I have name changed for this. This is very long so apologies but I don't know how to shorten.
I am married 13 years with DH 15 years with two DC. My marriage is in serious difficulty to the point I have told DH I can't continue as we are DH has agreed to go to Counselling and wants to save the marriage. I believe his relationship with his mother is dysfunctional and is having an affect on our marriage whilst he thinks they are close and that I am just jealous of their relationship. If I try to discuss his mother, he gets very defensive. When I first suggested joint counselling he agreed, as long as we don't bring his mother into it as it has nothing to do with her. I do not believe I am a priority nor indeed is our child. His mother and pleasing his mother appears to be his primary focus. I don't see how you can maintain a marriage when your primary focus is not your wife and child.
We do not live in the same Country as his mother so if she visits she is with us for a week or two. My DH also skypes/viber calls her so you can see/hear her during these calls. So although she is not in the Country she is essentially there. So her influence, despite distance, is very much felt. Relations have been poor for a longtime and he has visited her with our DC but now I feel that our DC should not be subjected to her behaviour and am prepared to walk away from the relationship if this is not dealt with. Has anyone ever had a husband who was enmeshed with their mother? Did it improve with Counselling.?
Some examples of reasons I think he is enmeshed are:
- He will never say no to her. She can visit whenever she pleases and I have been told this. He does not discuss with me dates that suit the family. It is simply whatever date suits her.
- We cannot go on holidays anywhere near his home country because she will come too. My DH refuses to say that she is not invited. If she decides to come he claims she will just turn up and he can't say no to this as she is his mother. We have gone on some holidays far away but he always skypes/vibe messages her on these holidays and she always criticises the place putting a damper on my DH mood.
- She refuses to eat out so when she visits us, she insists that I make food for her and we cannot do long day trips because we have to get back for the food I have cooked. Because I have to cook, I also can't go on the trips. My DH never insists that she eat out, insists that i should just cook because it is only for a while etc. he doesn't understand that it is the control/insistence that is the problem, not the actual cooking.
- He wanted to back out of a house purchase because she told him to.We had been searching for the perfect house for a year. When we finally found it and both loved it, he sent her a picture. She said no, pick something else. We fought for weeks over it and eventually we agreed to go ahead but he wanted to not proceed solely because she said "no, pick something else" although he claimed he himself had changed his mind. Which I don't believe.
- Any communication with his father and brother is only through her. He never telephones or speaks with his father/brother unless she is there/says they should speak.
- His brother lives with her (he is fifty), doesn't work, doesn't have even one friend, doesn't cook or do anything for himself. He has only worked for one year of his life which was in the company that she works for. That is it. My DH can see this is not right but thinks his relationship with her is different.
- Because his brother and father fight all the time, my MIL decided he should come live with us for a while, to give her a well deserved break from parenting, and we can get him a job. She booked flights for him and then, when they were booked, informed my DH that his brother was coming. I told DH he and his brother could live together but his brother was not living with us. In the end his mother did cancel the tickets but my DH never said anything other than we don't have room at the moment. He didn't say that she had no right to be booking flights and deciding her other son would live with us without discussion.
- She is extremely rude and disrespectful towards me and my DH does nothing about it except say that's just the way she is. He constantly puts pressure on me to just get on with it because she is old and frail (she is 62 and still working) and that I hardly ever see her anymore. The disrepect/comments/passive agressiveness is also through the skype/viber calls though. I never speak to her on these calls though.
- If DH ever disagrees with her she will either get extremely angry and shouts or she will sulk.
10.She is constantly talking about her health and how she doesn't have long to live and what will he do when she is gone etc. If he doesn't agree with her, she will claim a heart condition etc.
11. He talks at great length about what she did for him as a child. How she looked after him when he was sick or how she made him meals etc. All seems standard stuff to me but she talks about it and how great she was as a mother at every opportunity.
12. She starts massive arguments whenever she visits over the most minute stuff. The first time, it was because my DH asked me to look something up on google for him and his mother. This was after a very long day of work/childcare and I said "can you not look that up yourself? his mother became hysterical and threw herself on the bed crying that she couldn't believe I was so rude and spoke like that. That I had no respect for my DH and didn't deserve him. The second time it was because they came back after at day trip quite late with my DC who was in school the next day. They hadn't eaten out (she refuses to) so I made a quick snack for my DC whilst my DH popped out for something. I then brought my DC to bed and when DH came back I could hear her screaming and crying. When I went back into the room (after my DC was asleep) they were both eating a meal. I asked my DH if his mother was upset and he said "wouldn't you be". I then (regrettably) apologied for not making my MIL the same snack as DC (even though I intended to when DC was asleep). She started crying uncontrollably at the level of disrespect I had shown and my DH was very annoyed with me. After she left, I told DH that I didn't want her visiting again but she has since.
13. She is constantly making sly digs about me and my DH never defends me, just ignores her.
The main reason why this is affecting us is because my DH is starting to act manipulative himself and because he has normalised her behaviour he is repeating it. I feel like their is a third person in our marriage whilst he thinks he is just close to her. I have told DH that I don;t want to continue with the marriage and he has asked for time for him to go to Counselling etc. I enabled the behaviour for so long too so feel at fault. I do love my DH and outside of dealing with his DM and the fact that he now reminds me, at times, of her, we do get on great.
Sorry again for the extreme length. Has anyone been through this and got through it or did you divorce for this reason? TBH now that I have decided that I am prepared to walk away I feel relief that I will never have to see her again but I do love my DH so great sadness at the same time. I actually feel physically ill when I hear her voice.