I don't know how to talk to my boyfriend about his family situation and how it affects me. Hopefully this isn't too long or hard to read.
My boyfriend is amazing. I love him so much, but I feel like I am not a priority in his life. Yes he takes care of me, pays the rent and bills...but when it comes to our free time, it's often helping out his widowed sister.
Before I dive into that, I need to give you some background on their relationship. I don't wanna come out looking like a bitch for even bringing this up.
My boyfriend's sister is the queen bee of the family. She is the breadwinner due to the fact she runs a very successful business. She also employs most her family, including my boyfriend. I used to work for her too until I got fed up with her condescending nature and her erratic behavior in the workplace. I worked there for two years (me and my boyfriend have been dating for over a year). She is a good person deep down, but she is a high strung and rather intimidating. At family parties I only say hello to her, but a hug would be out of the question. She is not very warm and inviting.
My boyfriend's entire family goes out their way for her and her two kids (4 and 2). For the longest time, she was employing nannies who would come in and out the door. They never last. She also had her oldest sister at her disposal in regards of childcare for these children. So much that she spent the majority of her time taking care of those kids (even with these nannies) without pay for the first two years. Finally, she got fed up with her taking advantage of, she asked to be compensated for her time because she has a mortgage and bills to pay and most of her time is used up on providing her sister free childcare (when this woman has all the means to hire help when needed).
Everything that me and my boyfriend do seems to be centered around his sister and what she wants to do on the weekends. There have been plenty of weekends in which me and my s.o. are left taking care of the kids while she is out spending time with her friends on wine trips, dinners and nights out of town to the city.
Recently, my s.o. asked his sister to borrow her boat (that's been parked in front of their parents home for 3 years) for the 4th of July weekend to take up me and one of her late husbands friends. Since she relies on my boyfriend to attend all these social events with her friends, he has become part of her sewing circle. However, it seems as if she wants to pick the friends she wants to maintain. Often times the ones she would rather neglect are the friends from her late husbands side of things.
I digress. She refused to let him take the boat unless she made this friend of theirs take a insurance policy out for the three days and paid for the trailer to get fixed and all the Marina fees associated with having the boat on the water. He was furious that she could ask him to ask their friend of such things when she often takes her friends up to their vacation homes and pays for the entire trip.
For two days, he began to see everything in a different light. How she continues to take and take from all members of her family and gives everyone a hard time and never reciprocates the favor.
I am more in complaint of how I don't want my boyfriend being taking advantage of anymore. I spent my weekend taking care of those babies and helping out because i am a good girlfriend. When I ask him to do something for me, like go to brunch on the weekend or when I requested to go on a beach vacation for our anniversary, he gives me sooooooo much lip about it. However, it seems like he will jump through hoops just to keep his sister content so he can receive things in return. I feel like I may have to be a breadwinner in our relationship in order to be calling all the shots.
When he was bitching about his sister, I kind of made the joke about how he is the new husband and I am just his girlfriend. He did start to think towards the "yeah, I could be spending my time with my girlfriend but I spend it taking care of your kids" notion, but it was immediately forgotten after saying it aloud. His other niece and nephew (much older, close to my age) brought up about how their aunt has always been this way and their entire family has always been so quick to jump when she says so. She plays the queen bee role so well and it doesn't fly so well with me because when it comes to my relationship, I get the short end of the stick.
I don't know how to make this all better or how to bring up this conversation to him without starting a fight. Even his older brother (who is probably the one one who doesn't enable her) told my s.o. he does not have to jump all these extra hoops to attend these social events and help with the kids on the weekends. He even went out of his way to say that he should start charging "overtime" if that were the case because its not fair to put his life aside to keep hers in line.
Please help or offer advice. Not sure how to handle this. We are very serious in our relationship, but she has so much control over him that I do not know how to deal since I am aware family will always trump the s.o. in plenty of situations. Including this one.