husband prioritises his mother

[readingbored]

I have been married to my husband for 8 years. We have 2 children 5 and 4. We live 5 minutes from his mum, and his dad died in 2014. He has always been close to his parents, and his mum ruled the roost bossily when he was at home. My husband doesn't like to challenge authority and has always therefore looked up to his parents as though they are perfect, and never went through the usual and necessary teenage period of challenging his parents or really growing away from them. Since my FIL's death my husband has felt responsible for his mum. She asks him very often to help with jobs in her house and garden, and also leans on him for advice on money, household management and various other matters. If she asks him to help it takes priority above all other things needing doing in our house. Last week he was sorting ebaying various items found in her loft (they had been there decades and it wasn't urgent) rather than helping me sort various things at home that needed doing that day - like most working people with kids we have a long list of things to do every week, and also in the medium term. he spent two nights listing items, and another 3 packing things up. If I ask for help, it's deemed I am nagging, and I get short shrift or worse still ignored. If she asks, he can't be more helpful. If I point this out, I am the bad guy and he tells me she has no one to help her and is on her own. Yes she is, but she is also in good health, pretty capable (she picks and chooses which things she wants to be capable of - driving on the continent or going up to London no issue, but sorting out utility bills too boring for her to bother with). My husband also has a sister, who could also help, albeit she lives further from her mum than us. I also need the help and support of my husband - my parents can be useless at times. I help him when he needs support.

In addition to the prioritising in terms of help, my husband also stands in for his deceased father in my view in elements of her social life. So, he buys her tickets to the spa or a concert and takes her. He's just bought me standing tickets for a festival we are going to, and then bought him and his mother nicer seated tickets for another day at the same event. It was actually me that suggested originally he and I took her to this festival together on that specific evening so she didn't miss out, but it's one evening I wanted to got to in addition to the other evening he and I are going. He changed it so only he and his mum are going that event on the second evening, and excluded me. when he asked if that was OK, I felt I had to say yes, because he gets really angry if I were to say no I wasn't happy about it. I have now raised the issue, and he was defensive about it, but hasn't changed the tickets to include me, just told me I can come if I can sort out childcare for OUR children. We have annual tickets for a sporting event that he and I pay for, yet she gets her allocation of our tickets from us for free, and gets to pick and choose which days she goes with him. I have to slot in around, provided I can sort childcare, and always go on less days. I don't want him to take her to the particular spa he's bought tickets for, as it's a place we go for date nights. I feel it's an intrusion. He also organised me afternoon tea because I pointed out he's done it several times for his mum, but not once for me. He wouldn't otherwise have even thought about inviting me for a tea. She gets expensive presents at birthday and Xmas, and she and his sister and he send each other valentines cards. He also bought her a valentines gift. I get exactly the same gifts for mothers day as his mother.

I do raise the issues with my husband, but he is always angry and defensive, and nothing ever changes. He never takes on board what I am saying. He needs to put a few more boundaries in place with his mum, and she needs to accept that I and our kids are the priority now, not her.

I am fearful that as she gets older she will just get increasingly needy and the issues will get more acute.

Advice please.

Don't get me wrong I get on Ok with my MIL, and I don't mind him helping her sometimes, she helps us with babysitting sometimes, but it's when it's in priority to our home life and my needs that I'm not Ok with it. Not ever having really worked herself she has no idea what ab household is like where both parents are working professional jobs and how little time we have to sort our own stuff out at home. She does have a large group of friends, many themselves widowed so I think she should be relying on them more than her 41 year old son. She is also wealthy so that she could pay someone for house maintenance rather than always expecting him to help her.

It suits them both for them to act the ways they are and this dynamic was formed long before you arrived on the scene. Your husband is more interested in being a good son than in being a good husband. Marriage usually means leaving our childhood family and starting a family of our own. That means shifting our loyalty and priorities to our marriage.

Re your comment:-

"He has always been close to his parents, and his mum ruled the roost bossily when he was at home. My husband doesn't like to challenge authority and has always therefore looked up to his parents as though they are perfect, and never went through the usual and necessary teenage period of challenging his parents or really growing away from them"

He seems very much the same now; he has not been allowed to separate from his parents. They and in particular his mother, have kept him dependent on them and now her H has died your DH has stepped into some type of surrogate husband role. Theirs is a dysfunctional and codependent relationship. I wonder what he is going to do when his mother dies.

What is his sister's relationship like with his mother these days?.

What is all this re them sending each other Valentines cards (and gifts) too; this all seems very enmeshed and unhealthy. Where are your H's boundaries at here with regards to both his mother and sister?.

Ultimately, your husband will be the deciding factor in whether his attachment to his mother breaks your marriage. He might not notice it yet, but making you his main priority, growing up, and breaking away from his family of origin is good for him, too. You cannot do the work for him here, he is going to have to be the one who cuts the cord. And he may not ever be able to do that (because of his being conditioned so or out of fear, obligation and guilt) or even want to do that.

I would consider your relationship as a whole and decide whether you want to remain within it. What do you want to teach your children about relationships and what are they learning here?. Would you want them to have a relationship like this.

Agree with everything @AtillaTheMeerkat says.

IME you will never change this dynamic...
She will always come first and that is how she wants it to be. He is her replacement husband in her eyes and her needs come first. He wants this relationship because he's been conditioned to function that way.

I once asked exh not long after we married if he would get some fresh vegetables(2 items) as he walked past the grocery shop on his way home from work.
His defensive/exasperated response was "You only want me to get these because I do my mum's shopping"...
He used variations of this excuse for getting out of doing anything in our marital home or actually being in a relationship because he could not cope with the responsibility of being a 'husband' to 2 women.
He was never allowed to separate from his mother.

We got divorced only a few years later due to his infidelity(OW who he married) not due to his mother....he has just recently got divorced from OW(infidelity with another OW again) and also gone back to live with his mum as her Carer.

So over a period of more than 20years he has prioritised his mother's needs above any family he has had.

Last paragraph should have said he has prioritised his and his mother's needs above any family he had.

You have lost this before you even started. Reconcile to not being able to stop him helping her or for her to keep depending on him. Once you accept the reality you can decide what you are going to do about the situation.

It’s emotional incest (unpleasant term, I know). They are enmeshed. Check out this book.
www.amazon.co.uk/Silently-Seduced-Revised-Updated-Children/dp/0757315879/ref=nodl_?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

OP, I really feel for you, you're basically single parenting while he runs around after her needs, never considering yours.

IME, your MIL will know exactly what she's doing too, and probably doesn't care one iota because she never really got the concept that you're supposed to raise children and then let them live their own lives. Having been conditioned to her particular style of parenting until he married you, he will never have experienced the umbilical cord detaching either. In her mind I suspect she well and truly views her family unit as an inflexible loyal club that can't shift dynamically to fit new circumstances. You aren't in that club. It was her, her husband, her son and her daughter and that's that.

This will sound awful, but she won't change, and I doubt he will either. It appears that he's so conditioned there will be no flexibility on this arrangement of mother first, wife second until your MIL croaks it. You haven't told us her age but if she's taking jaunts to London on her own I suspect that won't be for a while. Therefore you're left in the predicament of effectively being a single parent for a very long time. This would be completely unacceptable to me but if you have exhausted all avenues to talk this through with him you might want to consider different options. You could try speaking to her and stressing that her deceased husband once had a mother too and you suspect she wouldn't have liked single parenting your husband and his sister while he spent his free time with his mother, but I for one reckon it would fall on deaf ears. She sees your husband as her property.

Personally, I clocked on to my partner's needy mother very early on. Rushes of text messages while we were away on breaks together, asking for calls when she knew we were out for dinner, inviting him back to their family home (in a different country) for long weekends without inviting me (even though we both work full time and we enjoy spending our weekends together)... luckily my partner and I do live a flight away from his parents. In the past we have discussed moving there in future (it would be good for future DCs), but that will be a non-starter for me if contact with her isn't limited and boundaries aren't set. There is a cultural element here in that in his country of birth (don't want to identify it and out myself), mothers are typically very clingy over their sons, but frankly that's no excuse for me. Part of being a good mother is raising your children into good people and wishing nothing more for them to have their own happy family unit to be there for them when you're gone - and accepting the new family unit when it happens. They're supposed to understand that priorities change and grow with that. Asking for help when they really need it and spending time together as a wider family is of course absolutely fine (and to be desired), but they're not supposed to become a brick wall between their children's spouse and them, or effectively another child to look after.

Honestly I wish you all the luck in the world with this. It's not a nice situation to be in. Hopefully boundaries can be drawn but if he's not pulling his weight as a father to your kids, you might want to consider more severe options.

I am fearful that as she gets older she will just get increasingly needy

You're right to worry about this, though whether you'll still be with him by then is something you'll have to decide - I went through this myself and can tell you they're very unlikely to change

To be clear, it's lovely that he helps his mum, but in becoming a "substitute husband" to her he's going way too far. I realise it's an awful decision to have to make, but suggest you make it before too many years slip by and you find it harder to start afresh

It's down to you to decide if you want to live the rest of your marriage like this.

He won't change, so you either have to accept it , or look at a future without him as a husband.

He knows how you feel...he's not interested in changing the status quo. It's up to you to decide what you want from a husband.

You can stay married and do your own thing...build up your own social life and aim to be or continue being self sufficient.

The longer you stay with him, the more resentment you will have and he just won't be attractive in your eyes...eventually leading to other problems.

FFS, it's nothing like being a single parent, what a ridiculous thing to say. 🙄🙄

I do sympathise, OP, my ex was in a similar family dynamic. Others are right: there is nothing you can do to alter this.

Also, as some have said, it is up to you to decide whether you want to carry on with your relationship. I bailed and I am very glad I did.

thanks for support. To be clear I have no issues with how he looks after the children. he's a great dad, it's more about my needs not being fulfilled and the wider household management. I do think he is unlikely to change, given he never had so far. My parents said overtime my DH and I and our kids would become more of an independent unit and the issue would go away. it's just not panned out like that.

Whose idea was it to live 5 minutes from her?
This has gone on 6 years out of your 8 year marriage.
He won't say no to her but has no problem telling you no as well as being angry towards you.

Helping out once in awhile is fine and the occasional special thing but what he's doing is way inappropriate.

I'm sure you didn't enter marriage thinking he'd add another "wife".

Your MIL has made no effort to handle things on her own or seek out a more suitable companion.

It hasn't changed in all this time, it's not likely it will. It's up to you what to do.

Move house op. Far far away. Stop buying a ticket for a season that you don’t get to actually pick your dates for.

I was waiting for the good dad commentand there it again is. I would also think that your kids see him as an emotionally absent person who is always with his mum rather than you people as his family. Kids notice these things, do not think otherwise.

He is not a great dad to his children if he treats you as his wife like this. Women in poor relationships too often write the good dad comment when they themselves can think of nothing positive to write about their man.

I presume it was his idea in the main to live 5 minutes away from her too
Your parents were wrong sadly and this issue over time is going to get a lot worse. It’s bad enough now, he is totally enmeshed with his mother.

You have a choice re this man.

He's married to his mother.
It's like when Princess Diana said there were 3 people in her marriage- there are 3 people in your marriage.
You are the other women in your own marriage.
It's not going to change, if it was going to be already would have.
You have a decision to make- is this what you want till the day his mother passes away?
If she needs care are you prepared that he will either move her in or he will move in with her?

I think you need to sit down one final time, lay out all your thoughts and feelings and then if things don't change, you walk away and when your ready find someone who puts you first.

My MIL has caused problems since BEFORE I met her, when my OH and I got together, he moved in with me before even telling his mother we were in a relationship and only then did I start to realise what sort of grip this woman had on him, when I heard her screaming into the phone that I would not move into his place (it wasn't his I learned, but her father's house, so she decided to reject me totally before even knowing a thing about me). She's bullied him all his life, and I have so many examples of the sly things she's done, nasty things she's said to me and to him, and yet he never stops doing what she wants.

His father passed away and so much sugar hit the fan, including her rejecting my OH so much that I had enough, and told her I wanted to not speak to her. This was as he was being rejected by his whole family, and I could not just keep watching and listening to abuse without standing my ground. I felt abused by them too, but I can walk away.

At New Year, I sent MIL a forgive and move on message. She totally ignored it. She's never ever made any effort with me, only caused drama and upset, and yet I took that stance.

Today, after being abused and ignored by his family, I'm told he's going over on Easter Sunday - to remember his dad on his birthday - which isn't on Easter Sunday. It sounds petty perhaps as I don't want to write an essay about all the nasty things in this first post about it. Just that it's 8 years of this narcissist pulling his strings, 8 years of going along with whatever this woman wants, and even when she's behaved so badly towards me, while I've tried, he's still choosing to do what his mother wants.

I feel like I've stuck up for him and stuck it out, and it's never ever going to be reciprocal

My mother had no sons op but expected us to run ragged after our dad passed. My husband got sick it constant demands etc. I see your point. We help but have our own families..if your husband keeps doing it its prob hard to break cycle no with the mother