it's like she just wants a listening ear, someone to hear her trouble, I appreciated that everyone is entitled to live their own lives and do what's best for them but this has been going on for the past 8 years. I just don't know what to do anymore,