My family is too involved in my relationship
I’m in my 30s, married, and have a toddler son. My husband and I have had problems for a while. He has anger/emotional regulation issues and a few weeks ago there was a really bad situation that scared my family and basically blew everything up. Before people jump to conclusions, he has NEVER physically hit me. But there was yelling, emotional chaos, unhealthy behavior, and enough happened that my MIL told my family a lot of dark/private stuff about our relationship because she was worried about me and my son. Since then my family has treated me like I can’t make my own decisions. They all think I should leave him and don’t really believe me when I say my son and I are okay right now. The thing is my husband admitted he has issues and is actually trying to get help. He’s been looking into anger management/support groups and low cost counseling places around us and things honestly have been calmer lately. Part of why I went back home though is because staying with my sister became unbearable. She’s always been extremely overbearing and controlling. She gets way too involved in people’s lives and acts like she knows what’s best for everyone. She pushes conversations even when you clearly don’t want to talk anymore and gets very intense when she thinks she’s right. Growing up it always felt like everyone just kind of went along with her because it was easier. Even her boyfriend admitted to me after everything happened that she has control issues and that he’s told her before to back off and stop getting so involved in other people’s situations. When I stayed there after everything happened, it stopped feeling supportive pretty quickly and started feeling like I was being watched and interrogated constantly. Every conversation became about my marriage, whether I was leaving my husband, whether I was “thinking clearly,” etc. I already felt overwhelmed and trapped and eventually things escalated into a physical fight between us. She hit me during the altercation and accidentally hit my toddler in the chaos too. Afterward she literally told me to get the fuck out of her house, so I packed my stuff and left with my son and went back home. After I left, her boyfriend called me apologizing and saying he knows she can be too much. He offered for me and my son to come back and stay there because of the issues with my husband, but honestly after the fight I mentally could not handle being back in that environment. Then the next day my sister sent me this apology that didn’t really feel like a full apology. She apologized for “her part” in things escalating and said she felt terrible my son got accidentally hit, but then immediately went back into talking about being worried about my safety and my relationship. So instead of feeling like “I’m sorry I hurt you,” it felt more like “I’m sorry things got physical but I still think I’m right about your marriage.”
What bothers me now is nobody in my family seems to care much about the fight with my sister at all. The entire focus is still my husband. My sister even told me she was going to “step back” and stop involving herself, but then later posted a TED Talk in the family group chat about why domestic violence victims don’t leave. I actually made my mom send it to me because I wanted to know what was being posted since I have my sister blocked. Now every conversation is “we’re worried” over and over again. At first I understood it because yes, things were bad and scary for a bit. But now it just feels invasive. My mom talks to my sisters constantly about my relationship, my sisters relay information back and forth, and I feel like my marriage has become nonstop family discussion material. They act like I’m blind or brainwashed because I chose to stay. What hurts the most is feeling like nobody believes me when I say I would NEVER knowingly put my son in danger. I know my husband has issues. I’m not pretending everything is magically fixed after 3 weeks. But I also feel like my family has become so overinvolved that it’s making everything worse too. At the same time I’m trying to start a new remote healthcare job while doing live training from home and taking care of my toddler because childcare isn’t an option financially right now. I feel completely overwhelmed and cornered from every direction.