We have been married for 19 years, together for 21. When we first got together, his family just loved me. To the point that his very reticent mother put her arms around me in the ladies room of a restaurant, hugged me, and told me now glad she was that her son had me. My family of origin sucks. Completely dysfunctional, hateful, abusive from our father and how that translated into brothers and sisters being abusive towards one another, I will never understand. But it is what it is. My family always has to have a target. I was the youngest and ‘spoiled’, born years after the rest (big family) so there was always resentment. In school I was bullied from first grade until high school graduation. So let’s just say my self-esteem could be better. College was a God-send. Met the best friends in the world, still close friends 35 years later. They are more my family than my siblings. Up until a few years ago I thought my one sister and I were very close, mostly because we are clones of each other 10 years apart. Yes, I deluded myself and ignored a lot of signs. It all came home when I realized that she and my other siblings had gotten together to lie to me about one of our siblings, who was in prison. Everyone knew but me and one other sister. She didn’t care. Bottom line: she (and they) completely betrayed my trust. I am an attorney. If anyone would have understood the gray in a world of black and white, it was me. They have resented me from the day I was brought home from the hospital. Then I met my husband, after kissing a lot of frogs. He is one of the only truly good people I know. My best friend. So are my best friends. Its a happy accident that everyone outside of my family that are close to me are selfless, extremely intelligent, loving, caring, considerate, just all-around good people. So knowing my husband, I assumed his family was the same. And they were, for a while. Then little things came up. No one from his family showed up for the bridal shower but his mother, sister, and one niece. His sister complained that our wedding was scheduled during graduation party-season. His father took one look at a wedding photo of my family and said “What a bunch of fatties!” The list goes on and on. I ignored every sign. Truly I thought his family loved me. They said they did. As good as my husband is, I thought he had to come from a good family. He has only one sister (two brothers) and she is the cruise director. She tells everyone where to be, when, what to bring, how much money to spend, and gives the deadline on whatever project she has for that particular event. At the time, I had a 3 year old and 1 year old twins, all in diapers, two nursing, and she wanted me to go through our photos and pick out the best ones for a “family montage” for his parents’ anniversary. I almost shit my pants. In those days, if we were all alive at the end of the day, it was a success. Photos? You mean those things still on the old computer from my first daughter’s birth that I have never had the time to look at? So she emailed later and said not to worry about it, she was a photographer, she had more photos of us than we did. I thought “That’s true!” Sitting at his parents’ anniversary party and watching the montage and realizing that everyone in the family was in it except for me and the kids was a shocking slap in the face. That was back in 2007 and we still argue about it. He says he believes his sister and it was an oversight, a complete accident. Cut to last year when my FIL died and we drove 3 hours for the funeral. We were the only ones in the funeral home except for my SIL, MIL and some nieces. There was a table set up with a photo book. EVERY one of my husband’s siblings, their spouses, and children, and dogs were in that book except for us. They had REMOVED every page of us from the book. My husband insists that he believes his sister’s explanation that day that it was a coincidence. A complete accident. My husband has a PhD. He is an extremely intelligent person. One of the reasons I love him and we get along so well, except for this one issue. He will never acknowledge that his sister is being spiteful with the photos. I can’t divorce him. I love him. I love our family. But this issue is killing me.