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[quote=Anonymous]OP, my SIL sounds so much like your brother's GF.  Only worse.  I have armchair-diagnosed her at various times with NPD, BPD, and bipolar disorder, but none of them fit the bill.  Sometimes I just think she is evil, seriously.  She is the most toxic person I've ever encountered.  She is the only person I have ever wished dead.

My brother was very, very insecure when they started dating; he was in his mid-30's and had only ever had one serious relationship before her.  She played damsel in distress and was incredibly sweet and loving at first.  (She was an immigrant here illegally and lost her job after an injury; he took her in like a sick bird and she was very loving and deferential to him and to my elderly parents, so we all were hoodwinked for a while.)  Once they were married - which was very quickly - she became extremely volatile and emotionally and physically abusive.  When he said he was breaking it off, she would threaten suicide and do a 180, being docile and deferential and sweet again.  Then when she felt safe again, she'd swing the pendulum back in the other direction.  I personally witnessed SO many instances of her verbally abusing him; it was sickening.

I tried to talk to him a number of times but I regret that I was not more blunt.  What I wish I had said was this:

"I love you so much, John.  You are one of the best people I know and you deserve so much happiness.  I will always be in your corner rooting for you, no matter what happens.  I am scared and sad for you when I see how M treats you.  I understand why you feel in love with her and married her but I am seeing a different side of her now and I know you must be, too.  It is not too late to make a different choice for yourself.  If you stay with her, I will always love you and I will hope you will be happy.  If you leave her, I will never think less of you because I know it will take great courage.  I want you to be happy and safe and loved in your own home.  I am always, always here for you."

After almost a year of vascillating between abuse and over-the-top sweetness, my brother seemed to be girding himself to separate, when they discovered that my SIL was pregnant.  The same pattern emerged when the child was born.  My brother was a great dad and loved his child devotedly, and he insisted that they go to couple's counseling when the abuse continued.  After three years, he finally decided to separate, and she surprised him by saying she was pregnant again.  (She had said she didn't want more children, and I still am upset that he didn't ensure that an accident like that wouldn't happen again.)  So he stayed again.  And the abuse continued.

And he killed himself.

There's more to the story, which is that he suffered from mental illness himself, and I know he would never have chosen suicide had he not been fighting the symptoms of a bipolar mixed manic state at the time, but the constant abuse and his sense that he was unable to protect his children from a lifetime of abuse was, I believe, a huge contributing factor.  I don't blame her for his death but I do blame her for making his life a living hell before his death.

Now we have to deal with her without him as a buffer, and it is awful.  I have to kiss up to her and deal with her abuse and paranoia and accusations and horribleness to have any chance of seeing my brother's children, who I love dearly and who have such terrible lives with her.  Currently she is not speaking to me so I haven't seen them in months.  She has accused me, my other brother, two cousins, and various other people of stealing from her and all kinds of crazy stuff about my brother's estate.  She made out incredibly well with life insurance and social security, and she is now a citizen, so in many ways her life is much, much better with my brother out of the way.   I hate her, not just for how he suffered, but for how his sons suffer now.

I tell my tale as a cautionary one to say -- if she is THAT bad, and she's turning your brother into a shell of a person -- take the risk and tell him how you feel.  Tell him how you love him, how much you want him to be happy, and how you will love him no matter what he chooses and that you will always be there for him if he needs to start over.  Don't hold back.  You may lose him anyway, and then you'll have to live with the regrets and grief that I do.  Good luck. [/quote]

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