dh reveals his true feelings about my abuse

[pintoguinness]

I've always said that my childhood was no tougher than anyone else's. My mother is a depressive who took out her temper on us and played emotional games with us. She married the man she had an affair with (but to this day denies it). He was a control freak who would, with my mother, put me down in public and make jokes at my expense. I was a very skinny teenager, not blessed with pretty looks, had zero confidence and spent most of my life in a make believe world to blot out their cruelty.

I did have a relationship of a sorts with my mother. My stepfather most of the time would ignore my very presence, not looking or talking to me until the day I left home, which is what he wanted.

There have been relationship issues with my mum since then culminating in no contact now for a year or so. She has been told she is welcome to contact the kids, call them or arrange to meet them but she has never taken an interest in them. She didn't ask to see them at Christmas, I suggested that my dh take them to see her.

Now my stepfather has cancer and last night my dh suggested I send a card and if I didn't then he would. An argument started in which he said that my behaviour towards my mother is hysterical, that I over exaggerate things that have happened and misinterpret situations. That I am full of hatred towards her and that has blinded me. He also said that their cruelty was just their sense of humour and that I should let go.

He's never been particularly supportive. Being on the outside he's never seen the behaviour for himself so only has my word for it and that of my sister and brother. I have given her lots of chances due to his reasoning but she has thrown it all back in my face and never once does she make the first move. Deciding to stop contacting her was the hardest decision I've ever had to make and I thought he understood and was on my side. Now I'm left hurting over his comments and wonder where I should go from here?

sorry, probably very boring post.

Don't be so hard on him, he wasn't there , does not comprehend how deep your feelings go, and is only interested in building bridges, and restoring some semblence of normal relations between you and your Mother.

He cannot understand, so do not criticise or berate him for what is frankly to propose a kind gesture, what harm would it do?

Think very carefully, about what he has said, is there an element of truth in what he said? I don't know?

Perhaps some counselling to address the issues you have and your deep unhappiness about the situation would be helpful

Have you been happier or experienced some measure of relief from cutting all contact with her?

I would let him send a card, then, if he's so concerned!

No he wasn't there and didn't see it, but he can see the effect that it has on you and so surely he should be on your side?

I can see how devastating it must be to have the person you love disregard your feelings and emotions over something that obviously still hurts deeply. If DH were to say similar about my similarly complicated relationship with my mother/late father I would be in bits and feel utterly betrayed by him.

If DH had pressed me to spend more time with my abusive father in his dying days it would have done me and our relationship a lot of harm.

OP, have you explained to him how they made/make you feel? Really? He doesn't sound like he's been listening if he thinks you're over-reacting (I got told that by my parents and elder brother, but am confident that no, normal people do not belittle their children/siblings like that for 'humour').

I think counselling would probably help - not for the reasons owias states, but to help you sort out our feelings with this very difficult relationship.

I am no contact with my parents....if my DH said he would send them a card of any description for any reason knowing I objected....my reaction being described as 'upset' would be an understatement...tbh I would be livid and telling him so.

If he sent the card anyway...well tbh I think even after 20+ years it could well be then end of our marriage.

I was there....he was not...either he trusts my judgement....or he can be their friend on his own.

I can see how devastating it must be to have the person you love disregard your feelings and emotions over something that obviously still hurts deeply.

Well said Lovecat.

I do wonder if the 'let go of it' comment is his way of trying to help - he doesn't want you to be hurting, and has simplified this to 'don't let it bother you. Like telling a worrier not to worry - it ain't as simple as that!

I agree that talking this over can only help. Good luck.

She has tried to use him before. She has sent him parcels (a winter jacket she bought for him, a woolly jumper) without sending me or the kids anything in order to get into his good books. My sister-in-laws mother recently died and due to her own terrible family relations she wasn't invited to the funeral, much to her own heartache. My mother invited herself however and made sure that my s-i-l knew she was there. That's the kind of woman she is, she goes out of her way to hurt people. She lives off negativity and hurt and cannot function properly if there isn't some kind of crisis going on around her.

My stepfather used to fondle my niece inappropriately. He would rub her back inside her clothes, pat her bottom, comment on her breasts and tickle her inner thigh when she was 17. I spoke out against this which was when the shit hit the fan big time for me. My dh never saw that go on, he only had my word for it and when I told him what had happened he just shrugged and said that was just the way my stepfather was and that he meant no harm.

It hurts to this day that she spreads lies about me, telling people that I deny her contact with the kids when the opposite is true. All through this I have always been the one to try and resolve things to make the first move. All I have done now is nothing. It's up to her if she wants any kind of relationship, so she obviously doesn't.

I wasn't going to send him a card because I found out about his cancer indirectly, I've not been asked to get in touch and I haven't had any contact with him for years, so felt it inappropriate to send a card.

What he has said to me hurts deeply. I have spent years taking on the blame, thinking that it was my fault for being ugly/stupid/in the way etc. Now I have the confidence to say no, he just makes me doubt myself all over again. How can he think that of me? Even if he wasn't there, surely he must understand? After everything I've been through with them (of which I've only posted a snippet on here). It feels like a betrayal.

FWIW my DH has never seen my parents abuse as such.

He has seen me flinch when my father waves his arms about, leave the room when my father gets animated during debates, seen my anxiety levels go through the roof at the prospect of an imminent visit and also seen me panic when realising my DC's have been left alone in a room with my parents....but he has never seen them actually abuse me.

I have told him everything that has happened, but he thinks the past should be left in the past. He did finally agree last night that I was right and he was wrong but we've been here before, with him implying that I am in the wrong for not maintaining contact. He accuses me of over-reacting but in reality I don't react anymore.

The words he said have stayed with me all day and I feel so low and so betrayed. I don't know what to say to him now. There is no point in going through it all again. I've lost his support and wonder where we go from here?

(btw I've had counselling the past and whilst it helped to put the past into perspective, it doesn't help when the abuse still happens in the present)

My dh encouraged me to 'build bridges' with my npd sister. But finally, finally after three years of her not asking to see/meet our third baby (and I won't offer to make the introduction due to the way she treated me) he has come around to seeing the damage she causes. And it is her, and her choices of how she 'deals' with us. I have merely put an end to putting up with it.

You have already let that ship sink; good for you, btw. Your dh may never understand. He doesn't have to really, however nice it would be for you if he did. If it comes down to setting a boundary with dh, I'd might look at something along the lines of 'you deal with your family, and I will deal with mine'. (What works here.) But if dh doesn't believe it, and it is hard to believe the truth of these circumstances, then maybe Atswimtwolengths is right. Let him find out for himself.

I am sorry for you that the people that were supposed to love, nurture, guide and promote you treated you like you were invisible. I was an invisible one, too.

Does your DH come from a so called 'normal' family pintoguinness...if he does this dysfunctional stuff can be very, very hard to believe and understand.

I don't know what to suggest other than counselling for you both so he can realise what your family are really like and learn ways to support you.

OP how's your relationship with yur DH otherwise.

Do you both get along well, is he supportive of you?

I'm rather surprised that all your mother needs to do is send him the odd gift and he's eating out of her hands!
I'm also shocked that he was so dismissive about the way your stepfather treated your niece, the behaviour you describe is utterly unacceptable, thank goodness your niece had you to stand up for her.

My dh has a lovely family. His father can come across as uncaring at times (he doesn't greet us when we visit but expects us to greet him) but then he is a Northern farmer!

Trouble is my mother comes across as a saint to outsiders. She fosters children, she goes to church every day, she's always been good at spending money on people. She's been nice as pie to dh, thanked him profusely for taking the kids to see her at Christmas (even though it was my idea) and then turns around and puts a stop to my seeing my own brother on the very same day, which dh dismisses as a misunderstanding.

If he were to send a card she'd be all over him and I would stand alone as the villain again, the hate-filled one whilst she plays Mother Theresa. Until she does something to betray him, he may never understand and tbh I don't fancy hanging around until that time comes.

fuzzy, otherwise yes we get on fine. I've been very supportive of his own family problems regarding inheritance and spent time searching out the relevant legal points for him. I was there for him when one of his friends committed suicide. We are very good friends as well as husband and wife. But this is one issue where I've never been able to rely on his support. He always says he takes people as he finds them and whilst this is a noble viewpoint, he would be the one who would say "well I dunno about that Nielsen chap but he was nice to me so that's all that matters".

He's very easy going but he's not the kind of person who would spring to your defence. If someone slagged me off he'd probably just listen and give no reaction because he would say that it wasn't worth it.

My mum affects me even now and her behaviour still hurts other people. What I need is just some quiet support.
Can this be resolved? All of you who say you would be livid if your dh's didn't give you support, what would you do in my shoes? I feel so very tearful and betrayed and just don't know what I should do. I can't forget what he said.

Hi Guinness I'm sorry to hear your situation, I personally would be devastated if my husband had such little regard for my feelings. Its YOUR family, its your past, his job is to support and nurture you. I'd be angry at him. Maybe tell him to consider you, and ignore the facade your mother puts out. I'd be so annoyed. Good luck

I don't know what to say OP...you know the way the game works (as do I)...he doesn't....this really does look like a no win situation for you.

"All of you who say you would be livid if your dh's didn't give you support, what would you do in my shoes?"

DH would have to choose me or my parents...there is no halfway for me on this issue I'm afraid.

x-posts.
Pintoguinness,
I will guess that your dh has never suffered emotional abuse, then. If so, he speaks from a position of ignorance. Not that this would excuse his comments.

I know it must hurt terribly because he is doing to you what they did: he has made an assessment as though you were a 2 dimensional card board cut out-again like you are invisible.

He has no right to judge these circumstances or how you wish to deal with them. Make it clear to him. And if he chooses to support their side instead of yours, then I would plainly say that your relationship will never be the same. Either he is with you, or against you (his failing to stay out of it made it that way).

Imho, your 'no action' policy is the right way to go.

Thank you for your support. All of you. I'll make it clear to him that either he supports me or he leaves, because a marriage works both ways, he can't receive support and not give it back.

I resolved last night never to talk to him about my family again. I'll just have to deal with issues myself as they come around. I would love to be able to have his arms around me, just to be there for me when the going gets tough, which it surely will as I'm not sure if the diagnoses is terminal so there may well be a funeral and then my mother on her own. What I'm afraid of is that he will do what he feels right to ease his own conscience and that will cast me as the evil one. I guess if he does that then I'll have to reassess our future together.

But what is a marriage when you cannot confide in your partner? When you cannot rely on him for support when you need it most?

That's just it OP a marriage is a two way thing...if my DH said we were no contact with his parents for any reason then so be it we are no contact....my loyalty is to my DH not his parents.

Yes, we may discuss why and if such a drastic step is necessary...but the end decision would be his and I would back him.

I expect no more loyalty from my DH than I expect of myself towards him.

I hope the chat with your DH goes Ok. x

Thank you. I'll try to remember all of your good points, which is tough as when I get emotional I lose the power of rational talk.

There is a really good book which I think you would find interesting OP.

Stalking the Soul

The author describes abusive families, and how the victim can end up looking as though they are the 'mad one' or 'overreacting'.

Of course you are not 'overreacting' , whatever that means. These people often look like saints to the outside.

The end of my marriage came when my MIL shouted at me that it was my own fault that my father had abused me as a child, and that she thought he was a perfectly nice man, and did I ever think that it was me that was the one in the wrong? This was in my own kitchen, a couple of months after I had had a baby, and I had been married a couple of years to her son.

She came back later to say some more in the same vein. Her son, my H, and my FIL stuck up for her, and I was made out to be the bonkers one. I stayed with her son for another 20 years, until I finally saw the light.

Now she herself was an abuser, as was her son.

The point I am trying to make, is that her son, my H, chose to see the public face of my parents, while they also only showed their own 'nice side' , and in doing this they blamed me, their victim, for what was happening to me and what had happened to me.

Victim blaming is everywhere. It's the easy way out for people who, for whatever reason of their own, deny the actual truth of the situation.

I am not explaining this very well, but from my own perspective now, four years on from leaving that family, I can say that my reaction to your H's attitude is that if he wants to send a card let him do it from his own new home, where he is living without you!

If I am being generous to your H I would say that he has not had any experience of abuse, and so , to him, it's just a bit of a family fallout and if everyone just puts it behind them everything will be ok again.

With my other hat on, however, I would say that he is as manipulative as your mother and S-Father, and is not a very nice person.

Only you know which is the actuality.

People who have been abused often choose partners who repeat the abusive pattern of their own parents. They mistake abuse for love, as that is all they have known. I did this.

Have you done this? Or is your H just not understanding the situation?

don't worry about being irrational Guinness, your feelings are not irrational, you are just so hurt. I hope your husband comes through for you, like another poster said, its your family or you. He can't make little out of whats a big thing for you, not in a marriage. Your feelings have to be no.1

No, he's not an abuser. Luckily I thank a very close group of friends who unwittingly poured new life into me by choosing to befriend me. I realised then that I was actually likeable and not always in the way.

Dh was one of those friends and because of him I changed the way I looked, I realised that I could be pretty and attractive. He has many many good traits and is overall a good man. But he always does look on the positive side - he will listen to his co-workers racist rants but then tells me that they don't really mean it. He would give people a second, third and fourth chance. But as you say he's never ever been a victim. I think he feels that emotional abuse is not really abuse at all and that I should get over it.

This is his major failing. He hates thinking bad of people and would rather take a different view that makes them harmless/innocent/misunderstood. It's a dangerous attitude to have because he could potentially ignore any abuse or signs of abuse by not believing it to have happened.