One-sided Marriage

Recently our family, or more like it, my hubby's family discovered that his oldest brother has been diagnosed with Prostate Cancer. Scared us all a bit...no one suspected that anything like this would ever happened. So like all families do, we all pulled together our support by phone calls and cards (we all live far away from each other....my hub and I here in Hawaii, his sibs and parents are spread out in parts of the southern states) and each of the family members crossing off dates to take turns visiting my BIL during his treatment.

It wasn't until my Mother-in-law's turn came and she was the first one, that we found out that my BIL is having serious marital problem. That was a really toughie since he needed every help and support coming from all angles. As my MIL visited, my BIL was in the hospital for his first treatment....the whole time he was in the hospital, the wife never visited once. When my MIL made to their house, she found out that BIL and wife were living in separate rooms from each other. The wife has two teenagers of her own from a previous marriage so they stayed in one part of the house while my BIL stayed in the other part. The whole time my MIL was visiting the son, she took on the cleaning and cooking since wifey there practically did nothing.

Later on, after some serious talking with the son, MIL found out that his marriage has been on the edge of destruction for the longest time...in fact, they had decided to get a divorce before. The wife wanted them to refinance the house so she can get her half of the share and go her merry ways. Well....after the house was refinanced, she took her money which was over a hundred thousand dollars or something, spent it all on practically anything her heart desired and once the money was gone, she decided to stay. MIL reported that the whole time she was visiting, BIL's wife would go out all night and just stayed out til the next day....the whole week and a half of her visit, the only time she saw her DIL was when she was picked up from the airport.

From the phone conversations that my hubby made his brother and conversations between my MIL and BIL, I found out some very disturbing informations about my BIL's marriage. They have been married close to ten years and according to my BIL, they haven't had sex in six years. Yes I know, too much information but I had to point this out so you know how serious this is. My SIL does odds and ends jobs and whatever she made, she spent it on herself and her kids. My BIL is then obligated to support her, her kids and making sure their mortgage is up to date on the payment, car payment, any other bills and grocery bills.

Ok so I know some of you may think there is nothing wrong with a woman doing what she wants with her money but hey, seventy five percent of the house and bills are occupied and used by her and her kids...they don't have any kids together....so she should chip in and help pay for their bills, don't you think so? Especially now that he's sick.

There were a whole lot of other things that she does that my hubby's family does not agree with but I will not go into any details. When my BIL would tell us about how bad his marriage is, we thought, well, maybe now that he's sick, his wife would find that she still love him and takes it upon herself to take care of him.....nope, no such thing. Her kids are the rudest kids I've ever come across, they demean him all the time and she lets them get away with it.

I was so outraged by that, I told my hubby to buy his brother a plane ticket ASAP to get him over here so he can take a break. Hubby and I were both willing to have him move in with us so we can help, take him to his treatment and basically give him a break from all his load. Even today, he drives himself to his treatments...the wife never did it, not even once.

Ok so my hubby called his brother up and told him we'll pay for his ticket to come to Hawaii. He was a little hesitant, didn't want to leave his obligations behind...AS IF..the dummy. We convinced him to come only to find out that he wanted to bring the wife and kids along..(are you friggin kidding me?!!) His reasons? He said he wanted to rekindle what little fire still left in their marriage hoping that if he showed her this one last act of kindness, she would realized how much he deeply love her and return the favor. (whatever!!) I mean seriously, that was very kind of him but in my book, very STUPID! So they came last summer.

I wasn't exaggerating when I said her kids were aweful kids. They are the worst teens I've had the unfortunate curse of meeting and the wife...she's worse!! I'm not being biased either. From the minute I picked them up from the airport, all I heard coming from her and her kids are complaints. "The flight was too long", "the wait for unbearable"(they only waited five minutes for me to pull up to where they were standing to get them...they refuse to walk to the parking lot), "the sun was too hot" (sheesh people, this is Hawaii and it's summertime)...oh the list goes on and on. I was only with them for an hour(that's how long it takes to drive from the airport, give or take) and I was ready to strangle them. She has an eighteen year old daugher and a thirteen year old son...the daughter was literally bitching in the car the whole way to the house about her phone not getting good reception and she couldn't talk to her boyfriend..(boohoo!!).

The whole time they were here, they were complaining...he was practically on his hands and knees trying to make their trip over here a pleasant one. Excuse me but the trip was supposed to be for him to come here and take a break, instead he was running around all over the place trying to please them. We would go to the beach and as soon as my BIL would start enjoying himself with my hubby, the wife started whining about how the sun is too hot and the sand is blowing all over her...I am getting real ticked off just remembering it. I cooked dinner and breakfast for them everyday while they were here...they declared on their first day here that they don't eat breakfast, so fine, I'm not a breakfast person but I did it anyway because my BIL likes to eat breakfast. But because his family doesn't eat breakfast, he didn't feel good about eating breakfast while they didn't...are you kidding me? Come to find out, they were going to the Seven Eleven store near our house for their breakfast...I made the same kind of breakfast they were spending money on. Dinner time..she would eat and just took off to her room, no "thank you for dinner" from her or her kids and not one single offer of helping with the dishes. I supposed I'm not required to make my quests work while they're visiting...excuse me but everyone that stepped foot in my house has done their share of helping with the dishes. Besides, isn't it just a courtesy thing? But enough about me...

Basically, their whole trip here, she was down right mean to my BIL, her teens were rude and they were very ungrateful. Oh yeah, whenever she ended up spending money, which is mostly on her and her kids, she made my BIL pay her back right there in front of us. Not once the whole time they were here did she ever said a thank you to him or give him a hug or kiss like normal couples do.

It was almost a year ago that we found out about BIL illness and their visit here but things are still not looking up with them. They are still living in their separate units from each other, my BIL is on the brink of losing his job, and he's giving his car up so he can keep up with the payment on the mortgage and his wife and daughter's car payments. He seems to be doing everything he can to keep his marriage but she's not doing anything at all. Her attitude and behaviour hasn't changed one bit. The most frustrating thing about this is that whenever my hubby and his family tried talking to him about just cutting his losses and move on, he gets mad at everyone. He keeps trying to convince everyone that there is still something good about his wife but quite frankly, we can't see it. She has her chance to at least fake it while she was here, but she didn't. We can understand him hanging on to a marriage if they have kids together but they don't...and he never adopted those kids and they treat him like dirt. He is not even happy with his marriage, he complains about her all the time but yet he doesn't want to walk away from her.

What would make a person hang on to a marriage like that? What kind of hold does she have on him? Does he think that if he leaves her, that he will never be able to find a better person, someone who loves him as much as he does her? I'm sorry but if I was diagnosed with cancer and even if I am having marital problems, I would expect my hubby to put our problems aside and take care of me with my illness...if he doesn't love me enough to do that...then hit the road Jack!! The fact that she's not willing to take care of him in his most vulnerable stage is proof enough that she doesn't love him, am I right?

So tell me people...what would you do if you were in my shoes? What would you do if that was your BIL or SIL? Every suggestions we gave him, he doesn't want to heed it. I don't mind us helping him out a little financially if she was actually a loving wife and we know she is doing her part. Whenever he ask for money from my hubby and my hubby asked him about what his wife is doing to help contribute in to budget, my BIL would get downright mean and tell my hubby to leave her out of it and mind his own business....hmmmm, interesting, him asking for help has made it our business, no?

Anyways, this is what I've been thinking about lately so I thought I'd share with you all, hoping you guys might have some suggestions or insights. I appreciate you reading this...I know, it's not about my relationship but like I said, it's been on my mind lately. Thanks!!