I can’t believe I’ve come to this point, but I’m desperate. My boyfriend and I have been dating for 3 1/2 years, and although we aren’t engaged, we plan to be once we graduate college next year. We are young individuals who value education, family, and hardworking ethics, which is why we work so well together. He treats me like a queen, and after being with men who walked all over me, I couldn’t possibly be happier. However, that comes with terms and conditions–his sister.

His sister is almost thirty years old, and she still acts like she is in high school. She and her husband were together for seven years before they recently got married a few months ago. Before my boyfriend and I even started dating, the two suffered major issues. They broke up several times and he never respected her, so my boyfriend hated him from the beginning. Over all these years, my boyfriend’s parents shrugged the issue off and said they would handle it on their own.

Fast forward to modern day, they still have these problems. Her husband is an alcoholic who refuses to admit when he’s wrong. They speak beyond inappropriately at the dinner table, which makes me and my boyfriend feel more than uncomfortable. Four months after they got married, she contemplated leaving him because he left her to go drink at a bar at six in the morning. My boyfriend finally decided it was time for someone to step in and do something about it, so he told her the truth. He admitted to hating him all these years and basically told her to get over it because it’s been seven years of the same old routine, and he will never change. Although she said she wanted to leave him, she ignored the advice and responded, “I’m not a quitter.”

What pisses me off most about the statement above, is the fact that she claims to value my boyfriend’s opinion the most. Because he’s her brother, she looks to him the most. However, she disregarded his opinion! To prove that point even more, she is now two months pregnant. I find that pretty funny, because she must have conceived some time that week or maybe even THAT DAY that she spoke to him. Basically, she ignored the advice from the person she “values the most” and decided to get pregnant, so her brother would no longer be able to tell her to leave now that there is a baby involved.

My boyfriend and I are in utter disgust with the entire situation, because we feel it was selfish, and a child does not solve problems. If anything, a child adds more stress. Should this child be brought up in a house where there is constant fighting between his/her parents and alcoholism? My boyfriend tried to express his doubts to his mother, but she has shut him down twice. Her response? The same old, “I don’t care. Be happy for her. Things will get better.” We think his parents are just afraid of her and tend to shield her from everything. Not to mention, she tends to think people are “attacking her” when they voice their opinions against her.

In my relationship, I’m the tough one. I’m not afraid to stand up for myself or voice my opinion, but this just isn’t my place. I’ve told my boyfriend that I refuse to be around this immoral situation and I never want our future children to grow up around it, either. Believe it or not, he totally agrees. Apparently, his sister senses that he is unhappy that she’s pregnant because he isn’t around often nor does he reach out to her. (They didn’t speak much to begin with, so that’s BS.) In fact, she had the audacity to say, “The one person who I wanted to be happy for me most isn’t happy for me,” to their mother. Considering she knew how he felt about their marriage, I think that is a load of crap. My boyfriend knows he has to say something to the two of them, but he’s afraid. On top of that, there have been many instances where his family members who only see us once or twice maximum throughout the year have expressed their uncertainty of his sister’s marriage/life choices in general. Of course, his outside family is perfectly pleasant.

My boyfriend knows he has to begin to distance himself from the situation, and he knows she’s going to ask him to be the godfather. I said that it would be incredibly messed up to take the position as godfather knowing we won’t be involved with them in a few years. At this point, we just don’t know what to do. We both live separately, each with our parents, so it’s not like he can get away with it. It’s causing strain on our relationship from the stress of the situation, and we don’t know where to go. Help!