[starfruit504]

My brother and I were abused at the hands of our father growing up, physical/sexual/emotional. Our mother was also emotionally abused. As a teenager, I moved out without telling anyone because I'm sure it would have resulted in some kind of criminal act to keep me there. My mother later told me she couldn't have a relationship with me if I didn't have one with my father. I reconciled with him and a few years later he left her; he'd been sleeping with another woman for a decade. I have a relationship with mom now, NC with NPD father. Most of his family doesn't speak to me.

I'm used to people I love choosing the abusive person OVER me. I learned that you got to save yourself. Nobody else will do it. You can only hope they wise up and save themselves too, one day.

Now I'm married, been with my husband for 11 years. We recently moved back to his hometown and I'm seeing a lot more of my sister-in-law. I guess I didn't know her very well before.

**It's probably smart to put a trigger warning here**

She has an explosive temper and throws a tantrum whenever she doesn't get what she wants. Her moods change at the drop of a hat and she's very controlling of me -- she wants me to do whatever she says and if not she will try to guilt me, say disrespectful, hurtful things, use things I told her in confidence in order to threaten me. She will text me 100 times and if I don't respond she will start calling and texting my husband over and over. She never apologizes for her behavior, in fact she thinks that other people are responsible for her bad feelings and bad behavior. She gets upset about the most infantile things, I mean flying into a rage and storming out of a dinner party because her husband was invited to a sports event and there wasn't a ticket for her too. She's like the little kid crying at the party because it isn't her birthday.

I understand that the people closest to her (a small group of compliant folks) always give her what she wants. I don't care about that, I'm not trying to break that whole, sad machine - just don't expect me to be part of it. This is emotionally abusive behavior and I won't accept this from anyone for any reason. I left that part of my life behind.

Of course her explosive temper has been disruptive to my home. I don't have any kids and don't plan on having them. But I wanted a nice, long life with my husband. Now I just EXPECT for him to dump me because I won't comply with his sister's demands. Enablers always go looking to other rational people to just comply and make the abusive party calm down, reinforcing the abusive behavior. Coming over to my home in the middle of the night because I didn't answer your text message is not acceptable behavior. I won't pretend otherwise.

I just feel like this is going to destroy my marriage. My husband has been supportive of me, but he also seems frustrated and upset. I can't help but feel like I'm doomed to be the one paying for all this strife. In my heart, I'm preparing myself for the worst.

Is anyone else like this? Do you just expect to be abandoned when people like this show up in your life? How do you keep yourself from just assuming that's how it will go?

My Mom tells me to keep my head high. "Put your foot down now, that's what I should have done when you were little," she says. I just feel myself retreating deep inside myself. Anything you could relate would be appreciated

[dlantern]

Sometimes you gotta pay people off lol. Why don't you try getting to the bottom of what is the matter with the in law. Express that your emotional exhausted if that is possible. Give it a chance it might rewarding to diffuse another situation.

[Loose Screw x 2]

She sounds like a child-minded bully to me. You need to stand up to her and your husband needs to do the same. I kind of have a similar situation with one of my brothers and am considering ways to take him down a notch. His behavior is a large part of my stress as well. If you can't reason with her then, you may have to just cut her off for a while until she learns to respect you. It may even be a good idea to tell her this to her face and if she refuses to listen to reason or tries any of her tricks then end the conversation there and just ignore and avoid her for a while.

[starfruit504]

Originally Posted by MavriforceK9r

She sounds like a child-minded bully to me. You need to stand up to her and your husband needs to do the same. I kind of have a similar situation with one of my brothers and am considering ways to take him down a notch. His behavior is a large part of my stress as well. If you can't reason with her then, you may have to just cut her off for a while until she learns to respect you. It may even be a good idea to tell her this to her face and if she refuses to listen to reason or tries any of her tricks then end the conversation there and just ignore and avoid her for a while.

It's been a few weeks, but this is exactly the measures we took. Stated how I felt about all this once, not going over it again. Not responding to her frantic efforts to drag us back into a fight or absolve herself for acting like a bully. We haven't seen her since then.

If in the future she attempts to goad me into an argument or just throws another tantrum, I'm just going to walk away. We are disengaged from her now -- what the survivor community refers to as Medium Chill. She either knows full well we aren't going to take her bs anymore or we will tell her that to her face, but no more drama in this house.