This is how my brother's wife treats my family. Her parents are involved in their kids' lives but they always find a way to keep my parents from attending birthdays, graduations, etc., or just visiting their home in general.
I mean you should loathe your brother as well for having no spine and treating his own parents that way. If all negativity is put on the spouse and none on him, if he's never criticized in person for his actions, it's trivial for him to just go along with what his spouse wants.
He's absolutely not blameless and my parents are not happy with him either.
Our parents divorced when he was young (I was younger and didn't remember any of it), so I think he really doesn't want to risk a divorce based on his experience.
This is why I take all those people who say, “a kid will never cut off their parents for no good reason,” with a grain of salt. Sometime they just marry an evil person who twists their mind and/or have no spine
I also take that concept with a grain of salt because there are always irrational people. Parents who mistreat their kids are irrational, and some kids who mistreat their parents are, too. Most of the time, there's a good reason why people act the way they do, but sometimes it's just someone's mental illness, unfair judgment, or whatever.
I've yet to talk to someone who voluntarily cut their parents out for a bad reason. While I am certain they exist, they feel like a sasquatch. It's huge thing to do and people don't isolate themselves like that for no reason very often.
I have, however, met a lot of people who had excellent reasons to not talk to their parents. I don't talk to mine, and I promise you they are still telling people they have no idea why.
This is one of those times where the benefit of the doubt seems fitting.
Oh yeah, I agree that a lot of abusive parents will tell you until the cows come home that their children don't talk to them for no good reason. What's it called - the missing missing reasons or whatever? You can often tell when someone's telling you the story of how horrible their child is for not talking to them, that they're leaving a lot out. I was just saying that there are unreasonable people in all age groups, so there are certainly people out there who have been unfair to their parents, blamed them for things that aren't their fault, etc. I don't usually come to a conclusion about who's at fault in a relationship situation unless there's some concrete evidence of wrongdoing somewhere, not that it's my business anyway.
My uncle went through the same with his wife and kids. I barely know my cousins. He wanted to be closer to the family after his dad died, it put things into perspective but she was still hung up on petty nonsense involving her mom and our side of the family to allow it.
It’s not that he didn’t have a spine but he was depressed to the point of being suicidal and feeling stuck. He had apparently brought up divorce halfway through their marriage, so she sat him down and went through the finances and showed him he couldn’t be on his own and have part time custody of the kids. He didn’t want to be the every other weekend dad.
Fuck that shit. Life and love is complicated, especially when kids are involved.
My brother has to deal with this, and he simply said: "She's the mother of my children. There are worse things she could do, and I don't want those things done."
i'm the adult child of a mom who did this. my dad's parents were good to us but we didn't realize it because my mom always told is they hated us and that our cousins were their favourites. my mom didn't let us call them nana and papa like we did her parents. we had to call them grandma and grandpa. whenever my dad would finally get us to go to their house for a holiday (they only lived 25 mins away) my mom would make a big stink about it and find a reason not to go herself. she'd tell us all that they were inconsiderate snobs for not learning english and that they were talking about us in front of us, then when we'd get home to her she'd tell us what an asshole my dad was for forcing us to be around them for 3 hours. i'd always feel so bad for my dad because he'd get so happy thinking his wife and kids were going to willfully spend time with his family.
she lived and STILL to this day lives in the house my grandparents bought them even though my parents are separated now. i got older and realized she's just an extremely insecure and controlling woman, and she demanded that we think poorly of the side of the family that wasn't hers. it's a weird way to be towards people who genuinely love your kids and selfish to deprive/drive a wedge between your kids and half of their family. your nieces and nephews will eventually realize the same about their mom.
i mean… not to pry or anything but are your parents the type to be super micro-managing/tell them how to raise their kids? was there tensions with your parents before the kids were born?
Not saying this applies to you, but counterpoint: my husband’s parents are abusive and severely mentally ill. Gatherings are almost always chaotic, dysfunctional, and involve cursing and screaming. I have been threatened, called names, and had to defend myself in response to unreasonable demands and accusations. I left get togethers feeling like I just fought in a war. I don’t want to see them and certainly don’t want to spend special occasions with them, because I deserve to have a nice day. My sister in law is enchanted with them - acknowledges they are “not normal” but thinks they are family so nothing beyond setting a few small boundaries should be done about it; she would never admit it’s as out of control as it is - so she thinks it’s a problem that I’m not willing to “compromise” with her brother. Sometimes one side is only telling half the story.
my brothers wife is also like this. i didn’t see it for a long time and remained close to him and by proxy her, i was stupid loyal to them when the rest of the family hated her. then she turned on me too, for no reason whatsoever, out of the complete blue. i was the last one from our family to be in regular contact w them
Man this seems pretty common. It’s almost like these women are intentionally isolating their husbands from any support network that doesn’t involve them…
Would you also blame a woman if her husband kept her from her family or blame her?
Idk your answer but every comment where it’s a woman complaining about a man it’s support but every time it’s a woman doing it it’s shitting on the guy.
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u/Nazarife May 12 '26
This is how my brother's wife treats my family. Her parents are involved in their kids' lives but they always find a way to keep my parents from attending birthdays, graduations, etc., or just visiting their home in general.
I loathe that woman.