Where does this relationship go?

In My Humble Opinion
1

My wife (US Army Reserve) is currently deployed for training. She has been gone for 2 months now, and life is going well for myself, and our two children. Or so I thought.

I got a visit from the Child Developmental Care agency for a report of child neglect. I know my wife filed this report on me, she told me so on the phone. Apparently, she has been hearing nothing but negative things from my sister-in-law about how I care for my children. Stating instances of dirty clothes, absences from my daughters school (she started Kindergarden this year), to strange bruises on their arms and legs.

The workers from the CDC came over, took a look at our appartment, at the kids, checked with the school ect… and found no fault what so ever. Bruises are from normal rough housing at school, laundry is clean, put away, appartment is clean, and my daughters attandance is fine (she did have strep however, that kept her out for 3 days).

So, I have two problems.
1.) An extreamly nosey sister-in-law who jumps to conclusions and speaks without a hint of intelect.
2.) This is the major one, a wife who, apparently does not trust me as far as she could throw me.

I have taken a leave of absence from my employer to spend more time with the children, and the house work, and am going stir crazy getting cabin fever whatever you want to call it.

Where do my wife and I go from here? When she returns, I already know that things will never be the same. She has been my best friend, and I used to trust her completely (even with her cheating on me while deployed for training for 2 weeks a year and a half ago). I have remained faithful to her to this day. But I now wonder if we have a relationship left to care about. How can I welcome her back with open arms with all of this occuring?

Or am I wrong in thinking this? Right now, I am more confused than anything, and seeking some advice.

2

:frowning:

i really don’t know … but i’d wait till the wife gets back,
tell her (calmly) what’s really been happening - show her
report from the CDC and see what she says to that.
Hopefully she’ll admit her sister was wrong and apologise.
If not … well, cross that bridge when you come to it,
no point thinking the worst now, she may be just more
concerned about the kids than anything else.

Whatever happens, hope things turn out ok for you.

3

Your wife called the CDC on you from information she received from her sister? Did she even call you to ask if any of it was true? Does she want her children put in foster care?

Personally I would go see a lawyer right away.

4

I think it is your sister-in-law that is the problem more than your wife. One may be a fool, and over-reacting probably over concern for (and missing) the children, the other sounds like an interferring vindictive piece of work.

Maybe what your wife needs more than anything is feedback and information on what is happening at home. If you can arranging it I would lauch a BIG communication exercise with her, digital photos of the kids, letting her know exactly what is going on, and even (if you weren’t too involved before) how hard you are finding this home keeping thing and how you’ll appreciate things differently once she is home. Dont be a whip but show her you are strong and in control whilst aware of her needs and concerns.

If you can hold off on the accusations, on how hurt you are etc but instead demonstrate “you are not holding grudges about what was clearly a misunderstanding”, well, I think you have a good chance of mending your relationship.

Of course if the accusations reappear you will have to rethink this strategy. All this is very difficult without knowing what you have said about the situation to her already, what your kids ages are, your history together, how long she is still to go out there etc etc.

Good luck to all of you (bar your sister-in-law maybe). I hope you can get through this.

5

I think that the wife is more of a problem then the sister in law.

Your wife knows that her sister is an idiot. Yet she decided to listen to her. Calling CDC was a dangerous thing to do to you and the children. If you get an over zealous case worker sometimes things get ugly even if you aren’t doing anything wrong.

I hate to say it but I have seen women use a call to Social Services or the police on the husband as the first step to getting a divorce and custody of the children. Protect yourself now, before she gets back. Get a lawyer and find out what your rights are if the marriage doesn’t work.

6

Since you’re looking for advice rather than facts, I’ll move this thread to IMHO.

bibliophage
moderator GQ

7

I think the advice so far in this thread is good: That is:

1)Prepare to have a long chat with your wife when you get back. Do it somewhere public, without the kids present. Say, a nice restaurant. You two definitely have some talking to do. Don’t make it a fight…but do make sure that YOUR thoughts and outrages are voiced, and see what she has to say. Hopefully, the “public restaurant” thing will keep it from turning into a fight.

2)Prepare to go into couples counseling. Your relationship and trust has been damaged. Your wife seems not to trust you like she should, and how can you trust a woman who turned you into CDC? Did you ever talk to a counselor following the cheating episode? Counseling through a time like that is imporant. People left to their own devices tend to bottle emotions and think that they’ve “dealt with it and are over it” when nothing could be further from the truth.

3)Today, right now, start looking for a lawyer. Find out what you need to do to protect yourself, and your rights to your children. She may be planning a divorce, or one may just be imininet due to the level of damage your relationship has taken. Don’t EXPECT a divorce to happen…but CYA in case it does.

You have my sympathies and thoughts. I can’t imagine how much you’ve been going through just trying to be a good dad in a tough situation, and now it’s been made worse by a spouse who seems not to trust you. I wish you all the luck, and hope this situation ends in happiness.

Steve

8

This is kind of harsh, but …

I could probably, with some work, forgive my wife if she had an affair.

I could never forgive her if she called government authorities to come check on how I was raising the kids while she was away.

(Even if EstherWalton had an inkling of something like this being true, she would have defended me to the hilt, and broken off any relationship with her sister – and I would do the same for her. No matter what friends or family say, we always present a united front.)

Putting the above two items together, I’d already be gone. With the kids. I wouldn’t cover my a$$. I’d get it out of this relationship. But my best wishes are really with you.

9

this is a toughy. it sounds like your wife, stirred up by her sisters accusations, either panicked and called the social services, most probably at the behest of her sister, or (much worse) calculated the whole affair and made the call in cold blood.
i would say it depends on how close she is to her sister, whether the first is possible and she really didn’t know what she was doing. but for her to not even contact you, and quiz you on what was happening back home… looking back, were there any clues as to what she might be thinking? it could be that her sister has been going on about your so-called neglect for a long time, it’s been building, and she couldn’t face to ask you straight out or tell you of her sisters meddlings.
you need to speak to your wife! if she’s so concerned, surely she’d be home by now…

10

uhhh, Stimpy… deployment. not vacationing. not traveling on business. you don’t get to pick when you come home. :rolleyes:

back to the OP. counseling is definitely a must, if you are keeping any hopes alive of maintaining the marriage.

have you considered talking to the SIL, asking her why she thinks there’s a problem? (BTW, i’m betting SIL has no kids of her own. unless the children are covered in filth 24/7, who in their right mind expects kids to keep their clothes clean for longer than 20 minutes?)

11

I hate to jump to conclusions, because there’s obviously another side, or several more sides to this story. I do know, however, that if I were in the OP’s situation, I would assume that my marriage was in serious, serious trouble, and I probably wouldn’t believe another word that came out of my wife’s mouth for a very long time.

The sister-in-law’s place in the whole thing is irrelevant. Even if she’s evil and twisted, and the whole thing was her idea, it was still the wife’s decision to go along with it. I’d expect more consideration from someone I was married to.

Like I said, we don’t have all the facts, and there might have been compelling reasons for the wife’s actions. But if I were in the OP’s place I would start by assuming the worst - that I’d been betrayed. Of course I would give the wife the opportunity to explain herself, but the burden of justification would rest squarely on her shoulders. And if she couldn’t justify what she did, it would take some serious grovelling before I’d consider forgiving her.

12

lachesis - back to the deployment thing. being as there’s no war, and how you’re just in training, and being as how your kids are being ‘beaten’ by your husband, wouldn’t you expect the wife to aks for leave, or whatever it’s called? i’m not in the know, so just curious. i figured if she’s ‘desperate’ (and we don’t know if she was) enough to call social, then she’d at least be worried enough to come home to check things out for herself…

13

gruntz#1, you must have talked to your wife since this happened. What did she say? Did you guys talk about it?
It’s hard to know what’s going on in her head.
I would trust my sister, but my sister is not an idiot. It’s quite alarming she didn’t talk to you before she called the social services… But once again it’s hard to have an idea without knowing what she has to say to explain herself…
Good luck.

14

Wow, thank you all for the advice. As for talking to her since then, I have once, and it was not a pleasant conversation I’m afraid. She told me she still feels that she did the right thing, and is not sorry for it at all. (her exact words, I kid you not). She went further on to tell me that she does not trust me to take care of our children, and wants me to take them to live with my mother-in-law untill her return.

I can not contact my wife currently. They are living in squad bays, with the nearest payphone a decent walk away. So I sit and have to wait for her to call… Right now I don’t even want her to. I have no problem letting her talk to the kids (ages 5 and 3) but I just can’t deal with her at the moment, I guess I need to cool of a bit before I want to attempt it again.

I really do believe she is setting me up for the big D here. There was talk about it before she was deployed, because she wanted to worm her way out of being activated. (Having an open court case can make you non-deploable). But since she was forced to anyway, I think she will wait untill she returnx, so she can keep getting that nice military pay for being married.

And no, the sister-in-law has no children, but is due with her 1st in December (God help that poor child)

Thanks once again for the support and advice, I will post more as the drama continues

15

I would not wait another day to start talking to a lawyer. Not one more day.

16

Get a lawyer now. She is setting you up. She wants a divorce and the kids. Do not expect her to play fair. She is going to fight dirty. Don’t let her win. You need to protect yourself and your kids.

17

There are not enough admissions of error on the SD so I will do so here and now. I wish I didn’t have to but from what you have updated us on I can only agree.

Get a lawyer pronto.

That fact that she was talking about divorce beforehand just to get some advantage from her employers suggests she will stop at nothing to get whatever she wants.

You need to look after number 1, and not let the kids out of your sight/care.

18

Agreed.

The “Don’t trust you with the kids”, “Take them to my mother’s house” thing seems an obvious ploy to get you to appear incompetent with the chidren so that she can rake you over the coals in court. The CDC thing was another part of this attack.

Don’t let those kids out of your care, or she can use that as ammo in court to attack your “fitness.”

By the same token, the fact that you have taken off work, and have put your kids first, and have passed a CDC inspection might work FOR YOU. Hey, you’re not the one who has to pick up and leave every so often, right?

Everyone’s right. Find a good Lawyer…not a “No Fault Divorce” lawyer…one who can tell you what steps you need to take to protect yourself (and your children) from an apparently viscious woman.

I don’t know her side. Maybe she’s an angel and is right to be worried. But from what you’ve told us, if I was in your shoes, I’d be looking for a Johnny Cochran type.

Good wishes for you in the coming months!

Steve

19

gruntz, First, I’m so sorry you’re having to deal with this - it sounds like a perfectly awful situation. I wish you much luck.

Also, I do have to second what every single person who has said “Get a Lawyer” said - get a good lawyer. Do you have any in your area that specialize in father’s rights?

20

Depending on how ugly she wants this to get, if you were to take your kids to the mother-in-law’s house and leave them there, your wife could later claim you abandoned them while she was away. If the mother-in-law went along with this story you could be at risk to lose custody of your kids. They could come up with a story that you weren’t able to handle it for a short period of time so it would stand to reason you couldn’t handle being a father for a long period of time.

And for those who said maybe the wife was just worried…if I was gone and worried my husband wasn’t taking care of my children correctly, I would call HIM and get his side of the story. Only a nut would bypass that option and call CDC immediately.

Document everything. Get yourself a copy of the CDC report.

If it were me personally, I would go ahead and file for divorce myself. I couldn’t live with someone who did something like that to me.

Best of luck to you. Please keep us updated.