DH should have told me how dysfunctional his family is

[daytimemom]

Come from a very dysfunctional family myself. As a result always longed for a “normal” family. One of the things which attracted me to DH was that he and his family seemed pretty “normal” ie mum, dad, brother, parents had “good” jobs, own home, no addictions. In fact the opposite to my background. Told DH about my own family, the impact it’s had on my life, how if I had children I wanted them to have a “normal” childhood and family.

When DH & I started going out I met his family lots of times & everything seemed fine. DH never once mentioned what I now know; his parents don’t care about him, they are tight with money & let their son pawn all his possessions when he was at uni as he was so broke. They have no interest in their son and zero interest in their grandchildren. When we visited them this summer there was no food in the house for us to eat.

I asked DH if he had ever had any sort of relationship with his parents. He said no. They took no interest in him as a child, they didn’t do anything together, no days out, no holidays, no conversations about what he should do with his life, nothing.

DH has admitted he only felt able to visit his parents when I was with him as it offered him some sort of “protection” against them ie with me there they were less likely to shout or have a go at him.

My counsellor said I am so angry because with DH I thought I was getting the family I craved.

I am just so angry with DH. How dare he not tell me about how awful his parents are until we are married and have children. I feel so guilty that I have had children with a man whose parents have zero interest in their grandchildren. At the back of my mind I think if I had married someone else I would have given my children grandparents who would have loved them. I know there is no guarantee but they couldn’t have any worse grandparents.

I was honest with DH about my family so he should have been honest with me. It’s only now, when it’s too late that he shares all the horrible tales from his childhood!

My home life was massively dysfunctional, too. I have always craved a family.

You can't pick a partner based on that. You could have picked someone who had the perfect family and something could have torn it apart. There's no guarantees in other people's relationships.

Talk to your therapist more; work through your family issues. Forgive your DH and apologise to him. If you really wouldn't have married him if you thought his family were less than perfect, you need to consider if you love him enough to stay now.

Feel desperately sorry for your DH. My partners parents are absolutely awful, hate is a strong word but what they have put us and our children through I do hate them, that’s not my partners fault! I stood by him and love him despite what his parents did!! Why would I give up on him because of his parents (who by the way, as you should fully know, you cannot control your parents behaviour) it’s not his fault!! I got on fine with my dad for years, until a few years ago he met a partner who doesn’t have children and poof, he’s cut me,my siblings and his grandchildren out of his life.....no reason, no explanation, just doesn’t want to know us. Should my partner leave me now because my dad has suddenly changed?? And I can’t provide a grandad for our kids now?! If your looking for a perfect family I think u will be looking forever because everybody has problems behind closed doors.

I think counselling is making you even more self-absorbed than you clearly were before.

I kind of understand the OP. My family is a lot like her DH's, and my DH's family was at least part of the attraction of marrying DH.

But it wasn't until we had children ourselves that I understood the extent of my family's dysfunction. I feel bad that my dc have lost out on loving grandparents on my side, and very grateful that they have them from DH's side.

I don't think it's fair to blame OP's DH for not realising what he didn't have. It was his normal, and in comparison to many other families, yours included, I'm sure it seemed stable and ok. Sometimes it's not until you have your own children, and feel that love from the other side, that you realise what you missed out on.

@daytimemom I think I get it. It was a second chance for you to have a "normal" family. Not only has that been taken away (yes a selfish feeling, but an understandable one), you've found out he kept things from you -which isn't good. And your DCs will miss out on having the grandparents you hoped they would.

I kind of get this OP, but for very different reasons to yours.

My husband did the same to me - when we were dating I talked extensively about my family and my childhood. I think a person's childhood shapes them as adults and it is important to understand someone's background and upbringing. My husband never once told me how appalling his childhood actually was until we were married and living together.

He presented himself to me as a well rounded and grounded person from a normal loving family. While we dated, he was fun, loving, kind, funny and attentive.

I found out several years later that actually his mum was emotionally abused by his dad. His mum treated my husband really badly and favoured his older sister and brothers above him. His family constantly played power games with each other and were massively into status and money. His sister is self absorbed and spoilt, and his brothers are the biggest narcissists I've ever met, but of course they were nothing but charming when I first met them.

My husband has ended up repeating his dad's behaviour with me: long moody silences, gaslighting, stone walling. He is emotionally repressed, deals with difficult conversations or situations by shutting down and refusing to talk until it goes away, or by getting irritable and walking out. He is negative and a whiner. I'm his sounding board for all life's ills and unfairnesses - of which there are many.

I feel like I was hoodwinked into a false person and a false family background. If I'd known just how appalling his family were, there would have been huge red flags waving - there's no way any child would enter adulthood unscathed from the damage they inflicted on him.

It isn't anyone elses responsibility to give you a family you crave! I think you need some more counselling to come to terms with the fact that what has been, has gone. That's it. And for all the will in the world even if he did have a family that you craved to start with, they still wouldn't be your family and there would be times when you'd feel that.

I don't have the family that I wanted, my mother is an awful being that screwed me up and I've had to abandon any relationship and report her to the police, my father still talks to me at times like I'm a small child and makes me feel like shit. All I'm doing is making sure my kids never feel like that, I'm trying to give them the family I wanted whilst keeping in mind that I may still get it wrong from their point.
But you are absolutely being unreasonable and incredibly entitled to somehow shift this desire onto someone else to give you.

You DH probably grew up thinking it was his fault in some way, that he wasn't interesting or lovable enough. He perhaps was scared of bursting your bubble, in case you agreed with his parents.

Now you are saying he isn't enough on his own and that he should feel guilty about your children's feelings about their GPs. You are telling him he is not good enough for you on his own and not a good father either.

Just think about the tables being turned, think how you'd feel if he basically told you all the crappy things your family made you feel were true?

Then apologise and work through your own issues in counselling instead of projecting them into someone you are meant to love and care about.

Maybe you need to ask yourself why he felt he couldn’t share that information with you earlier?

Maybe you ‘owned’ the disfunctional parent thing and he didn’t feel he could say ‘me too’

Maybe he felt his family disfunction was minor compared to yours and so he couldn’t bring it up.

Maybe he felt he was hinting strongly by not telling any stories of love and warmth, but your own disfunction means you failed to pick up on this.

Maybe he loved you so much and he was afraid of you rejecting him in the same way that his parents always had.

Maybe lots of things, but I can’t thing of any ‘maybe’ that deserves anger.

Is he a good dad - children need parents and then they will go and have children to whom you can be good grandparents.

Is he a good husband as well. You married him and not his family!

I think you are being really unfair to your DH and actually quite selfish.

Have you ever stopped to think about how his family have affected HIM?? Have you thought maybe he wanted to meet someone with a "normal" family to make up for what HE went through??

Or is everything always just about you?

My parents are just like that (did you marry my brother?) - you've reminded me, I've been meaning to add this info to my online dating profile......

So basically what is hard for you is that you feel your DH lied to you. Lied by omission, by not telling your bad his family was, despite knowing how much you longed for a ‘normal’ family for you and for your dcs.

I can see why you wouod feel like this.

I can also see how your DH might have been frightened knowing how bad his family was would be driving you away from him.

I think you will have to learn to let it go to keep the family you have. The one YOU BUILT with your DH and your dcs. The one you can do something about and make a nice, peaceful, respectful and FUNCTIONAL family because it’s yours (unlike your parents you didn’t chose or your PIL that your DH didn’t chose iyswim).

Can I ask why yu are having counselling atm? Wouod it help to have some sessions together with your DH too?

Maybe you and your DH can stop the rot here. Maybe you can fill your family with light and love.

Be angry but use it to make a new story together.

I think you can’t underestimate how hard emotional abuse is to talk about when you’ve been at the receiving end of it, even to people you love.

It’s usually not keeping secrets on purpose it’s just that these things can be buried so deep it’s really hard to find the right words

Btw I disagree with comments about the OP been selfish etc...

Yes her DH has hard time too.
And yes maybe is struggling with her parents too (if the OP isn’t actually NC).

The difference is he knew about it and she didn’t. He had a choice to say ‘No I want a normal family and not a dysfunctional ILs’ and she didn’t.
And that’s wo talking about the fact having a non dysfunctional IL might well not have been top priority for him.

And tbh anyone posting about their issues in MN is making about them. That’s the whole point of the beast.

Alife that’s exactly what I thought!

There’s no way around it we all die and grandparents are usually (hopefully) the first in line before parents and children. What if ops parents had died...they wouldn’t be married?! It’s so unusual.

Op I don’t want to be rude or unkind but can you see why posters are so shocked?

Maybe you could explain things in a different way but the way this thread reads isn’t good.

How about creating the family you crave all this while with the family you so thankfully got? My in laws were hideous to me (my family are continents away) and my MIL chucked me and DD who was 7months old in the winer out because she couldn't "take it". I am in a similar position as you for wanting to have a family in my that I miss from home but it's clearly not going to happen so I make sure my children and husband are loved the way I would want to be loved. Wouldn't say you are UR but you clearly still need to see your counsellor to work through you issues. Good luck x

I didn't tell my exh how bad it was for me either

wasn't that i thought it was normal, though I didn't realise how abnormal it was, it's just that it's not my focus, it's not my future, it wasn't anything to do with my future with him.

It was my past.

I had to attend a court case for something involving my past so had to tell exh some of the details. He didn't support me as he found it impossible to deal with so I went to court every day on my own. Then a few more things happened and he, emotionally, moved further away from me. And in the end we got divorced. I could not look him in the eye as my lover, my confidant, the father of my children when he could not support me through something that had been no fault of my own.

So my advice, is be careful what you wish for. Love your husband for the man he is now, your husband, the father of your children. Don't penalise him for a past which he had no control over. If it was as bad as you make out, he may not have wanted to tell you because he's tried to move on from it. If you react the way you are, you will drive him away from you. And you have to ask yourself whether it's worth losing the most important relationship you have over something like this.

You might not have the grandparents you envisaged for your children, but although it's lovely to have grandparents it's not essential for a happy childhood.

I understand that you are upset he never told you about his family. And I think it was wrong that he wanted you as protection from them. However, don't you think this goes to show the extent of his shame and hurt when it comes to his family?

I think the question you need to ask yourself is - is he a bad father and a bad husband? Because if he parents well and has been a loving husband to you so far, then that bodes extremely well for the family you have.

Because you don't need to marry into a family you never had. Create the one you never had now with your husband and children.

If he'd told you, would you have not married him?

You married him, not his family.

Did you say to him straight ‘I only want to be with you if you have a functional family?’ And did he lie and say he had one? If not, you are being very unreasonable. And even if you did, that’s a terrible attitude to have. Imagine if someone didn’t want to marry you because of your family?

I think you’re taking your anger about your own shitty family out on your DH because you can’t take it out on your family. It’s really good that you’re having counselling as this will help. But instead of seeing this as something bad your DH has done, see it for what it is - your own (understandable) trauma manifesting in an unhelpful way.

You told him? You told him everything? And told him what you craved?

And he later admitted that he knew he should have told you, but didn't?

Then he is very much to blame here. He has to take responsibility for lying to you. Or you by omission, which is just as bad.

BUT, YABU by thinking that you need such a family to heal you. You need to heal yourself.

Plus, you are clearly damaged. So why didn't you take more care and more time, in choosing your partner? how bad are your personel skills? why didn't you read the signs better? that your husband was himself also damaged, and he cant tell you the truth? Doesn't say much about your honesty and relationship.

I appreciate that I cant understand. I come from a totally loving and supportive family who are open about their emotions, even telling people when they are upset and why the person has upset them, so that it doesn't turn into a drama.
Dh is the same. He and I can talk about anything, even bits of ourselves we don't like to admit.

You need more counselling. clearly!!

Your poor DH.

As PP have said, you need to start focussing on making sure your own DC don't grow up in a dysfunctional family. Appreciate your DH for what he is as a human being, not as an apparent representative of a 'happy upbringing'.

FWIW, I grew up in the most brilliant, happy, functional family. However, my parents are geographically distant from their grandchildren. They are enjoying doing their own thing now that we are all adults.

I also ended up divorced, so a happy and functional upbringing doesn't always translate into a happy marriage.

If you can, try to think about what you have now, rather than feeling cheated and angry. Your own marriage will stand a better chance of surviving if you can do this.

You are being massively unreasonable here OP, as well as being selfish and applying double standards. Your poor DH.

It seems you're more interested in parachuting into the 'perfect family' than making a life with the man you supposedly love. One person (and by extention his family) cannot compensate for the things you lost out on in childhood, you need to work through your own issues in order to build healthy relationships.

How would you feel if you opened up to a boyfriend about your difficult childhood and he dumped you because of it? It would be obvious he doesn't love you, only the ideal version of you. Think about that OP.