My brother lives a plane ride away with his partner and their toddler. His partner has had a really tough life, previous abusive relationship, lives far away from her family who are NC and has very little social support. My brother is unusual - quite fixed thinking, shy, very unaware of what’s going on around him, limited relationship history. Had severe depression throughout his teenage years and early 20s including self harm/suicide attempts. His mental health is much better now (in his 40s) and he recently finished a postgrad qualification and is slowly making his way in his adopted home. So, not easy circumstances and understandably she has trust and attachment issues. However this is manifesting in jealousy/control behaviour that I feel is abusive.
My brother was visiting us recently with his toddler and he was anxious and always checking in with her, worried if he was out of mobile reception...we went out and he left early to make sure he was home at a set time. He didn’t relax and seemed depressed. One evening he came to my sister’s for dinner and his phone ran out of battery. He was upset and left quickly to go back to my parents’ house to charge his phone. The next day his partner facetimed me to quiz me on where he had been and accused me of covering for him... this is just so alien to me, I could understand if she was struggling with him but never on the grounds that he might be unfaithful...I didn’t handle it well and just tried to appease her rather than challenge her.
I spoke with him after she FaceTimed me and said her behaviour wasn’t ok and I was worried. He said he was really embarrassed about it all. He told me she’s broken things of his and I get the feeling she’s hit him/thrown things at him. He was minimising quite a bit (in my opinion). My dad then told me that when he went to visit them recently they went to watch a rugby game in a bar, my brother was out of mobile reception and when he got home she accused him of being with another woman and smashed and broke his phone.
I think she clearly needs support and counselling, but my brother says she won’t see a doctor. If the tables were turned and it was my sister with a man was behaving like this I would intervene strongly and try to get her away... I was thinking of emailing my brother’s partner to say I was worried about her and ask why she felt she couldn’t trust him, but I don’t know if that’s a good idea. I’m just not sure what to do now and how to support him. It’s hard when they live in another country and I don’t think my brother will be honest if things get worse. Does anyone have any advice? Good or bad idea to email her? TIA