u/Jackpott100

My wife and I are deeply in love. She recently had a breakthrough and is seeing all of the behaviors. She also finally recognized how much pain and agony I’ve been in and has comprehended what I’ve been trying to tell her for a while now.

I’ve seen her work really hard to try and have better boundaries with her sister, but she is still struggling. Of course, it’s only been a few days since this revelation, and I’m trying to be patient, but it’s so hard.

What do you do when your partner is just starting to wake up and how do you support them without seeming too “pushy”? I’m trying to be gentle but it can be so difficult sometimes. Her sister’s behavior has done a number on her.

Today she told me she felt like she “couldn’t heal without her sister.” Which she acknowledged was absurd, but nonetheless how she has been feeling.

I’m trying my best. I’m in therapy. I hang out with friends. I talk to our mutual friends who can see what I see. We have couples counseling scheduled very soon. My mind just can’t stop sometimes. I worry that she will relapse but I know I need to step back and let her work through this on her own.

Thank you for reading and sharing. This support subreddit has been so helpful.

I’m 34 M and married my soulmate, who is 32 F. We’ve been together now 5 years, married for a year and a half.

I come from a very loving, accepting, non enmeshed family. My wife comes from a very religious, enmeshed family dynamic. Most of her siblings have come out of that behavior and enmeshment dynamic. She is the baby of the family. Her oldest sister, who is 40 and a mom to an 18 year old, has been the person who my wife has been enmeshed with since she was a teenager. Their mother forced this relationship on them—so I can’t place the full blame on her sister.

When I first met my wife, she confessed to me that she had an unhealthy dynamic with her sister. In fact, she just left a living situation with her, which is what led her to move to Oregon. Her sister chose to move to Texas. This was about 5 years ago. She told me that she loved her dearly and this was her closest sibling, but knew she needed space and needed to put up boundaries. It didn’t take me long to see this dynamic play out in many phone call scenarios, but my wife did stay strong in her boundaries.

Her sister came to visit couple years into the relationship and we really hit it off! She is a very sweet person; however, she could be very cruel to my wife in certain situations. At some point around that same time, we all learned, her sister included, that she had Bipolar disorder. I have a soft spot in my heart for folks who have Bipolar. I lost my very best friend to it. So I understand how this can make you act out in cruel ways.

3 years into the relationship, her sister, still in TX, had an extreme mental breakdown. It was heartbreaking, but she was constantly calling or texting us for help and we didn’t know how to help her, especially being miles away. We tried, and burnt ourselves out, and finally my wife was done. She and I both had a really good conversation and realized that we couldn’t be her saviors. We asked for other siblings and cousins to step in to help, and they did.

Fast forward a bit, her sister has been medicated and has been in a much better place. We can all see her growth. We also thought she would get much better care here in OR than where she was in TX, which is true. After her son graduated, she planned to move closer. I honestly didn’t see any issues with it since my wife had been really good with her boundaries, for the most part. Besides the really bad mental breakdown and us burning ourselves out for that—it was a circumstance I overlooked because I myself was thinking “what if this were my best friend and I could save her.”

She moved here 6 months ago. She was staying with us for a little while until she finally secured her apartment, which she did. Honestly, living with her wasn’t the worst. We have different living styles for sure, but that was not bad. It started getting bad when I noticed that my wife had really waffled on a lot of her prior boundaries with her. And her sister didn’t seem to pick up on when I’d like some alone time with my wife. I tried to talk to my wife about this and she dismissed me… I was shocked. My wife had never dismissed how I felt in all 5 years we had been together. So I got upset and left the house. Mind you, this is when my sister-in-law had an apartment of her own, only 10 mins away from us.

My wife then told me she asked her sister to leave so that I could come home and be alone with her. I was relieved. After some hard conversations, I find out my wife is having family trauma come up, causing her to backslide into old habits that I had not seen before. I do understand this. We talk through it and she has her own therapist, as do I, but we had not talked about couples therapy at this point. This is back in February.

There have been some slight changes in behavior, but the backsliding keeps happening. My wife and I are barely intimate anymore, because her sister is either always here, or she is with her sister all day long, comes home, and is too tired to do anything else. There have been two instances now where I have planned something really special for us, months in advance, and she decided to do something with her sister that same day, and then has felt too tired or burnt out to do anything else with me. There was even an instance last week where we were having sex and her sister walked into our house. I got very upset and my wife went out to confront her sister about this, but I heard her sister say that my wife was the one who told her to come over and have breakfast with us. Mind you, I never heard about this so called breakfast plan, but when my wife came back to the bedroom, she admitted that this was in fact her fault. But the thing is… even though she told her sister we were trying to connect, she STILL STAYED IN OUR HOUSE!!! I know it wasn’t just her barging in but I try to think about if this happened with anyone I was close to and I would be like oh shit! Okay I’ll come back later no problem!

This is truly starting to scare me. I feel like a third wheel in our marriage. The thing is—I love her sister, I do. She’s very fun to be around and has done really nice things for both of us. And when we have had discussions about this, I tell her that I just want to spend time with my wife alone and she agrees and doesn’t want to get in the way. HOWEVER, she. Will. Not. Leave. My. Wife. Alone.

We went on a 2-day camping trip earlier this month and the moment we got back, she called my wife and said “I haven’t seen you in 2 days! What are we doing??” And my wife can’t just say “I’d like to spend time with my husband.” I don’t know why that sentence is so hard for her. I’ve told her that it makes me feel like she actually doesn’t want to spend any time with me. And when she has flat out ditched me when I’ve planned things with her, to do something with her sister, is so damn hurtful.

The fact of the matter is that even though her sister is on the same page as me when we talk about these things openly, she won’t leave her alone and she will get extremely angry at my wife when she turns her down. She will also keep pushing her to go along with her plans anyway, and my wife won’t hold firm. It’s extremely maddening, and I don’t know what to do anymore. Am I going to have to destroy my relationship with my sister in law just to get my marriage back?

I have been reading stories on this subreddit and have also been told that I’m “jealous” which is just fucking ridiculous. Also, yes, I have been searching for a couples therapist, and it’s just been really hard to find one who is accepting new couples.

Her sister and her are in family therapy, but they only just started and are currently only going bi-weekly. I do think that this is good and her sister was actually very open to it. I think that they both know that this is not normal sibling behavior.

I know my wife loves me dearly. I love her no matter what. I am a very patient man, as you can probably tell. I also am a very communicative person that cannot hide how I feel. So she knows exactly how I feel, but I guess I just want her to see what me and what all of our friends see, too! I mean this has gotten so bad that even our neighbors can tell this is not healthy. Her own closest friends have come to me to ask what has been going on, and have offered their support as well.

I thought about literally calling her sister and being like “hey I love you but can you please get your own life?” I know that this isn’t a good solution but in a way I feel like it is… which is sad. I feel like I have to almost force her sister to hate me so that my wife will spend more time with me. And I know she could try and turn my wife on me as well in that situation, but I do genuinely think that my wife wouldn’t turn on me. She has said cruel things in the past, not exactly directed toward me, but in general towards being married and how typical married men can act. My wife always stood up for me and defended me and has said “not my man. Don’t you dare say those things”

Thank you for reading this far. I guess I did just need to vent but I’m also asking married folks if this does get better. I just miss my wife. I’m committed and want to work through this. She’s a wonderful person and I’ve seen her in her element, without her sister present all the time.