Hi All,
Me and my partner have been together 11 years. He is full greek and had a very traditional greek upbringing, I however am half greek and had a very English upbringing. The first year of our relationship was perfect, it was long distance but it worked. I then moved in with him and his family to build a life together. I give up everything I knew to be with him and support his family through an IVA and pay off debt, I worked without being paid and I tolerated arguments, sarcastic comments and control. I decided to leave and move back to my home town in which my partner followed. His mum at the time didn’t speak to him for 5 months because of this. We eventually made up and we moved back and forth between each of our home towns because I always tried to do what he wanted so he was happy but I was just fooling myself that his narcissistic controlling mother would let us live happy. I fell pregnant in 2017 and at the time we were getting along however when she found out I was pregnant, she lost it. She was more concerned about the shame it would bring on the family and the fact that our child was a “bastard eligitimate child” because it was conceived whilst we were not married and she wanted nothing to do with it. In this moment we had been living at her house in an extension we built however we quickly move into our own place down the road. I moved out when I was 4 months pregnant and I hadn’t spoken to her until 2 weeks before our baby was due. I squashed it for the sake of our baby and I even let her be in the delivery room to see her first grandchild be born because my partner was begging me.
2 weeks after giving birth, she resurfaced old wounds and started talking about how there past made her feel and how I disrespected her and was seriously not letting go of it. I had enough, I told my partner I can’t do it anymore on top of just having a baby so I made arrangements to move back to my hometown so I was close to my family.
Fast forward 3 years, we have now been here 3 years and I haven’t spoken a single word to his family since.
I have always known my partner was really close to his mum and at first I really liked it but over time I noticed she had such a hold on him financially and in his every day life decisions. They have always spoken quite a lot on the phone (6-7 times per day, every day!) and again, at first I used to find it cute but now I don’t speak to her, I find it very invasive. My partner takes our daughter to stay with his family every other weekend so they get to spend time with her and sometimes he goes a few weekends in a row, I really try not to get in between that because I want her to have a relationship with them but at the same time, I am concerned my partner cares more about them spending time with her than he does about us spending time together as a family.
He makes big life decisions without me and consults with his mum, it doesn’t matter what I say as long as his mum agrees and if she doesn’t then he won’t do it. He says it’s a “respect” thing and I don’t understand because I was brought up very different.
He recently brought a car for £12,000 which is a lot of money and I didn’t even know he had brought it until he arranged to go and pick it up which by the way he is taking his mum with him. This means that what should be a couple of hours out the house has now resulted in him being away the whole weekend so that he can go and get her, get the car, go back to her house, spend the night there and come back the next evening. Bare in mind, he has already been with her the last 2 weekends with our daughter.
He also doesn’t invite to family events anymore like cousins weddings etc because he would rather go with his family and our daughter than take me and it be awkward.
I have tried explaining to him that this makes me feel like there is another women even though that other women is his mum. I feel like he is cheating on me and I’m just completely left out but when I say it he thinks I’m trying to ruin his relationship with his mum.
I’m not sure I can do it anymore but my daughter is the centre of both of our worlds. What can I do to get him to realise that WE are his family and WE also matter without sounding like a Jelous bitter partner??
I suppose I am slightly jelous but only because Whilst he shows her so much attention, I don’t have a partner and it’s starting to really get to me. I want someone that is going to stand up for me and show the world that we are a family and united, i truly believe if he did that, he would actually get respect from his parents instead of them laughing at him because he has “ruined” his life because he hasn’t done it the way they would of wanted him to do it.
Sorry for the essay but wanted to give you a full picture so you can give me your clear judgement. Any advice would be helpful. Thank you xxxx