Solutions

I often wonder how such wonderful people end up choosing some of the most dysfunctional people to marry. I've seen it time and time again. A kind wonderful person ends up with a depressed, whining loser or loud, obnoxious, abusive, manipulative jerk. 
Most people know someone like this. These people so wonderful and great then when you meet their spouse and it leaves you wondering how in the heck the two found each other let alone decided to spend their lives together. I know several women who have done the same thing as my sister, but it isn't just a female trait. I have seen it happen with males as well.
So why is this? What happens that creates this? Well I can give you the reasons my sister married Richard because I've asked her and although she list several one of the main reasons was fear. She was afraid.
Of what you might asked? Well for one she was afraid of being alone. She was afraid that if she didn't marry Richard she would always be alone. The next reason she gave was she felt pressured to get married. So on top of being afraid of being alone she also felt the pressure to settle down and start a family. Probably not the best combination to have when choosing a spouse, but there are worse reasons out there by far.
So now that she knows this about herself how does she prevent it from happening again?
No really, how? I'm asking so I don't get stuck with another loser like Dick.
You see it all the time. A person gets out of a bad relationship just to jump unto another one just as bad or worse.

My solution....arranged marriages. I believe you should one chance to choose your spouse on your own, but if you end up choosing a dud then it's your families (friends if your family is crazy) turn to pick the next one.

How Do You Know

I have spent the last week really pondering this question and now I want to know your opinions.

How do you know if someone is truly crazy? What line does one have to cross to enter the land of the mentally unhealthy?

Let me know what you think.

Scrooge

Holidays mean different things to different people and it seems everyone has a favorite holiday for one reason or another. Mine would have to be Halloween. I love the fall season in and of itself, but when you throw in scary everything and free candy my excitement can't be contained. My sister (brother's wife) on the other hand loves Christmas with an almost frightening passion. (And I love her for it!)
Dick on the other hand loves Thanksgiving. Now I think Thanksgivings great. I love visiting with family, the delicious food and the kick off to the Christmas season, but my brother in law loves it because of all the yummy food his mom makes...oh and the fact that he doesn't have to spend any of his own money to enjoy it.
Now Christmas and Halloween are totally different stories.
He hates buying candy for the neighbor hood kids on Halloween and thinks it's a waste of money to buy a costume...or make one for that matter. Anything that might bring a little joys into his children's lives is out of the question unless he profits from it somehow so my sister is constantly having to come up with things that are free or cost next to nothing.
Christmas is another disaster. My sister works really hard to make things special for her kids without disturbing the impossible balance Dick has forced her to create. She shops at second hand stores and dollar stores. All very good things when trying to stick to a budget and I commend her for it. Christmas isn't about the money it's about giving to others and remembering Christ's birth and there is nothing wrong with being frugal.
The problem I have is while my sister is doing all of this to save money, ( not that they need too. Dick has a pretty good paying job), Dick decides for his Christmas and birthday he wants a Playstation3 and a thirty thousand dollar theatre room set.
Yep you read that right $30,000 on speakers, projector, and screen. His wife and kids on the other hand get practical things like a sewing machine, pots and pans, and used toys. He tells them this is fair because he will share, but the first thing he does when he gets the theater room set up is lock it up so no one can go in and tells his four very excited boys that he doesn't want them using the Playstation3 because they will break it.
So much for that sharing spirit.
My sister lets her boys use it sometimeswhen Dick is at work , but is terrified to do that too often because if they do somehow break it Dick will freak out and beat them.
Yes I did say beat them, but don't worry it doesn't happen very often and it's only when he's really super mad so it's okay...right. ;(
Yeah Dick is a real hero.

A Name By Any Other Name...

Just to keep things from getting confusing I have decided to give my brother in law a pretend name to protect everyone involved and so I don't have to keep writing out "brother in law". So from now on the name he will now go by is Richard, Dick for short.

Fool Me Once...

As I have mentioned before my brother in law has an interesting tactic on how he likes to make his money. He likes his money making to be as easy as possible and usually at the expense of others. My first experience with this was about six months after my husband and I got married. We were living in the basement apartment of my in laws and both working so money wasn't too tight at the time.

I should also probably mention neither my husband nor myself were very experienced in the financial world. The year before we were married my husband managed to spend about twenty thousand dollars on Cd's and dates with me. (And yes he feels I was totally worth it.) I was doing a little bit better, but not much.

Okay so here we were, my husband and I, being very green to the financial world and along comes my brother in law. He and my sister had been married a little over a year at the time when he found the way to make all of us rich beyond our wildest dreams. He had just found this up and coming Internet company that we could all get in on the ground floor with for only a small investment. This company had a new spin on how to make money on the Internet by selling things people already buy at the store. He mentioned names like Nike, Huggies diapers, and many other name brand name items that had already signed up to sell their product in this "Cyber Mall".

I'm sure you're probably already giggling to yourself, but you have to remember this was over eleven years ago. Not many people bought a lot online at the time...well not like they do now anyway. 

So my brother in law had my husband and I sitting down so he can give us his presentation about how we could be one of the first to invest in this company. After he gave his little spiel I looked at my husband and asked him what he thought. He wasn't too impressed with the whole thing because at the time we didn't even own a computer let alone have the Internet, but if you signed up you received a nice leather binder when you  so he thought it wasn't a totally waste and said I could do it if I wanted.

So now it's down to me. I sat there for a few moments going over in my mind what I should do while my brother in law rambled on how nice the stupid leather binder was and how it was totally worth the one hundred dollar sign up fee on it's own. I couldn't give a rats butt about the stupid binder, but I was still thinking pretty hard if I should pass this golden opportunity up.

Now I'm sure you're thinking "Don't Do It", but you have to understand that I grew up hearing the story of my grandfather who had the chance to get in on the ground floor of Coke Cola and passed it up because he didn't think the investment would ever pay off. I had to listen to this story being told by my father at least once a year and can still hear him almost sobbing how we all could have been rich had my grandfather just taken a chance. (See where I'm coming from now)

So I wrote the check, signed the papers and asked what was next. My brother in law told me he would get back to me on what to do next. About two weeks later he called to say we all needed to go to these meetings being held by the company and we all had to get as many people we knew to invest and go to these meetings.
At this point I'm a little uncomfortable asking people to invest in something I still know nothing about after two weeks of being in on the "ground floor".

So my husband and I decided to go to the first meeting without inviting anyone to get a feel of where all this was heading. We sat down next to my sister and waited. There were only about seven of us in attendance and I was starting to get a little worried at the low turn out when the presenter of the meeting stood up introduced himself then jumped right in to welcoming us as the newest members of...wait for it...almost there...here it comes...Amway!
Yep I am now screaming inside my head. I had just signed up for Amway's newest conquest of taking over the world using the Internet. Someone please kill me is all I could think. At that moment I looked at my husband, bugging eyes and all, and said "I think that's our sign to leave."

That was the one and last time I ever got in on my brother in laws stupid money making ideas and yes I still wish I could get a refund and give the stupid leather binder (which I still have eleven years later) back!

Let Sleeping Dogs "Lie"

There is nothing worse then thinking you've made the biggest mistake of your life, but then having to sleep with that mistake day after day and week after week is something no good person should have to do.

This will be the only time I address this subject matter, but I feel to get the whole picture you really need to understand where I'm coming from.

When my sister married her husband he made her promise that they wouldn't go a day without "together time" if you get my notion. I didn't give this much thought as I had just recently married when she told me their agreement and I figured after a year or so things would even out for both of us especially after we both had children. This proved to be true for myself and my spouse, but apparently not so for my sister. Her husband still insisted she continue their agreement no matter what the reason. He didn't care if she was tired, sick or if she just wasn't in the mood. He would just tell her that if she didn't want it that was fine, but he still wanted to be "taken care of."

I found this behavior disturbing.I figure if you love you're spouse you are respectful of their needs and wishes, but it goes both ways. Anyway....

I'm sure you're wondering how I know such private information about my sister and her husband. Well that would be because after she starting saying she wasn't comfortable with their arrangement he starting saying it was normal for couples to have the arrangement they did and to prove it he asked several of their close and maybe not so close friends and relatives about their own sex lives to prove it to her. Unfortunately for him he came back to bite him because most of the people he asked said they didn't feel that was normal to have to make such an agreement.

Now here comes the fun part. Instead of telling her he was wrong and conforming to something she was more comfortable with he lied and said most of the people he talked to had the same agreement and for those who didn't agree with him he labeled "not normal". The only reason she found out he had lied was because some of the people he talked to complained to her that he had asked them such personal information and that something was wrong with a man that didn't respect personal boundaries.  (Remember the word boundaries. It will come into play at a later date.)

If this sounds disturbing to you I would like to let you know that after seeking counseling my sister's husband was labeled a "sex addict" and not only for the issues I have discussed. Sex addiction is  like most addictions. It can take over a persons life and it hurts the people that love the addict.There is help out there for such addictions, but just like any program that helps addicts over come their addictions the addict has to admit they have a problem which is something my brother in law has yet to do.