Is this jealousy or just plain silly!

[Bertie thomas]

Before I married my wife, my family just didnt like her. they aid that she was a goldigging wh*re. she had two kids already. They couldnt be more wrong. She is a lovely girl.

Anyway for my 40th birthday I invited my parents and my brothers. none of them wanted to come and refused point blank. So I invited a half brother that my parents threw out of the family 35 years before for having a disagreement with them ending in a fight with my dad. I was "5" at the time.

My half brother came to my 40th with his wife a nd son and we had a really good chat and he put me right about why he was really chucked out of the family.

I told a young brother who I thought that I could trust and he went blabbing to my parents. Who in turn, hoisted me out of the family, and have told people that I am dead. Charming!

My wife and I got married and the only family that came to the wedding were my 3 older half brothers, my Aunt bless her, and a cousin. My parents werent there or my younger brothers.

I was told that my parents destroyed all of my pictures and have wiped me of the face of the family.

And so I set up home with my wife and her two kids. apart from the usual ups and downs of a marriage we are ok.

My wife though listens to her sister a little too much. Her sister is a pot smoking good time girl with a daughter of her own. now I am anti drugs and she once lit up a spliff in front of me resulting in me walking out of the room and being violently sick. She also thinks that because my wife has two kids she should still go back cap in hand to the scoudrel who fathered them!!

This weekend my wife is going to see her. when we first started dating, "we" went to her her sister all the time, but in the last few months my wife has insisted going alone like this weekend. Last time I moaned about it, but this time I havent said anything at all about it. this is the second time. Should I have said something or just shut up?

I did say that if I went to see my family they would think their house was haunted!!

My wife tends to forget that I dont have a biological family. They have disowned me, even to the point of telling people I have died!! I have no one. My half brothers dont visit now, and my Aunt lived 50 miles away.

I gave up my family, and the house I was living in at the time. I was married before and by some stroke of luck I managed to keep the house. After met my second wife, and we decided to get married, I sold my house to buy the house we are living in now.

Im not bothered that my wife sees her sister in London, but it is starting to grate that she tends to forget that I gave up everything for her and the kids. I dont need her calling me jealous and possessive, although how can I be possessive when she ignores me any way and does what she wants to.

Am I like she said?

[Concerned reader]

My goodness, a cast of thousands. It must be very difficult and complicated to have come from such a background.

Have I got the essential story right?

Your family does not like your wife and doesn't want to talk to her.
(Ok, that's rude, but not that unusual.)

However, this is irrelevant because they don't want to talk to you over some thing which happened thirty five years ago and wasn't anything to do with you.
(This is nuts. How many other children are they going to blank before they run out of offspring?)

You have been told by someone (unspecified) that your parents have removed all references to you from their lives.
(Why did someone go out of their way to tell you this?)

I don't much care for the game your family plays. It is called "divide to rule" and involves slandering one child to the other in order to get the undivided attention of the remaining child. Other names for this game include 'really you are my favourite' and 'You are a good boy and you love me best when you reject the others'.

Not difficult to see why they didn't like your wife - she was outside the game and the cold-shoulder was an attempt to push her in to line. It is no different from bullying the new girl in school.

Your challenge - and it is a huge one - will be to make sure that this kind of behaviour doesn't leak back in to your present life and damage it.

You do not like your sister-in-law and state 'my wife listens to her sister a little too much'.

Now, I don't like dope and I take a dim view of those who indulge but is the description 'pot smoking goodtime girl' based on an accurate description of her vices? (It could be, I've met a few of those and part of me envies them. I wish I were better at having a good time.)

Certainly she holds a view on the financial duties owed by a biological father which do not match your own, but in the end only your wife's opinion really counts. And if your wife has ever had occassion to claim benefits you'll find a substantial majority of the tax-paying public agrees with the sister-in-law; the scoundrel jolly well should be paying. (I'm assuming he is a scoundrel).

In the end you are the only person who can say if your objections are valid because you know all the people involved.

But you need to be very sure that you are not playing a poisonous and pointless game of trying to exclude your sister-in-law in the way your family has taught you to do.

From the way you've described your family, I'm not sure if you have 'given every thing up'. I'd be pleased to see the back of 'em. You haven't given up a house - you just bought a different one. What you've gained is, you said: 'a lovely girl' and, presumably, a family you would rather be in.

Why not treat yourself to some counselling so that you can work through all the things about your family background in a way which is less likely to affect your current life.

I think it will help to talk to someone who is not involved in the situation and to whom you can say whatever you like in the sure knowledge that they will not repeat it

Good luck, it sounds like a difficult background to come to terms with.

[bertie thomas]

Concerned Reader,

It was a "black listed" cousin who came to my wedding of all places who told me that I had been wiped from the family archives. I had been thinking of trying to talk to my parents to get them to see somme sort of reason. My cousin warned me that they had issued violent threats if I should ever approach then, and my younger brothers would carry them out.

So, for talking to an older brother who did something when I was "5", I have been caste out into the wilderness!!

As for my "good time girl" of a sister in law, my description of her was spot on. She is in to dope, like my kids biological father. So she has an ally there. I can not begin to tell you how ANTI-drugs I am. My wife is going to stay with her for the week end tomorrow. So dope will be smoked. I am so worried that my wife will pick up the habit, it will lead to the "mother of all arguments" if that is so.

The topics of conversation will be my kids biological father and how my wife should let him see our stepson, my reaction to seeing their biological father, my jealousy and envy towards him, I basically can not stand him, letting in to OUR house to see our stepson, that will be a NO NO as I will call the police.

If my sister in law told my wife to jump, mt wife would give her a measuring tape would be given to her to ask her how high. My sister in law pulls my wifes strings. When she comes back on Monday itll be "my sister said this," or my sister said that"!! My reply will be "Who am I married too, you or your sister". I am a patient man, but some times!! My sister in law will fill my wifes head with stuff and nonsense..

As for the house, well, the house I sold belonged to me. My wife provided nothing for the purchase of this one. I bought the car, paid off my wife's credit card bill of "2,500" she ran up "before" she met me, and prrovided the furnitures for the house. So yes, I gave up my house...

As for my family, we like you quite rightly said I am glad I saw the back of them. So now I have no family apart from a Cousin who stood in as my "mum" at the wedding. My Cousin who I affectionately call Auntie as she is the same age as my mother, said that I am more like my mothers side of the family.

I have £1.50 in my walllet for this week end, and I did say to my wife about this. to no avail, she is still going. I cannot believe that she is going, in the knowledge that Ive nothing for the weekend. It is just me or am I being a "typical" man.

I am going to have one boring weekend. He reply was "Do the garden", well yeah, I cant do it in the dark, what about tomorrow evening or Sunday evening. Sunday will be fine as I will go to church, my daughter is working sunday so it will be just "Me myself and I"

Im going to be soooooo "bored"!!

One very Bored Bertie..

[Concerned Reader]

Dear Bertie

Have you had a chance to read any of the threads from Springheeled Jack? He has experience of dealing with difficult a biological father in a tense situation.

If he is around, his experiences may be of help.

I hope the weekend is better than you expect.

[bertie thomas]

Yes, I have read his threads, all of them in fact.

I was reassured to know that I wasnt the only person in this situation. I read his thread in the Chapel. He left an email address and I cheekily emailed him lending my support.

He did email me back and may I say what a really nice man. He was very understanding and extremely helpful, and gave me a lot of information and a really useful website for Fathers and step fathers. He is a real credit to this website and a worthy member. Well done that man.

Well, the week end wasnt as bad for me, it was boring because my wife wasnt around. I did make my feelings knon via a text message "IM BOOOOOOORED!!"
to my wife.

It does worry me, about my sister in law, in subsequent calls to my wife she made and Ive answered the phone its "HELLO ADRIAN CAN I SPEAK TO YOUR WIFE IF THAT IS ALLOWED AND YOU DONT GET TOO JEALOUS!"

So I do know that I came up in the conversation on the weekend.

Not that I mind her going I mean it isnt as thought I can stop her.

I just wish she could be considerate!