Rant re DH's family
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Anonymous
Well hopefully they don't inherit whatever mental health issues you have. I mean sure, you could just be a selfish bitch, but I bet you have something else going on. Oh well, seems like you enjoy being like that, so you be you. Hopefully you don't fuck up your kids (although I'm sure that would be someone else's fault too) |
Anonymous
| Hey, maybe you will get a larger inheritance. Another thing, tuition 20 years ago was about $5,000 for in state and about $15,00 0 for private. Just how much money did you pay in tuition for your own husband now 20 years ago that merits this duration of anger? |
Anonymous
Um, that was not my post. -OP |
Anonymous
No, this isn't it. No marriage is perfect, but ours is better than many, I think. |
Anonymous
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My father had "socialist" parents. They gifted land, money, houses to all their sons who didn't have their acts together. The sons who did (and had moved away for college asap to get out of crazy envinronment) had to work their way through college, moving, first cars, weddings, etc. Meanwhile, the delinquents never paid their way. My cousins had their med school paid for by these grandparents. When they died they gave 80% of the inheritance to the youngest son who was still living in their home at age 40, single. He went off to Portland, got his first ft job and was perfectly fine.
QED: You cannot control what other people do with their time and money. You can only control what you do with your time and money. You teamed up w your husband. And did just fine, all amongst the two of you. Play the long game. I know having an LD child is rough, you've been through a lot but are tough. |
Anonymous
my husband and his whole family have severe ADHD. it's a real struggle and each is brilliant but one-dimensional! |
Anonymous
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OP you can complain for another 20 years, but to make any progress, you have to figure out just what it is you really want, and then ask yourself if it is reasonable to pursue.
Your DH or his family can pay you back, but remember what your family gained by paying off his loans early -- your family saved all the interest over the lifetime of those loans. You were able to buy a house sooner than you may have otherwise, so you probably paid less for it than if you had to wait while DH paid down his loans. You also have more appreciation in value in that house over time. Your DH may eventually get an inheritance from his family. You also have a happy marriage and a happy DH. Those things may not come with a dollar value, but ask yourself what the cost to you would be if you did not have those. You can count all the dollars rolling back into your bank account, but maybe that will cause your DH to turn away from you. How painful would it be to have a less devoted husband and how much could a divorce cost you? A wealthier husband or different set of in laws would not have guaranteed a happier, easier or more successful for you. It seems like you think you would've had The Perfect Life if you didn't have to pay off your DH's loans or had The Perfect Inlaws. But there is no such thing. There are always tradeoffs and we all have to do the best we can with what we've got. Count your blessings and let the rest go. |
Anonymous
| ^more successful life for you |
Anonymous
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I don't get your resentment over paying your own husband's school loans. Who did you expect would pay it? Also, you're saying they _forced_ you to pay it _because_ you're an immigrant? Really??
I get they may not be nice to you, but at least examine whether your bitterness is even rational. Look around, lots and lots of families have struggled under debt from medical bills, school and other things. I You didn't, you had the means. That was a long time ago. Many people dislike their in-laws, but your problem is your false victimhood |
Anonymous
I'm not OP, but I'm a PP. Why should she pay someone else's loans? He's an adult, he can pay them himself, and still manage to contribute the same amount to the household. Grownups do not expect/ accept others paying their debts for them. |
Anonymous
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New poster here. I don't get all the nasty comments towards the OP. Seems like pretty reasonable feelings that she has. The problem is that she's feeling them towards the wrong person.
Her husband had a messed up family. He knew it, she knew it. They paid for the other siblings' tuition but not for his. It sounds like they were also a bit rough towards her regarding being an immigrant. In any case, OP and her husband decided they didn't want to have people like that in their life, and they moved on. Except that the husband didn't move on. Fast forward and he's now having regular contact with them and acting like everything is fine. I guess for him it is fine, better than he hoped it would work out. He gets his family of origin, much better than before, he gets his new family, and he gets his loans paid. The loans that he could never pay off himself. The OP feels betrayed. SHE was the one who was there for him. Not his family of origin. SHE was the one who paid his debts. Not his family of origin. SHE was the one who had children with him, presumably without help of his family of origin. And now she has to suck it all up and act like there was no betrayal from his family of origin and they were super awesome supportive people the whole time. They are awful people. For the haters in the thread, how would you be responding if the OP had said that she got along well with her family in law until one day when they got out some paper and started writing up a will and splitting up the pie and all the siblings were gonna get a big chunk except her husband, who would get nothing. And then she's supposed to act like it's no big deal. I couldn't do that, even if it was a pretty small cake. But especially not when that cake equals a fairly significant lifestyle standard difference (vacations when there might not otherwise have been any, etc). Student loans are no joke. It's a LOT of money. Especially when HER family were the ones who ultimately helped pay it all off (either directly or indirectly). The immigrants who were apparently looked down on. The biggest issue that I see is that the betrayal wasn't from his family. It was from him. You have the right to not see them again, because they seem like pretty nasty people. But don't resent them. Resent your husband for letting them treat you badly and then sticking his head in the sand about it. And I agree with the other posters that his student loans aren't his parents' responsibility. HE is the one who should have paid them. But it's very shitty for his parents to pay off the other siblings' tuition but not his. And you have an absolute right to not have anything to do with them about it. "Family" isn't a free pass to treat people like shit and get away with it. -S |
Anonymous
OP didn't have to do anything. She chose to. All the fallout is on her (and her husband). |
Anonymous
Agreed that she didn't have to pay his tuition. And she shouldn't have. But she also doesn't have to have anything to do with her family in law. And she shouldn't. She should just tell her kids (and/or the new spouses if they ask her directly) that they've behaved in a way that you think is unreasonable and thus choose to not spend time with them. It's pretty simple, really. I'm surprised at the number of responses suggesting that she should hang out with them and act like everything is fine. She has no obligation to do that. Her problem is her husband. -S |
Anonymous
Uhh, are you kidding me? 
How exactly are "they" AWFUL people?? I understand the OP having resentment towsrd the one parent, but what exactly did his siblings do that was so "awful"?? The siblings never did a single thing to her, besides having their loans paid for, yet she's been taking out her anger & resentment on them, their children & that entire side of the family for the past 20 years, rather than being upset with just the one parent who she feels slighted by. What exactly did the siblings do wrong that was so awful? She's mad at them because they got their loans paid off & her husband didn't? How is that his siblings (and now also the siblings small children (who are cousins of her children) fault? Does that seem rational to you? Yes, the parents paid for the other siblings college loans, but did you also miss the part where the OP said that at the time it was her husband's turn for college, they had just lost one of her husbands parents & they were also experiencing severe financial hardships? How exactly were they supposed to pay? That doesn't sound like empathy to me, it sounds like entitlement and expectation. The OP hasn't even given a single example of how she was "treated terribly" besides being asked to cover her own husband's loans. Nobody forced her to pay it, she chose to. She wasn't dragged to the bank with a gun to her head, she decided to pay it off. Besides asking her to pay off his loan, how else was she treated so badly? I think the OP is hyper sensitive & what any rational person would perceive as nothing, she's making into a personal issue against the immigrant & she's been grasping onto that victim status with dear might for the past TWENTY years. This is absolutely cray-cray. |
Anonymous
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I agree with 02:17. I'd also like to add that even though the younger siblings may have gotten the parent to pay their college bills, it was done only after the kids threatened to cut off the parent. It's very possible that the widowed parent had to use their retirement funds to do so, and that could explain their reluctance to pay. And after the parent was done with kids 2, 3 and 4, how much $ could be left for #1, who was already married? And the parent's retirement. Maybe the parent figures the kids will have to provide the elder care.
No parent should be expected to finance kids' education expenses by sacrificing their retirement savings, let alone for for a married child's expenses. Maybe OP did not like how the message came across to her, but it probably did not have anything to do with "using her because she's an immigrant." OP's own parents could not pay entirely for her education, yet she somehow thinks a widowed, single parent of 4 should have the money to fully finance 4 college educations. That's hard to do even when you have 2 working parents. The person who betrayed OP is young OP. She willingly did this for her DH when he needed it. She could've (and should have) said "no" to her DH back then. |