Tonight has triggered some feelings with my husband and I just want to know how best to support him.
When I met my husband he disclosed his mum and step dad were functioning alcoholics who were abusive towards him and him only. It read like a textbook case of him being the black sheep, his sister the golden child and a typical narcissist family dynamic. He said his parents always denied they abused him. It was lots of physical mostly with name calling to. He was still in contact and I supported that, I made it clear I would support any decision he wanted.
After we'd been together 7 years he fell out with his sister. She is very spoiled and jealous, luckily we didn't live near here so rarely saw her, just polite to one another. This triggered a huge family row where his mum and her sister all got Involved. Of course his sister was perfect and could do no wrong and he was vilified. Nothing was said for a while, they ignored our kids birthdays so we thought okay that's the end of that and begun to move on. Randomly at Christmas that year. They sent presents via their dad to us which was strange as they ignored their birthdays which the kids were old enough to understand. We just sent them back. We saw no benefit to the relationship anymore. When we visited they just drunk all weekend, they barely come to see us, my husband really couldn't get over the complete dismissal of abuse so we cut ties. He did not disclose the abuse to anyone but me.
Tonight his aunt fell out with someone and dragged his name into it insulting him. We haven't spoken in years but my husband bit, he said maybe you would understand why we fell out if you understood what happened to me as a kid and disclosed the abuse to her. Her responses were shocking. She outright said she did not believe him and he was a liar and he should get over it as at least he wasn't sexually abused, she then blocked him
We've had a very peaceful life without them and he has spent a long time on a mixture of medication and therapy and learning about how he grew up, to get his head around things. I know it's been bubbling under the surface and he has always wanted to tel someone in his family rather than just me and it's really knocked him. He recently lost his grandad to who was the last member of his family we had. He was like a dad to him and was really the only decent member of the whole family. I feel like he bit back as since his grandad passed I know he wanted to get it off his chest.
Now he has been knocked back he seems really down. I can't even imagine what it's like to be brought up like that and just told no one believes you. I had a pretty rough childhood, my Mum walked out when I was young and my dad struggled, we were very poor but he never abused me. I had terrible bullying at school and some of it I didn't disclose till I was an adult and my dad always believed me, even when it was about someone who was actually a good friend for years and turned on me. I feel like this is really going to mess with his head and have no idea how to support him through this