Are DH and I being unreasonable? RE: MIL. Long, sorry.

[slatternlymother]

DH grew up in an extremely abusive household. His father beat MIL into hospital on several occasions, and beat DH, once breaking his wrists. MIL seems to think she got the worst of it, but DH used to lie awake until 3am some nights, listening to his parents screaming at each other. He'd find excuses to stay off school to try to 'protect' MIL and watch over her.

I think SS tried to take him at one point, but his parents stopped the arguing for a few days and told DH to say he loved being at home, or he'd never see his Mummy again.

DH told me when he was 16, he lay in bed and prayed to God to let him die.

MIL and DH's father split after DH left home.

DH cannot forgive MIL for not leaving, and allowing him to witness her being beaten (once almost to death), and be beaten mercilessly himself. She says she got the worst of it, and DH needs to 'forget the past'.

He cannot. The nightmares have slowed now, but he still gets them. He gets flashbacks; extremely traumatic ones, from random triggers like sounds and smells, sometimes things he sees on the TV (not always to do with DV; it can be a picture of a place or a wallpaper iykwim). He says he is only just becoming ok with talking about it to me, and is too embarrassed to see a counsellor; which is fine. I won't push him.

Seeing MIL is becoming too traumatic for him. She has a new DH every year or so, and he cannot accept her not accepting responsibility for anything. She has never apologised.

Now he wants to cut contact. She is quite an unstable person, and it is becoming too much for him. I am his wife, and want to back him up.

AIBU?

Your dh is not unreasonable at all.

I don't blame him for wanting to cut all contact.

Her life wasn't nice but she had a choice to stay. He didn't.

My Dh went through something similar. He's only really just started to be OK with talking about it, and just gone through therapy. Like your DH, my MIL seems to think he should move on too. Am happy to talk about it if you want to message me.

I don't think you are BU at all to cut contact with MiL. However, it sounds as though your dh is suffering with PTSD and I would strongly recommend he see a professional as this could potentially get worse and worse. I understand his reluctance but I really think he needs some help with this.

YANBU. I am starting to feel angry about the abuse I witnessed as a child, and the way I was used to prop up the whole bloody situation. I'm looking into therapy - again.

I wish your DH peace, and agree with the suggestion about getting help for PTSD.

I had a similar background.

I think it is entirely unreasonable to blame a vulnerable victim for what happened. She lives a 'chaotic' life now - does she seem like someone capable or worthy of blame? Or someone who needs the support of a loving and stable family?

Like it or not, she couldn't protect him. It's not that she chose not to. He, an you too, really need to find a better understanding of what it is like to be the victim of spousal abuse. Whether it's through counselling or just reading about it, This was not her fault.

My brother has similar feelings towards our mother, and absolutely vilifies her now. In all honesty, it would be much better for all concerned if he did cut her out, as he is so nasty to her it's horrific. He simply cannot understand why she didn't leave.

Read the relationships boards on here before you start assuming that it was her choice to stay with him.

This will be long, sorry.

One of the saddest things about DV in a family is that the grown-up children often focus all their anger and blame on the parent who was the victim, usually the mother. His mother is the one who he feels closest to, safest with and most loved by, even if not very much and in damaged ways. So it's easier to take everything out on her and make her the focus of all his rage and pain, because on some level, he feels safe and able to do so with her. His father sounds absolutely horrific, and your poor Dh will have been so traumatised by him, and so brainwashed into never angering his father, never confronting him, etc., that even in his own mind, it will feel terrifying and overwhelming for your DH just to think confrontationally about his father in his own mind. Also, his mother is still in his life and his father isn't (thankfully), so of course it's easier to focus on her for that reason alone; she is actually present to be confronted.

I do wonder if she minimises what happened to him because she is so overwhelmed and hurt by the force of his anger and pain that she simply can't take it and blocks it out. It sounds likely. They both sound locked in very damaged patterns of blame and denial; her unable to cope with her own abusive past and her culpability in her son suffering also and him finding it easier to take everything out on his mother than to truly confront the source of his pain, to focus on the actual culprit and to work through his pain and suffering.

OP, he really needs not counselling but intensive therapy. This sort of thing is just not something he can work through on his own. It is simply impossible for him to heal himself and get past it. He already sounds very stuck in his rage towards his mother and like it's really damaging. He sounds like he's telling himself that if she will just admit to whatever he wants her to, that he will feel much better and be able to move on, but healing from this sort of thing just doesn't work that way. This pattern of focusing obsessively on her will not go away if she admits everything, it sounds like it's become a fixation.

It sounds like PTSD. And whatever it is, it is very serious and needs treating.

It's sadly common for the birth of a child to trigger the bubbling up of terrible shit that people have hidden inside and ignored for so long (too long). It is heartbreaking for the poor man, BUT whilst he is stuck in this pain and this pattern of obsessively focusing on his mother, he cannot be a proper partner and father. However well you both think he's keeping it from the Dc, they will be able to pick up on something bad doing on within Daddy. Most tragically of all, as his mind keeps swirling endlessly with these memories and angry thoughts, there is a possibility of him unconsciously behaving negatively towards your Dc, or at least feeling negatively (ie unwanted feelings of anger and jealousy that they have life so easy, etc. It's normal - it's the hurt child trapped inside him crying out - but it does not make for a fully present father or a peaceful and untroubled family atmosphere).

Whilst it seems unimaginable for people who have not suffered extreme DV for a mother to stay and 'let' her child be treated that way, the effects of DV are so psychologically extreme on the adult victim that it can be impossible for them to comprehend leaving. For all your DH knows, his father might've perpetrated some of these terrible things on both of them because of his mother trying to leave. In the end, he cannot move past this unless he sees that the blame lies with the person who commited this awful abuse.

A therapist won't go straight into "So tell me about the time your father broke your wrists". He can go as slowly and shallowly as he likes and needs until he is ready to go to those dark and scary places.

OP, I thinkyou should get this moved to Relationships. There are a lot of people there who are really expert in this sort of thing. You sound like a really great wife, I hope someone on here can help you find a way to lovingly guide him into getting help.

Op, your point about having DCs and it hitting home is exactly what happened to DH. He can't ever imagine treating our DD how he was or letting her witness what he had to.

Both the mother and father were responsible for what your husband went through.

His father was a nasty, violent thug and his mother a selfish person with not enough concern for her own child.

I often feel, when reading threads from women in abusive relationships, that there seems little mention of the children and what they go through.

Just because someone is a victim of someone else does not mean they are a good,non-abusive person themselves.

"his mother a selfish person with not enough concern for her own child"

Bullshit. You have no idea, clearly.

Just read that on this thread that the mother couldn't protect her child.

Bollocks.

How the fuck do you know? Do we have enough detail to say one way or another?

I have no idea?

You may be right.

I have no idea what it feels like to let your child be abused, or experience a sould destroying childhood. Never will have any idea about that either. I'm happy with that.

Not so happy to have had two parents who were a tad more selfish.

Are you sure you're not so 'selfish' yourself? How do you know what you would do, if the situation has never arisen for you? Oh, that's right, well done for selecting a non-abusive partner. Hoo fucking ray.

Great post OxfordBags. Although a decently trained counsellor would be able to work with him no problem as there is not a huge amount of difference as long as the training is thorough. I would start by going to the GP or checking out the BACP or UKCP websites.

Sounds like such a difficult situation for you all. It doesn't matter what other people think, you need to do what is best for your DH and your family. If that means cutting his mum out of his life for now then that is what you need to do.

His feelings are valid despite people saying he is victim blaming. Maybe he is but he lived through it too and as a child you look to your parents to protect you from harm and he sees his mother as keeping him in that situation instead of getting him out.

Having his own children is probably making him question why she didn't leave or why she didn't let him go when SS came round instead of making him say he loved being at home.

I hope you work this out and can get him the support he needs. Counselling may not be right for him at the moment but he may change his mind in the future. Just keep doing what you are doing. You sound like you are a great support for him.

YANBU, what your MIL should have done doesnt really matter anymore.

If he needs to cut her out of his life then that is his choice. Sometimes people get hurt too deeply and you just can't ask anything further of them.

You can't make him attend counseling but you can support him when he tells you that this is something he needs.

His dad might have hurt him then and it sounds like she is hurting him now.

oxfordbags is right.

The 'might have' in my last sentence should not have been there, I was restructuring the sentence and had an editing fail, apologies.

oxfordbags - excellent post, as always.

If your DH is sure he wants to cut contact with her then I think you should suppport him in this. She should not have allowed her child to suffer like this so must take some of the blame or quite a lot of the blame depending on how you look at things. I certainly think he should cut contact. If he doesn't feel ready for counselling yet I wouldn't push him.

oxford yes, I think some of what you say is true; although I don't agree that he's not a proper partner and father himself. He is fabulous. I think it just made him realise how much of a shit his own father was.

And yes, he does realise the fault lies with his Dad. But his mum won't validate his trauma. It's as if she doesn't care what happened to him; only her trauma 'counts'.

If she just said "I know you should never have had to go through that, and I'm sorry you still feel affected by it", that would help. But she doesn't acknowledge it. In any way. She has a new husband every year, and piles all her energy and focus into them.

Slatternly, I wasn't suggesting he's not a fab partner and father, just gently suggesting that whilst this is understandably such a big thing for him, he can't be in the best place mentally and emotionally for his family. It must be so difficult for him, staying so strong and not letting your Dc see how troubled he is right now.

I hear what you are saying about his mother accepting her part in it all. I have issues from my own childhood (thankfully not this severe), and the need to have the people responsible say sorry and accept they were at fault is really massive. He wants some sort of justice for what he suffered, it's only natural.

Sadly, though, even if and when you get this acknowledgement, it doesn't change a lot. There is superficial relief and feeling vindicated, etc., but he will still be left with all the memories, all the horrid feelings and emotions and fears and issues, etc., etc., and it will continue to plague him. Acknowledgement and apology cannot cure the damage done by abuse.

He also needs to address what he is going to do if she never acknowledges it. It sounds like she might not, ever. Will he stay stuck at this agonising level of obsessively requiring her to acknowledge? That will really, really start to create a new layer of problems and pain. In therapy, he would have to eventually work on what he will do with himself, with his life, if he never gets an acknowledgement. His life will be put on hold, essentially forever, at some level, until he sorts out the bigger pain underneath the need for acknowledgement.

Also, acknowledgement keeps the dynamic going between them both. He needs to find a way to heal himself by himself. She sounds pretty shit - sadly, you can be a victim and a crap human being regardless. She sounds lost to a lifelong pattern of depending on unsuitable, awful men at any cost.

I've skim read this thread, so forgive me if I've missed something. Did the op not say that her dp is only just feeling comfortable talking through these issues with her? It's very difficult when one realises they have had an unhappy childhood, or traumatic one. Sometimes it does take years to fully acknowledge the horrors in your past, and quite naturally you can feel seething anger towards the parent who didn't protect you. It's not up to you how feelings manifest themselves, they just happen. If that parent is the one that is still in your life, it may be the healthiest thing to cut contact in order to gain perspective of the situation for the good of yourself and your own dc's, particularly if the relationship with that parent is toxic, which in this case, it does sound like. I'm assuming the op's dp is no longer in their lives....

Please don't pressure your dp about how broken he must be. He may actually not need counselling at this point or ever. Each person is different and must be supported to find their own way through this dreadful stuff. Best of luck!