Sucky Relatives.

I don't think this has anything to do with kids, but maybe it does, I just don't know any more. I do know that I dislike my Aunt quite a bit.

Lets just start with a little background. My mom's side of the family is very close, they get together yearly for a huge family party, and while my Mom and her brother were growing up, the extended family were getting together on an almost monthly basis. While I was growing up it had slowed to maybe every couple months. Anyway, my uncle (mom's brother), lets call him Carl, is a great guy, funny, caring, easy going, friendly, affectionate and a great cook. He's probably my favorite uncle. When he married his wife, we'll call her Ann, they were a fun couple, even after the first kid was born. Hell, they were still fun after they had triplets. That was 20+ years ago. Now the kids are growed up and not living at home (though a couple of the kids come home pretty much every other weekend), and she's grown to become a mean spirited, nasty, controlling bitch. She complains whenever Carl spends time with anyone who is not in the immediate family, including helping his frail 85 year old mother, who lives a block away, stay out of the retirement home. When my Mom has the time to drive the 3 hours to visit, she'll stop by her brother's house, and Ann won't even talk to her. She'll sit at the table with my Mom and Carl, and not even engage in the conversation. They don't hang out with any of their good friends any more, and this was the first year, ever, that Carl has missed the family reunion. The excuse given was "work", but considering that a. all his kids were home, even the one who was in the Navy, and b. they've known about this for a year, and c. he's never missed the reunion before, my guess (and my mom's and everyone else's) is that Ann blew such a fit that he figured it'd be easier to just stay home.

Anyway, I jus needed to vent, and say WTF?!

Maybe she's feeling insecure now that the kids are grown, thinking that there's nothing to hold them together anymore and that he'll leave her, so she's digging her claws as deep into him as possible. Was she a SAHM? Some of them start thinking they're not "whole" people, they had their identity wrapped up in being a mom for so long. She's older, [and probably in her mind] less attractive, not very interesting - with the kids gone, what's to stop him from finding something better?

That sucks for your uncle. She should get a hobby.

That's the crazy thing, he actually did have a fling and leave her about 6 months after the triplets were born, showed up at our house with the woman he was having an affair with, got a good talking to from my mother and ended up going back to her. She was a SAHM until the kids got into school, but with three at once living in a rural area, someone kind of has to. However she's been working full time going on 15 years now. She's not even to her 50's yet. My uncle, who is an excellent cook, would really really like to quit the job he hates and open a resturant, but she won't let him. She'd rather have a ulcer riddled husband with a steady paycheck than a happy husband who is taking a chance doing something he loves. Of course, when he was trying to quit smoking on his doctors advice, because of the bleeding ulcers, she said that she'd rather have him smoking than grumpy for a few months...so now he's a smoker again. I'm thinking there may be a reason why she's no longer in contact with her family, and I think they may not be at fault.

I really dislike her, and her kids are turning out to be just like her. I feel bad for my uncle and Grandma.

Feh, I do feel for you and your family. I see this too often...women would rather have a stressed husband on the verge of a heart attack just so there is that good paycheque hitting the bank every two weeks rather than a happy husband and less $$$$. The affair/fling was really a symptom of this man's problem at home and being in a job that gives him ulcers. Often, men will have affairs just to get back at their wives even though many claim they do it to "get away with something". When a wife refuses to "let" her husband do something, he will find something he can "do" without her permission such as another woman. The smoking issue is tough, too.

and also if he dies due to stress/illness caused by work then she can claim on the insurance

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I just post the stories, for interest.. for everyone

Lord, what fools these mortals be!
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, Scene ii

Voltaire said: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

H.L.Mencken wrote:"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. Albert Einstein

Oh yes, Mercurior, many wives want those insurance premiums paid up so they can continue to leech off of the husbands even after their death. More and more, I agree with you why a lot men do not want to get married. If I were male, I would have all sorts of fears that the wife would stop working shortly after the "I do's" were said and I was stuck working my butt off to support her like a child. I also would be afraid of the "mail order" brides after seeing much of the other side where these women are also nothing more than gold-digging wh*res who advertise on these websites for their perfect victims to leech off of via marriage.

Well, at least I won't have to buy them anything for Christmas any more. I've started sending letters and cards to my Uncle at his workplace, because I'm never sure if he gets them at home any more. Not like I send alot, but I don't trust his wife.