Help for my dh

[dollyd]

can anyone help me to help my dh? He had always maintained he had the perfect childhood and his dad (stepdad) loved him like his own. but recently he has had to look at the real facts, and they are that he was regularly beaten with a whip,was beaten up at the age of seven for saying he was bored on holiday etc, he was also told that he was selfish and had too much self importance.in reality he is the nicest most decent man i know (we have been together 20 years)it is all coming to a head because dh has been told once again that he doesnt do enough for his half sister, although we gave her a car, built her a loft extension and and a kitchen extension, my dh worked on the projects for nothing! the problem is now he is seeing how unreasonable his dad is and is finding it hard to handle, our ds2 is 13 and dh is getting very angry with him at slightest thing, he can see it is wrong and stops. but he is in utter turmoil, he wont go to counselling, (his dad Would say it is for sissys) has anyone got any ideas how to help him? thanks

No real ideas, but I do think that the answer would be counselling (although you say he really isn't keen). Sympathies and I'm sure someone will be able to goive you some better advice on here very soon.

Hugs

Firstly support for you and your DH, it sounds like he has had a lot to deal with. His father sounds like a violent bully who is still exercising his power over your husband. A few initial thoughts:

1. The relationship that matters is that of your husband and your son. I assume he doesn't beat him so he is already ahead of the game. Teenagers are tough so he shouldn't blame himself/ feel that he is failing if he gets angry. We all do. Teenagers are hard wired to do everything that they can do to wind us up. What he has to do is find ways to deal with his anger, he can't stop it. He could:

• try some techniques such as counting to ten and then responding.
• learn how to apologise if your DH is out of order, I do so to my 2 and a half year old if I behave unreasonably or shout at him.
• anger management course
• is there anything that your son does that he would love to do more with Dad, any active steps you can make to improve the relationship are priceless and will help them both to interact.

2. Lack of self esteem is a killer, it eats away at your confidence in every way. That I can relate to as my successful and outwardly very loving parents have been pummelling away at mine for years. They dont' see it at all. Only now I have kids can I see how destructive some of their behaviour yet. I am personally in the process of re-defining my relationship with them. I havent' confronted them on anything specific but I have much more clear ideas on what is acceptable and what I am willing to put up with. In particular my relationship with my mum has suffered as I don't comply with the relationship that she has endeavoured to manufacture over the years.

When his dad says things that ridcolous - then he just needs to make comments like. " I realise that I have responsbilities to X and I do as much as I am able to. I have done X,Y and Z over the past couple of years."

He ain't going to change what his dad says or thinks, all he can do is change how he copes with it.

3. My DP had a s**t childhood with a dad that used his fists first and asked questions later and a mum who walked out when he was young. It has left him with no strong father figure in his life and he tends to get his lead on how to behave from my dad. Are there other male role models that he can lean on? My DP tends to spoil DS1, I think over compensating for his bad childhood. I can see that becoming a problem as DS1 becomes older and unruly and DP hasn't got the discpline in place. Could that also be part of the problem with your son ?

have to go and do some work, but maybe some of this will ring true.

thanks wsm and kaz33, a lot of what you say makes good sense, the difficulty with this is my dh has always accepted the "punishments" as just because they were carried out in the name of disipline and not administered out of drunken rages etc, he really believed until now that he asked for them, and no he hasnt allowed my ds2 to become unruly. his relationship with ds1 is great now but looking back his anger was an issue then, and i had great difficulty keeping the peace between them because my dh accused me of not supporting him, having had a difficult childhood myself it was hard to know how to handle it, but dh saving grace has been that he can and does apolagise to us and listens, (when he calms down)something his dad has never done. his problem really is knowing how to react in a calm way. it is interesting that he gets most angry when there is conflict between ds2 and dd Aged 10, which is the same age difference as him and his sister. and always sides with dd.

The great thing is that your DH has begun to admit that there is a problem - that's half the battle. Once you admit that something wasn't right, it's easier to admit that that might have an impact on now. Don't know what to suggest, apart from keep encourage counselling...

oh dear i have just seen dejags thread, my heart goes out to her. my dh did the same thing, writing to his parents, in his case though it was over a disagreement with his sister, he tried to tell his dm his side and she didnt want to know, so he wrote it down. as in dejags case though all hell broke loose and we were summoned up because his dm was so upset. his df did his normal thing of appearing affable and then exploded at dh and accusing him of lying and being ungrateful for all his help, then attacked him verbally, i was able to head him off some of the time and dh really stood up for himself, i was very proud of him, it took a lot i know. his dad ended up looking very stupid and both dh and i know that dh will end up paying for that big time. we just dont know how yet. at least his mum could see that he was being unreasonable, but he is very manipulative and will probably convince her that he was right in the end. thanks for all your advice, i will try and get him to go for counselling.

I strongly believe that tackling ones parents, the ones who were meant to have your best interests at heart, doesn't achieve anything. They won't suddenly roll over admit that they got it all wrong and change their personality.

All you can do is choose how much contact you want and on what terms. If they then want to change the situation then they will have to play by your rules.

Obviously it isn't normally so easy. A lot of us depend on our parents for some childcare support and there are other links which tie us together. But as a initial concept from which to work it is a good starting point.

Keep us updated on DH. I will be interested to know how it goes as I keep a keen eye on DP's relationship with the boys to make sure history is not repeating itself.

Just an update on this kaz, i bought the book recomended on here toxic parents, my dh read the introduction and burst into tears, it rang so many bells with him, he is working through it and has agreed to go to counselling, we have some wonderful supportive freinds who are also a big help to him, having read the book myself so many things are making sense now, and i can see that their behaviour has been destructive, but i know it is going to take a lot of hard work on his part to get through this.

Hi dolly. I too had an abusive childhood and the conditioning is very hard to shake off. It's almost like having to reprogramme yourself. But of course it can be done to greater or lesser extent.

Your greatest asset is that your dh sees the problem. I really do hope he can work through everything, the poor man must have been living in misery carrying all that around with him.

He must feel he is in a very safe place with you to be able to confront it all now.

I'm glad to hear the Toxic Parents book is good, I bought a copy but haven't yet read it.

yes Janstar you r right about the conditioning, he felt forced to go and see them yesterday because he was in the area, couldnt understand that he had a choice, he is still very confused about it all. i hope you dont mind me asking, but did you always know that that you had been abused or did you realise it later?