u/fragile_fedora

Not sure what’s going on, but MIL video calls DH every other day of bit every day, and in the last few months, she’s fixated on the idea that something is secretly wrong with DH. Every couple of weeks, she tells him he is looking sad, and keeps asking if he’s not telling her something.. wtf?

DH is happy and perfectly fine. His only major stress is his brother’s bouts with disordered alcohol use that MIL and FIL are trying to guilt BIL out of (lots of history and details there, and I’ve posted about it before, but not getting into it here).

In these calls, she also asks him if I said anything, if BIL had said anything about me or to upset me etc., which makes me think BIL is saying stuff about me behind my back to her? Or they’re gossiping about me, and she’s worried he just let something slip in anger to DH?

It’s frankly very annoying to keep seeing healthy DH have to defend his own lack of sadness, and also assure her that no weird comments about me have reached him.

Not sure what to do here, since I’m not even directly involved, but of course, I have to be tangentially dragged in

I posted here yesterday about my BIL’s escalating drinking problem and how MIL/FIL have minimized it while expecting DH to help manage his adult brother from another country. It has consumed countless evenings and taken a real toll on our marriage.

Today FIL sent a long family message finally acknowledging how serious things have become. He individually named everyone supporting BIL: MIL, himself, DH, relatives, even one of DH’s friends, and acknowledged the toll this has taken on MIL, FIL and DH.
I wasn’t mentioned until the very end, as an accessory to my husband essentially saying something like: “We’ll tackle this with you and your wife by our side.”

That really hurt. I’ve been dragged into this for years, have personally intervened during many of BIL’s drunken episodes, and was even the one who pushed for BIL to get professional help as the rest of the family just kept trying to guilt trip him out of addiction. Yet I’m apparently not even important enough to be acknowledged as a part of this family, and the impact on me doesn’t register. Even a random friend of DH’s who called DH to raise concern about some behavior of BIL’s that he witnessed, was credited for his support lol

Both DH and I immediately noticed this, and DH was actually very upset. I explicitly asked him not to bring it up with his parents because I didn’t want more drama. He called MIL anyway because he was angry about how I’d been treated. MIL started crying and said she “never wanted to drag me into all this.” And that she felt like she was bothering me if she asked me to help BIL etc.

Then she asked DH whether I had told him to bring it up.
Thankfully, he immediately corrected her: I had specifically asked him not to say anything. This was entirely his reaction.

Now MIL wants to talk to me tonight and I just… don’t want to. I’m exhausted. It’s a Friday night in the summer. I want to go grab a cocktail and watch the sunset, catch a movie and unwind. Not try and navigate some bizarre conversation where I have to constantly be on guard.

In this, I even called my own mother looking for support, and she told me I was overreacting and making an already difficult time harder for DH and his parents. She kept reinforcing that I should have suppressed any reaction I had to this awful message on the family group, and only provided more support to DH and his family. The internalized patriarchy is very real. I feel so alone.

I don’t want recognition for helping BIL. But I don’t want to play this role of invisible support crew, who isn’t even acknowledged as a part of the family, while it takes a personal toll on me and my marriage. We haven’t even been on a single vacation, where we haven’t at least taken one call to handle BIL’s alcohol crisis.

I could really use some outside perspective right now. What do I even do from here? DH at least expressed his disappointment to MIL, but not sure what that will change.

DH (34) and I (30F) have been together for five years and married for two. We don’t have kids. For as long as I’ve known BIL (30M), he’s had issues with alcohol, but over the last three years things have gotten progressively worse.

BIL has been extremely drunk at our wedding and at several major family events since then. DH and I are often expected to quietly pull him away when things get too bad and clean up whatever mess he leaves behind. Many of BIL’s close friends and cousins have separately contacted DH over the last few years because they were concerned about his behavior.

There have been some pretty serious incidents. At one family wedding, BIL got drunk and slapped one of DH’s best friends across the face. At another event, his behavior toward a female guest made her so uncomfortable that one of DH’s cousins eventually kicked him out. On another occasion, he was very drunk around their 14-year-old female cousin and made her so uncomfortable that she broke down crying. I pulled her away and yelled at BIL to cut it out, which ended up partly villainizing me within the family.

The part I’m really struggling with is MIL’s response to all of this. MIL, and to a lesser extent FIL, consistently minimize BIL’s behavior and seem to be deeply in denial about how serious the situation has become. When other people complain about something BIL has done, MIL tends to accuse them of exaggerating or having something against him. Even after the incident with the teenage cousin, MIL and FIL’s explanation was that she was “hormonal” and going through puberty and therefore overreacted.

At the same time, MIL and FIL continue to financially support BIL extensively after years of unemployment and now very inconsistent employment. But somehow DH has also been assigned a huge amount of responsibility for monitoring and emotionally managing his brother.
DH and I live on a different continent and only visit about once a year, so you would think we could have some distance from this. Instead, the dynamic follows us home through almost daily phone/video calls.

MIL will call DH and ask whether he has checked on BIL that day. A significant portion of these calls can be spent discussing BIL and praising the smallest signs that he is functioning independently, even things like cooking himself instant noodles because his cook wasn’t available.

DH mostly goes along with these conversations because he is afraid of upsetting MIL. But whenever DH actually brings up concerning information about BIL that friends or relatives have told him, it goes nowhere. MIL dismisses it, and DH is often told that he is “panicking” for no reason.
So DH has ended up stuck in this bizarre mediation loop between MIL and his very entitled, but also genuinely struggling, brother. He is expected to worry about BIL, check on him and help manage him — but when he expresses the very concerns that would naturally come with being given that responsibility, he is told that he is overreacting.

This has been going on for about three years. There is never any progress or resolution. It is just the same conversations, night after night, while BIL’s behavior seems to be getting worse.

And it is starting to seriously affect our marriage.
DH is visibly stressed by the situation and seems unable to disengage from it. Meanwhile, I’m expected to join these frequent video calls too, at least briefly, to say hello and make small talk. Our evenings increasingly feel organized around MIL’s calls and whatever the latest situation with BIL is.

I have talked to DH many times about how unhealthy I think this pattern is, but he seems unable to step away from it. He is afraid of upsetting MIL and seems to feel responsible both for his brother and for managing his mother’s emotions about his brother.

I really miss having evenings with my husband that feel like ours, rather than feeling as though this family crisis is permanently living in our home despite being thousands of miles away. IDK what further I can really do here, and I’m really open to all advice. Thanks so much for reading through this rant!

Hey folks,

I met a doctor through the GAP program (no family physician yet) who ordered some blood work. I got the test at a private lab, and got my results back over email yesterday.

I’m not sure how it works now, since the doctor I saw wasn’t my family physician. Some nutritional levels were off, so I’d ideally like to see them again, but it looks like I can’t message them or schedule an appointment from the patient portal I’d made for my first visit.

Do I just call 811 and schedule an appointment with a different doctor for the requisition the first one ordered?

Thanks so much in advance!

I’m an international Ph.D. Graduate in cognitive neuroscience, without a ton of job prospects outside academia. With the collapse of science in the US, I had to temporarily move to yet another country. Immigration, international moves, traveling back home every year to visit family has ensured I have no savings whatsoever.

Finally starting to save again, and made it to $2000 largely invested in XEQT. Married with no kids, no house, no car lol, hoping to save up to have a late start

I’m a 30 year old woman. My mom got diagnosed in her early thirties with Hashimotos. I’ve been so tired off late that I can’t leave the couch after 1pm, no matter how much sleep I get or how much coffee I drink. My knees are hurting after doing regular strength training workouts which has never happened before. If I do a HIIT work out, I’m confined to the couch for the next day at least. My hair is coming out in clumps and I can see patchy bald spots. I’m constantly constipated, which might even have lead to SIBO. My periods are regular which might be the last saving grace, but there are more clumps than before.

I was told 7-8 hours of sleep is not enough and might consider just sleeping for 8-9 hours. I was told to find more things to do just for fun to reduce the stress in my life. What stress lol, I don’t have any major stressors at the moment. I should go find a hobby to stop feeling fatigued?!

The required blood panel only includes TSH, ferritin and b12. Like no T3 and T4, let alone antibodies. I asked her specifically about the antibody test twice. She said they only conduct that if tsh is above normal (4.5) and an ultrasound shows damage to the thyroid. The ultrasound will only be ordered if tsh is above normal. I’m in Canada, so I can’t even get this test without a prescription.

What on earth I am expected to do? I’m feeling so lost, so tired and frustrated to be told by yet another doctor to manage my fake stress

Hello my fellow academic hopefuls! I’m finding it very hard to keep going with my niche research every day as I watch academic positions and funding shrink like never before. And the few that do open up seem to want to add AI to everything, even when it doesn’t really fit. I’m in neuroscience, so could certainly not be the case for other fields.

I’ve tried being on both ends of the AI use spectrum — staunchly opposed on ethical and intellectual grounds, and integrating AI into my coding, paper editing and even brainstorming process. I feel like it’s actually pretty smart for what people were calling ‘glorified text editor’ not too long ago. Definitely smarter than some people I’ve interacted with, with inflated egos and loud voices in academia :)

However, I’m rethinking my role in this new era. I’ve been pretty good at math and statistics, I’ve been a fairly good writer, and I like to think I communicate ideas with clarity. I also like coming up with cool new ideas to research. But AI can do most of those things already, maybe save for innovating, but tbh it’s getting pretty good at that.

Switching to industry seems next to impossible with mass layoffs ongoing, at least in the tech sector. I would need to convince folks my background is worthwhile in a field I don’t have any experience with, since core computational neuro jobs are very rare.

I kinda feel like giving up on research and academia, and focusing on becoming and artist of some sort, and frolick through the meadows in a linen sundress waiting it out till the world either implodes or gets past this crazy wave.

How are you all feeling about this? Is it affecting your motivation or hope? What is helping?

Feeling pure frustration even as I begin to type this out. My husband and I live in a different country far from home, and have limited vacation time to visit. Yet, we often end up saving 90% of our vacation time to travel home together.

However, she often finds ways to remind me that ‘I don’t have to wait for my husband to find time’, to make a solo trip to visit my family. Obviously, I’m able to travel alone if needed, but why would I spend limited vacation time choosing to travel separately from my husband when we have the option to travel together, and enjoy it?

She attributes emotions I don’t really feel, like extreme guilt to being apart from my mom, and says I should make a solo trip for two weeks whenever I can to prioritize family. She also expects that I make time to visit her and my husbands family and take trips with them, but has 0 expectations that her son should also cultivate a relationship with his in laws lol.

This time when we visited, there were several weddings in my husband’s family, and MIL had planned a long trip with him (and de facto me) included, so he did not even visit my family due to time constraints. I did end up doing a solo led to visit them anyway. Yet it is repeatedly brought up, often out of context to any current discussion.

I know it’s not the biggest issue in the world, especially seeing the sheer horror of some stories on this sub, but I feel increasingly anxious to be included in a conversation with her, and she always wants to say hi in her daily calls to my husband.

Any advice on how I can start calm, and not lash out at my husband as a consequence?