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!

If you can’t bring yourself to put your son first, who will?

This. You're the only person in the world for whom your son is your number one priority. So never feel bad about that - it's your job, and no one else will do it. The extended family of in laws have one another. Your son doesn't. Do not apologise for putting him first.

If you can’t bring yourself to put your son first, who will?
Amen to that, I was about to come on here and write exactly the same thing.

Two perspectives:

1. I think that what you are feeling in relation to the 14 year old is more related to your own feelings about the holiday than anything else. He is a bit lacking in social graces, but it isn't his responsibility to give your son an enjoyable holiday, is it? Could your feelings of irritation towards him be more about your own sense of disappointment with the holiday as your only 'family' holiday? If he was friendly and sociable, then you would be able to soothe away those feelings of discomfort with the rationale that 'at least DS is having fun with Tom his cousin'. Because that is why people go on big family holidays, isn't it? But he isn't. So you don't win.

2. I have a DH with a complex family history and during the early part of our relationship there were big themes of guilt/obligation towards his mother - partly created by her. There has been a long process of renegotiating this relationship. A year after we were married he wanted his mum to accompany us on a ten-day long-haul holiday to Asia. I called his bluff and agreed. Five days in, he was fed up of traipsing around at her pace and perhaps came to the realisation that it wasn't such a good idea to take your mum everywhere you went in your adult life . He also gradually realised that we needed to support her to become more assertive and upbeat - that emotional blackmail was not acceptable and life didn't need to be lived in a minor key. More than a decade on, we now live a few miles away from her, see her several times a week and provide a lot of mutual support to each other. The relationship is probably healthier than it has ever been and I call/text her more than he does!

The issues are different to yours, of course, but I have told this tale to illustrate that relationships don't have to stay static - they can be reformed and reshaped into something new. He doesn't have to be sobbing over the steering wheel at the end of this year's holiday - if you both are prepared to confront the fact that your choice of family holiday has no bearing on his parents' mortality or his feelings of love and regard for them. His parents have had 45 years of family holidays. It is now your turn.

Talk this over with your therapist first. I doubt if, after a lifetime people-pleasing, you're going to be able to break that in a few days. You may need to work on this for a good while with your therapist before you're ready to start making some changes.

You kept everyone sweet when you were a child because your life depended on it - your actual, real life, your physical survival. This is why it's so hard to break the habit now, even though it's no longer needed (and in fact is hindering you very much) because it's all mixed up with survival. My heart goes out to that child who had to do that to survive - I hope your heart goes out to you, too. Bless you, it's been hard for you

Have you been to al anon? You'll find a lot there that will be a great help going forward xx

I just wanted to say that you sound like a lovely mum. If you do do the family holiday then please do all the activities you and your son want to and sod anyone else. If you're both into kayaking then it's daft to go to the seaside and not take full advantage of the opportunities to do it.

There's nothing you can do about the 14 year old, unfortunately. It's a shame because he's missing out too really if your son gets to go off rock climbing and all he gets is a kick about with his dad by the pool.

Good luck with therapy. As others have said it might feel worse before it feels better. You had an awful childhood as a PP said you had to learn to people please to survive.

If your husband is as lovely as you say, he will understand. You are allowed to change your mind. He knows that you are going to therapy. That's going to change how you deal with things in the future and standing up to his family is part of that.

Ok so here's the thing.

If you can't speak to DH about it - and I can understand that - then you need to find ways to make it good for DS.

Have one of the holidays just you and DS. Somewhere else. Not with the drama llama family. Don't make a big thing about it , just explain that you've decided to create some traditions of your own with your lovely son. No argument or edginess needed. Just explain kindly that this is what is happening.

Second holiday , take DS and a friend but go late and leave early. As above , no great drama or argument needed. Just say that this is what you think is good for DS - building wonderful family memories.

You can even explain the DH how you've learned so much , watching him and his family , building THEIR memories- that you've decided to emulate them and start to build some for DS too. Admiration goes down well.

Try to get what's best for DS within your comfort zone - I appreciate that you might have to stretch that zone a bit, but we do that for our kids don't we? 💕

OP, you sound lovely. The issue here most definitely isn't with you, and you have done nothing wrong. Your feelings on all this are perfectly understandable.
I am very close to my family, and family values are important to me. I would expect the same of any partner, or at least hope for it. However this is a step too far. Your husband needs to cut the apron strings a bit, and realise that you and your son are his immediate family now. You are the priority.
And apart from anything else, a grown man blubbing over the eventual loss of his parents - after every holiday - is very unattractive! That particular part of your post was actually a red flag for me, even though I can't quite figure out why. Maybe it shows the extent of their co-dependence.
Anyway OP, I really hope you can get this sorted. I think you should put your own feelings, and those of your son, first to a degree. And stop sounding so grateful about everything! The situation is very difficult by anyone's standards. And remember that your husband is every bit as lucky to have you and your son, as you are to have him.

There are obviously big conversations to be had, but just a small suggestion-could ds take a friend on the holiday for company?

2 weeks camping with in laws sounds too much!
I don't holiday with mine but when we visit on special occasions I know my kids are left out whilst everyone else mingle. They're DH's kids too. It doesn't feel good. I don't know how you manage.
Hence I visit and we leave not long after. If I were you I'd encourage him to go alone and that it will be much better so you don't have to keep worrying.
I grew up with my parents focusing on the older generation and running after them and I used to feel pretty left out just sitting doing nothing. I don't hold it against them but I don't have warm fuzzy memories of special occasions because of it. You are doing well trying to help your son not feel left out. Perhaps ask him what he thinks, and what he'd prefer? Does be like hanging around at the campsite with the occasional going off with you, or would be rather stay home? His honesty will give you the answer you need.

My exh's family are very like this...I got a fairly hard time as an outsider and exh didn't really stickup for me much. I found the family holidays unbearable-I didn't want to be there, I didn't enjoy the same things they did, they could see through me faking it-there was always this feeling they resented me-and it would all become a vicious circle.
They were very enmeshed, still are and his sisters in particular had no real friends outside of the family..and yes they didn't all get on as well as they pretended to...
I am glad to be out of that now. I like you found it attractive at first having not had that sort of family...but I quickly found it smothering.
Are there any other 'outsiders' in the family set up that you could sort of team up with a bit? My ex sil and I became good friends because she shared some of my views and that did help.
Exh has now started to expect our two DD's to go to every family event as a priority and there is a huge expectation they will love and get on with every one of their huge family on his side. We don't live near his family and the girls would rather stay home and see their own friends or whatever occasionally and that causes ructions.Sometimes they just don't naturally get on with all of their cousins or Aunts and Uncles-there are a lot of them and they like some more than others-and I am trying to find a way to make them see that that's ok and that they don't have to-without being negative and negating all the positives being a member of a big family brings.

It literally seems like you need to show him your post! You wrote it very well and it doesn't make you seem like a 'bad' person or unreasonable.

Good luck!