Husband won't let my parents visit

[flipperlipper]

I had a relationship crisis before Christmas; I moved out of the family home with the kids and my parents came over to support me. Things got very heated, with my parents and husband falling out, and at one point my mum calling the police on my husband (at my instruction- he was being very aggressive).

We have now worked things out and are back together. Things have been going well but at relationship counselling today husband says he can’t forgive my parents and doesn’t want them in our house (they live a flight away so this would mean they wouldn’t visit any more). He was shaking talking about it so he clearly feels strongly. I feel totally devastated. My husband and parents are both very important to me, and have very different versions of some of the events (I wasn’t there for some of these events, and both parties are frustrated that I’m staying on the fence). I just want to change his mind and move on from this (my mum is upset too but willing to move on from it), but realise we can’t change how anyone else thinks. I just wanted to get it off the chest rather than just sitting here crying.

Anyone with similar experiences or advice on how to approach this?

Don't let him isolate you from your parents. If he doesn't like them that's OK but he can't stop you from seeing them or them visiting. If I was you I would rethink your relationship with him. Did the relationship counsellor have a view about it?

I agree... he is isolating you from your Parents... your only true support... and you've let him... I feel for your Parents and your kids who will likely never see them again.. instead their Mother chose her abuser over their safety..

My best advice to you, OP, is that you bide your time and prepare a safe exit.

Get Women's Aid (or equivalent) support. Get legal advice and support. Confide in your family and friends.
Then leave or get him out when safe.

I don't think he'll let you walk away safely, and he will then try to reel you back as he's done before with so called apologies. He's now going back to exercising his power over you in keeping your parents away from your home. It can only get worse if you don't leave and don't confront him.

I was in exactly this scenario four years ago. EXACTLY.
He was sorry blah blah. But he blamed me and my mum for police and subsequent SS 'interference' as he deemed it.

My children were interviewed by SS and on the report that they stated they were sometimes frightened of him, all he could concern himself with was how SS were making out he was the bad guy.
It is hard to leave and hard to face the reality that the person you love is not the good person you thought they were. But you really do need to wake up and see him for what he is.
I ultimately left him and I'm bloody glad I did because he was subsequently convicted a year after for stalking and harassment.

Please take heed op

Please can someone link to the other thread apologises if someone already has.

OP, do you think your parents, the woman who carried you and gave birth to you, might be lying about events? Or is it entirely more likely your husband is lying

She knows her parents aren’t lying. She knows fully her husband is. But she doesn’t want to admit it, because my admitting it she has to admit the abuse hasn’t stopped. She knows.

Found the link on this thread.

Op, it’s time finally to pull up your grown up knickers. You’re in your 40s, no man is better than an abusive one! The damage that he’s caused to you and your children will be huge already.

Can you live with yourself if your children are weak and model your poor choices in life? Know that sounds harsh but it is dangerous to be this forgiving and blind to what could happen.

We model relationships to our children, what if one of yours is killed by their partner because they kept letting them back into their lives!

Think of your children and not just yourself and your feelings.

You described “living on a knifes edge” quite frankly how dare you put your children through that!
I’m sounding harsh but enough! Your children don’t have a choice you do. Make the right one.

I’ve got experience, think of your children and not yourself please

There is no need to wrote exasperated messages that make me feel like shit. I feel bad enough without that. Whilst I am sorry you have had messages that make you feel 'like shit' why do YOU FEEL BAD?

You responded to his aggression
You have agreed to try to put that in the past
You are in counselling, listening to him
You are, currently, agreeing to his demands

WHY DO YOU FEEL BAD?

Do you have a counsellor for yourself? Maybe you could work on that question....

OP, you cannot have a discussion about this with him person to person. Why is that? You are a conflicted woman with two Masters. Husband is the Master who is an abusive man with whom you stay with for Fear of being Abandoned.
Parents are the Master from whom your DH is threatening to separate you, thus triggering your Fear of being Abandoned them. That's why you feel pulled apart and 'stuck' on the fence.
Difference is - your DH abuses your Fear of Abandonment to control you and to keep others from influencing you.

Get counselling for yourself as a priority. You have fallen into a pattern of behaviour that is childlike and dependent - your DH's controlling behaviour has undermined your 'adult' self. This has just arisen from a variety of factors - you did not choose this but that doesn't mean you don't have choices now. You do have choices.
Find an ally and get supports for yourself so that you can become your own master and get yourself the life that you and the kids deserve because you are a good woman doing your very best
You are safe while his anger rests on your parents' heads...he is temporarily distracted from his other prey.

Your poor kids.

If he was genuinely contrite he would have apologised to your parents and be trying to prove to them that he has changed in addition to proving it to you.

That. At the very least. Though going by what posters who know more of the history have said, it might be that you shouldn't be with him still, anyway.

OP, you have a choice.
Your poor children don't.
They are stuck in a nightmare home, that you have chosen for them.

He is shaking with anger and fury because you were supported by your parents.

He wants you broken, afraid, isolated and alone............he can't have that with your parents visiting and seeing the hell that you and your children are living through.

Your poor children........
Neither parents taking any responsibility for their behaviour and choices.

Wishing you the strength of character to do what's right for your children and yourself.

If he was genuinely contrite he would have apologised to your parents and be trying to prove to them that he has changed in addition to proving it to you

Agree, instead he’s lying about them and trying to punish them and exclude them for supporting her, and she knows it. She knows all of it, and isn’t challenging it.

Once you've banned your parents from visiting and shown him you're "on his side," the abuse will ramp back up. You're only in a honeymoon period as long as he's trying to get you to cut your support network off.

Even if it's because the counsellor was worried she wouldn't see the op at all otherwise it's still wildly unethical and negligent to continue joint therapy when abuse has been identified - all that's happening is that his control is deepening not weakening, and that is dangerous for the op.

What does a counsellor do then user? When you see someone being this badly abused, going back to it, bring their kids back to it, moving into trying to isolate the, where you actually tell them they are being abused and still they insist, Is it not just as dangerous to cut them off with no support?

Why are you choosing an abuser over your own family? You need to protect your children from him, he's got serious issues.

She knows all of it, and isn’t challenging it.

Oh come on, she's clearly scared of him. What good will come of confronting an aggressive man before she's ready, when her whole support network is in another country?

She said it's not straightforward. Berating her and basically calling her a coward isn't helping.

The headline on the NSPCC DA page reads:

“Witnessing domestic abuse is child abuse”

www.nspcc.org.uk/what-is-child-abuse/types-of-abuse/domestic-abuse/

This isn’t about you anymore.

Every minute you stay YOU are complicit in child abuse of your own DCs.

Even if they don’t see or hear it directly children absorb and then internalise the tension, terror and knife edge atmosphere - they don’t have the capacity to understand it logically they are left terrified and confused.

This leaves them in a state of hyper-vigilance, fear and anxiety. This is exhausting and distracting so they experience emotional, social and behavioural problems as children which often develop into significant long term MH problems at teenage.

Maybe start a thread on here asking “How did being brought up in a home with DA affect your life?” - then you will see what’s in store for your DCs.

They will have already experienced significant emotional injury and your responsibility now is to take them out of this and create a calm and peaceful home so that you can go about repairing the damage.

On top of the child abuse experienced by them in a DA home they are also emotionally neglected. It is not possible for you to be attentive and attuned to their emotional needs whilst you are preoccupied in the dance with your abuser. You cannot be in two emotional places at once - and you are choosing to be mentally consumed and drained by this man. This means there are only emotional crumbs left for your DCs.

Put them first. They have suffered enough emotional injury to date. If you chose not to you are choosing to facilitate their ongoing abuse and neglect.

Conflict avoidant is an excuse. Your parents were there for you, out of love, stand up for them now. Reading your posts, you will probably need them again.

Yes she is clearly scared of him, hence why she won’t raise anything unless it’s with a counsellor present.

But she’d already done the confronting, she and the kids were out, and now she’s chosen to go back to him, to take her kids back to him, to pay for him, to play it she loves him and pretend they have worked it out, and to say how important he is to her. To not articulate she knows he is lying about her parents and consider letting him isolate her and the kids.

It would be one thing if it was just her going back in for some more. But it’s not. There are children involved in this.

I'm sure the poor kids are conflict avoidant as well. Believe me growing up in a home with DV you are adversely affected permanently. If you want positive responses to your post there's too many of us who have been there and don't that on this site

And done that

www.rcpsych.ac.uk/mental-health/parents-and-young-people/information-for-parents-and-carers/domestic-violence-and-abuse-effects-on-children