Please help me get some perspective on this. In laws and DH. Long

[tiredandconfused1]

Hi. I read a lot here but don't post. I really need some advice here I am just so upset and confused at the moment. I don't know if I want to stay in my marriage or continue my relationship with my MIL.

It may seem silly to some but I am actually so upset over this. I have always had a good relationship with my in laws. DH and I haven't been getting on that great at all recently. We have small kids. Anyway DH has hardly spoken to me the last two weeks. He denies this. Very off hand with me, dirty looks, one word answers and no attempts at making conversation. If I ask him what's wrong I get "nothing wrong" in a snappy tone.

It all came to a head on Sunday and we had a row. In laws were around and he spoke to MIL in private. He was quite upset/angry and wouldn't tell me what he said just that he was upset, talked to MIL and that she was now upset and very angry with me. He refused point blank to tell me what he said.

Last night I managed to get out of him that he told her I couldn't cope with the kids. This is not true. I have been stressed the last while over money, DH refusing to learn to drive so that we can move to a more affordable area before kids start school, and DH's overall immaturity and lack of concern for finances or the future. Feel like I am responsible for everything and have no one to share my worries with. I could write another thread on this.

Needless to say I was upset that he said that. I have no problem coping with the kids, it's tough sometimes as they are still small but I'm managing fine.

So today my mother informs me that MIL rang her Sunday night. Went on a big rant about me. Has diagnosed me with PND. Told her several other things. Then told DH and my mother not to tell me about phone call or that they had been sharing/discussing my "issues".

So between my mother and DH I have managed to painstakingly extracted some details of the conversation between DH and MIL on Sunday.

I'll just say that he has painted me in a very bad light. He said a lot of things that make me look bad but conveniently left out important details so that I seem a lot worse and he is the innocent party. Some of the things he said are just not true.

MIL has the biggest mouth in the world and has already repeated everything to the rest of the ILs, to my mother, and probably everyone else she has encountered since Sunday. I am pissed off with her over the phone call, trying to get DH and my DM to keep it all from me, and I am so upset with DH. Because of the things he said and also because he point blank refused to tell me what he said to MIL, which she is now broadcasting to half the town. He didn't tell me until he had to (I already knew a few bits from my DM and bluffed). He is still guarding his phone which makes me think there is more he hasn't told me about. I feel sick wondering what else he has said about me.

We talked and agreed that if he has told me everything we will try and get passed it. But now that I realise he is probably hiding more I don't know if I can. I feel so betrayed.

I don't know what to do or how to make this better. Any advice welcome.

Sorry its so long.

Thanks for reading.

Why does he hate me so much?

Because he has done something that makes him feel guilty.

There is a certain immature thought pattern that goes like this:

He does something (we don't know precisely what) which he knows would upset or hurt you if you knew about it. He feels guilty about this, and feeling guilty doesn't feel nice because he feels bad about himself. Because of a combination of immaturity/insecurity/low self-esteem, he can't handle feeling bad about himself, so looks around for someone else to blame for how he is feeling. You, by your very existence, remind him of his guilt, because his guilt is about the potential effects of his behaviour on you. Therefore (by his immature logic) you are the one making him feel bad. So you are the bad guy, not him, and he can project all his bad feelings about himself onto you. Except that at some level he recognises that you don't really deserve this, so he has to come up with reasons why you do deserve it. Hence his ongoing rants to MIL.

I'm not saying in any way that the above represents the truth. But I do think it is likely to be how he is thinking at the moment - it is all about alleviating his own feelings of guilt and self-blame by pushing them onto you.

Good grief. Is he still under the same roof? Not just rewriting history, a complete character assassination! If his mother is repeating any of that to the world at large I'd be fuming.

I would get legal advice. Suppose he is planning to divorce and repeats this to try and get custody of your DCs.

Get legal advice.
Start planning and getting things together.
Do not let him paint you as the bad one. Keep as much of life "normal" for the children, but don't cover for him.

BTW there is nothing shameful in PND. And you wouldn't "lose" your children because of it.

Protect yourself, gather your supporters and get ready for worse things to crawl out of the woodwork.

I know there is nothing shameful in PND. I absolutely agree. I spoke to my GP about how I was feeling. Our youngest is 13 months and I have been stressed over money etc since before he was born. It's ongoing stress. He also said that I am pressuring him into having another baby. Lie. That I piss off for his days off and leave him and the kids with no food or money in the house. Lie. That I don't want to leave him alone with the kids for any length of time. Lie. And it contradicts some of his other lies.

I don't want my marriage to end. I want all this to just go away. I want the man I thought I knew back. How can this happen? There is no way to fix this is there?

Only he can fix it.
You can choose to put up with it or not.

There is no way to fix this is there?

No, I'm sorry tired but I don't think there is. For one thing, you can't fix it by yourself - and he is showing no signs of wanting to work with you to fix it together. Even if he was, could you get past the massive betrayal of trust that his lies represent?

Also, I'm afraid it sounds like he has one foot out the door already. In addition to the guilt-relieving effects of his behaviour I described above, the way he is acting now is probably also designed to detach himself from you emotionally - he alienates you in his mind by attributing all sorts of awful behaviour to you, and that makes it easier (and less guilt-inducing) to detach himself from your relationship. I won't speculate on why he wants out, as there could be a number of reasons, but unfortunately I think it is pretty clear that he is paving the way for an exit.

So sorry you are going through this.

He doesn't like his life. He wants to be Mummy's little boy again and go out and play with his friends.

You and the kids are dragging him down.

He is a pathetic child.

Of course there is nothing shameful in suffering from PND. Unfortunately H seems to have his own agenda. I think the mention of it was a red herring. If he is fabricating untruths he won't be fussy about painting OP as unstable or unreasonable since before the DCs even arrived.

He is going around since yesterday evening like someone who has had his heart ripped out. Very quiet and withdrawn.

I have just dropped him in to work and we talked some more. I asked him what he said about having another baby. First he said we were thinking about it, talked it through and then decided the time wasn't right. Then he changed the story to say that I asked him outright a few months ago to have a baby but he refused as he was worried about the future and that we couldn't afford it. There is so much bullshit in that statement. He has never expressed concern about finances or the future. I never asked outright to have another baby. I have said things like "Aw i'd love another one" or whatever when I watch OBEM but have ALWAYS said that it wasn't a good time, and I don't see myself going back to the baby stage once we are out of it. FFS.

The above makes me think he is now very confused about what he said. I think he has spun a web of lies and now he doesn't know what's what.

I also think that MIL did a bit of shit stirring during their conversations and tried to draw things out of him using very structured questions to help with the character assassination. She likes drama. He said she kept asking loads of questions. She does also have a tendency to pick things up wrong and to exaggerate/dramatize things so she really is not helping. She will be backing him up as well telling him he is right and slagging me off to no end.

Before the baby conversation he said he would like to go to counselling and at least try and make it work. How can we make it work when he is STILL telling these lies.

I have a few theories here.

A) He is depressed, I haven't picked up on it. The depression is causing him to turn on the person closest to him (me) and now that he has finally opened up he feels the only way he can let it out is through nasty allegations against me.

B) He was upset Sunday night, started to get a little bit of sympathy, liked it so much that he just kept going.

C) He wants out of the relationship but doesn't want to be the one who left, tore the family apart etc, so he has made up all these lies about me. I will then leave him obviously. He will then say "tiredandconfused was so hard to live with, and so abusive, I tried to stay for the kids, and because I love her so much and just want to support her, but she made me leave my kids.

This will sound horrible but I don't know if he is smart enough to think of C all by himself.

Yet another blow yesterday. I told him if he was going to refuse to tell me what he said to in laws, that I would not be comfortable with the kids spending time alone with them as I didn't know what inappropriate things would be said in front of them. He said I can't do that. I said I can make it very f---ing difficult. He then told his Mummy that I threatened to not let HIM see his kids.

A and B don't fully explain his behaviour. Particularly the changing stories and the not telling you what he talked about.

He doesn't need to consciously think of C. It seems to be a sort of programmed "script" that is activated in immature personality types who want to escape from relationships. Unfortunately there are lots of similar stories on MN and the same behaviour patterns recur.

One other option is to say "we are obviously going through a rocky patch right now, and I think relate would be a good idea, in the mean time can we stop dragging out parents into this as A, it's immature,B, it's going to make it that more difficult all round when we get through this patch and C it's going to have a knock on effect at for the children" and see how he reacts to this option? If he balks at then the you know its pretty much over already

Dragging our, not out!

Felicity he has already agreed to stop dragging his parents into it, but he keeps going back and saying more things thinking I won't find out. I can't believe a word out of his mouth. Feel sick thinking abut seeing his parents tonight. His father is actually very reasonable and level headed man. The same cannot be said about MIL.

How are things today, OP?

Hi Mushroom. Sorry for not getting back. The last couple of days have been a bit hectic.

So the update. I went to see my MIL, FIL and BIL on Thursday night. It was awful. MIL kept asking why I was dwelling on things that were said, why does it matter what he said etc. BIL was very hostile, accused me of beating and neglecting my kids, and if I'm not beating them now it's only a matter of time before I do. That I control him, I control HIS money, it's HIS money why do I make him beg for HIS money. To explain, I am a sahm, it would cost more for me to work at the moment as childcare is very expensive in our area, and we would lose our Family Income Supplement (top up for low income families in Ireland). That's why I am not working and why I live on HIS money. DH agreed to this years ago. I wanted to go back to work recently but we couldn't afford it. BIL really tried his best to get a reaction out of me. I think he had one agenda and that was to rip me to shreds.

Also on Thursday morning I got him phone credit at the shop. Came home, put it in his hand. He left it on table and forgot about it. He then told his mummy that I never gave him the credit, which was thrown at me Thursday night as one more way I am trying to control him, controlling his contact with his family as I won't allow him credit for his phone. This is just one tiny thing that has been twisted to make me look like a psycho. I distinctly remember putting the bloody credit in his hand.

His parents were actually fairly reasonable all things considered. By the end we all seemed to agree that DH doesn't really know what he has said and is very confused at the moment. That things were exaggerated and blown out of proportion, a lot of assumptions made, and stories passed around with legs added on. It took a long time to get them to see that though. A lot of defending myself, unfortunately I had to give several examples of how their son is not perfect, which didn't go down well but I think they understand a bit more now that I am not an evil crazy bitch and it is not all one sided.

I had more or less decided on Thursday that it was over. Then I met DH yesterday for Lunch and things were actually OK. He has agreed to go to the doctor, get counselling. I feel better after this and I think I would like to try. I think he needs counselling on his own for a bit first, I think marriage counselling would be too much at the same time.

I think DH basically had a breakdown on Sunday. He was clearly not himself for 2 weeks prior to this. I think his way of dealing with the breakdown was to turn on me.

I don't know if it will work out at this point. I might change my mind again tomorrow. There are serious trust issues now. I don't feel I can confide anything in him and I am very wary around him in case I do anything that can be turned into something else (phone credit) as I worry about him twisting it and using it against me. It's going to take a lot of work to fix this. I think breaking up our family would actually be the easier option and that says a lot.

Anyway BIL's party is at 4.45. I am obviously not looking forward to going. I have spoken to DH and we have agreed that if BIL or anyone else says anything inappropriate, or does anything designed to make me uncomfortable we will politely say goodbye and leave. All of us together. I feel better knowing there is a plan in place.

So it's a tough road ahead no matter which way this goes. But from the bottom of my heart, thank you all so, so much for the support, insight and the odd laugh here over the last few days. I would have lost my mind without you all.

And sorry for yet another massive rambling post.

You're a braver person than I am. Hold your head up, protect your children from the shit and keep a written account of things if you have to (on here).

They sound toxic and no one would blame you if you dropped them all on their arses

Wow just read the whole thread.

Op you have made excuse after excuse why your dh has treated you appallingly. Most of the blame has been put on his mothers feet.
This isn't the actions of a loving husband - and how quick his family turned against you..

If this is what you feel you deserve then stick it out - look for reasons why he treats you like shit or tries to turn people against you or start sticking up for your self and expecting and demanding better.

Honestly op I'm shocked at his behaviour and you minimising it. I wouldn't be going to the do - Id be telling them all to fuck off.

At least now it's in the open and he can't go and cry to his mummy.
Let's hope he does manage to sort himself out. I'd make sure I had a getaway plan just in case, though.

I wonder if you've previously got along with your in laws as well as you think you have. They were quick to believe him and even quicker to attack you . At this point I would scrutinize the past for maybe smaller lies or smaller manipulations. It seems very odd that someone has been truthfull and decent their whole life , then wakes up one day and sets about being deceptive and manipulative to this degree. You have to wonder why the in laws are so quick to believe him. He may have been laying the groundwork on this for quite some time.

He's started a campaign about you. They believe him. He sounds like a practised liar , he's no problem lying to you and he's no problem lying to his family . People will wonder why , if these things aren't true , why he's still in your house and why your willing to go to a party with him.

I wouldn't bother defending yourself to his toxic family. I also wouldn't keep giving him a power trip by asking him what he's said about you. And who the fuck does bil think he is challenging you , tell him to mind his fucking business and take these things up with his lying snivelling brother.

Allegations of child abuse can become very serious very quickly. I've been on the receiving end of such a campaign . He had been laying the groundwork on it for years and I only knew when it became live. The best way to dispel these lies is kick him out. He's now the enemy and cannot be trusted. I wouldn't be willing to speak with him unless I was recording him for my own protection.

I'm also surprised you say his parents were fairly reasonable because they've actually behaved in a disgusting abusive way , spreading lies about you and ringing your mum. The only thing I would have said to mil would have been to keep her face out of my marriage.

Mil is toxic. Bil is toxic. It sounds like your husband is more like his mother than you would like to think. They both have a big mouth and gossip about others. In your first post you describe your husband sulking at you , giving you dirty looks. You said you word things carefully to avoid sulks and that he takes no responsibility and is immature. He sounds like he enjoys being the victim.

I suspect this episode of lying is the tip of the iceberg. It sounds like there's other stuff going on , and has been for a while. You absolutely should not have to word things carefully to avoid an adult sulking at you. What you call sulking , I call emotional abuse.

Bad you are right about a lot of things. What you said about him being a practiced liar make me think though, I remember thinking a few years ago that he is a very good liar and that was something that worried me. I was worried he would lie TO me though, not about me.

Anyway, I have an update. Went to party. No one said anything inappropriate. Everyone was friendly. Kept thinking H's nephew (13) was looking at me like a I was a monster. But then kept telling myself it was in my head. Felt like everyone was watching me. BIL tried to hug me when I came in. Dodged the hug and resisted the temptation to knee him in the balls. Anyway, the party put things into perspective for me. I was paranoid and uncomfortable there. I couldn't wait to leave.

We walked home and on the way I felt like crying. Because I have lost my relationship with them. I will always feel uncomfortable around them. The damage can't be undone. I was very quiet on the way home and H asked me twice what was wrong. He used sort of an annoyed tone. He doesn't seem to think I had any reason to feel uncomfortable there. When I said I was, because of all the shit that had been said about me, he said I was using this whole thing as a stick to beat him with. It has been a couple of days since I found out. He thinks I can just forgive and never mention it again.

Anyway we got into an argument. During the course of the argument it somehow came out that H told MIL I hit the kids. I have no idea why he even told me. I do not hit my kids. They are 3 and 1. I called him a cunt. Said that's it and walked out the door.

I rang my parents, his showed up, the four of them talked about this accusation. My Dad said H just stared into space. He eventually left with his parents.

I guess we will give notice on the house Monday. I am going to take the kids to my parents until I find somewhere cheaper to rent. I have been willing to stand by him and support him through whatever this is, but I have to draw the line here.

DS1s birthday is tomorrow and he has been promised a day out. I feel so bad for him. I don't know if I can look at H at the moment. I hate him. I think I need to try and push it aside for DS and let him enjoy tomorrow. How unfair for my poor babies.