I haven't posted here before, but would welcome some advice and opinions. Sorry this is so long, but I am suffering from an anxiety attack and I can't talk to anyone in RL about this.
DH and I have been married for 5 years. We had a rough start to married life. we were both made redundant just before the wedding, and DH was out of work for almost a year, during which time I helped him set up his own company.
3 years ago DH had an accident and was in and out of hospital for 9 months. He has fully recovered, and over the last 2 years has built up a successful business. We now have a modest but comfortable lifestyle, and I thought our relationship had never been stonger.
SIL recently sold her old laptop to DH. He deleted her stuff, (so he thought) copied all my documents over from the old PC and gave it to me to use. Yesterday I found some documents in my folder which I didn't recognise and opened one. I saw that it was a letter SIL had written to a friend 2 year ago giving an update on family news, in which she describes DHs life as "lurching from one catastophe to another", citing his accident and his marriage to me in particular.
Apparently " Mrs F. has been drinking away all his money as fast as he could earn it". She wrote that he had walked out of our marriage for a while, but had "relented",and come home, and our marriage was still "touch and go". She also wrote, "Extraordinarily, Mrs F. didn't come to visit him once while he was in hospital!".
DH and I have NEVER separated, or even considered it. I am not an alcoholic and could never have drunk away all his earnings (£1,500 per week at the time this letter was written!) Apart from anything else, I have always paid the housekeeping bills myself and and can afford my own Chardonnay.
I WAS unable to visit DH in hospital after his accident because I was on the other side of the country nursing my 77 year old mother after a major operation which left her completely bedridden for almost a month. She went private so that she could schedule the op during DS's summer holidays and I could take care of her until she was mobile again. I had my DS (then 8) with me. I don't drive, and we have no other family or friends nearby who could help her. DH's family were fully aware of the situation (so I thought).
I handle all our finances, deal with his book-keeping and all the bills, have juggled debts, taken out loans and run up my credit cards ( he can't get credit himself and has a bad credit rating) to keep our family afloat. I have always worked, albeit it part-time and freelance to fit in with DS. For a long time my income kept a roof over our heads.
DH made some very unwise business decisions before we got married, and ended up £25K in debt. He hid this from me for almost 2 years beause I suspected the scheme in question was a scam, and he promised me he wouldn't invest in it. He then lied to me about his debts. When I found out, I almost broke off our engagement, but we went to Relate and sorted things out. We accumulated more debt while he was out of work both before and after his accident and we have just finished paying off £35K of debt. I realise now that his family have been blaming me all along for his financial difficulties .
DH is staying with his family ATM because my FIL has cancer and is undergoing major surgery next week. DH completely denies having said anything to SIL to make her think any of these allegations are true. I don't believe him. I can't bring this up with SIL because FIL is so ill. I haven't seen my inlaws since our wedding, because they all suffer from poor health, won't travel and find visitors very stressful. According to my DH that is. He visits them regularly. I now suspect they want nothing to do with me or DS because he has been slandering me all along to cover up for his money problems.
I couldn't sleep at all last night and am still shaking. What can I do?