More about BIL, MIL, and DH's family

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Registered: 12-24-2004
More about BIL, MIL, and DH's family
Mon, 05-23-2005 - 11:30am

Val and Renee,

I see where you were coming from, regarding the whole "some kids need more help in adult life, etc.." I really didn't mean to go into this whole thing about DH's wierd family, but you need to know the complete story to see the extremity of the situation. This is not a case of a normal middle class family doing a little more for one child because of his shortcomings. It is a very unfair situation that has been going on since DH's birth and is causing him to be shortchanged on his rightful inheritance. Let me try to tell you the whole story. If you like soap operas, you might even find it tragic but entertaining.

First you need to know that DH, Tim, was abused physically and emotionally by his father. In today's world, Social Services would have removed Tim from his family as soon as he entered school and the obvious bruises and other marks were seen by teachers. DH's Dad had a lot of Aspie characteristics and was also an alcoholic. Tim was not a planned or wanted child. MIL and FIL had to get married because she was pregnant with Tim. FIL was never abusive toward MIL, only to Tim. DH's Mom was, herself, raised in an abusive alcoholic family. One can actually see how MIL is very confused about the reality of life. She was raised with violence, and she condoned it in her own childrearing.

MIL is also quite manipulative, as a result of this upbringing. Suffice it to say that anytime she has a relationship with someone who is "taker", she allows them to take from her in a huge way. When she has a relationship with a "giver", she becomes the "taker." This is how her relationship with DH and his brother differ. She is also currently using her new husband and some pretty awful ways, but I won't go into that here. DH, Tim, was raised by his grandmother (MIL's mother) for the first 6 yrs of his life. His Granny was a loving devoted person, who adored him. MIL basically left it to her mother to raise Tim. Then, MIL and FIL built a small house on the family farm and he moved in with them. It is unclear why MIL and FIL were not living together during that time, but they were the happiest days of Tim's childhood.

After the first 6 yrs, his life started to fall apart. Life with MIL and FIL was a living nightmare for him. He could do nothing right for his father, although he tried desperately. FIL would beat him mercilessly, then sometimes leave him outside at night and not allow him back in the house for an hour or more. When he failed to tie knots correctly, his punishment was to sit outside alone in the cold on the front step for hours practicing knots. He was often deprived of food as a punishment. He was beaten with anything that was handy and left with lash marks or bruises after every beating. DH says he felt for most of his childhood that he was neither loved nor wanted.

The saga continued......thirteen years and several miscarriages later, Tim's brother, Nelson, came along. Yes, he has PDD characteristics too, and a much lower IQ, but he never endured the abuse that Tim did. FIL and BIL stuck together like glue for his early years, probably because of their great similarities in personality. MIL was hardly a mother to BIL at all. She left him with his father on the farm and went off to work.

In the meantime, Tim had stopped living with his parents out of choice. He slept in the basements and guestrooms of friends from school. Everyone in town knew and loved Tim. He had multiple jobs since about the age of 6, and bought most of his school clothes and supplies. By the time he was 10 yrs old, he was made to pay for his own dental and some medical bills. Relatives sometimes helped him under the table because his father would have objected. Boyscout leaders and the local preacher of his church also helped him out occasionally. By the time he was 17, his father told him to remove his stuff from their house and never come back. MIL says she hated this, but she didn't do anything to stop it, either.

I knew nothing of the tragic life that DH led when we met. We dated. I met his family and noted that his father treated him very harshly (by that time, it was verbal abuse, not physical, and DH didn't live much at home with his parents). FIL died of a heart attack 2 mos before DH and I were married. He left his part of the family farm to MIL. Since that time, she has little by little given most of that farm to DH's brother (worth several million $'s). Everyone in the family has tried to talk to her and get her to see the inequity, but she doesn't change her ways. BIL's whining is simply too loud for her to hear. Tim continues to give and give and give to his mother. He loves her dearly and is very hurt by her constant favoring of Nelson. Nelson occasionally shoots a deer and gives it to her. If asked to do anything like chop wood or help out at her house, he whines and ends up doing nothing. She is remarried and nearly everyone in her new husband's family has spoken to us about the obvious inequitable treatment of the two sons. Now, the treatment extends to her new grandson by Nelson. When this child enters the room, Grandma has only eyes for him. She ignores Nelson's two step children and Cassian when Jacob is around. Her husband, Bob, and DIL, Mandy, are furious at the way she is now treating the grandchildren differentially. It's the same cycle repeating itself.

Anyway, we cannot bring ourselves to be whiny, like BIL, so we are trying to present things to her logically. Frankly, I doubt there will be any change in her behavior, but I would like to see her be a little more aware of our plight and her own role in this. She is very good at denying responsibility for things. Tim also needs to talk to his Mom about this, and the figures I put together may give him a way to open up the subject of his hurt about her inequitable treatment of him. He has spent a lot of time talking to me about it, but there are things that really need to be said to her. MIL really would like us to maintain contact with Nelson and his family after she dies, but I don't think she realizes that she is alienating us from them more and more by her actions. It's something that nearly everyone in the family has said needs to be talked about before she passes away for the good of all involved. We want to open up dialog in a constructive way that will not place blame on her, so I intentionally kept the figures in my list of costs unattached to names.

I think that's the story, in a nutshell. I really had meant to feature the figures that I found in the previous post, rather than our use of them.

Suzi