Puzzled how lovely DB ended up with awful wife

[howdoesthishappen]

AIBU to (alongside other family members) be completely puzzled and confused as to how my DB has ended up with SIL. He is calm , kind, hard working and she is the most confrontational, antagonistic, highly strung, controlling and controversial person we’ve ever met.

He is a good judge of character with everyone else, always kept himself out of any trouble or conflict yet seems completely happy with her ? It’s like he doesn’t see or hear the things she does and says. Totally under her spell?

Many times we’ve asked him is he ok ? Is everything ok? He knows we are here for him but it’s absolutely baffling. How do these situations happen . Aside from always making sure he knows we are here for him and trying (it’s hard) to maintain contact what do you do ? It’s just a really bad gut feeling about her as well as the way she behaves.

AIBU to be concerned

Hmm. I think perhaps there are two sides to this story.

What on earth is an extreme end of anyone’s personality? Sounds concerning (for the in-laws).

Definitely seems to be anxiety

I've a cousin who's absolutely lovely. Very easy going, kind, funny, successful, good looking for his age. He's completely besotted with his (3rd) wife who is absolutely bloody awful.

She's openly a massive gold digger, to the point he chuckles about it. She's rude, demanding, cold, exceptionally superficial but with dreadful taste. She pretends to be ten years younger than her real age?

None of my family can see what he sees in her, that's for sure.

He's happy and I guess that's all that matters. It means I can't see him very often as they're always joined at the hip. Which is a shame. But what can you do?

I think it is probably that he likes something about her directness and how she is unafraid. Whereas it sounds like you and your family are very anti confrontation and not really great at standing up for yourselves. You say he doesn’t do anything when she’s rude to you all but if you don’t do anything either then he maybe thinks you don’t notice it? Or he doesn’t want to make you uncomfortable with confrontation? Or maybe he’s just too uncomfortable to say anything and doesn’t know how to discuss it.

I’d say your best bet is to try and be more direct back. If she’s rude, just say so- practice phrases you can say if you find it difficult. Like the tea thing- to just let her bully you and make her another tea with no comment is so bizarre. If she’s rude in front of the children, if nobody says anything they won’t think anything of it. You don’t have to be rude back, just say - “the way you’re talking is making me feel really uncomfortable”, “that’s inappropriate”…whatever you want.

This is what dh family thinks of me. And they’ve told me that they can see he’s unhappy. I’ve checked in with Dh, we’ve been together about 11 years, he says he’s in love with me and his family is just a little nuts. I know they think I’m the worst thing in the world. Honestly, I’m really nice until you get on the wrong side of me, and they definitely have gotten on the wrong side of me, once that happens it’s goodbye. I have no interest in playing their games. I understand they think I’m horrible and that’s heartbreaking, but if me and dh are happy and he’s happy then that’s all that matters.
maybe try to find the good? Sometimes it’s so easy to think someone is evil.

If she's openly a gold digger, perhaps he's a sugar daddy type. Some men like the superior feeling of indulging a silly, childlike, ridiculous person.

We do say to her and he acts like he can’t see or hear. When she’s been rude to DM we have stepped in and said that’s enough. With the tea incident when she demanded it was remade with her supervising we told her she was welcome to remake it herself (DB went and did it )

What are her parents like?

She's too old though, lol. She's his age (60-odd) but just lies about being younger. She's more ruthless than silly. She's actually very shrewd.

I think he does like dominant women though. He admits that. Unfortunately he puts both me and his wife in the same category. Considering it to be a compliment. I don't think I'm anything like her?! I hope I'm not.

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)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

they seemed stressed and quite strict

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.

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

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.

NC with her family and from what I’m aware of she isn’t very sociable I don’t think she has any close friends. When her and DB were friends in their late teens she wouldn’t go out with any groups of people . She did then go to uni but no idea about that period of time and then they got together after that

Yes you’re right I think , there’s obviously a lot more to it. I just keep worrying about DB and have such a bad gut feeling I guess I have to jus hope they carry on getting along

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!