Gah. LW2's situation sounds like the problem I've got with the girl my cousin married. She's not only on the opposite side of the fence, she is also quite vocal about it. Instead of letting a full-blown confrontation erupt like in the LW's case, I simply took her aside one day and told her point blank to "knock it off." As in, stop trying to engage me in political debates. Peace in the family (and my relationship to her husband) was more important to me than straightening her out. A shame the LW doesn't seem to understand this - or at the minimum, that the understanding came too late.

This is for lw1: your husband does not need to join anything. He needs to learn how to say "no". Making himself scarce by keeping busy in other pursuits is only going to stop his siblings from taking advantage of him, but he still won't have time for you or the house. Who told these family members they can get away with this behaviour? Your husband's lack of spine did. Why are they beter off than you? Because they never have to pay for anything! Tell your husband you will support him when he tells the family to back off, but if he tells you he has no time for the house because of so and so, you won't have it anymore. He needs to pay attention to the one who appreciates him and not worry about "making waves" with those who don't. Making waves is not such a bad thing: it clears up the beach of debris and dead fish.

My advice to the girl whose brother is married to a lying psycho is don't apologize to her. Your brother chose to be married to this freak which should make you wonder what kind of person he is and is it really appropriate to be around them. Your brother sounds like a waste of space which makes me wonder why you would miss him. You should probably seek therapy because you enjoy toxic relationships. Maybe once you're healthy you will see that you are so much better off without crappy people in your life.