Dealing with an unstable in-law (long)

In My Humble Opinion
1

My husband has a niece. They spent a lot of time together intermittently when she was a child, as he was living with his sister and her husband for a while, working on getting his green card (this is many years ago now, niece in question is over 50).

This niece has made bad choices throughout her adult life, often being rescued with money by her beloved father (now deceased, her mother lives in another country). Both parents drank a lot, and now she is a full-fledged and untreated alcoholic. She has very employable skills but can’t keep a job because of the drinking. She lives about 2000 miles away.

She invited herself to stay with us for 9 days a few months ago, and it was very unnerving. She seemed relatively normal at the beginning but as the visit went on she got more and more weird, saying things that to me were borderline psychotic (but not threatening, just intense woo). Then suddenly things got ugly and we had confrontations, she fake cried to apologize, and left a day later. Then she sent me an email that completely burned her bridges with me: no-one in their family likes me, I’m trying to keep her away from her beloved uncle, and I hate her. A few months passed.

She called my husband on his cell phone last night, and he picked it up before he realized who it was. They talked for a few minutes. Apparently she is not working again and is sitting at home just drinking. I believe she lives with her eldest son who is around 30. She has some cash in the bank from (I think) the sale of a house, enough to live on for a few months. This phone call has caused me a lot of anxiety. With my husband’s permission, I have blocked her number from his phone. But I think she is capable of a lot of mischief and damage, and my husband is not equipped to deal with her firmly. He is fine avoiding her calls, but that’s it. Her mother and siblings are useless in dealing with her. My imagination is working overtime on bad things that she might do, including showing up at our door some time when I’m not home, and getting into the house, and causing a rift between me and my husband.

What I need is to be able to calm down and not have anxiety over this. Maybe I need more than that, but that would be a hell of a good start. I am normally not a worrier, but I have scant or no experience with people like this.

Share your experiences? or point me to resources? Whatever you got, I’m listening.

2

You need to talk about this with your husband. Lay down the law: she isn’t welcome in your house or life. You’re married - you have a say!

If he won’t do anything, you have too. I assume “you’re to old for this shit”, as it were. Don’t let her in your life anymore, and don’t care what her or her family think. You don’t need to accommodate toxic people, even relatives.

3

I think maybe your husband needs you to be the “Bad Guy” in this situation. Make it clear that you and your husband are a united front but you will be the one dealing with her whenever she tries to insert herself into you and your husband’s lives.

I’m not trying to give your husband a free pass. It’s just that obviously there is a LOT of history between your husband and his niece. And emotional bonds like that can be powerful. I would hope your husband would do the same for you if the situation were reversed.

Anyway, that’s the best I have to offer. Good luck to you. And you have my sympathies.

4

Agree 100% with @Grrr just above.

First and foremost, you and hubby need to “get your story straight”, so you and he have a common understanding of the problem (her), the plan (total hermetic avoidance), and the roles you’ll both play in that. Which, as @Grrr wisely says, may have you playing the bad guy role to shield your hubby from his admitted soft spot. Again with his knowledge, agreement, and planned backstage support for you in your role.

If hubby is going to have problems with this, then you do indeed have a household problem of your own, separately from anything niece does to amplify that problem. Which problem needs to be confronted gently with humility, but also with urgency and driven (perhaps a bit painfully) to a resolution. IIRC you two have been together a long time and have a good working relationship. This is important and worth fixing if it is indeed a problem.

The best news for you is that alcoholics are famously ineffectual. Yes, it’s possible she’ll do whatever and wreck your happy home. But it’s hardly probable. And the sooner you up-armor both of your attitudes and playbook, the less likely her chaotic shambling zombie-like “attack” will amount to shit.

Good luck. We’re here when you need a spine injection or more glib advice. :wink: !!!

It’s a darn shame that losers seem to try so hard to wreck another 10 people’s lives, but that sure seems to be the human condition. Doesn’t matter if it’s addiction, psychopathy, criminality, or simple jerkitude: each bad actor pisses oh so aromatically on the affairs of 10 innocents.

5

I’d pack a bag. Then I’d show it to hubs and explain. I don’t think you have the will or the spine to do what needs to be done, this woman kept out of our home, yes, this includes ALL visiting, at all times, in every instance!

Let him know you’re ready, you have found alternate housing and intend to access it at the first sign she’s making ANY inroads into your lives. Make it clear, it’s not your niece and it’s never going to be your problem. Because you’ve already done the necessary steps to avoid this nightmare.

Otherwise he’s just laying low so you’ll handle it, like blocking his phone for him because he’s so weak. He wants to shy away from HIS responsibility, and make this your problem to deal with.

Don’t let him.

6

This is correct, although a large part (larger than most couples?) of the working parts of our relationship are unspoken. This is not the way I would like things to be, but that’s how it is.

Turning his niece away from the door is the hardest thing I could imagine for him to do, of all the things she might get up to. I do need to discuss that specific possibility in advance with him, and maybe that conversation will lead to good things. He’s not good with conflict – I forgot to mention that during her visit, he secretly drank himself into a stupor one day because he couldn’t deal with her behavior. That is something I find hard to forgive her for.

7

@elbows, I don’t know why you want to make my husband the villain of the piece. I had to change his phone because he has zero technological knowledge or understanding – we would have done it before but we just didn’t think of it.

Getting me to leave would be exactly what she wants. Sorry, but I think your point of view on this is cracked.

8

I hope @elbows was posting before she’s had her coffee. That was freaking harsh. (And uncharacteristic as far as I know)

9

I understand the anxiety around the behavior of an unstable relative/friend but she lives 2000 miles away and has lost the support of family maybe rightly so. But a little compassion? At least for your husbands great nephew who lives with his messed up mother.

And how could she cause a rift between you and your husband in the space of one unannounced visit while you’re at work? You’re overthinking it, and over estimating the power she has. Unless you feel that your husband is susceptible to her woo out there ideas and over drinking.

But I get it, you want to cut off communication and fear your husband will slide on that commitment. He should probably get it all off his chest what he’s feeling. It’s his family he was once close with it’s sad.

10

I have huge compassion for him (she lives with him, I think, it was his place first), and if he ever reaches out we will be there for him.

My compassion for her is limited. Even when she is arguably sober, she is manipulative and has only a nodding acquaintance with reality. Her narrative of her life is that she is always the victim, and no-one ever gives her the support she needs (and, of course, deserves). I know she is desperately unhappy and I certainly hope that can change, but it’s going to take some work on her part, which she so far is not willing to even start.

11

Just wanted to bring this up briefly, although you probably already covered it, and just didn’t explicitly mention it to us. In addition to securing the phone, you’ll probably want to make sure she’s blocked on things like social media (if either of you partake) and from your husbands email provider. Again, you may have already done so, but it sounds like the niece is a master at poisoning the well.

If you kept it (and I see many reasons you wouldn’t have wanted to), you might want to share the details of the email with your husband, so he clearly sees the whys behind your feelings. My concern at this point is the niece has all the time and malice on her hands, and seems more than willing to paint you the villain to the rest of the extended family. Get your side of the story out first.

If you want a possible compromise the preserves the moral high-ground as it were, allow the niece to communicate via good old snail mail - I had to do this with a family member that fell down the Trump hole - it’s amazing how many fewer contacts I had if they hard to write/type out a message, print it, put in an envelope, and mail it!

In the long run, you’ll still have to stay strong, and put up with that extra level of stress and anxiety that you shouldn’t have to. But you can mitigate it, and make sure the niece doesn’t open up additional fronts in the Cold War. Ideally, the niece or her own son should try to get her some treatment for her condition, but based on the personality type that blames others instead, that is probably a non-starter.

Right now, is your biggest concern said person visiting, and extending it to an indefinite stay due to her lack of assets and becoming a leech, or emotionally extorting funds from your husband based on their emotional closeness (same thing but at a distance)? Or something else entirely? And does her son have any influence over her, so that you could potentially work out something where you could conditionally provide some (carefully laid out in advance) support if she were in a supervised long term program as an example?

Because until she drinks herself to death or invalidity, it sounds like she’ll continue to try to manipulate things, and the economic reasons for doing so won’t change unless there’s a change in her basic circumstances. Honestly, from what you’ve said, I doubt it will work - since this sort of addiction normally requires an internal desire for change rather than being forced into it, but it might buy some time and peace of mind.

ETA - Did want to also add another long distance word of direct support rather than glib ‘fixes’ that probably don’t apply. We probably can’t fix any of these problems for you, but remember, we’re on your side, which if the niece tries to make you the evil witch of the story, may be of some solace.

12

Thank you, and others who have expressed support, it does help. It has been a great relief to my mind to be able to vent here, I don’t have much of anyone else to talk to about it.

I kept the email, and had my husband read it at the time. She also sent emails of similar tone (we’re all unfair and unsupportive) but different specifics to her two siblings and her mother at the same time.

I don’t mind her sending emails, they are easy to file and ignore, and provide evidence as well if necessary. My husband, being techno-illiterate, has no computer and does not have his own email. His phone is a flip phone. He doesn’t text or even know how. If he gets a text, I have to read it for him.

The niece’s son is sort of an enigma. I think he’s a good person, but he is very closed off and keeps to himself. He seems to have a low tolerance for drama, and a strong ability to tune out unpleasantness. So I’m not expecting much activity from him.

The visiting unexpectedly was the worst scenario I could think of, and I agree that it is unlikely. My greatest fear, I guess, is that she will somehow cause my husband so much stress that he will start drinking again. That is what I want to head off before it happens.