It takes a truly beautiful soul to step up and offer a soft landing for a family member in need. Generosity and kindness are rare gifts, but unfortunately, they can also leave us incredibly vulnerable.
In August, this 34-year-old woman and her 36-year-old husband will be celebrating their fourth wedding anniversary. Whenever she’s having a tough time, she thinks about how incredible her marriage is.
She met her husband before the pandemic, and they spent lockdown together, although many of their loved ones voiced their concerns about that.
But she and her husband already knew back then that they wanted to be together forever, so they were unbothered by things appearing to move too fast to other people.
Now, she has a sister who is 46, and due to their age gap, they haven’t always been that close, but lately, that has changed. Her sister gave birth to her firstborn at 22, and her baby daddy up and left, so she relied on their mom and dad to help her.
Her sister is currently married with two more kids and no longer needs their mom and dad to help. That being said, her sister simply doesn’t have the money to support her oldest daughter anymore, who is 20.
“I would like to say my sister did not kick her daughter out or even ask, but suggested she [get] a job to pay for her own meals or even pay rent, and in response, my niece blew up screaming at her mum about how she already has enough going on with school work without including a job on top of that,” she said.
“After the screaming rally, my niece shows up on my doorstep crying, explaining what happened. I understood both sides but suggested she stayed at mine and my husband’s [house] for a few weeks while things calm down so she wouldn’t feel dismissed of her needs either.”
Well, her niece has spent the last two years living with her, so so much for those couple of weeks she said she could stay while figuring it all out.
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She and her husband have plenty of money to help pay for her niece, and she loves having her around, considering her husband is at work a lot.
But several months back, she caught her niece and her husband staring at one another like they were trying to speak in a private language or something. It was odd, but she told herself nothing was going on between them.
Her husband began driving her niece to more locations and going out on the town with her. She did try to bring up her concerns to her husband, who brushed them all off as they were bonding as a family.
Afraid of being needy, she dropped it. When she started working at a local dog shelter, her husband switched to working at home, which also raised alarm bells for her.
One day, she came home early from work, worried that there was something happening with her niece and her husband. She knows that sounds insane, but her gut was right.
She quietly made her way through the house and caught her husband and niece kissing in their lounge!
Two weeks earlier, she saw messages on her husband’s iPad that he sent to her niece, saying she looked gorgeous that morning when they had breakfast.
“The oldest flirty message I could find was around a year ago, months before I suspected anything. It was a long conversation they had about their ‘future, ‘ which is crazy, being as these messages were sent while I WAS ASLEEP NEXT TO HIM,” she continued.
“I’m now contemplating many options, and none seem good. There’s no mistaking it, but there is also no escape. I’m dependent on this man. He is my income, he is my home, he is what I have leaned on for years…the woman he’s cheating on me with is my niece. I feel defeated and done.”
It’s going to be hard for her to save up her own money on leave, but it’s not impossible for her to do it. She should also call a lawyer and organize her next steps.
There’s no way she can stay with her husband after uncovering the affair he’s having with her niece, and no, that is not family bonding!
What advice do you have for her?
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By Bre Avery Zacharski
Hi, I'm Bre, Chip Chick's CEO! I have a degree in Textile/Surface Design from The Fashion Institute of Technology, and... More about Bre Avery Zacharski
