Alright, buckle up and apologies for the long post, but some background is required.I (28M) was medically discharged from the Navy three years ago. It happened suddenly, and I was facing the prospect of leaving after 7 years of dedicated service but not much in the way of qualifications (a junior warfare officer). I panicked and moved my 31 F fiancée and my then six month baby boy to live with her mother (let’s call her V) who was then living with my fiancées half sister (21F call her M) and M’s partner (call him J 21M). I will note my fiancée was very much against the move, (she had moved away from them on purpose. I had met her family and thought they were ok, but I was so wrong) and we had quite a few arguments about it, but the fact that my parents were in the state (2 hour drive) and were more than willing to support us and the cost of living and rent were cheaper persuaded her. Accepting that we would only live temporarily (1 year in the end), she moved up there and I followed six months after as I had to finalise my discharge.Those six months were the worst of my life. M made my fiancées life a living hell, didn’t let my fiancée have a say in how the house looked or ran itself, and pretty much expected my fiancée to be an indentured servant and do all the cleaning. There were more than a few times my fiancée called me up in tears. It was gut wrenching, and between the stress of discharging and finding a job/adjusting to civilian life I almost lost the plot. I moved up there, expecting the worst and then experiencing it. M was an utter control freak and would throw tantrums if you didn’t do what she wanted, and I hated coming home so much I used to linger at work (I got a security officer contract, casual) and take extra shifts to avoid coming home. Then my fiancées grandmother passed away, and M went PSYCHOTIC.She lashed out at everyone. My partner ended up trying to restrain her, I scooped up my baby and left the house while fiancée and J tried to calm her down. The noise was so bad, the neighbours called the cops and my fiancée was in tears trying to explain what happened because M locked her door and refused to come out. And the reason for said episode? M had just gotten a kitten, and wanted to take it down to the country town where the funeral was being held and (despite me offering to pay for a retreat or V to get a friend to look after the damn thing) she couldn’t stay with us at one relatives house because of an old dog that would harm it, she had to stay at ANOTHER relatives house in the same town.After that, I put every effort into getting out and we moved into a small town house. Then V had a massive argument with M because she objected to having to do the laundry and the housework all the time. The argument got out of hand and then V decided to move into our place. I was against this, but my Fiancée pointed out that she had been forced against her will to move to this state, so I would have to put up with having her mother there.The plan was this: since V was a child care worker (for over 20 years) and wanted to have her own family day care centre, we would move into the area SHE wanted, help her get the business up and running to the point we could move out. The area she chose was over two hours away via traffic (my fiancées a manager in the city and me being a casual security officer for a university, it meant over three hours of a commute a day).While applying for houses, we wanted to be upfront with our intentions, but V insisted we should just apply to have a business in the home later. She brushed off our objections and said it was done all the time and wouldn’t be a problem. It was a problem. The owner didn’t give permission because it raised their insurance. So, here we were, barely able to make ends meet because we chose a bigger house (and more expensive rent to accomodate a home child care), BARELY able to even feed ourselves. By this point, my boy was two and we were expecting my little girl and M had also had a child (call her A). To save costs on daycare, we instead had V (who was not getting job, was paying $50 in rent, not contributing to food (or was rarely doing so) not paying for electricity, only paid for internet (mainly so she could sit at home on her phone all day) look after him. She wasn’t earning an income, but was instead getting money from the government (something like $450) and also pre-paying off a cruise (because she “deserved a holiday”). I come home one day to find a note with an INVOICE, charging us for daycare. My fiancées own mother was charging us to look after her own GRANDSON! I called her out on this bullshit, we had a massive argument, and the relationship deteriorated to the point that I felt anxiety driving into the street we lived on. Here we were commuting over three hours a day and she was charging us money to look after her grandson in order to pay for a cruise. Charming.M and J had been forced out of their place and had to move, but couldn’t take their animals (1 big dog and 2 cats). Without asking us, they rocked up one day while I was at work and dumped the animals on us with Vs blessing. V stated they would only be there a couple of days. Over two weeks later, they were still there and despite many attempts to get them out the house (I was not going to break the rules in the lease that explicitly said no animals), I’d had enough and called the real estate agent. They issued a breach, and gave a timeline for the animals to get gone. M and J sent them to a animal welfare agency and I was bombarded with messages calling me a cunt, a fuckhead and nobody likes me or wants me to be there. Charming again.Now here’s where my brother comes in (we will call him K) and his partner (we will call him B). My brother is an extreme recluse, and while we’ve always had a good relationship, it was always a distant relationship. We could go months without talking. It’s just the way my family is - loving but we don’t talk a lot. Anyway, they offered us one of B’s properties that he had inherited through family. The place was an absolute shithole and it would end up taking months to clean it and make it barely habitable, but it was better than the mental health toll that was my living situation. We told V and left. I cannot convey the anger, helplessness of hearing your heavily pregnant fiancée breakdown over the phone because she has to start moving out (k and J were helping out) without me because I can’t afford to not take a shift. I listened to her break down and felt like an absolute failure. We were burdened with $10000 worth of debt from the real estate agency (rental arrears after a court rejected our application to break a lease), my then two year old son was on his third or fourth daycare centre and was missing developmental milestones, and here I was being a glorified security guard. So we moved into the shithole, paid more manageable rent, the only caveat being to look after my brothers two dogs. V moved In with her sister (fiancées aunt) and ended up being kicked out because she kept on criticising how her sister was raising the autistic son she had. She moved back in with M and J.Now the relationship between my brother and B broke down, and B become extremely nasty, especially when it came to money. B was emotionally abusing my brother, but my brother stayed with him to ensure that we had a home. Money was extremely tight, and I missed rent on a few occasions, but always paid it back. My brothers dogs had become a sticking point. My brother promised to give money and support, but we rarely ever got anything and he made two appearances in the 18 months we lived there. My fiancée was livid about the situation, but we took as good a care as we could despite our finances. long story short, I confronted my brother, had another violent argument, but he agreed to give the dogs to a welfare agency to re-home, paid me back for the re-homing costs and apologised profusely. My brother lost a lot of goodwill with my partner, but I’ll never forget he stood up to B. B saying nasty things about me broke the last straw for K.Now, a note about my parents - my mother’s a university researcher and my father is a doctor. They both have been nothing but supportive. When my boy was born, my parents pretty much bought everything (pram, car seat, clothes) and they supported us financially when I didn’t have a job. What they couldn’t give us was time - both had and have hectic schedules. My dads pushing 70 and my mother wants to get a career on track so he can retire soon. My mother is also immune compromised, so COVID means even more limited contact.To the present, my family unit is finally doing better - we moved off by ourselves, I got a full time job, M, J and V are living at arms reach. We finally got enough money for a deposit on a venue and are looking forward to getting married next year. Working as a shift worker, my fiancée works saturdays, so V has been looking after the little ones. In the time since we moved away, she’s actually put in a lot of effort to get on our good side, and I think it’s her way of trying to say sorry without verbalising it. She keeps buying the kids gifts and household stuff for us. The cynical part of me feels like she is only doing it as M and J are inherently unstable and we are a better bet for taking care of her in the future. With extreme reluctance and ambivalence on my side, we invited her to the wedding. I’m only doing it because my fiancée wants her to be a part of our future and I want harmony. Beginning last week, M and J broke up acrimoniously, With J leaving to live with his father. Wasn’t surprised - any chance she could M would thrust A at J after he had done a 14 hour day being a carpenter at a work site, didn’t allow him to have an outlet (he withdrew 9 grand from his super to buy a car. M wanted a four door family car because she was tired of pulling the seats on her two door golf. He spent the money on the project car as an outlet as she doesn’t even let him play PS4 or hang out with mates). My fiancée got a call from V a day after the break up - M had demanded V look after child as she wanted to go out clubbing. V had said no, and M had assaulted her, leaving a large bump on her forehead. She ended up staying for a week with us in a right mess.Now to today - I was discussing my boys fourth birthday arrangements with my fiancée. My fiancée casually remarked that she had invited some others to this jumping castle place. This caught me off guard because of COVID restrictions there was limited attendees, so we had made a plan to take him ourselves and get his daycare mates cupcakes and show bags. I was looking forward to it, as usually fiancees family interfere and just turn the event unpleasant. She mentioned she had invited M and her little one A and I was irked for two reasons - we hadn’t talked about it before she invited them and I didn’t want her to be there. From this she asked how I would feel about M coming to the wedding? I told her I was ambivalent about her mother coming, but was absolutely opposed to M coming, I was very uncomfortable with just the idea of her coming. There ensued an argument - she threw my brother back at me, saying he was just as bad as M. I retorted that of the two, only one had assaulted her. She replied “she was grieving for our grandmother!” I conceded that my brother could be a bit of a flake, but he had stood up for us and he always had had good intentions towards us. She then said he didn’t buy gifts for birthdays and Christmas - I replied he’s a student on welfare and can barely feed himself and my parents always bought more presents to compensate for him. M always engaged with the kids when we went over while K didn’t. K is gay and doesn’t know what to do with children. She then brought up how her mother looks after the kids and my parents have limited contact. I replied with the above points.At this point, I got angry and told her her family has been nothing but a deficit and I didn’t want them at a wedding that I thought I should have a say in as well. She hung up at this point.I just feel like my fiancée has Stockholm syndrome or something - her family can act like absolute trash and it’s a case of “them being them” while my family is criticised for the smallest of things. It’s caused such a rift that we haven’t spoken for two days and our interactions just end in fights and it’s getting to the point that I am actually coming to resent this coming wedding for all the shit it’s causing. I don’t want to roll over because it’s my wedding as well, but am I being reasonable?TL:DR: long and complicated history with my fiancées family acting really shitty, me saying I didn’t want them at our wedding, my fiancée threw my family drawbacks back at me. via /r/relationship_advice https://ift.tt/32WEdkv
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