SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I've got a somewhat unique situation I could use some input on. My husband went to his sister and admitted he was having an emotional affairs with a co worker. Instead of holding him accountable and assisting him with healing his marriage, she dropped the bomb that she was having a fully involved affair with her neighbor. She expected him to not tell me about her affair as well. It went downhill fast from there and after a few really heated text exchanges, we are hardly talking to her. We are about a year out from D-Day and would like to have the issue with the family resolved sooner than later, but I am anxious about him falling into old patterns with his family.

There's so many layers to my in-laws and the issues that have built up over the years. Initially it was small things - My husband had specifically moved across the country to get away from his family and we when we moved back to his hometown, those little things about them became big things. We'd found out years ago that he and his sister were not his fathers children and not even full siblings, something his father continues to deny, even when confronted with DNA tests. From what we can tell, both of them are affair babies. As all of this is going on, his mom began a slow mental decline. Her story is that his dad is a half demon who impregnated her with donor sperm because he sterile like a mule. We've never really got a straight answer from either of them. After a bad conversation with his mother about her homophobia, their relationship with her went to shit. We haven't really had any contact with her in about 4 years.

According to my SIL's justifications, this was when they both fell into this "mistake". Wrong answer for my husband because he had another affair that had gone back years before. But my SIL continued to justify her affair with that reasoning along with that fact that her husband wasn't sexually interested in her and they were more like roommates.
She's texted me some pretty horrible stuff and my psychiatrist went so far as to call her dangerous. Another friend called her psychotic after reading some of the messages.

My husband is super upset about this whole things and after i told him the only safe way I see to proceed is family therapy, he suggested that to her. She's open to the idea, but I've also asked him to talk with our marriage psychiatrist before we move forward. Am I walking into danger? Should I just keep as much space as possible?

This is one of those times where I need an adulter-adult than me, but all my elders are gone....Help!

Both cheaters and likely family of origin as well indicates deep issues there.

The fallout from parents who cheated can traumatize children enough, they usually turn out one or two ways: either they resent cheating with disgust or become cheaters themselves. Especially if there was no consequences or rugsweeping the second is likely.

Just an example of how destructive infidelity is other than the betrayed partner.

The best approach seems to be individual therapy because the root issues can be resolved by that.
Family therapy sounds sketchy, like marriage counseling might not treat the issues of the people but the relationship itself. If that’s the case, it will just add dysfunctional coping mechanisms to already dysfunctional people.

What a cheater needs to learn first is to love and respect themselves. Is the baseline condition to have a loving and respectful relationship with someone else.

Cheating is a twisted coping for a lack of that.

Individual counseling with people specialized in infidelity might help them (and you) more

WHY do you need to be so involved w/ family?

You can have a very pleasant superficial relationship w/ them on your terms. Think visits on holidays and then a few phone conversations or text exchanges.

Example: you visit at Thanksgiving. Plan to stay 3-4 hours tops. Conversation is very superficial - books, movies, weather, kids, sports. You eat. You go home.

You don’t discuss your personal life. You don’t discuss theirs.

If you cannot manage that then you go no contact.

I think the situation you're in calls for a good old fashioned Serenity Prayer.

Back from the Storm - You are completely dead on with the family of origin issues in our situation. I do think the majority of my husband's "acting out" has been in response to them/his mom. They've both been doing individual therapy - my SIL longer than my husband. I've been going since I lost my mom so I had a trusted doctor when everything hit. Thank God. My thought process was that it would be better to have a mediator/third party for some of these interaction with my SIL, instead of going in and letting emotions take over. I didn't want to use one of our personal doctors to avoid bias.

Which brings up 1st Wifes question. I'd really prefer not to have any type of relationship with her. I'm struggling to even have a superficial interaction with her. We skipped the holiday's with the family last year and plan to be out of the country this year because I'm unable to sit at a table and break bread with her. The way I look at it is that if she was anyone but my SIL, I would have cut her off at the beginning. We've had some quick facetime calls for birthdays but I haven't seen her in person since before my husband told her, so almost a year. I'm also very clear with my husband that I want to move back to my hometown which would put considerable space between us and her.

But my husband is upset and is getting a lot of pressure from his dad to mend fences. I know they are toxic af, but I do recognize they are his family too. We also all have kids and they all miss their cousins. It's building up and making me feel like we have to hash this out. My family is hella toxic but we're confrontational so things get talked about and somewhat resolved. In this case my SIL is telling my FIL she doesn't even know why we aren't talking. That triangulation wouldn't work in my family because we'd drag everyone together and fight it out. This is where I am stuck, between what I want - no contact but open to hashing it out - and what their family pattern is - Treat each other horribly and then go back to pretending it didn't happen.

I've been praying on this for month Unhinged. The clarity isn't coming unfortunately.

I'd really prefer not to have any type of relationship with her.

Live your most authentic life and all else falls nicely into place.