My family has abandoned my wife & me basically

do what makes you happy. And thats it. Your parents and brother will come around and if they don't fuck em.

Social media is some shit. Lost all my uncles from one Facebook post. Zero fucks given.

Sorry to hear it. Social media is the pits. I've had several family members unfriend me there over stupid disagreements. In your case it seems like an opinion your parents and brother already had anyway (your wife being abusive or some kind of monster), and this social media spat just confirmed it and brought it more into the open. I hope the therapy works for your wife and for the both of you as a couple. You may want to see one on your own as well if you're not already.

My wife is a bipolar 1 and we have had some awful screaming fights when she is cycling over the years. The boys remember some of it and are a bit scarred. Still, we found a way to work through it and have been happier than ever before for about the last 20 years.

It appears you want to fight to keep her. If so, hang in there and realize that while her anger may be directed at you, it is not necessarily about you.

Hoping things work out the best for you, however that may be.

Sorry to hear that dude. Family shit is the worst. Its especially fun when they make you out to be the bad guy of the situation, when you're pretty sure you aren't..

Hopefully shit works itself out soon for you. Only advice is just figure out what it is that YOU want out of the situation and do want you can to work towards it. That and try not to do the self blame and shame shit.

damn corn sorry to hear. We rarely yell and it is mostly if we are in another room, and even then it's me and I apologize within the hour if I yell (I have anger problems, she doesn't, she is a mental health therapist and specializes in EMDR). Sounds like people are being irrational all over the place with you so it's hard for you to do anything about irrational people. I'm guessing, based on the way you post, that you're passive and a peace maker yet people are treating you like shit.

Do both of you guys have your jobs (you and your wife?). Good on no more drinking. My wife and I haven't drank anything in 3 months now. I'm sure after one drink I'd be pretty buzzed, I also know that when I lived with my brother and when he or I would drink that is when arguments would happen.

The only other thing I have to say is... social distancing!!

That's awesome to hear that it all seemed to have worked out for you and you guys happiness. 

The year I met my wife easily the happiest I'd ever been in my life. I knew I wanted to marry her when we met basically. I just never imagined the journey it'd be 8 years later. In a weird way I kind of feel a free feeling from this, especially after talking to our therapist last night and going over the dynamics and history of all this. Like I don't have to give a fuck about anyone anymore and I actually can do that without guilt probably for the first time ever regarding my family at least.  

Super long sad update - but we're still basically estranged from the family. I'm not sure if writing this out will help anything but maybe.

Since my mom sent that email in 2020 no one reached out to us at any point for many months, and then one day when I was super sad my wife called my mom trying to talk and it didn't go very well. My mom basically just staying by her position / not wanting to really reconcile anything / sticking to her email.

Then we got pregnant in December 2020. I wrote an email to my mom/dad/brother saying that 2020 sucked but the worst part of it was losing my family. That I loved and missed everyone and that my wife and I love everyone and don't understand why my brother would ever think we'd do anything to try and hurt him or his family given the many year history of us doing nothing but supporting him. That was the most divisive thing I said in the email. I apologized for the stress we caused by moving his drums back over when we did.

Then he responds with a wall of incoherent writing that is just bashing the shit out of my pregnant wife. The band never made it because of her. She's crazy. He's worried about us having a baby and thinks I'm basically lost saying shit like "what happened to my old brother". That I only reached out because the pregnancy made me feel guilty about what happened. .. Pretty much the nastiest email in the context of the situation I've ever heard of. I went off in response, basically saying your email on this day is worse than anything you just accused my wife of, and that you're kind of a piece of shit for this/etc. He talked about wanting to fight me and I told him I'm blocking him because I didn't want all this stress to continue while we're focusing on a pregnancy".

I read these emails verbatim to my therapist and other people. The therapist literally asked if he is on hard drugs just by how badly it was written. Other family said he's obviously in a very fucked up dark place to respond to me trying to reconcile /  announcing a pregnancy like that.

My parents never respond until like a fucking week later and my mom apologized for the email she wrote. I said that means everything and we're ready to move forward with you guys and can we just keep our relationship separate from my brother/talking about him. That i still love him and want the best for him but he obviously is in a horrible place when it comes to any reconciliation happening soon. I was honestly super hopeful and happy for a bit that I at least got my parents semi-back.

But then my dad didn't want to be on the phone for our call after our ultrasound with no real explanation, and I didn't hear from him verbally or through text for like another 5-6 months, after we moved back to FL. We lost the baby in January by the way, and all I got was a text from my mom and nothing from my dad.

When we finally spoke he tried to pawn this issue off on me and my brother being stupid which made me lose it a bit. As if it was some 50/50 dumb shit argument. It culminated in me saying "man to fucking man tell me what the fuck I should have done / what i could have done / what I can do to fix this" and he folded and said "Nothing. He basically has a problem with your wife". No shit Sherlock. AT least you can admit it's his fucking problem /decision to make all of this happen.

But still - we ended that call pretty well just catching up on stuff outside of what happened. We used to talk Tennis and a lot and other things which I miss. We ended with him saying "I will call you next time" - but then he never called/texted. I texted him that summer once or twice (2021) after we moved to FL, and he wouldn't respond.

My mom meanwhile is maintaining some minimum text comms but pretty much seemed to tune out once we lost the first baby. I then hear from her during the summer because my grandma was in an accident and not recovering well. I went to see her at the hospital a couple times and was communicating with my mom throughout since I was just an hour from where my grandma was staying. She eventually passed and a funeral was set in October.

We had a crazy car wreck on the way to the funeral so we missed it but we still got a loan car to get to the reception lunch after. My uncles/aunts are all normal and loving as if it was any other time i've seen them, but then my mom/dad show up. I had no idea if my dad was even coming since he wasn't talking to me. We all sit together and it's just weird/awkard. My parents ask about the pool we are building, and that is pretty much the entirity of the questions/interest they expressed in our lives. The rest of the meal they mainly start talking up my brother "Alec's working on a new album. Alec just put out a new music video. Look at these pictures of Elijah! (his son)" like as if everything is great.

I felt like I was in the Twilight zone. How do they not realize they are pouring salt into my wounds? Rubbing it in my face how much they are still involved with and supporting my brother while choosing to distance themselves completely from me? Rubbing it in that we lost our relationship with our baby nephew that we used to babysit?

I cried very hard that day when we drove off.

My dad did eventually call around Thanksgiving, pretty sure out of some subconscious guilt for abandoning and ignoring his son for a year, not even telling me he'd be at the funeral, not even trying to visit our house while in town, etc. But that went bad because after catching up for a bit he couldn't help himself and started talking about Alec again because that's what his life revolves around, and he said "you should give him a call"

I should call him? As far as i know he hates me and wants to fight me still because that's the last communication he sent me in response to me trying to reconcile. Why in gods name is this on me to reconcile? I'm terrified to call him because I have no idea what is going on in his head and my parents aren't giving me any insight. Before my dad suggested I call him, my mom said he needed time - so they aren't even consistent in this shit.

I said "Dad. I tried to reconcile and he basically responded in the cruelest way anyone has ever responded to me in my life, and then our baby died and he was the single most stressful part of our pregnancy." My dad tried to defend it lol "what's one email among all the emails/texts" and I was like "well before he went psychotic in an email, he went psychotic on the phone with me which started all of this". My dad then said "Did you know how hard it was to call you?!" and hung up. I texted saying I'm sorry our call went bad and that I can't reconcile a problem that someone else has. That I love everyone but I can't put that on myself.

Haven't heard from him since. Got a birthday card in January that said on the cover "You're your own man" with no gift. My mom sent a text showing some blurry picture of whatever they were eating and happy birthday. I didn't even know they made cards like that lol.

This whole thing has been the greatest mental struggle of my life and it isn't close. Since this all happened I've probably averaged 2-3 breakdowns a week where I just cry really hard for a bit, or maybe yell a bit in the house in confused anger. For like 2 years now almost.

Fortunately my wife and I are at least doing pretty well, even though we still have had our moments with some bad fights. I think we're also both hyper sensitive after all this and more easily upset. We're going to try and look into some individual therapy soon vs just doing the couples therapist because i feel like that therapy at this point is just catching her up on all our news lol, vs a more active healing therapy.

Forcing myself back into working on music has helped a lot this year. I've had some breakthrough days where I've been the happiest I've been since all this happened, and most those days were days I was able to get a lot of progress on a song or come up with a new idea that i love. So it's been really nice to know I can still get to that point.

This album is going to be very lyrically dark lol

Oh and my brother apparently broke up with that psychotic piece of shit woman sometime early 2021. They were engaged (but I guess she didn't want anyone to know per my mom - not a surprise). She basically left him /Elijah in the middle of the night with no warning and took some shit. At least that's what my mom had told me around the time - which was over a year ago now... At the funeral she was telling us he had some new girlfriend...

That's been very shocking. I thought that breakup might be a wakeup call but I duno man. I don't fucking get anything anymore.

I guess the key to getting your parents to love you in life, is to not go to college, struggle financially and need their help, date coke head strippers and impregnate teenage women that already have children, and treat your older brother that also helps you out like shit, and blame everything wrong in your life and your family's life on their wife. This is how you will receive unconditional love and support for both you and whoever you date, even if she punches you in the face on family trips, and kicks your parents out of the house they pay for, they will continue to support you.

But don't you dare go making a life for yourself if you want your parents to love you. Don't you dare marry a woman with an opinion or any strength. Don't you dare question any fucked up family dynamics.


Sorry just losing it today lol

That's basically what our therapist/everyone else we trust is saying. Just stop fucking trying there is nothing you can do and it only hurts us more when we try