I have caused so much pain to so many people and it’s too late to fix it.

[wrongstation]

I was very insecure when I was younger and overheard my husband’s parents and siblings telling him they didn’t like me and to end our relationship.
He knew I was uncomfortable with him listening to people that were trying to persuade him to leave me all the time so he stopped contact with his family.

His friends were concerned that he didn’t speak to his family anymore and kept trying to get him to talk to them, he changed his number but his friends gave his new number to his mum even though he said not to, so he stopped seeing those friends too.
They didn’t give up and were constantly calling and texting and by this time I was pregnant and still worried that he’d listen to them and just wanted us to be left alone to be happy.
Eventually we moved away and got married so we could be together without judgment but I am a lot older now as this was 17 years ago and the reality is I isolated my husband from his family and friends because they didn’t like me and I felt threatened by them talking him out of being with me.
I literally just removed them like they were obstacles in the way of my happiness.
I hate that I did this to my lovely husband and I’ve apologised but he just thanks me for getting him away from there and says how happy he is and yes we are happy now but I can’t live with myself for all the heartbreak I’ve caused his family who don’t even know our teenage kids.
I am not insecure now I’m older and a lot more confident than I was but I know there’s no going back because his family didn’t like me to begin with and especially don’t now they think I am controlling and have isolated him from his family and friends which is 100% what I did and I am even more sorry that I did that to him and he doesn’t blame me and says he did it so we could be happy, which we are.
I know there’s no going back now, and what’s done is done but I wish I could have been stronger and it could’ve been different.
He just says leave it, we’re happy and that’s all that matters but it’s eating me up.

Did his family actually do anything wrong ? Did they tell him to leave you? Did they treat you badly. Or did you just overhear a conversation and make quite a big decision based on that?
A lot of people dont get along with in-laws. But they dont just cut them out completely. People compromise.
If this was a woman saying her husband did this then the replys would be different.
Had they been good parents to him? And friends ? Up until this point?
Is he not sad his children dont know them?
I totally get in certain circumstances going no contact is needed. But this seems like it was a overreaction.

I learned a very important lesson some time ago. Don’t ever beat yourself up about something you did a long time ago in different circumstances. You didn’t have the knowledge and experience you have now to make those decisions. The people who are in the wrong here are your husband’s friends’s who should not have given your husband’s new number to his family. You were also under a lot of stress and pregnant at the time and were probably very concerned about the effects of this on your new family. People can be very judgmental, and guessing by your husband’s actions ( he sounds like a very loving and loyal man) it sounds like the situation with his family were more complicated and probably not just about their feelings about you. My own partner’s family have never liked me, and none of them have ever asked me a single question about myself and assumed I was stuck up because I never spoke much when I saw them. When in fact I can be quite shy. He doesn’t see them that much due to proximity and I’m just so glad that I don’t have anything more to do with them. You sound like a very caring person and the fact that your husband is happy and has thanked you says a lot about his relationship with his family. Don’t let this spoil you and your family’s happy life.

absolutely this. It sounds like you have reached a point where you can see the bigger picture here and life experience and maturity have shown you that there are more important things in the mix that speak directly to our hearts.
It's to your credit that you see this and have the courage to consider if there is any way to take some first steps start a healing process.

I've seen many examples of in-laws behaving this way when women are younger because we often don't know how to stand up for ourselves at that time of our lives.
Forgive yourself and recognise that this isn't all on you.
People have done much worse, myself included.

The impression I got from the original post was that he saw how they were treating the OP, which was due to unfounded prejudice, and that they were forcing him into a position where they want him to break up with her.. ie he had to chose between them and his relationship with her and he chose her. With his eyes open. He reassures her that after 20 or so years, he's happy and doesn't regret it.
We don't know what his relationship was like with his family before this. It sounds like they put him under a lot of pressure and got extended family and friends involved and he wasn't putting up with it.
He's had two children and the relationship has survived and they are happy.
Did the other side offer any peaceful reconciliation?
I don't count angry messages because he'd walked either.

This doesn't sound abusive to me - you didn't isolate him, you just wanted him to side against the toxic people who hated you for no good reason. You weren't trying to isolate him so that you had control over him were you? So he'd become dependent on you? So that he'd feel unable to leave you? I assume you were happy for him to have friends once you moved away?

Did you blackmail him into dropping these people? Did you threaten him if he wouldn't? Did you emotionally abuse him if he refused? Was there coercion? Or did you just ask him/he made the decision himself?

Omg. Sorry I just saw your last comment after I posted my reply. You’re describing exactly why my partner’s family disliked me. which I had put on my original post.

If this is truly the reason then you’ve got nothing to feel guilty about. Lots of people are NC with their families for various reasons, they aren’t all in coercive relationships.

If you’re giving DH the freedom to reconnect with those people from his past and he’s choosing not to then that’s his choice.

Agree with the others about therapy though. You’ll be able to unpack it all much better there than on a mumsnet thread.

Said every manipulative person ever.

I don’t think there is anywhere near enough information on here for anyone to fully know what happened.

We don’t even know how long they were together when the in-laws commented or if there were other factors as to why the in laws questioned the relationship. Asking him if he was sure about things with someone he had dated for two months who hardly spoke to his family ( even if it’s because she’s shy) is very different from telling him to leave his wife or pregnant partner.

He was very quick to get rid of friends who whilst I think shouldn’t have done what they did, would have done it for good reason.

The estrangement is a big thing for everyone involved and I think it needs a proper conversation with your husband about how to go forward. Maybe even if the in laws were in the wrong, it is time for forgiveness and reconciliation?

I find it strange that you should be examining this nearly 20 years later.

It does sound like now, you wish your h to have his familie's support.

Is there a reason for this ?

People don't often see the other side of an argument unless there is something in it for them.
So what's the deal.

It sounds as though his parents are equally to blame for the estrangement. They made a snap and unfair judgement about you and tried to get your DH to break up with you. They can't have been particularly nice people anyway if your DH is still saying that he is glad to have got away from them and that he is happy.

I agree with other posters that you might find some therapy useful.

I'm not sure why you are now taking all the blame when your in-laws were never nice or welcoming to you. It is very likely that they have been like that throughout your DH's childhood which is why he isn't bothered about building bridges with his parents.

His parents were trying to split you up because they thought you were posh?

They didn't like you and it would have only got worse. Imagine all the problems you would have experienced with them with the DCs.
It would have happened eventually anyway.

I'm guessing you're reaching a similar age to what they were then and imaging what it would feel like if one of your DCs cut off contact from you.
You are not like them (presumably, most people aren't) so putting yourself in their shoes isn't the same.

You and your DH made decisions together. Abusive people don't usually reflect on their abuse, they double down and refuse to acknowledge it.

It depends how you did it. What did you do to stop him talking to them?

Has he always done what you say to please you? There are a lot of men who do abandon everyone else in their lives if they have an insecure or demanding partner, in order to make their lives easier. They become domestically and emotionally dependent on their wives and then are ready to do whatever they ask. I see this as a weakness of the men but also I think it's sad the wives do this too, as you're right, it does cause lots of heartbreak.

There are so many examples of men not speaking to their own children because of a new wife. A lady I was speaking to the other day told me that after her mother died when she was a teenager and her father re-married, that the new wife didn't like her and her brother, and alienated the children from their dad, so they lost both parents essentially. The lady was absolutely devastated even though it was 20 years ago.

You might be feeling the guilt but clearly your husband decided what he was going to do based on your input back then and doesn't want to dig up all the past now. I think probably the parents would welcome him back based on what I've seen in similar situations.

Thing is, even if you were in the wrong, your husband does not want to correct it or restart contact. There's nothing you can do, it's up to him now. Say to him, it is playing on my mind, have a think whether you would like to restart at least some small amount of contact. Perhaps he might knee-jerk say no, perhaps on reflection he might want to have a little contact. I would try to keep that line of communication between the two of you open about this. He may still be trying to 'please you' by saying he's happy (which he may well be!) and I would just try to open this up a bit.

It does sound like your DH as 'brainwashed' into seeing you as the only person he needs. Plenty of people's in-laws don't care for them initially, but are either learn they were wrong over time, or they don't and keep things civil.

DH was isolated from his family and all his friends which isn't normal. Highly unlikely the problem was all his family and all his friends, who is sounds like acted out of genuine concern for him.

PP saying he always had a choice yet that's clearly not the case when you're being maiputed to such a heavy extent. I suspect folk are taking pity beause you're saying you're sorry. I wonder how happy DH actually is.

Is It just me or is there a greater number than usual of people projecting their own insecurities onto the OP in this discussion?

How many people that went NC with family and all of the friends were not in a coerce relationship? I imagine slim to none.

No on both counts. No, it's not just you and no, this is quite usual for Mumsnet!

did you actually say cut your family off and force him to do so or did he make the decision himself

Some families are cliques who take the trade union style approach of 'one of us, all of us'. That means that if there's one member of the family an in-law doesn't get on with, the rest will double down and ensure that person doesn't get a relationship with any of them. This scenario isn't uncommon.

Might of numbers may indicate that the majority have it right. Then again, it may not. Would those same people claim that school bullying by exclusion of one child means the majority consensus is correct?

I'd hope that the answer to this question would be 'no', but this is Mumsnet (supposedly a parenting support site) and you never can tell.

This.

This is one of the most disturbing threads I've ever read.

It's not just the family who "didn't like her because they said she was posh" and made her insecure. It's his friends too. All of them. Every single one of his friends and family.

Were they all in the wrong? All of them? Every single person in his life was wrong about her? All of them saying the same thing about her, yet they were all wrong? Here's a newsflash: if everyone else is saying the same thing, it's you that's the problem. More likely they were trying to stage an intervention of some kind and he's cut them all off to keep the peace with his insecure and paranoid girlfriend-then-wife. The most obvious explanation is usually the correct one.

Men fall victim to coercive control too, you know. The OP willingly admits that she deliberately isolated him from his family and all his friends because she didn't like what they were saying about her, and I can't see where she's answered the question as to whether he has anyone else in his life apart from her. Yet still she's being supported purely on the basis that she's a woman. If a woman was in this situation and her male partner/husband had done this everyone would be screaming abuse and control and directing her towards Women's Aid.

I know its 17 years but do you not question his character to cut off life long blood for a stranger he had just met?

Personally i would have walked away because , know on wood, if the day comes that you guys split, what will come of it ? Just a though but you did not force him after all

ditto, If cut off every being I have known my whole life over someone I have just must and started dating, I would check myself in a clinic because there is something wrong here

I totally agree. Why are people trying to tell her she wasn't abusive or wrong? She knows she was which was driven by her insecurities. Insecurity is generally what drives abusive people.