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I (35/M) come from an intellectually pretentious family. I married into a very blue collar family. Through out my adult life, my older sister (38) has always disapproved of my partners. I met my wife when she was in college and I was in the Navy. My sister immediately disliked the bubbly and unfiltered college girl and determined my future wife was untrustworthy and dragging me down.
4 years ago my wife suffered a traumatic brain injury. It occurred right around the time we conceived our second child so we chalked off the dizziness, headaches and other symptoms to her pregnancy. Nearly a year post-partum the symptoms hadn't improved and she started scheduling medical appointments to get checked out.
At this point she was in the Navy; I was separated and in grad school. Over the next 18 or so month my wife endured an endless slog appointments, tests, exams, consultations, more tests, more consultations, until it was finally determined that my wife has a rare neurological condition that tbh I don't fully understand. She was medically retired and classified as a disabled vet. During this whole process my sister's way of being supportive was to tell me its probably nothing and not to worry about it.
This past weekend I was chatting with my sister. My wife had gotten a holiday job helping deliver packages but called out on black friday to stay at her parent's longer. My sister made a comment about my wife "suddenly being sick when she doesn't feel like working" and claimed my wife had done the same thing to get medically retired from the Navy. As is the habit in my family, I replied with equally snarky jabs, reminding my sister, who is a nephrologist, that my wife injured her head not her kidney's and she doesn't know what she's talking about. My sister claimed it took to long because my wife was "doctor shopping" for the diagnosis she wanted. I told her if I got paid what she did to sit in an office say "keep doing dialysis," I wouldn't have personal days either.
I had confronted my sister and my mother in the past about their accusations that my wife was "milking the system" and needed to "suck it up." After some very heated exchanges they had gotten better about keeping their thoughts to themselves (a feat with my family) but this one pulled no punches. My Sister is getting married in September and I told her unless she apologizes and admits she doesn't know anything about my wife's medical history we won't be in attendance.
Is boycotting my only sibling's wedding an overreaction? AITA for using choosing the wedding as the event not to attend when it is such an important day to her?
You also donât know where she works or the nature of her schedule. Her schedule literally involves them texting her every morning asking if she can come into work that day for a shift. There is no formal schedule. With her illnesses, she requires work with flexible schedules.
Her supervisor asked if anyone was able to work and made it seem like work that day wasnât expected. My wife has since learned that they seldom expect people in her position to come in on Friday or Saturday. And also, itâs not the busiest day of the year where she works.
Yes. She joined after leaving college. I separated from the Navy years later and went back to school.
My wife is not making up her conditions. The tests involved to prove POTS were based on her heart rate and blood pressure being measured methodically for 2 hours on some weird table they hooked her up to. You canât fake that. And Iâve physically had to carry her during fainting spells. Which is why I find it so insulting that my family denies this, when my parents have witnessed her fainting. Theyâre essentially denying our struggles and experiences based on what my sister believes.
My wife enlisted in the navy while she was in college. She enlisted and went to boot camp about a year after we met
Itâs suspicious that I didnât wanna list all of her diagnoses? I didnât want to share too much information without my wifeâs consent. She has Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), fibromyalgia (which my sister has said before isnât real), migraines, and a few other conditions sheâs been diagnosed with, along with residual TBI symptoms.
Iâll take that. This isnât the first time Iâve stood up to them, but it just seems like they get better for a little bit, treat her nice and keep their mouths shut, and then they just get too comfortable one day and spew out awful things.
Itâs mostly her making cruel comments. And anytime I talk about it during a calm conversation, she often tries to find holes in the story to suggest sheâs lying. She simply just doesnât like or trust my wife.
Yeah. This is only the newest thing sheâs causing drama over. The thing that stopped her from being awful to my wife and bullying her last time was my dad telling her if she didnât stop sheâd never see her nephews and it gave her a wake up call for a bit. Since then, she had mostly been polite to my wifeâs face. But sheâs clearly getting bold again.
Update:
Perhaps I should have mentioned my Sister is VERY pregnant atm.
My sister and I had gone a couple years without significant conflict after both I and my father told her she was drawing close to being cut out of her nephewsâ lives. She is scheduled for a c-section next week and, in hindsight her pregnancy hormones may have impacted what little filter she has.
I texted my brother-in-law âhappy birthdayâ this week although refused my sisters attempt to FT. Iâll congratulate her on a successful delivery, but will ask my parents to only call in Christmas when sheâs not nearby (they live 30mins from her and 6 hrs from me so spend most of their time with their favorite child/grandchild).
Sometime after new years when sheâs had time to recover from post-partum Iâll have a conversation with her and give her a chance to admit that a Dr canât make a diagnosis on someone theyâve never examined, triaged, done a medical history, seen blood work, ekg, mri, x-rays or literally anything else that would support a scientific conclusion. IF she acknowledges that Iâll be open to an apology.
A little bit of both. She had a rough cold, but she didnât necessarily claim to be sick. Her job is seasonal, part time, extra hands type of job, so they just text her every day asking if sheâs free, and she said she wasnât that day. It wasnât seen as a big deal because thereâs no real schedule for them because of the nature of the job.
A LOT of people have raised cane that I havenât completely cut off my family already and that I continue to âsubjectâ my wife to her in-laws.
My wife and I got together young (I was 24, she was 19). I knew growing up that my family was pretentious and judgemental but it wasnât until we had kids that I realized how toxic they were. I certainly made mistakes and was often late to realize how demeaning my family was being b/c they were talking the way I grew up speaking.
I have only one sibling; both my parents have distant relationships with their siblings. My father grew up w/o cousins b/c by age 12, his parents had cut off all of their siblings. Growing up my father always lamented this and often told us of the agreement his siblings had that any conflict with them wouldnât trickle down to the kids.
My wife and I agreed early that Family is a bunch of flawed AH that you love and accept flaws and all.
We tolerate my family, knowing that our kids will meet people like my sister their whole lives; the same way we tolerate my in-laws not-so-casual-racism, and occasional volatility. We attempt to isolate the boys from conflicts as best we can and I do not tolerate my family belittling my wife in front of the boys (my wife has told me one of my sexiest moments was the time I pulled my mother away from everyone and my wife could see my rage boiling over from across the park as I berated my mother for the way she spoke to the mother of her grandchildren); but when the boys are exposed to their familyâs flaws we use it as a chance to teach âlove the sinner, hate the sin.â
Thanks. She still has residuals from the TBI and all of this has given her some pretty severe depression and anxiety.
Yes she does. Theyâve made some comments to her before and dismissed her and criticized when she needed my help for something. And she over heard the last conversation with my sister, as did everyone in the room, because she said it publicly on FaceTime
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Sheâs 100% disabled with the VA. So far only my family has treated her this way.