Please help my sister - we are all helpless after many tries

Hi ladies,

I have been a silent reader of this forum and have taken many suggestions from this forum for many aspects of my life before. But this is my first post as I am now standing in a very unique situation. Also my apologies as this is going to be a very long post.

A little back ground about my family - we are a middle class south Indian family. Dad and Mom know nothing about outside world, all they care for is our well being and studies etc. Also they are very orthodox when it comes to marriages etc.

Me and my sister are always good at studies and regarded well by our relatives always. I had a love marriage (Intercaste) without my parents approval. 2 reasons why they couldn't agree to our marriage is we are still young at that age so they thought we are not serious, but DH and I are very serious about out marriage and career planning. They were forcing me to see matches etc and I had to take that step as I was not financially or emotionally capable of convincing them for out intercaste marriage at that time. but my DH family are very good from the beginning and helped us settle and now I can say we are settles well financially and my parents and relatives are all happy and we share good cordial relation with every one.

After my marriage my parents are a bit too worried about my sister and fixed a match for her as soon as she finished her B.Tech. That time every one thought that was a good match, and guy was good , well earning even though the guys parents seemed to be a bit backward in terms of culture. However soon after marriage there were problems.

1. My BIL never wanted to mingle with my parents and nor would he allow my sister to do that.
2. He restricted my sister to not talk to me ever as I had an intercaste marriage and he also tried to restrict my parents to talk to me which they never agreed to anyway.
3. He had mutiple affairs with many girls. My sister came to knew of this on their first night itself, since then they had big fights with in themselves, but she never told either me or my parents for atleast 1 year.
4. Its been 9 years almost sine they are married and they are never happy. Sometimes her husband would say I would stop roaming around and sometimes he even admits and says its my wish and you being a woman are not allowed to ask whatever I do. He would beat her like anything - one time she had to get her head stitched and one time her ear has to be stitched. She did not tell all these things to us until very recently.
5. She is working and earning good but was never considered a family member and always as money making machine. He took many loans on her name , took all her gold and put it in his family member's name in bank.
6. She moved out of that house for 3 times so far and would stay seperate for a year and that guy would ask her to come back nicely for many days and as soon as she goes back he is his normal self. Same affairs, same harassing for money and sign for loans etc. Even though she earns about 1Lakh / month , she never would have enough money.
6. My parents/and me always adviced her to move out since past many years we helped her whereever we could. Especially my parents, they almost took care of her son for 80% of his time on his earth. My mom took responsibility.

Another thing to mention here is my parents even though they started their life finally well to do, after my/my sister's marriage they had a very bad financial situation and could not give part of the dowry as promised to my sister. This was also one thing he abused her and my sister even now mentions as this as the reasons for her problems even though he clearly is an animal/jerk in all other departments of life. Never showed his fatherly concern for his own child. All though these 9 years even after many attempts my sister would say - I have to back to him eventually, how can I live life alone, let him roam around I don't care, atleast he has money. If something happens to me my son will atleast have money (My parents are good at taking care and love her son better than anybody, that's my opinion but obviously they don't have money. Me and my sister send some money monthly and they live with that. ) She gives money to them but always says your financial inability has given me this horrible life, I can't take you as a life time support. My parents suffered in silence as they are helpless unfortunately and I feel so bad for them , when they say that.


Current situation:

After 9 years of constant struggle now my sister agreed to divorce him and file a case against him last month. Now parents are taking care of her child while she is staying in PG and working in another city.

She constantly has fights with parents and always hurts them with very insulting and reckless tone. I don't know what made her think like this but she always thinks like my mom and dad are not good enough to support her. I agree they have some generation gap problems with her like any parents / PILs living under one roof with us. She thinks in a very negative way like if my mom takes an old saree from her wardrobe and thinking its old fashion for my sister, she would have a big fight saying you took my saree without my permission from my home. If I try to discipline her son (he is cute but at times very naughty like any boy) she would be hurt. She thinks I don't like him as much as I do for my girls. But somehow my girls are silent and I also shout at them if they are being bad.

The other problem is she constantly compares her life with others and says all are happy with their husbands. Everybody respects me and not her. (which is happening for real but we can't control the society, right? The more she behaves this wy , the more society would move away from her)Also she would always say "I can't live alone". The real problem is whenever somebody shows up knowing about he divorce saying I will marry she will blindly blieve in them and starts talking to them too long, and too deep. She would also give them her email passwords. This happened in just 1 month after her filing divorce. I warned her very strongly about this as that guy(unmarried) would say I like you but my parents don't accept a divorcee with 7 years son and still she would chat with him for hours sometimes even in midnights, says he is good and he understands her well. I can't just digest that my sister does this and get involved so much so that she shares her email password etc to a guy with in 1 month. When me and my husband spoke to her - she said she can't stay single forever and she needs companion. She can't get a better match as she has a boy , so she has to settle with somebody even if they come with problems.We said no body is asking you to stay alone but let your divorce finalize and keep these things on hold for a while as anything can happen in these matters and they can take longer sometimes. We can't make another mistake a this is her second chance and I don't know why but she always thinks she knows better and nobody else knows what is good for her. But she always keeps taking these kind of silly decisions and always make herself available for somebody else to pry on her. THis happened before also one of our relative told she would marry her , they both chatted for hours together for several mnths and finally he said, I can't marry you because I can't accept you coming with your boy. I wonder why this was not raised before chatting for so many days/hours, shouldn't that be her first priority?

Another problem is- Last week she mentioned to the lawyer that she wanted to give away the child to her husband as they have more money and they can take care of him better. Her reasoning is my mom and dad always fights at home (They do fight but that's always verbal and more over they are facing such financial problems) Its not like they are physically abusing each other which happened to her when her husband would beat her everyday to sign for money infront of her son. She mentioned that my mom and dad can't take care of him and I have nobody to take care of him if something happens to me , so want to give him away. My blood starts boiling at her foolishness. Forget about me I was no where in the picture, that's fine if she doe not believe me. My my mom and dad literally played his parents role all through these years and I felt that its most insulting way she talked about my parents. I wonder what makes her think that her husband who is money minded and no moral values with those kind of family members (worst family in terms of their language, culture and they don't have any empathy for other's tears and find guys should roam around and wife's should keep quiet and give away all she has as that's normal.) I wonder how that's a good environment for her son.

We are failing to understand how to convince her. I seriously ran out of ideas to talk ot her. My parents every day call me and ask me as if she listens to me, but I know how she back talks and never listens / understands why I am saying that. I hate to say but my respect towards my sister is slowly weaning off and find it hard to digest that she is trying to give away her own son, just so she can find a better match with out him, but situations are making me think like that. I hate to think like that about my own sister but I am seriously feeling sick when I think of her boy. Do we have any ways to get some sense into her? How to convince her divorce is not end of life and sometimes being patient is the best thing to do to get life back on track. I don't know I am lost. ANy suggestions please?

 

No , I seriously don't know what level of commitment she had with this colleague who said to her that he is interested in marrying her. Beause she shared her email password which to me is something that we would do when we are committed to a person after all confirmations. But he still says my parents won't agree so I will have to firs marry you and then tell them which I fear a lot. She says my husband also married me like that and now we are happy which is not at all comparable situation. Reasons, my husband told his family in all honesty before we got married and he knew 100% that his parents will accept his decision, he simply did not tell his parents about our marriage because then my parents would have hold grudge on them as if they secretly married us. He purposely avoided them in our marriage because he thought it would be worst things for both sets of parents to throw abusive words at each other in such moments. Now that turned out to be a very good decision a both our parents are really good with each other as if they are good friends. My mom would consider my MIL's suggestions in such suggestions as my SIL is also a divorcee but for no mistake at all of her and husband is a lazy dog and will roam around women who will come with a suitcase of money so can eat without having work. THat's a different story and my SIL stays with my PILs. Hence my Mom would consider my MIL's suggestions because she has gone through all this as a mother and can understand the pain of my mom and my my sister.

I can't simply answer her when she says you also did the smae thing , and you are happy. But now she is a divorcee with a kid and can't understand why she want all those troubles with a family who does not like her at all? I am suggesting her to carefully take this decision and she should 100%consider the guy's family this time around as she want to be loved or atleast welcomed by them. I am even saying lets see if we can find a guy in similar situation(seperated /widowed) so he can understand her troubles and pains and hence will prove to be a good support for her. I hate that my sister is allowing this colleague of hers to chat with her for hours together on mid nights even when he told his family won't accept it. And all this is happening at the back of my parents who are constantly worried whether she is feeling alone, would commit suicide etc out of loneliness. When my mom told me that she is awake mot nights till late nights and suspected something but could not ask her because then she would either shout at them or divert them but would not answer them anything peacefully. I feel bad for my parents in this whole episode , they are 60+ each and still worried about her but she would least respect them - constantly shouts, uses bad words, gives reckless answers etc. My mom also is slightly control freak where in she constantly nags my sister to get nice dresses, buy good stuff for her son, and herself, and share some of his daily routines, be respectable etc because she is concerned and my sister sees this as a big problem and thinks she can never live whole life with them as they are constantly on her behind. I don't think any parent would keep quiet if they see their seperated daughter talking to someone else in midnights and they will question her for sure.

In many incidents her husband said really really bad words to my parents. My sister would also say that to them soemtimes like - yes my parents are worthless, yes I agree my parents don't know anything etc in front of them. Even though we would be angry as soon as we knew we always convinced ourselves like she is struggling and frustrated , hence so harsh, but I don't really see any grattitude from her for all the help my parents have done. Yes, She shared their monthly expenses , but that doesnot mean that she can ask them for expense breakups etc, which to me are very insulting towards elderly parents. I would rather say don't have money than to ask like that to my parents. (I really hate to see my parents current situations, I want to keep them happy atleast for few days by getting them to stay with me in abroad but they can't come leaving her and her son behind) I am starting to accept that my sister's fate is never gonna change with this quick fix & reckless attitude, but again can't stop thinking what will happen to her and her son. Its being a constant hate & love cycles for her in my heart these days.