the others

So we had been dating a while and we knew that we were going to get married,  I think we got engaged just a couple of months later.

All this time I had thought that my husband was  the middle of three children.
I was wrong.
My husband had failed to mention that he had a older sister that was from his mom's first marriage they had grown up living int he same house until she was 19-20 and decided to get married. The "rule" in their family was that they couldn't get married until they graduated from college. she was kicked out.   Not just out of the house but out of the family.  no one was allowed to talk to her, her mom was only allowed to attend her wedding long enough to snap a few pictures.  This is also when I found out my husband had anther brother who died at six months old. there was a photo of my sister-in-law with her little brother up at their wedding my father-in-law tore it up, grabbed his wife and kids and stormed out. This man was the only father she had ever know because her own died when she was just a toddler.  To this day her mother isn't allowed in her home, and only within the last year has there been much contact at all between the two, after a large fight about how stupid this all was between my mother-in-law but that is another story.

HOW AWFUL! but two hidden siblings is all one man could possible have, right?

NOPE My Father-in-law had two children before his divorce! M & R.  My husband hadn't seen them since he was 4-5. luckily now they have a great relationship and we get together with this  sister often and I love my father in laws first wife, she treats my family like her own.


none of these people were invited to our wedding, we didn't want a seen like at the other wedding and he didn't yet know his other siblings. My mother-in-laws daughter A was crushed. to this day I deeply regret not inviting her.

lessons learned the hard way

Now some of you may be wondering why he was still living with his parents? Was he in school? No and yes he was working. His dad had belittled him for so many years that he didn’t think he was smart enough to go to college. It took me a couple of years to convince him otherwise , and now he’s getting great grades and every teacher wants him to be their teaching assistant. He’s planning on grad school. But at the time he didn’t see himself that way, he was working and most of his pay check was going to his 50 year old parents for “emergencies” he paid the taxes on their property. After a car accident his dad got in to he put a down payment and cosigned for the new truck so his dad could get to physical therapy appointment with the promise that “he’d get paid back” when they settled with the insurance companies (he didn’t).  when his parents phone got shut off he went and signed up for two cell phones  while his dad was in shoulder surgery so that they would have phone service in case of emergency.  He was kind but STUPID.

Here is what eventually happened.

They did pay off the truck when they got the settlement 18ish months later. After they missed several payments. They did not pay him back.

About a year later, their cell phone company merged with another company.  They decided that because of this they didn’t have to pay their bill anymore although they kept using them.  We found out when we got a collections letter. We paid the difference.

When our oldest was small he agreed to let them borrow our car to visit his brother in another state. They were about to have a baby and the pregnancy wasn’t going well, I wasn’t pleased. They hit a large bird windshield was damaged beyond repair, the logic was that because the windshield already had one small not view obstructing crack. It was our fault. We had to pay for that too.

I think that is enough for today. This list could get too long.

redneck date

Not all interactions that show who my in laws are sad stories.

About a week after my husband’s birthday we went on the most redneck date I’ve ever known.

My Father-in-law was the owner of a 1970’s gmc jimmy but by the time I saw it, the jimmy was more of a Franken-jimmy pieced together from many different cars that *almost* fit together perfectly. It was also in the middle of some restoration so there was no roof, no seats and all handles and buttons had recently been replaced with bits of antler.   Coming from my middle class academic family sitting on a crate to get to our destination while looking down and seeing the road through the rusted out floor, I seriously started to wonder what I was doing there.

You see we live by the former Teton dam. The dam that was badly built and broke flooding this area. The locals like to go up to the old spill way stick some gasoline in a old tire, light it and roll it down.  Very redneck, SO FUN.

At the time I was having problems with my knees, I didn’t know why yet just that they hurt. A lot. My husband was so sweet helping me climb the rubble then dashing back for our supplies. how could I ignore that crooked smile?

Five years ago

Five years ago next week I married a wonderful man, and that is really where my story begins it's full of drama, lies, abuse, and the flat out crazy. You probably won't believe it all I know I wouldn't, but it is my story and as far as I know it is all true. What I have learned from other family members I've done my best to verify and a lot of it I witnessed for myself, it won't be written in order because that isn't how I learned the story, and like most stories some parts of it need to be told more than others. I've reached a point where this story keeps me up at night and burst from the corners of my mind begging to be let free. 

This is the story of Me, My husband and His parents. My In-laws from hell. 

I probably don't have the worst in-laws on earth they haven't tried to kill me yet. But they certainly are among the worst I've ever had the displeasure of meeting.  I should have started to realize things were not right early in our courtship, the first time I met them was at my husband’s 21st birthday party we had only been on a few dates and this was the first time I had been to his home they lived in a ramshackle pair of trailer homes that had been connected to make one sort of double wide, it hadn't been done very well and the roof leaked badly leading to a musty smell and buckets on the floor. I was greeted warmly enough by my future in-laws with a large hug. My mother-in-law asked what high school I attended and I informed her that I was 21.  Then my husband took me back to a corner of the house where his room was, because he wanted to have me listen to a song with him, it was very sweet but I had to notice how cold his room was I saw that he slept in a heavy sleeping bag and that there was a hole in the wall of his room. We live in Idaho it gets very cold at night. I asked him about it and he told me on the coldest nights he slept on the couch as his room was not heated. I should have noticed something but I thought maybe it was a new hole or maybe it was just because his family was poor. That night he at 21 had to hide behind a shed to give me our first kiss, later I found this was because his dad had already warned him off me. He was 21 and still had to hide from his dad, I should have known. But, I was falling fast for this red haired boy with the big heart and worn hands.