Reason for divorce, heartburn

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

My brother in law has been with his wife since she was 14 and he was 16, at one point his mom was nervous because her parents kicked her out and she moved in with him and she was not yet 18. I don’t know when they got married but they are now in their late 40s and have a teenage son, he is a pastor now and she was a fancy hotel manager.

Couple of weeks ago he called my wife and told her his wife had to be taken by ambulance for heartburn so bad she collapsed and was screaming, he sounded scared out of his mind. She spent days in the hospital, and went back every few days to the ER would wait all day and then be admitted overnight or for a couple days.

:dubious: I was like wha, how can heartburn be so bad? She spent a lot of time in the hospital and had all kinds of tests done, in and out and he sounded worn down and scared. Said she kept having attacks at home so bad she had to go the hospital.

I happened to see them both and I asked her what she was taking because everyone was concerned about her, she said the doctors wrote her an RX for Zantac but she didn’t fill it because she doesn’t believe in taking pills. :dubious:
She would rather go to the hospital she said and get real treatment from medical professionals instead of drugging herself.

I said my dad had heartburn and cimetidine worked real well for him, almost a miracle. I even the next time I saw my BIL gave him a card of it I bought for a few bucks at a pharmacy, he said she refused to take it.

They moved out of the place they had been living in for decades and the only other place they could find was double the rent, like from 15 hundred to three grand a month because they thought it was a jumbie making her sick.

Yea don’t ask me:

So they are in this new place and my BIL is like he is struggling to make the rent and then his wife quits her job saying the heartburn is so bad she can no longer work.

Then the hospital which is public refused to admit her anymore, saying it is emotional not heartburn and is actually panic attacks. They talked to him and her and said they will not give her a bed anymore, advised counseling and wrote her a RX for Xanax. This outraged my BIL and he was raging about how dare they accuse his wife of being crazy, they don’t believe her and have the nerve to suggest she is crazy. He is like they are not filling an RX for a crazy person med.

Not being able to get admitted to the hospital anymore she takes off and moved into her mother’s house, saying she is fine there and the jumbie must have followed them to the new place but can’t find her at her mothers so she needs to stay there because she doesn’t have the heartburn attacks there.

:rolleyes:

Man the dude is just lost and wiped out emotionally but he still won’t face what is obvious, just saying how he is prodding his son to go get some work so he can make the new rental payment which since his wife quit her job is impossible to meet.

I hear this because he calls my wife and talks to her, I have told my wife why don’t you just tell him listen it ain’t heartburn and it ain’t evil spirits it is called divorce and she is just like she can’t be so blunt and break his heart. I feel bad for the guy and think people need to just be honest about their feelings.

2

Great sequential threads:

Reason for divorce, heartburn
I’m getting married.

:smiley:

BTW you think she is just putting it all on in order to leave her husband? Why saddle him with a more expensive house in the process if that’s the case?

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The jumbee made her do it.

4

From your description it does sound like panic attacks. I have a friend who thought she was having heart palpitations or a heart attack or something and it took three separate visits to the ER and a bunch of testing before they told her it was panic attacks. Turns out she had been diagnosed with breast cancer two months prior and DIDN’T TELL ANYONE. Not even me or her mom.

So your SIL has something going on, and she’s not talking about it. It’s causing panic attacks that she won’t admit to, because all y’all are in Trinidad and the spiritual crazy ignorance is a bit over the top (based on other stuff you’ve mentioned over the years). If the problem stops when she’s out of the house and away from her husband, sounds like the problem is as solved as it’s going to get, because trying to talk sense into them is really, really, not going to work.

Any chance you can have a man-to-man talk with your BIL? Downsize the living situation if at all possible and just stay separated from his wife for a while, see how things go. Who knows, if she can work out what’s going on in her head (and the problem isn’t being married to BIL), maybe they can sort of start dating again and mend the relationship. I’m not so sure outright divorce right away is necessary. Take it slow.

5

I don’t know honestly, I can’t figure out why she would do this so publically and dramatically if she was. He did not just talk to my wife, he told everyone she had some kind of scary heartburn attack and had to go to hospital.

I mean she had family taking off time to go visit her in the hospital in the beginning. Dunno why she would instigate a move into a much more expensive rental either.

I started thinking stuff sounded odd when she said she won’t take prescriptions or even OTC meds for it.

I even asked my wife could he be abusing her or something? She said I doubt it but who knows, she never saw evidence of it.

I just find if she ends up leaving him, man what a dick move on the new rental.

6

Tourism booster for Trinidad you ain’t.

7

Yeah, I’d hit Tobago instead.

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Your BiL’s wife is cheating on him, blaming all of this on ‘heartburn’ because the vise is closing in on her. Her ‘disorder’ distances herself from suspicion from infidelity, also from having to help support herself.

‘Jumbee’ must be Caribbean for ‘Other Man’ in this scenario.

BiL comes home, wife is flustered, her paramour is leaping out the two story bedroom window in his skivvies

“what’s wrong, dear? you seem flushed”

“ITS…THE JUMBIE!” :eek:

9

Nah, you’re looking for the term horner man(or woman).

Hah I love how specific the entry is.

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I went through something similar in my thirties. I was actually swallowing air. Whenever I had an attack I would simply hold a hanky in my hand and wipe my mouth repeatedly until the pain passed. It took me three years to figure it out and resolution was instant once I quit swallowing.
The pains were indentical to a heart attack without the shortness of breath. Left arm, jaw, chest strong pressure.

Divorce also fixed mine.

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Panic attacks are not “crazy” or “all in your head.” They are real physiological symptoms. It usually takes a cardiac workup to rule out heart attack. The body is going into fight or flight danger mode. It’s usually stress related.