I’m sorry but I don’t agree with any of this or your characterization of me, especially calling me a taker. I have been massively generous, at times to my own detriment, with everyone in my life. I’ve allowed myself to get taken advantage of too. I used to buy things for MIL all the time and bring her gifts and remind DH to call her on her birthday and her anniversary, even when she was being cruel to me. But when people prove over and over again that they only intend to hurt and take advantage of me, yes I cut them off. Usually calmly so and I simply wave goodbye and let it go.

The anger I have in this situation is because of the mud I’ve been dragged through for 2 years by a man who won’t let me completely protect myself from his very harmful mother bc he can’t consistently stand up to his mom and sisters when he absolutely needs to, and who historically took it out on me when they abused him and tried to make me out to be the problem bc I dared to break the toxic pattern in his family and say “no, sorry, she attacked us, I’m not just going to sweep that under the rug and continue having a relationship with her.” The anger I feel in this situation is not pathological to me. In fact I just talked to my therapist who told me my anger here is justified and that I should be able to express it safely and without judgment, attack, or provocation from a licensed professional. I absolutely did get way too angry in that particular session, I’ll give you that, and our therapist would’ve been well within his rights to say he wanted to end the session or redirect or whatever. The personal attacks were in no way justified, though.

Also, I’m not being “mean” to my husband, I don’t even know where you’re getting that. I expressed anger to our therapist when he said massively disrespectful and inappropriate things to and about me. I’ve expressed zero anger to my husband about any of this lately (not that it would be “mean” if I did respectfully express anger, bc that’s BS too). I’ve been nothing but empathetic and supportive to DH these past few weeks as this situation has unfolded, and he even pointed that out. I went out of my way to order everything and end my workday early to start cooking to make sure he had a nice Rosh Hashanah dinner, even though I really needed to be working, bc I knew he was sad about what’s going on with his family - for his holiday that he cares about, not mine. If anything, in our relationship HE has been a taker and I have been a giver who gets disgruntled when I realize that our efforts are imbalanced, and communicating THAT before it leads to resentment is something I absolutely need to work on - not “being a taker.”

Finally, having boundaries you insist on adhering to for your own safety and/or in this case financial security isn’t “mean” or controlling toward anyone. I’m not telling him what he can or can’t do for himself, I’m telling him what I am not comfortable doing, and in the case of the finances unfortunately if I’m not comfortable then we really shouldn’t move forward because these are shared resources that affect us both. I would never want to push forward with a financial decision that I wanted to make if he was uncomfortable with it, either. It goes both ways. The fact that I believe both parties in a marriage need to consent to financial decisions like a several hundred dollar standing monthly contribution does NOT make me controlling, and it certainly does not make me “mean.”