Desperately need help to save my marriage with 9 week old baby

[simba86]

Hi everyone.

I am going through a really difficult situation at the moment and really don't know what to do.

My wife and I (married for 3 years, together for nearly 10) are in our late 20's. We are privileged to be blessed with the most beautiful baby girl who is just over 9 weeks old, and we had been trying for 2 years for a baby. We love each other and consider each other true soul mates. Our lives are very settled and we have alot to thankful for.

But we have a major issue which has come to its head now and is now looking likely to cause the break up of our marriage.

My wife has had problems with the way my mother behaves towards us and her. She feels that over the past 10 years have been numerous occasions where my mother has been manipulative and spiteful towards her. I am an only child who has a close relationship with both my parents. We have lived for the past 10 years some two hours drive away from them and slowly over time our communication and visits to them have disappeared. In fact we have only ever been twice in 10 years to my family home, in comparison to regular visits to her family each year.

The stress of my mothers behaviour has become too much for now to cope with. She doesn't want to see my parents, and wont let our daughter out of her sight. Since she has been born, my parents have spent an our in the hospital with us 2 days after she was born, 30 minutes visit to our home where they had to look at her through our dining room door because she was asleep and 5 minutes with her whilst my wife held her on another visit. Her Mum has been with us for weeks on an off.

She sent an email to my mum expressing how upset she was, to which my mum replied. My wife didnt think that she understood the cause of the problem, so allowed me to speak to my mum, who replied by email again and apologised for hers and my dads behaviour and hoped they could move forward now to a better relationship in the future. But yesterday my dad was out of order with me, which I dealt with and was resolved, but my wife is so upset that this behaviour has happened again, feels they will never change, she can not have a relationship with them, and feels I have to choose to accept they wont be in our lives as much as they should be,or for us not to be together.

I am distraught and on top of that, whilst her mother was with us recently, her mother told me that I didnt care enough for my daughter. Anyone who knows me would say that is the most ridiculous thing that could be said but now my wife tonight has said she agrees with her mum.

My parents are selling their house I grew up in for 20 years and I really wanted to take my daughter home to have a couple of photos with her there which I wont have an oppotunity to do again as the sale completes in a couple of weeks. My wife wont entertain this at all so I was going to go home myself on Saturday. When they offered to drive me back, see the new house they are buying and drop me home to see their Granddaughter, my wife took our daughter drove off and intended to stay in a hotel as she could not comprehend the idea of seeing them. I talked her back into coming home thankfully

I want to save this for the sake of my daughter and our relationship but have hit rock bottom and don't know what to do

[Polyethyl]

And if they were to go through a divorce and court ordered contact - how likely is the wife to comply with that contact and hand over the baby - knowing that Simba would take the baby to see the hated MIL.

[LonnyVonnyWilsonFrickett]

Op it's clear you are in a very difficult situation but leaVing things out so you get the advice you want, rather than the advice you need isn't going to help anyone.

A pp posted a DV helpline for men and I think you need to read it. You also need to speak to your gp. And you need to start putting your baby first - that means taking advice, speaking to social services and doing what they tell you wrt to safeguarding your child. This will (likely) mean the end of your marriage as I can't see your wife being happy about it, but you are a parent now. The behaviour quoted from your previous thread - how would you feel if your wife drove like that with your daughter in the car!

Your job is to keep your child safe and that has to be your concern above all others.

[hellymelly]

I agree with the pp who said that your wife sounded rude and childish and your mother conciliatory in the emails. I wonder how much your wife's mother is stirring actually, as she sounds very childish herself, what grown woman in her right mind sits in a room for FOUR HOURS rather than go and chat civilly to the other Grandparents. I agree with you that your parents are being shoved out. So your Dad was a bit bossy over housing advice, hardly the crime of the century. Many Dads with a lot of experience in an area would get frustrated with their twenty something son not taking their advice. I think it is a massive over-reaction on the part of your wife. Your Wife's email to your parents sounded horribly spoilt and me me me, I realise I don't know the background, but is she really just very oversensitive? People are annoying, in-laws are annoying. I don't have a fabulous relationship with my own in-laws and I can tell you for certain that some of the things FIL has said to me would make the average person gasp with shock, but they see us ,not as much as they would if things were better but enough, and I am kind and civil to MIL. I do get hurt by it at times, but I wouldn't want my DH to not see his parents or for them to never see my daughters. Sometimes you really do have to just bite your tongue and get on with it, or find a way to sort it out as adults, which I can see your mother is genuinely trying to do. I feel sorry for your parents tbh, and I think your wife needs to grow up and bit and get some perspective.

[CarryOnDancing]

Jeez OP, I read the first part of this thread wondering why on earth you couldn't let go of your mother, now I realise you need the connection with them because you are being abused.

Now it reads like your DW is trying to distance you from your parents which is part of the abuse.

I'm starting to question how genuine this is though. You've had a huge thread previously and are now just narrowing in on a tiny aspect which really is insignificant compared to the overall picture.

Why did you post? There is no small fix for this. I think your mother is actually coping very well and handling the situation as well as possible when she can see your her being abused!

[badbaldingballerina123]

I think there's something very wrong here. On your other thread many people noted your attention seeking and in particular your lack of empathy for your wife. I don't think anything's changed , whinging to your wife about that phone call wasn't necessary and I think it was a either a deliberate attempt to purposely anger your wife , or a attempt to get attention from your wife. You got both. I don't accept your that daft you didn't realize what was going to happen. I think it was a deliberate manipulation on your part.

Also in the email your wife is speaking on behalf of both of you which suggests she thinks you agree with her assessment of your parents. I suspect you go between both your mum and your wife , relaying information that is going to cause upset and agreeing with both of them.

Having been the wife in this situation , I assure you that eventually your wife will cop on to what is going on.

[hellymelly]

I hadn't read the bit about violence when i posted, op I think you need proper professional help here.

[badbaldingballerina123]

I'm not veering close to anything of the sort. I don't accept Op is the victim here at all , and neither did many others on his last thread , in fact I believe being narcissistic was mentioned several times. This whole thing reeks of conquer and divide , vandalizing , provoking , and manipulating situations so he is the focus of attention. I note in particular his mum acknowledges that a lot of the problems stem from both parties talking through the Op.

[PenguinsHatchedAnEgg]

My issue really is that the last thread went on for days with OP revealing quite a number of controlling behaviours himself. Then, towards the end, he suddenly revealed that his wife had been violent. This thread was going the same way.

On the last thread, the OP continually avoided explaining vague statements, and left very important information to the end. This makes him either someone who is being so terribly abused he can't see the big issues (violence, etc) from the small (taking a photo in a particular house) or someone who deliberately isn't giving us the full picture of his/his wife's behaviour (I hope this isn't the case, but it is the other possibility). In either case, he needs real life help. Not for us to talk to him for pages and pages without having proper information and possibly make a bad situation worse. That is what happened last time, and none of it seems to have really sunk in.

I would second the recommendations of real life support.

[mathanxiety]

I do not agree at all that the mother sounded conciliatory in the emails. She sounded like a very adept manipulator and stone waller. She also sounds like someone who does not see at all that Simba has been with this woman for ten years now. The whole walking on eggshells thing is where she tries to paint herself as a victim. The wife's email is similarly not conciliatory. It is wary and it is also weary -- as if she knows what she is saying will fall on deaf ears. Neither of these women is ready to bury the hatchet.

Basically, someone here is behaving worse than the OP has described. Either the parents are, and the wife is trying to protect herself and her baby from abuse; or the wife is abusively attempting to isolate the OP from his parents.
I agree with this, and I am going to make a suggestion that is going to get me flamed in all likelihood.

Have you ever been assessed for autism or Aspergers, Simba?
You seem unable to give cause and effect descriptions of things that happen. You focus on your own aims the Simba moment in the hospital and the photo op in your old home for example. You describe your MIL as 'rude'. I asked in my earlier post here whether you and members of your family are able to read the emotional content of domestic situations I don't think you are.

I agree with HumblePie's posts here -- 'its clear to me that he's a little boy with a problem - and the problem isn't his wife.'
I was up to my ears in the last thread and read it (slackjawed) many times and it was clear to me that there are two sides here. There was more to the last thread than just mention of the driving and the iron. It took 1000 posts but details did emerge, and perceptions, and a pattern to behaviour and perceptions on the part of Simba.

I also agree with BadBaldingBallerina's post -- 'in the email your wife is speaking on behalf of both of you which suggests she thinks you agree with her assessment of your parents. I suspect you go between both your mum and your wife , relaying information that is going to cause upset and agreeing with both of them.'

It's not victim blaming. Simba seems blithely unaware of his role in the drama that is going on here, unable to connect cause and effect when narrating, unable to provide facts or grasp and relate exactly what his wife is going on about, and unable to see that doing the same thing over and over especially in the heated atmosphere associated with the arrival of the baby -- it is reasonable to ask what is wrong with Simba and to suspect that there is more to this than he relates.

In the last thread Simba related that things were coming to a head with the arrival of the baby.

Please don't shoot me when I suggest that what is happening here is that Simba (who has been babied and cossetted and fussed over by his parents all his life to age 18 and subsequently (and pretty much immediately iirc) accepted a role of being taken care of by his wife) is having a very hard time accepting the arrival of another baby and dealing with the transition from being the focus of everyone's fighting and efforts to devote attention to being a supportive father.

The attention seeking on Simba's part, the adding of fuel to flames, was very obvious in the last thread. Imo it is also obvious here. As BadBallerina says -- what did Simba hope to gain by the retelling of the phone conversation?

I think Simba refuses to accept that his wife is genuinely serious about the grief his mother causes her and do something about it because he is on some level enjoying being the toy they are both fighting over.

[mathanxiety]

And as far as I remember from the last thread there was also a group of friends of his to whom he related aspects of the drama too. Almost a Greek chorus...

I know this can be painted as a case of someone being abused and unable to see it, but I see someone who is used to being the centre of attention and whose life has involved much drama related to health who is unable or unwilling to develop his personality and change his life beyond that starring role in his own movie.

[FairPhyllis]

There is an abuser in this scenario, and I don't think it is the wife.

OP consistently refuses to give concrete examples of his parents' behaviour and revealed himself to be extremely controlling and unreasonable on the last thread.

I said on the last thread that I think Simba has learned the language of victimhood as a tool of control, and I think that is still the case.

I will not be fuelling this thread any more.

[PenguinsHatchedAnEgg]

You have both said that better than I could and I agree.

[LuluJakey1]

All of these relationships sound a bit of a nightmare to me.

DW and her mother- bizarre. MIL hiding in bedroom for 4 hours. MIL unable to control her mouth if comes face to face with your family. DW saying distasteful, unpleasant things about how own mother and getting very angry with her. All bizarre.

You and your parents- Bizarre. Over-protective, controlling, bossy, pushy. However, your mother's letter is far more reasonable than your wife's.

You and DW- Dangerous relationship. Your wife needs mental health care. There is something wrong with her psychologically. She is emotionally and physically abusive, terribly indulged, self-centred, possibly narcissistic but certainly dangerous. LTB.

My advice would be to see a solicitor and get yourself and your daughter away from this mess.

[LuluJakey1]

Having said all of that, I don't for one second think you will take any action. I think you enjoy the drama of it. Either see it for what it is and act or shut up and get on with it.

[LizzieBelle]

hang on, you say in your post you are an onlychild, then you mention your brother

[LuluJakey1]

I have now read your old thread in its entirety. You did. not. listen to a word of the advice you were given then. By not. mentioning your DW's violence and abusive behaviour to you and her mother here, were you hoping for different responses?

The point is your DW is irrational, indulged and dangerous in her reactions and you allow this to continue. You don't want to hear the truth. Sometimes we do love people who are no good for us and with whom we should not be involved. Unless you have the strength to leave, you are going to spend your life in an abusive, dangerous relationship- she will keep doing it because she has learned that she can.

[badbaldingballerina123]

It's my experience that manipulators use a particular type of language. For instance Op states that his wife is blackmailing him about renovations , but doesn't give any details of the blackmail. He claims he confided in his gp about the violence but doesn't give details. Both these incidents are significant and I find the lack of detail worrying.

A husband who is actively relaying things between his wife and mother is not stuck in the middle. He's basically shit stirring .
A husband who runs his wife down to his friends is not a soul mate but an enemy. I note also , the use of victim language ie , in regards to the email SHE ALLOWED ME TO SPEAK TO MY DAD.

I have had a similar experience , I've had the in law drama , which far from being accidental is often carefully constructed. I've had a pregnancy ruined with unnecessary drama about the in laws.I've been subjected to a slander campaign that I didn't even know was occurring. I've been accused of domestic violence , and when all else fails , I've been accused of being an unfit parent. Manipulators set the scene way before the victim becomes aware of it.

Regarding the claims of domestic violence , what's actually happened here ? How likely is it that they were driving down the street and the wife suddenly flips out? What was being said before this ? Why did she want the Op out of her car ? Again manipulators are experts at baiting.

Overall manipulators are stupid. They go too far with the tall stories , and eventually people start to question these stories that make no sense. A simple conversation between Dil and mil would probably cast light on what's really going on. Same goes for a conversation between the wife and friends. This is why they work so hard to keep everyone at odds .

[temporaryusername]

I can't make much sense of this or the last thread, very confusing. If your wife has been as violent as you say, then that is all you or we need to know. You must take steps to end the marriage and protect your child. Looking at the last thread I immediately wondered how your wife would cope with the stresses of a newborn, if what you said about her way of responding to stress with violence is true. Is that partly why her mother is there - to offer a large of support with the housework and the baby? Is she also 'kept in line' by your wife? It would be par for the course for an abusive/controlling spouse to want to distance you other people that care about you.

I take on board that people have picked up a lack of empathy and possible abuse on your side, but we have no direct evidence of abuse and lack of empathy is not a justification for your wife being violent. As I said, crying babies aren't known for empathy.

If the allegations of abuse, on either side, are lies or errors, then I really don't know what to make of it. Why your wife has such an issue with your parents that she will not allow them contact seems inexplicable from what little you've told us. Tactless comments are enough to make her dislike them, but not good reason to behave as she has. If there is more to it, say so.

Just going on the fragments you have told us, I am really sorry to say your relationship with your wife sounds quite co dependent and dysfunctional. If you decide to work on it, put your parents on the backburner for now and tell both them and your wife you will re-address the situation with them once you have made some progress examining the issues in your marriage. Having your MIL around all the time is unlikely to help with that.

I really think you will get most help from MN if you focus more on your relationship with your wife, aside from any issues with your wider family. To the extent that you do discuss her relationship with your parents, specific examples will help people to see what is going on. Eg. what your mother has said/done. It sounds as if they have had so little contact that I'm not sure when your parents have had time to offend your wife.

[BeansieBeansieBeansie]

Does no one remember the last thread that Simba posted.

It was chilling. His wife is to be pitied.

[Quitelikely]

Why is his wife to be pitied? I've not seen the other thread so now I'm foncused!

[temporaryusername]

I could see on the last thread that Simba had problems getting the point or understanding his wife's position. Yes, in parts it was chilling, and I haven't had time to read it all.

Is it the case then that those of you saying his wife is to be pitied are happy to conclude that she has not been violent, or has had good reason to be? I'm not sure you'd be wrong, but I'm finding it hard to imagine a thread - even one with an unreliable narrator - where a woman says that her husband has kicked, punched, and thrown an iron at her head, and that is just ignored or justified.

[BeansieBeansieBeansie]

Sorry, I did not read the full tread about her violence.

Please ignore my comment.

[temporaryusername]

Simba, if your wife has kicked, punched and thrown an iron at your head, that is not part of a normal loving relationship. It isn't something you can just let be. I don't know why you don't find that something that threatens the break up of your marriage, but her issues with seeing your parents do. I can think of possible explanations at a stretch, but none that you should be happy with.

[mathanxiety]

The other thread is worth a read.

The wife as depicted by Simba comes across as completely psycho. Nothing she does makes sense. There's a lack of 'cause and effect' narrative. If Simba is truly miserable then why talk his wife into having a baby, why bring a baby into a home where the mother is an iron-throwing monster who allegedly does not deal well with stress? This makes me (and others) smell a rat. Either Simba is spectacularly unable to understand how people function and does not understand the dynamic between his wife and his parents, or he is stirring shit as much as possible, and trying to portray his wife as a tyrant with him playing the role of hapless victim with motives that are imo suspect.

I think the real crisis is the fact that his second mother figure aka wife now has a real baby to take care of, making Simba revert to his original mother for comfort, attention, the familiar feeling of being centre stage.

I would love to hear details about the baby -- how is feeding and sleeping, has she started smiling, laughing, any problems... I would love to hear details about how the wife's recovery is going, whether she is getting much sleep, how she is adapting to caring 24/7 for a newborn.. I ask myself when reading the two threads 'what is being left out?'

None of the progress of the first few months is automatic, or a given, for mother or baby, but it all seems to be very much in the background, and what concerns Simba once again is another effort to achieve a specific parent-related goal accompanied by the inability to appreciate that there is a serious problem between his parents and his wife.

I suspect what Simba took from MemyselfandI's post was the need to boot out the MIL. What I see in his posts about her and his parents is a tit for tat approach, scorekeeping 'if my parents are to be excluded then your mother can't come over either' which is all very well and mighty fine, but doesn't address the fundamental problem, which is 'why does Simba need his parents to the extent that he has stood by and watched his wife get to the point of spitting nails over them for ten years?' and the related 'What is Simba getting out of the spectacle of parents and wife fighting over him and how come this is more important than ensuring his baby is safe from a violent and unpredictable mother?'

The relationship is trench warfare.