I want to revive this thread to see if anyone can throw anymore ideas out. So currently it looks like my FIL is having himself an affair. We don't know for sure, but there is certainly a relationship going on with my FIL and a recent widow in their neighborhood. He is over there for hours at a time, usually come home late and drunk. My MIL has basically given up. She told my wife that she has just accepted that this is how her life is. There is no love, no communication other than bickering back and forth, and probably a lot of verbal abuse on his end towards her. She doesn't talk to him, gives him no attention, etc. She has no one to talk to except my wife and my wife doesn't want the stress but understands that her mom has no one else. My BIL has basically written them off and doesn't have much communication with either of them except the occasional "How are you?" They are just at a loss as to what we can/should do. I don't think the FIL knows that we (wife, me, BIL) know what's going on and if he found out, I'm sure he would take it out on my MIL somehow. Its amazing that when I am around him, he will tell me that he goes here and drives here and goes and hangs out with these people across the street, but has never stepped foot on the soccer field to watch his Granddaughter or any of his other Grandchildren on their birthdays and wants to give us money to buy presents FOR them. My wife looks at me on what we can do, and I just don't know. I try to convince her to try and distance herself from them as much as possible and that she might need to cut them out of her life and she looked at me with tears in her eyes and said "But that's my Mommy and my Daddy" and that one hurt me. I can imagine how hard it must be for everyone involved but I know my wife has always taken up for them and made excuses for them her whole life and I think that's part of them problem. I feel like my MIL should be spending every waking moment researching and reaching out to anyone to get some help and find a way out. I think her biggest problem, is that she has no money expect for what she gets in disability and she doesn't think she can live on her own (I think this stems from being with my FIL since she was 17 and doesn't feel like she can cope without him or someone's help) and has nowhere to go, but even if she goes somewhere with someone, she is going to rely heavily on them to do everything for her, I mean when she was living with my BIL and SIL, they were fixing her 3 meals a day and bringing them to her.
Edit: I have thought really hard about possibly sending my FIL and text and timing the delivery to really early morning while he is still sober and before he starts drinking and just laying some things out on the table, but I just don't want this to start anything unnecessary that could make anything worse, but then I think, what relationship is there to salvage at this point? I have also thought about telling my wife to give them an ultimatum. Either figure this stuff out on your own and do what yall need to do to be happy people or don't talk to me.
