My brother and his wife have only been married for 1 year. When they got married, we loved her. We thought she was a little quirky but in all the right ways for my, also very quirky, brother. He's always struggled with finding and keeping relationships. He's not a bad looking guy or anything but he's just struggled meeting women. It took him 12 years to find his now wife.
first sign of trouble (though i didnt think it at the time), as soon as they married, his wife quit her job to work toward certs and my brother picked up the strain on his salary alone. He has confessed many times that he is feeling the financial stress of picking up the home loan, her car loan and her student loans. He had told me before he wouldnt be okay with her staying at home forever but is okay trying to help her progress her career for now.
She also has pushed him to take her last name which he didnt want to do originally but agreed to because of the importance to her. At the time, I also didnt think much of it because I think last names are not terribly important for marriage to me. (I didnt take my husbands last name and we agreed that was fine).
But now… she's decided she's poly and they need to open their marriage… and if that wasnt bad enough, she picked out one of his groomsmen to be her new partner. She used my brothers credit card to go buy a ticket to spend a 4 day weekend with this groomsman! This is where im losing my mind with her. My brother said he's done the research and he's open to it but when I asked if they went to counseling, he said he tried to get her to go but she refused. I voiced my concerns but he says hes not ready to give up on their marriage. My brother has also ALWAYS wanted kids and now, after they are married, she says she doesnt want kids anymore. She originally said she wanted 4. I know this is all against his wishes and he wants my family to accept this new change.
This is really starting to look like abuse to me. Is it? How do I tell him?