My sister is having an affair

[Rachel Bronwyn]

I’m sad for everyone involved.

Her current partner is a step up from the previous one in some respects. The bf of eight years was very emotionally abusive. She was a shell of a person well into her twenties, being involved with a dude who isolated and controlled her. It took her a few shots before she got away from him but did. Maybe a year and a bit later she was involved with this one. He’s nice to her. Huge improvement.

Initially, it seemed great. They enjoyed one another and the fam enjoyed him. Big sister had mentioned he struggled with his mood though and was reluctant to do anything to manage it. I guess none of us realised just how serious she was. She went on vacation to the West Indies with a girlfriend. He stayed at her place, caring for the cat. When she got back, to her surprise, he didn't leave. This was the beginning of the end. What we didn’t know is prior to living together, he hadn’t worked. At all. The reasoning goes he’s got this mood disorder which is exacerbated by work and manifests as IBS, making working impossible. So, big sister not only has a boyfriend she didn’t ask to live with her living with her but he’s depending on her financially. She’s very laid back/easy going/tolerant. As a result, she tolerates these kinds of relationships longer than I. Anyways, shortly after his moving in she became unemployed and went from making great money relatively speaking to making nothing. He did not work during this time. As her frustration snowballed we discovered he not only didn’t work but he didn’t help around the house either. In fact, he made a terrible mess of it, which he did not clean up. Think spilling 2L bottles of Coca Cola on the living room floor and leaving it to dry. He didn’t cook. His weed habit was costing her a LOT and she was not getting much when she was unemployed and living on the employment insurance she’d accrued over the years. He stayed home with the cat, made messes, played video games and smoked a LOT of weed while she looked for work. It wasn’t until after she’d kicked him out and he beat the shit out of her that she told us he also had a child he hadn’t seen in seven years.

A few months go by and he expresses remorse. She lets him back in. By all accounts he does understand assaulting her was unacceptable. I believe he won’t do it again. He still isn’t working though. He’s still sitting around her apartment with the cat, smoking weed, playing video games and failing to be a parent to his child. She’s frustrated but she does love him and in some respects they are compatible and she’s invested so much in the relationship that she’d like to see it work. That and the last time she told him she couldn’t afford to support him any longer and he needed to leave he told her he couldn’t afford transportation to his mom’s place so she’d have to pay for it, which she couldn’t at the time so she folded and he’s still there.

Time rolls on and she somehow gets chitchatting with a civil rights lawyer in New York State who’s in the process of legally separating from his wife. He’s about twenty years older than her with a couple young kids and a previous life as a rock star. They start spending time. He proceeds with his separation, moving towards divorce. Wife moves out. She’s still got a boyfriend. He’s still dependent on her. Other dudes flies out to see her. They spend more time, discover they get along real nice like. He offers to fly her out to live with him, says they can have a couple kids and she doesn’t have to work. She still has a boyfriend at home, presumably eating gummy bears and playing Call of Duty.

She had the full scale WHAT HAVE I DONE/GOT MYSELF INTO meltdown this afternoon. Saying she’d love if it could work out with the boyfriend because she’s invested so much and loves him and they really are alright together in some respects. She’s in really deep with the other guy though. Even if she does want out of the first relationship, which she’s not entirely sure of, she doesn’t know how to get out. She feels sick and hates herself. At the end of the day, several people are going to be very hurt by this, regardless of the outcome. It’s sad.

Despite everything she’s done wrong, I have trouble condemning my sister or anyone in her situation. It’s entirely unenviable.

I don’t know if I’m trying to accomplish anything with this post. I needed to unload though.