DH been complaining about our relationship to my DM

[HollySizer]

DH and I have been going through a rough patch. After the birth of DS2 we really struggled and became quite distant from each other. Things are looking much better now after some frank discussions about the future of our relationship but we had previously discussed splitting up.

DM has confessed to me today that DH rang her up multiple times back when we were in the thick of it, telling her that he wasn’t sure he wanted to be with me, and complaining about other things in our relationship.

AIBU to be massively pissed off at this? Some of these things, DH barely even brought up with me. I would never usually discuss personal issues like this with my DM.

My DM has asked me not to mention this to DH but I don’t think I can not say anything.

100% agree with this.

I'm close to my children's partners and they confide in me if there are any problems. I don't betray their trust in what they say to me but my children appreciate the close bond and that I am always fair in helping support them all.

Your mother has either been careless and told you or is being malicious. Only you know.

She has told me out of concern I think.

I’m not sure here. He vented to someone he felt close to, in the absence of his own parents. Your mum obviously didn’t mind if this happened several times.

It’s a shame that he wanted to talk about it and you’d have rather it was kept private - did you ever discuss that? Whether you were telling people you were struggling, and were contemplating divorce? To be honest, it sounds like you were quite far down that road. I’m surprised you didn’t also seek support.

I’d be most annoyed at your mum here; she allowed your husband to talk to her more than once in confidence and has now told you about it and asked you to keep it secret… That’s a horrible position for her to have put both of you in. She had an easy opportunity to gently suggest she wasn’t the person to talk to about this, if she felt that was the case, or knew you weren’t.

The only useful thing she may have done is flag up that your plan might not be the best. If it’s something like moving abroad or having another child, I’d probably listen to her there. She must have strongly felt it was a bad idea to have mentioned it given where it led to.

You confide in the person you are comfortable with. He has no parents. And if he didn't confide in anyone and bottled it up and could have felt it was too much for him, he could have become another statistic that people would have then said why didn't he speak up.

Your H is not to be trusted. At all.

Completely disagree. Your own parents are your safe harbour in life. It’s shit when you don’t have that with your own parents, but he doesn’t get to appropriate the OP’s ones instead. If the op did divorce, she needs her parents on her side, that doesn’t mean seeing her ex as the enemy but it’s completely beyond the line for him to be giving information that the op herself wasn’t ready to share.

I agree with PP who say this is classic narc type behaviour. Emotional manipulation at the very least. It’s already putting her mum in an awkward position, I’d be furious. She may be family by marriage but she’s not his mother and it’s a serious boundary crossed.

It’s not a woman’s job to fix broken men. Not a wife and not her mother when the wife is getting exhausted by it. This is serious emotional blackmail, suggesting he would do something bad if he didn’t have her mum to speak to. If he has no family what so ever, there’s friends, or even helplines.

My DM said that she listened to him and offered advice as she was concerned that he was in a seriously low place and at risk of doing something stupid.

But that’s completely unfair on your mother and on you. It meant she felt obligated to continue these conversation and he wasn’t sharing this with you. It reads like even more emotional manipulation now, that he’s going to your mum above all other people to say how the relationship with you is making him feel extremely low. There was literally no one but your mum he could talk about such serious things with?

Serious emotional blackmail? Honestly get a grip. People sometimes need people to talk to and that's ok. It's got nothing to do without it being a woman, if he is close to her and felt he could talk to her.

How long has he been in their lives?

Who else has he got?

Would it have been ok to speak to the OP's father then ?

Not particularly, it’s still crossing the line. The fact is he didn’t, he went to her mother.

There are billions of people on this world, and I’m sure a few of them speak to the OP’s husband. Her parents are her emotional support in life, not his. The fact she wasn’t ready to talk to her mum about this but he went behind her back to do so is crossing a line. And I was saying that suggesting he would do something bad if he wasn’t telling her mum all about it is emotional blackmail.

My DH gets on with my parents like his own, and I get on with his parents like my own. They are all our support, not just mine being mine and his being his. Everyone's family is different, they are not all like yours.

What was the nature of these discussions. Was it a question of just venting or was it more telling the problems in the hope she had some advice on how he could make the situation better. That would be more forgivable than just venting

And that’s great! But if you and your husband were going through a rough patch, would you be telling them all the details and leaving them feeling like your mental health was at serious risk because of your relationship with your husband? Would you genuinely think ‘oh how awful for Holliiday, seems living with our son at the moment is so difficult, let’s keep this to ourselves’. They are not there to parent your adult problems like quarrelling siblings, if your relationship ended tomorrow as good parents they wouldn’t see you as equals who both needed their emotional support.

And with all due respect, you don’t know anything about my own circumstances. There was plenty I could have told my in laws about when my relationship was ending and after. But it would have been completely disrespectful to my ex to tattle to his parents about our adult life.

Interesting thread.

When a young mother says she trusts her own mother more than her MIL, everyone is at her throat telling her both sets of grandparents are equal and how dare she! have a stronger link with her own mum than her partner's one. We're all a fmaily, after all, Mumsnet scream.

But when OPs husband who does not have a relationship with his own parents confides in OP's mother, turns out it's HER parents and HER safe place and she should be the only one to have such a relationship with them.

I suppose if he can't afford/does not trust a therapist, is it not OK he spoke to someone he felt he could confide in if he was low? To ask for advice? Would OP rather it syaed in the family or that he confided in his workplace and everyone knew the enxt day?

With all due respect, if my mental health was seriously suffering, I couldn't promise who I would speak to. And I would understand if my DH spoke to whoever he needed to at such a rough time.

@Tulipsareredvioletsarebue yeah exactly. Bashed if you do, bashed if you don't.

My husband did this too, my mother told him to give me a good slap.

Anyone who tells a young/new mother to make equal emotional space for her MIL as well as her own mother are very much in the wrong, but as the rest of the thread that’s just my opinion. Both sets of grandparents are (usually) equal to their grandchildren, not to the parents.

Would OP rather it syaed in the family or that he confided in his workplace and everyone knew the enxt day?

So it’s ok to possibly spread around the OP’s family personal information she didn’t want to share but would be awful around his workplace? What if the OP’s mother shared what he was saying around the wider family, they split up and some took ‘his side’ before she had even been able to talk about it herself? It’s completely unfair to be painted in a negative light behind your back to your own family.

Your dm is a disgrace.

My dsis told me that her dh was venting to a female df who doesn’t like dsis and who told him to throw dsis out. ( she hadn’t done anything to warrant this).
I told her she needed to give her dh a talk about respect in a relationship. His sisters yes, some female friend - no, absolutely not.

Ideally no one tells anything to anyone then, bottles up and commits suicide when they can't stand the pressure anymore?

You speak to people you trust, he trusted her mother and spoke to her. Maybe he wanted to vent, or get an advice from someone who knew OP best. Some people have an amazing relationship with inlaws and they ARE family. Family dynamics are all very different, not everyone gossips and bitches about family members, some people do offer assistance and support.