NC for this.
I don’t know what response I’m looking for, I just need to get it out here as there isn’t anyone IRL I can talk to about it any detail. I love my DH dearly, and I’m worried about him.
He is damaged, he had a difficult childhood and has major self esteem issues and a lot of anger. His father didn’t want him (he was the product of an affair) and had very little to do with him until he was in his teens.
His mother has repeatedly over the years made it clear that falling pregnant with him was a mistake. She told him that her family wanted her to give him up/terminate. She thought about suicide. She’s even told me these things on numerous occasions, including that ‘FIL refused to use protection’ and that she ‘didn’t know she could get pregnant at the time of the month they DTD’.
She’d already had one pregnancy and ended it (with a different man, not FIL) so it’s not like she was naïve. She was in her 30s!
I do sympathise with her situation but imagine telling your own child that their existence wasn’t wanted by their father, their grandparents/aunts/uncles.
Even now, more than 40 years later she still says these things to him if he gets angry with her. To remind him that he should be grateful to even exist and all the subsequent sacrifices she made for him. She belittled him all his life, treats him so coldly and refuses to see that she could/should have done anything differently.
She packed him off to boarding school at the grand old age of 7.
Prior to that he remembers living with his mother and grandmother who argued constantly.
He did reconnect with his father in later life and he had been around us quite a bit over the years since our children were born, albeit never a close relationship.
He did however make my DH his executor. He died last year and my DH has had to run back and forth to Devon to sort out his house/estate and it’s still not finalized. One surprise in all this was that he lived a simple life, not at all giving the impression of wealth. His mother said she had to beg for every penny of financial support from him, he died last year and in dealing with his estate we find out he was worth in excess of £1.5 million (the vast majority of which is going to a charity for vulnerable children. The irony).
Losing his father has brought a lot of anger and unanswered questions to the fore. At the funeral we had to sit and listen to his father’s best friend talk about how FIL was the most wonderful godfather to his children (similar age to my DH), how he took them out and gave them wonderful experiences and memories. I wanted to scream for my poor DH. Another knife in the wound for him.
On top of all this he’s had struggles at work in the past year too. Bullying complaint (made by him against a senior member of staff) and a counter-claim for which my DH is now under investigation (he sent a ranting email to someone else in the management chain involved in his complaint. Not a smart move, done as a result of all the stress and upset he is going through. He acknowledges it shouldn’t have been done but I’m surprised it has gone as far a formal complaint).
His mother continues to antagonize and upset him, despite him telling her he doesn’t feel like he can be in contact with her right now.
It’s a mess, his head is a mess and I’m really worried about him.
There’s nothing I can do to help apart from be there to listen and reassure him I am on his side. I have suggested he get himself signed off with stress for a bit.
He’s not keen. I’ve suggested counselling for his feelings about his past but so far he isn’t receptive to that.
I really worry for his mental health, and that he might have a breakdown.