Trying to unpick feelings towards new husbands very close family

[freshstart24]

Will try to keep it brief: Met DH 6 years ago, married last year. He is a wonderful man and I feel very lucky to have him in my life. I have one DS (10) from a previous really tricky relationship which ended 8 years ago.

My family are complicated, I love them dearly but by anyone's standards they are quite tricky people and both parents are on third marriages.

In contrast DH's family are v close. He has 2 siblings- one with two older teenage kids, and one brother with special needs who lives at home with their parents, but is capable of quite a bit of independence ( holds down manual job, can manage himself for a night and couple of days).

They have always spent a lot of time together. Sunday lunch most weeks, two or three ( ie all) holidays together. Lots of social events. Since we met the Sunday lunches are probably more like every other week, and holidays are two out of three together.

I like his family, but also find them difficult at times. They are louder, more opinionated and less considerate than me and I find myself shrinking in their presence. DH loves them dearly, his family values are something I love about him but I'm finding them increasingly overbearing.

We had considered holidaying just the three of us this year but it now looks like again we are all going camping in France. We were thinking of trying to save some money but this now looks less important and so we can do the usual family trip.

DH supports DS and I so much, deals positively and patiently with all the challenges of a full on 10 year old, and so I feel that I should compromise and go on this holiday without complaint. But a big part of me just wants to cry when I think about it.

I feel fed up of having to fit around all their family traditions. I feel DS and I get sidelined. 10 year old boys need different things to teens and old people, and this gets ignored. The teens ignore him completely, which I guess is normal- and I get veiled criticism for disappearing off with DS to relieve our cabin fever as if I'm spoiling him. I know it's important that DS doesn't feel the world revolves around him, but I feel they go too far and he is a bit ignored.

I'm a helpless people pleaser, so naturally prefer to go with the flow. But then DS ends up having to fit in too and we miss out on having fun together.

I feel so guilty and ungrateful about this as for the first couple of years I was just delighted to get a holiday and to be part of a family. Now I've changed my tune and maybe that is unreasonable.

I'm rambling, I know I need to talk to DH but I don't know where to start. He loves his family dearly, and worries about the day he looses a parent- at the end of each holiday he feels tearful that it may be their last altogether. I'm usually relieved that it's over!

Just because something has always been done doesn’t mean it has to continue - family dynamics change especially as children grow up. It’s lovely when families are close but this sounds suffocating to me - doesn’t dh include you and ds in the arrangements? What kind of activities get planned on these holidays that exclude ds? Could you do a shorter break just the 3 of you to see how it goes?

does he know how you feel? I hope you haven’t joined in all his family activities that you know are important to him for the last 6 years, got married and have never told him that this lifestyle it isn’t for you. If you have and it is going to be a shock for him you feel this way you need to be prepared for him to be confused as you won’t be the person he thought he married.

If you have been honest with him all along then it should be an easy conversation about compromising to meet both your needs.

Jellie- DH does include me, to be fair he has asked me what I want to do but I'm finding it very hard to know where to begin in telling him how I feel. I know he will be upset. I don't want him to go along with my requests and feel horrible about missing his family holiday.

Nothing much gets planned. Most of family are happy just relaxing by their caravan, the odd swim and then bar and bbq in evening. We have a tent not a caravan and both DS and I feel the need to 'get out and do something'. We love the beach, and having adventures- both free ones like a walk, or ones with a cost e.g. kayaking, climbing. DH enjoys these things too but is also happy chilling with his family.

I feel guilty suggesting doing things as invariably someone didn't fancy it. Particularly MIL who gets tired quickly and sometimes has balance issues. BIL is also quite insular so cant join in with some things.

I am made to feel like I'm a spendthrift or not a team player when I want to do something 'different'.

Sorting food becomes a huge thing with a gigantic BBQ every breakfast and evening. I'd rather focus less on food.

Weallhavewings. No I haven't been honest. It's taken me a while to crystallised my feelings about it, and each year it has got worse. The first two years we went with another family who were more fun and had DC of DS's age so it was different.

I realise that I should have said something. I love DH dearly, he is a lovely lovely man and I really did initially think his close family was a good thing.

I realise I've been unreasonable, this is part of the problem.

I don't want to be brutal here but I'm going to be because what you want to do with your DS is exactly what I'd be doing with either of my children - my holidays with them are tailored to the things they like to do!

STEP UP and sort this out. Stop being a mouse. It's time.

Sorry

Doinit thank you for your honesty. It's hit a nerve, and I'm now crying. It's nice to hear I'm not spoiling DS or being a pfb by wanting to focus on him.

I'm juggling trying to keep everyone happy. It's not very easy.

Where do I buy a book on stopping being a mouse after 44 years of impeccable people
pleasing?!

You're trying to keep everyone except yourself happy. Maybe try some assertiveness books? If your husband is as wonderful as you say though then he'll understand when you talk to him

By trying to keep everyone else happy however, you are making your own self deeply unhappy.

Please address your people pleasing behaviours through counselling; often such behaviours come about from a fear of failure or a fear of being rejected. This started a long time ago with you and you need to properly address this now before your son potentially becomes a people pleaser too. Do read these links below as a starting point:-

www.psychologytoday.com/blog/shrink/201210/are-you-people-pleaser

www.psychologytoday.com/blog/what-mentally-strong-people-dont-do/201708/10-signs-youre-people-pleaser

Thank you. I am beginning to realise that the biggest danger here is I'm teaching DS to be a fabulous people pleaser too. I don't want this for him.

I started seeing a therapist to help me deal with my relationship with my parents last week. I will try to talk through this with her.

I'm not sure she can help me change my personality though.

I am afraid of rejection- aren't we all? I can't help wanting DH's family to like me and DS. If DH were to fall out of love with me I would have a whole host of problems and the holiday / overbearing family thing would become a drop in the ocean!

This thread should be shown to the mother who posted saying her child should visit his grandparents every sunday without fail

Not sure I understand wizzywig?

why do you feel that saying No to one thing will mean that he stops loving you? If you fear that your relationship is so fragile that it cannot survive that, then its not really a relationship.
That may sound harsh, but it is something I went through myself. I had therapy to help - and yes it came initially from my parents, but permeated everything. My feeling of self worth was so low I seemed to have 2 very faulty beliefs that I carried everywhere - firstly that it was pointless to make demands of my own/argue because they would never be taken into consideration, and secondly that if I had a disagreement with someone / didnt do what they wanted, then they would leave me.
It was pretty groundbreaking stuff having that pointed out to me, and to see how this faulty thinking had led me down some really unhappy paths.

What you are asking is not the world. you are just asking not to go on this holiday, THIS ONCE (aalthough it could be the start...) and to continue the plans you initially were making. I wonder if your DH is carrying an awful lot of the guilt too. maybe its not as rosy as it looks. Maybe, as others say, there is a whole load of FOG (fear, obligation, guilt) going on under this fun time exterior.

what happens if MIL gets upset? The fact SIL said this to draw everyone back in line suggests that not upsetting MIL is the crunch.

So a camping holiday I’d do the following:

Tell them you’d love to join them, for a weekend or few days in the middle. Then turn up with tent, pitch, enjoy a nice couple of days then leave and go do something just the three of you.

Book a holiday just the three of you or take a friend of Dss as well somewhere they can’t crash. Abroad, in this country, whatever.

Change your mindset: right now the default is you go along with whatever they want and any deviations get met with disapproval. A more healthy place to start is you having a rock solid base of ‘we So what’s best for us and if. That overlaps with you that's lovely, but we come first.’

Even very close families with no odd dynamics don’t soend their whole time in each others pockets. The whole tearfulness about it being the last holiday I would imagine is something MIL has implanted but in them.

yes I agree - its a very weird scenario to set up, that whole 'I could die so you must do what I say' thing.

That last paragraph is called catastrophising. Standing up for yourself doesn't mean you'll lose DH's love.

Keep going with the therapy. Gradually you'll chip away at this. It's often a good idea in therapy to address what is currently happening, current problems and difficulties, as a means to unravel the lessons we've learnt in the past that no longer serve us. So perhaps bring up in your next session this problem with DH's family.

I understand your point Nettle, the logical part of me knows a relationship worth it's salt should easily survive this.

I think we have a strong relationship that will weather storms but I'm still always afraid that one day he will wake up and reject me. I have no evidence for this- it's created by my own fears and so potentially upsetting his feels risky and difficult.

No one likes to upset MIL, if we do something on holiday that she can't participate in the family feels guilty. I do t know what FOG is but will look into it.

My DM, who is an old and wise woman, told me there is a point early in every successful marriage where each party has to tell their own parent to fuck off for the sake of the marriage.

It seems to me, you are approaching that point - even if such strong language isn't necessarily required. A trait that looked really attractive in your DH pre-marriage - being v close to his family - is now being to look smothering and excluding.

You are going to have to upset him, sadly the early days of marriage aren't all romance, as you learn how to have a new relationship, not just carry on in the initial patterns and then wake up 40 years later a sea of resentment.

I vividly remember looking a my soon to be DH on a sea of love when I just wanted to look after him soooo much and wanting to wash his socks. And then a glimmer of light appeared that possibly it was hormones talking and I had better not as this situation was unlikely to last. So we were forced in to having an uncomfortable conversation about why he never did any domestic labour. I was a massive people pleaser who was unable to have challenging conversation without thinking we were about to split up. He now does his fair share of the washing all of it

This is a petty example but there are many many of these when you get married and I think family holidays is one for you.

My line on his family then was is 'seeing them is for the benefit of you, not me - what are we going to do now that takes equal time/money for my benefit?'

I mellowed on this over time but it worked wonders at the beginning.

It seems you feel you are on a sticky wicket bcs you feel beholden to DH for loving DS; that you feel you have no leg to stand on bcs he is doing something you could never repay..

OP you've referred to DS and you as being your DH's 'new family' but after six years there's really nothing new here... it's come across to me that you have put DH on a pedestal and seem to have some sort of gratitude that he's taken you on. There's an awful lot of gratitude in your posts which makes me feel that your relationship is very imbalanced and not just because you tend to be a people pleaser. I'm just saying this to give you another angle to think about.

As for you 'changing your mind' about family holidays, that's what happens as relationship and family dynamics change and develop. None us keeps the same opinions as we had at the age of 20. We evolve through life experience, through the influences of the people around us, education, work, parenthood etc. So changing your mind can be a very positive thing not something to feel guilty about.

"I'd never agree to weekly or fortnightly meet ups!"

Me neither, but I'd tell a new person right from the beginning having seen friends have to spend every weekend at their boyfriends' families. It's a bit different if you marry into that kind of family and only decide afterwards that you don't want that.
Personally, I wouldn't want someone who's very close to their family, but I don't think I would expect someone to change later on.

Thank you again for the insightful posts. It's hard to reply to everyone as I'm in my phone so can't scroll back but I'm reading everything's and taking it in.

I realise now that I should chat about this to counsellor.

The advice about how to specifically handle the camping trip is great. But- It would involve having to make people realise that I prefer not to spend all of my holiday with them. I realise it seems ridiculous- but I think they would be appalled!

I need to grow a pair. I know this. For some reason I find it incredibly hard.

Are you worrying too much about what they might think of you?
I don't think it's spoiling your son to try to make sure he has an enjoyable holiday. It is your job to speak up on his behalf, and to arrange things to do which you and he will enjoy.
I can see that these family holidays are important to your DH, and IF you are willing to compromise, you could could say that you will vagree to go on the next one, but you'd like DH to accommodate your wishes more within that- which includes some fun times for your boy.
Can you be more specific about why DS isn't enjoying it? Are the adults ignoring him? If its camping again, then the suggestion made upthread of bringing a friend sounds a good idea.
And ask DH to think up some ideas of getting his nephews to involve DS more.

Yes I do feel a bit beholden to DH for loving DS. Is that strange? Please don't flame me for being honest!