How do I forgive DH

[Jazz12]

I’m 42. Married for over 17yrs. Fell in love in the last year at Uni and had a long distance relationship for a few yrs. Got married quite young. We moved to the same city as DHs parents (for work reasons).
Ever since we got engaged, DHs mum and sister got very insecure. Weirdly competitive and very intrusive. Since DH and I were now living together for the first time, we had a few issues with each other - nothing serious. The two women would extract info from my husband (who stupidly told them everything) and use it to create arguments between us. I was fed up seeing how stupid DH was being, playing into their games and ruining his own marriage. In just 6 months, I was thinking of divorcing him when I realised I was pregnant 🤦‍♀️

The next 1 year was hell. He wouldn’t do anything for me, pick fights for no reason, Not do his share of housework. Just be really mean to me, because apparently I’m a bitch (as fed by MIL and SIL). They were happy to get back control. He broke my heart a million times choosing them over me. When my twins were born, they took over ! It was the most stressful period of my life. They treated me with zero respect. No boundaries. Said nasty things, body shamed me 2 months after I had my babies (size 14). Tried to trick us into letting them choose names! My husband said nothing! And still worse he’d defend them. The things he said then hurt even today.

Luckily, we moved abroad and things started to improve. Because we weren’t seeing inlaws regularly, choosing them over me didn’t happen that often. However, whenever they are around, he’d choose them over me. In a couple of years, I broke all contact with inlaws and stopped them from seeing the kids except under supervision when we visited them. My parents lived in the same city, so I went there. (DH says he allowed this to happen because he cared about me) SIL got married 5yrs ago and my inlaws WORSHIPPED her husband. My husband cannot see the stark contrast! (Or did he think I didn’t deserve that respect?). He spoke to SILs husband very nicely (while she was free to say anything to me). My therapist explained to me that my MIL was a narcissist. My husband simply threw me under the bus to gain her approval.

The many years that followed, till now, I spent resenting my husband. I don’t connnect with him emotionally. There is no friendship, joy or bonding. there is no love. We work as a team with parenting and have conversations that are purely transactional or professional (we are in the same profession). There is a big void in my life and I’m lonely. My feelings never mattered to him. I never mattered to him.

Two years ago, Mil and Fil passed away in quick succession. Now, my husband can see things for what they are. When SIL tried to take mils place, he told her to F off. Too late, too little.
SIL has a beautiful marriage. Her husband adores her. What did I do to deserve this shit show?

My husband thinks everything is fine now, so we should just “be happy”. I don’t get it. I am STILL deeply hurt and I don’t think I’ll ever trust him again to not break my heart. No matter how hard I try, I just cannot not be hurt IYKWIM ?

Ive been through intense emotional stress for most part of these 16yrs. Although I’m financially independent, I did not leave him because I did not have the courage and because the kids adore him.

I really don’t know what to do now. Leaving him is out of question. And what exactly will I gain by leaving him? More loneliness!?? This is so fcuked up. I have zero interest or intention to find another man. I don’t have the energy and patience to fight another battle.

Now to add to this, I realised I’ve coped all along by being in Limerence. My limerent object is a family friend. I broke contacts with them to get rid of limerence but because it’s my coping mechanism, it’s still there. We meet occasionally at mutual friends parties, and I realise there is nothing about this man I am attracted to. He is a nice person, but not my type at all. YET, I’ve been having a stable, loving, deeply affectionate relationship with him IN MY MIND for over 10years.

If you think this is all fcuked up, wait till you hear about my stressful job. I feel like I’m going to die! My mind is a cocktail of different types of stresses.

if anyone has any advise on how to unfcuk my life, pls tell me.

I voted yabu for staying for 16 years after feeling so deeply hurt and finding his actions unforgivable. It’s also not your SIL’s fault that she has a “perfect” marriage and you don’t. You will obviously never move on and forgive him so I would leave.

I’ve given up on this marriage ages ago. There aren’t many arguments happening. ALL arguments were about the drama MIL/SIL created.
My parents say MIL died, SIL is blocked. NOW what’s the problem (implying I’m the problem!?). My mum is pretty old school - where men don’t do much in the house. But she’s been a housewife!

A shitty family have raised a shitty, spineless man.

You deserve better OP

Dear god, just leave.

You are choosing to be embroiled in their drama.
If she steals the inheritance- so what? It’s nothing to do with you. You have the choice to leave all the drama behind but you are choosing to invent reasons which keep you there- none of which are valid

To be honest I think you sound like really hard work.

We have no way of knowing if your MIL and SIL are as awful as you say - it is rare for problems in relationships to be completely one sided , with bad guys and good guys. I am surprised your therapist would diagnose your MIL as a narcissist when she hasn’t even met her. I can see it must have been difficult for your husband to have been stuck in the middle and you seem absolutely fixated on getting him to turn against his family , denounce them and be on your side.

You have certainly positioned yourself as a powerless victim in it all.

This must be a pretty awful atmosphere for your kids to grow up in.

If you really care about your kids and you are determined to stay with your husband then you must try to let go of the past and rebuild something that is worth staying for and doesn’t just make you all miserable. Maybe couples counselling would be a start - but not so you can make him agree with your side of past events and your assessment of his family , rather than working on getting to a better place now. If you don’t want to (or think you can’t) do that then I think you should separate for everyone’s sakes.

If you want to be happy you know what you need to do. Or you can carry on in a dysfunctional marriage which your children will probably copy and the cycle continues.

Hmmm. I think you need to start forgiving yourself for staying.

But it appears you don’t actually want a realistic solution. I can’t help but wonder if there’s some rewriting of history due to your obsession with this other person.

Your husband is who he is. He sees things differently to you. But it appears it’s not enough for you, for him to agree with somethings, To not see his sister. You want him to see it, how you see it. That’s not realistic. You are two different people. It’s not enough for you, that he seems to be waking up to it. You want him to go from seeing what his family wanted him to see, to what you want him to see.

You have spent your marriage resenting your husband and most of it obsessing over someone else. How would you feel if you discovered that he felt like that? Resented you, stayed for the kids, obsessed with another woman, that he has been in a relationship with for over half the marriage…..just in his head. Would you feel you could forgive that?

Your sil may have a great marriage. But it’s not her fault that you do not.

You seem to want it all to disappear. You won’t leave. So this is the life you have.

I think you need some professional support to our all these feelings in some sort of order so you can work out what’s going on.

You need to see a Gp and get some help . After that yiu need to take some responsibility for your own life. You could have up and left at any point, yes it would have been hard but that's a shitty excuse. Now you are making excuse after excuse to live an unhappy, unfulfilled life. He deserves better but so do you. Value yourself, stop playing the helpless victim role and garner some strength from somewhere to make changes to your life. It won't be easy, might well take some time but you are in control of your own life. You do not have to live this way.

Once you get your head in a better place you might well decide to give your marriage another chance or you might decide to move on to pastures new. That's your choice. You only get one life and its too short to resign yourself to living this way. Best of luck op.

You are only 42. Don't sentence yourself to a lifetime of this.

I split from my husband when I was 43. I see friends with long happy marriages, and wish I had one, but the truth was that most of the time was miserable. Much better being single, and I am honestly having the best time of my life now.

Would have said the same.

The change of the family dynamics with the in laws passing, the fact he has had his eyes opened may pave the way for some slow but successful counselling.

Ultimately it's your life and you live it how you want to.

You have a lot of stressors so be kind to yourself. Start getting a bit more selfish and make sure your needs are being met.

I hope things improve for you and wishing you a peaceful Christmas x

Unfortunately OP there is too much water under the bridge and you’ve let too much slide. You’ll now resent him for the rest of your life.

You hit the nail on the head. Too little, too late. I’m sure in hindsight you wish you’d have ended it when the first issues arose. When you get the blessing/curse of hindsight 20 years from now you’ll wish you’d left at this moment in time.

Now you need to decide if you want to live in resentment and loneliness for sure, or leave and take the chance of finding something new and fulfilling

Oh come off it OP! You can’t leave because his sister will get his money? So what, why is that your problem? You’re making excuses because you’re too scared to leave, because despite saying you don’t take shit, you absolutely do. It’s understandable, he’s all you’ve known for your adult life, the unknown is scary but your currently willing to write off your future under the guise that you need to protect your dickhead husband from his sister, which is absolutely ridiculous. I do understand the worry about upsetting the kids, but kids go through their parents separating all the time, its not the end of the world.

If you’re determined to stay with him though, then you need to let your resentment go if you stand any chance of being happy. I’d suggest getting some therapy.

OP One day you will wake up and realise that in staying you stopped yourself from being happy. You have been a victim of abuse and what that does is make you feel you can't manage on your own but you can.
You need to stop worrying about someone who clearly threw you under the bus all those years ago and now thinks everything will be OK just because his mother died.
Fuck that. You need to leave and start living well.

How do you know my SIL doesn’t have a role to play in my shitty marriage?

Competing with me, manipulating her brother into choosing her over me. If something has a remote possibility of causing an argument in our house, they’d do that. And tricking us into buying her stuff, lying, cheap games to just get one up over me. Competing with me - this really gets the prize. She made her brother buy her a diamond because my engagement ring has a diamond in it. Beat that!?

With my husband’s inheritance, I don’t have a problem if he says I’ll give it all to my sister. Instead, he gets tricked. It’s the getting tricked and being taken for a ride part that gets me. To me, letting other people trick you, cheat you over and over again is a deeply unattractive trait. Who would find that attractive!???

Im even scared to admit. You are probably right.

You have spent your marriage resenting your husband and most of it obsessing over someone else. How would you feel if you discovered that he felt like that? Resented you, stayed for the kids, obsessed with another woman, that he has been in a relationship with for over half the marriage…..just in his head. Would you feel you could forgive that?

I would never put anyone through so much of emotional turmoil just to please my mum or make my sister happy. I just don’t understand why anyone wants to get married and treat the spouse like shit.

if I were half as dickhead as my husband was, I’d be deeply ashamed of my self and help him heal on HIS TERMS. And I’d start by calling a spade a spade.

You have spent your marriage resenting your husband and most of it obsessing over someone else. How would you feel if you discovered that he felt like that? Resented you, stayed for the kids, obsessed with another woman, that he has been in a relationship with for over half the marriage…..just in his head. Would you feel you could forgive that?

if I were as bad as he was, I’d forgive him for even having an affair. Not just in his mind, proper affair.

somehow it’s again my fault and I should be the one asking forgiveness right? I heard this all my life! You sound like MIL/SIL

SIL was very competitive and interfering. It’s my husbands fault for letting her do it. MIL is super interfering and judgemental too. They both have opinions on everything. SIL completely guarded her marriage from MIL. Mil/SIL were one team. When SIL got married, MIL started messing with her husband to gain control. SIL nipped it in the bud and gave strong clear warnings to everyone about how she expects her husband to be treated. After the FIRST instance, she told her mom she’ll go NC if it happens again. MIL cried, kicked up a huge fuss, feigned health issues but SIL didn’t budge. Mil/FIL got straight on the track and started worshipping SILs husband.

That’s how it’s done. And my husband cannot see this! She showed how it’s done!

You need someone you can trust and rely on . This current guy is not the one. You could carry on the status quo but it's just putting off the inevitable. In time, you're going to have to uncouple, if that's the right phrase. Good luck OP 🙂

its Xmas eve and there is absolutely no joy. My parents are coming over this evening. I’m off to get some last minute things and fresh up so I pretend happy families for the next two days.

I think you just proved the point about being a perpetual victim. And shown that maybe you just jump to accusing people of being terrible people.

Nowhere did I say it was all your fault. What I am saying is there’s so many problems you need to put them in order.
and you aren’t dealing with it in a healthy way. And that if your husband knew how much you hate him and your feelings for someone else, he likely would think it was dickhead behaviour too.

You aren’t a passenger in your own life. You have made these choices and you can make different ones. If saying that means I am like you Mil and sil, then so be it. But, for me, that just shows that you possibly also over reacted to them.

I won't attempt to go into the parts of this that I haven't lived or can understand but what I will say from my experience and from a surprising number of posts that opened my eyes when I first joined here - staying because of the kids is the wrong thing to do. Most of the time they already know a marriage is dead and you're putting their lives on hold too.

You can leave, you should leave, there's nothing to stop you leaving. There's plenty on other threads that aren't in as strong a position as you are. I'm not saying you're making excuses but there's really nothing stopping you leaving.