To have a word with BIL that his future marriage is destined for the gutter.

[Bumblingbee92]

SIL is perfectly nice and we have a cordial relationship. I get on quite well with BIL, if we wasn’t family, I’d say we’d be friends. They’re both in their mid thirties..

BIL & future SIL have been in a relationship for three years. Both had been single for quite a few years beforehand (which I think is important) and we were excited that BIL had started seeing someone (had a few first dates and he was openly struggling with his MH with being single).

They have a couple of mutual interests/hobbies but have very different personalities that just seem to constantly clash. Round hole, square peg comes to mind in every way. They’ve never really looked like they’ve had any chemistry between each other. Honestly they look like they’re in an arranged marriage. Since the beginning we’ve been expecting it to fizzle out but here we are.

SIL is extremely hot and cold with BIL. She initiated that she wanted to get married, they chose the ring together but now the ring is sitting in her drawer she’s not ready to be engaged. BIL has said since Xmas that SIL wants to try for a baby but they don’t even live together full time as SIL keeps changing her mind/goal posts on living arrangements. Half the time we see them it’s apparent that they’ve had an argument, BIL has upset SIL or SIL has the hump with BIL. I think every holiday they’ve been on they’ve had bit of a falling out and SIL has asked for space. It’s awkward for us to be spectators as BIL is desperate to make it work and is trying his best/doing whatever she wants to keep her happy. But unless he has a complete personality/life transplant he’s never going to be what she wants, but (in my opinion) she’s trying to look past that as she wants the wedding/big house/baby. In her words her body clock is ticking and it’s either now or never. He does want those things too and thinks that things are ok when there’s conversations regarding the next stage.

In the last couple of months there’s been talk of elopement, wears the engagement ring, doesn’t wear the ring, to get married asap before baby, BIL being told she doesn’t know if she wants to marry him… She’s currently not wearing the ring and wanting space to figure out what she wants…

BIL is doing his usual of self deprecating jokes, trying to cover up the situation with humour. I’ve ’joked’ that if it’s like that now, just wait until they’re both sleep deprived with a baby. Poor man doesn’t know where he stands from day to day but yet never hinted that he’s ever considered calling it a day/she’s not right for him. Always the other way around.

DH wants to have a chat with him but worried it will get back to SIL and cause a rift if they do settle down. Half of me feels like he’s a grown man but the other half feels like we’re doing him an injustice as the divorce will be messy, especially with kids involved and we’ll be the ones trying to hold him together with his mental health down the drain.

You feel like you're doing him an injustice by not telling him to dump his girlfriend?

You're allocating yourselves a lot of control and relevance here, that I don't think you have in reality. Leave it alone. If anything your DH should try to strengthen his relationship with BIL by spending time with him, being available for him should he want support, but you don't get to hand it out unasked for, and expect it to either land well, or your advice be followed. That's something different altogether.

As others have said, don't get in the middle.

My family member and her husband together are like nails on a chalkboard. Both of them had been very long-term single before meeting, both of them clearly settled (Both have kind of admitted on separate occasions while drunk, in one way or another)

Everybody, and I mean everybody, didn't think they would last because even when they were just dating, they didn't seem to have each other's back; their tone with each other is contemptuous. They snipe/sneer and peck at each other - in a sharp, nasty game of one-upmanship that they alone seem to be keeping score of who is winning.

Maybe that's their love language, but it looks an awful lot like they just don't like each other very much. They don't even play nice when the children are about, it's all 'well, a good mum would know the answer to that, shame you don't have one of those' followed by her sniping back 'why would I need to know the answer sweetie, your Dad is a modern day oracle and has the bloody answer for everything'... and so on. Their screaming, no-holds-barred arguments are legendary.

Yet they carry on and have outlasted other couples that I would have said had much better odds.

Poor kids

I agree. Talk to him.

They're obviously not compatible and he needs someone to point it out to him.

Maybe suggest they have counselling BEFORE they get married.

Talk him out of having a baby with this woman.

People even spoke to me while I was married and I downplayed their concerns. I told them they didn’t understand.

sadly, when people are in the middle of the mess, they are rarely willing to listen.

You could maybe broach it very gently, but it has to be gentle. Make it not about her specifically. Just that if in general you are looking to marry or have a baby with someone, the reality is that doubts aren’t big. There is a difference between nervousness about a big life change and not being sure if this is the person.

You honestly think they’ll be thanked for pointing out that this couple aren’t compatible when the BIL thinks he loves this woman and wants to spend the rest of his life with her?!

Sounds like a sure fire way of being cut out of the BIL’s life…

Haven't they been married for something like 8 years? "warning" your sibling just because you don't like his girlfriend is a bit ridiculous.

Especially when William himself was famously warned about marrying Kate by his friends 😂

the brother can have a word, but it has absolutely nothing to do with the OP

Mind your own business. He's a grown man who can make his own decisions.

No one really knows what anyone else's relationship is like, and no one can set themselves up as knowing better, unless they want their own relationship judged. You don't even know where your own marriage is destined to end up so don't presume to declare on others'. If BIL asks for advice, that's different, but otherwise let them be.

By brother is on the cusp of making this mistake for the second time. There's no point in saying anything (believe me) but if he opens up to you at some point just ask him questions rather than giving your opinion.

She reminds me of me and I have bpd, very up and down. I would keep out of it he won't thank you for it.

The best advice I was given about a situation like this was "Never tell a man what's wrong with his girlfriend or fiancee. Either the relationship will work and he will never forgive you for what you said, or it won't work and he will never forgive you for what you said."

I know a couple very similar to how you describe here. Always at each other, complaining, disagreeing, never happy, always minor things about the others habits or personality traits. One day I was having lunch with them at a mutual friends house and the same story - tension and bickering, obvious distain over the smallest of things (weather was too hot and apparently that was his fault etc.) anyway, after they left I said to my friend ‘ I wonder how long until they’re arguing?’ To which my friend replied ‘oh they live for it! They’ll have be at it before they got off the driveway’ and then it sort of made sense, that was their love language! They really do ‘live for it’ ( the drama, I mean). Seems a hectic way to live your life to me but different strokes for different folks and all that. Just let them get on with it.

To put it another way: they are not even engaged. Do not get involved.

If only people had spoken to my OH, they all - to a person - loathed his ex wife, it was clear that she was in it for her own benefit. She accidentally got pregnant, and has literally blighted everyone’s life since. He’s had panic attacks, got PTSD and poisoned his Dd mind too.

this woman sounds (incredibly) even worse. Dh should talk to his brother, not accusing anyone of anything but asking him questions about how he thinks this situation is vs how a healthy relationship should be.

this will end in disaster. How much ££ does he stand to lose when they get divorced?

Better to say something than wish you hadn't. It's not like you're nagging or being nosy for the sake of it.

Irrespective of the fact that it’s clearly a shit relationship …. What’s the point, It’s not like he will listen is it.

Since the beginning we’ve been expecting it to fizzle out but here we are.

This is the problem ^^ 'Here WE are'.

Errrm...no. There is no 'we' in someone else's relationship.

The amount of detail you've bothered to sit and type about two adult's relationship, that does not involve you is astounding.

Find a hobby and stay out of it.

Stop predicting other people's supposedly messy divorces before they're married.

People marry people and divorce all the flipping time. It's not for you to involve yourself in their affairs.

Would you like to be told by others that they KNOW your relationship will fail and that because they say that you should shut off your feelings and aspirations about your relationship?

Your DH should say something @Bumblingbee92. You absolutely should not.

DH will always be seen as the man who had an honest conversation with his brother. You would always be seen as the interfering bitch who stuck her nose into someone else's relationship.

This is definitely an area where blood is thicker.

I’m imagining with the talk of body clocks they’re mid-late 30s, possibly even early 40s. In other words, BIL is more than old enough to realise this is wrong but is choosing through desperation to stick with it. Let him do it, you won’t be thanked for intervening and honestly, they both sound as desperate as one another so at least they have that in common.

The only conversation your DH can reasonably have with BIL is to say that he is there for BIL to talk to, offload to and will always have his back, confidentially. He doesn't need to say anything about the SIL or marriage etc. but just framed as life can get hard at times with a baby/child, planning a wedding etc. So he is genuinely there whenever BIL needs him.

He has to work this one out on his own, it will just push him closer to her to prove everyone else wrong.
Just be there if it does go wrong.

How would you feel if someone had said that to you or warned your husband not to marry you? I imagine you'd be livid and rightly so.

He's heavily invested in the idea of her, the marriage, the kids all the rest of it. He doesn't allow doubts, or her obvious doubts in..

He won't listen. He is deluding himself.

She on the other hand, is clearly prevaricating all over the place all the time and is clearly aware of her own indecision.

You'd probably have far more success in talking to her, although it would have to be done in a way that did not seem like you were trying to break them up. As in, over a couple of friendly drinks, with you being future SiLs and all, 'me and DH have had our ups and downs but it was only because I could imagine myself spending the rest of my life with him that I knew I could get married/have kids with him'. She needs to imagine, once the wedding day is over, how the course of her life is then set on a course with BiL..and really think about whether that's a future she can sign up to.

As you already know,it most likely isn't.