Is this normal?

[Hyperbolebaba]

My husband 37, married 5 years and together for 10, is extremely sensitive to percieved control and loss of independence. Whatever my ask of him, he says I am manipulative, abusive, etc etc. Over the years i feel this has made concede on so many things, lower my standards on what i expect of marriage/my husband and pverall has left me doubting myself (and at times i feel like I am losing my sanity)

I fell out with his mother a few years ago; they are extremely close and the adult children deeply loyal to mum and each other. The entire family outcast me pretty quickly. My husband said if he stood up for me he would be outcast too and he made it clear he was not on my side. He also outcast me in many ways; he just dropped doing anything with his family with me included. Everything became private and exclusive. I am not entirely estranged from most his family. This has caused bitter rows, in the midst of fertility problems and IVF.

I have sometimes asked him to avoid certain events with his family as I was feeling so utterly excluded in not being invited; he refused and said i was controlling him. In the middle of IVF as well he insists he should be able to do this; when i tell him how much the stress affects me and that i feel its why the IVF is failing, he says I'm manipulating him with IVF, etc and i will manipulate him more with pregnancy, child, etc if he lets me get away with it. I have had a miscarriage and I begged him during the pregnancy to not go to an event as i was stressed about it; he went anyway. Another time he left me without giving me my trigger injection and went to a family dinner (simply because i has asked him not to go and he couldnt allow that for principles sake).

I have not asked him to never see any of his family again; some of them have been brutal in their rejection of me and i am really hurting from it. I have simply asked him to avoid intimate one to ones with them for a short period of time, particularly as we're commencing IVF again; i have clearly said the request doesnt apply to larger family events, dinners, Xmas, etc but he has simply refused. He says he will not ever discuss again with me on who he sees, when, how, etc period. If i ask him about being a team and putting us first, he says the marriage is most important to him but he absolute detests the talk of priority or primacy.

Am i being unreasonable? Is it normal for a person to feel they need to exercise their independence to this degree? Are my asks manipulative. He exagerrates my asks when he relays it back - "you dont want me to see my family" he insists - but that is hardly what I have asked for. I am so so utterly heartbroken and stressed. I literally feel sensations in my body from stress when these arguments come up and recently i got my period 5 days early in the middle of an argument - he says this is all manipulative and controlling. I am just losing touch with reality i feel; I cant tell anymore if i am right or wrong. I am terrified I am letting myself down but I am also desperately in love with him and want to make my marriage work.

But the op could be thought of as doing this to him

The double standard on here never goes away

But no you should not have a baby with him anyway

That’s correct and most people know how hard it is to end a relationship with someone who is manipulative, controlling and abusive.

You're being ostracized by a whole family which is a pretty tough stressor and a psychological punishment.
No
wonder you are suffering physical and mental symptoms.
Try and read a few articles on it, scary stuff.
Bringing a child into
this set up seems totally crazy to
me, trust your body/mental reactions, they tell you what you deep down know already.
Do not do it !!!!
Whatever the reasons are for the fall out, do
you have a secret dream
that having a baby will revert the ostracism ?
How can you lead a daily life with this amount of stress ?
For the rest of your life too.
Your MIL /DH probably uses the ostracizing as a form of control and if you have a baby it might get even worse.
You want to be near radiators in life, not drains.
Do you have your own family close by ?
How can you love DH so much if he does nothing to solve the situation, he must know it causes you mental and physical anguish.

You can only help yourself.
I'd put myself first at 37, especially when you like to have kids, why endure this current situation ?
Are you self sufficient/financially/professionally independant or is that another reason, other than love for DH, to stay in this stressful ( almost self abuse ) set up ?

I think knowing the reason for the fall out with your MIL would be good to know, for context. It all sounds so extreme and a bit childish, with most of his family now shunning you. I can see why that would be upsetting.

It would be unreasonable to expect your DH not to see his family, including 1:1s, for periods of time. However I think the way he is going about this seems bizarre - authoritarian and controlling, he wants to show that he has got the power here and can punish you. It’s more of a parent - child dynamic and isn’t healthy. During those times you need to be reassured and supported, and he’s not doing that.

The whole situation seems enmeshed and toxic and it really feels like you would be better off leaving OP, things would get so much worse bringing a child into this. I think a clean break would be wise.

You want to sign a contract over who can or cannot spend time with any children you may have with this man? Am I understanding that correctly?

If you have to draft legal documents of this nature you are having kids with the wrong person OP. I'm sorry but I see no future for your marriage but if you insist on going ahead please have a therapy fund for any children you bring into this toxic mess.

Yes i agree with everything you have said. I dont want to control him seeing his family and i can it is wrong. I am just desperate to avoid that cleeding into the future and same happening with our kids. I think i would be in pieces if i felt ostracised from my kids's life in this way; that is ultimately my biggest fear.

I agree with this. I admit i guess I have been controlling in some ways but it is because i feel desprately lonely and ganged up against. I dont have my husband's support even in private (leave alone in front of his family); I am certainly not his #1 and he is disgusted by talks of primacy of the couple, boundaries of a couple, etc. The counsellor suggests these things and he outright just says he doesnt get it. He prefers to be much much more of an individual, like as if we were dating. I dont know. I am confused and lost.

But the thing is OP you still haven’t said why you fell out, who was in the wrong etc. That is really relevant info. If my husband had upset my mum and he was in the wrong then I wouldn’t support him over her just because he’s my husband, he was in the wrong! Marriage doesn’t mean you have a free pass to behave however you want and never be pulled up on it, and parents/siblings are a soft spot, if my husband had done something so bad that my mum and family no longer wanted to see or spend time with him then I’d be rethinking my marriage, if he then told me I couldn’t see them I’d be filing for divorce.

Yes I think banning him from seeing his family and blaming ivf failings on the stress is highly manipulative. It’s also very unlikely to resolve issues with his family.

He also sounds like a controlling arsehole. I don’t think either of you come off looking good here.

i would definitely stop the ivf and look to separate based on what’s written here.

OP are you from a non British culture? I'm only asking because the intensity of the loyalty to the matriarch and family makes me wonder if there are strict cultural structures in place?

Without being harsh, you and your husband sound toxic and exhausting. The packing up and threatening to leave is juvenile and I can't believe you want to be parents to a child while behaving like this.

You may have been pushed into this toxic behaviour because of the lack of support but that doesn't excuse it. You need to take a break from everything and get your head straight - thinking about IVF and children in these circumstances sounds completely insane.

It would be unfair and selfish for everyone concerned to bring a defenceless child into this.

I dont think its relevant what happened because i am talking about a problem with my marriage. I would have to do a whole separate post on the 3/4 years of issues with his family, the details, etc to open the debate on who was right/wrong, etc. So what if i somepeople think i was in the right versus others thing i am in the wrong? it still doesnt change the marital problem of what my husband thinks and it still doesnt change the ostracism that they have chosen to engage in.

It does if you acted like a twat and fell out with his mother for no good reason and then expected him to cut her out.

You could have slept with mums boyfriend for all we know!

It is relevant in the context of how unreasonable it is for you to ask him to limit his contact, your disagreement on this seems to be the crux of your issues, so yes it’s relevant. The fact you are musing that there will be debate over who is right and wrong leads me to think you know the behaviours of the in laws are not so monstrous they warrant your husband having to live without and proper relationship with his family.

@Cocomummy - are you saying the intensity of loyalty to matriarch and family is a British cultural thing?

I understand the sentiment around post-poning IVF but the thing is he refused to try for kids for c. 2 years before due to these problems .. which did not get resolved in that time. So i pretty much gave him an ultimatum that our relationship would need to end if he didnt want kids with me that made him afree to start trying a couple of years ago. Now if we go back to that place, I know there is just no incentive to not get out of the rutt. As long as my husband gets what he wants with his family, he will not leave me; if i tell him he can stay with me, not have kids and meet his family, he will snap that up and i will be childless for rest of my life possibly. I would resent him so much for it that it would be the end of our marriage. In short, if we stop trying for kids, i dont think we will ever resolve this to apoint where we will start again and that resentment will kill our marriage anyway.

.........are you saying the intensity of loyalty to matriarch and family is a British cultural thing?

No. It doesn't sound British.
South Asian, possibly?

There has been no sleeping around; no violence; no theft. No laws broken.

I havent ever asked him to cut his mum off; he meets her 1:1 often and my ask for pause on 1:1s did not involve her.. it was just his siblings i had requested that on, due to very hurtful recent incidents with them. His mum hasnt spoken to me in a year and i still dont stop him at all from seeing her.

Your marriage is over now - he doesn’t prioritise you or give you what you need and you can’t bring a baby into this toxic mess

how old are you (and why the IVF - you/him/together) because you can start over with a better relationship than this

Of course it’s relevant to your marriage problems.

You don’t need to share it here, but the reality is if you were in the wrong and your husband and his family knows that then they are all in the right. If you are in the wrong and have upset MIL/his family, of course they don’t want to spend time with you and they aren’t wrong in not wanting to do that.

I’d do exactly the same as them if you were in the wrong, why would I want to spend time with someone who has hurt my mum?

Sorry I meant that the extreme loyalty to the matriarch is usually from non British cultures...I am from a culture that really places the mother on a pedestal (esp by sons). I wondered if that's why your husband point blank refuses to support you in the falling out. Which means really your fighting a losing battle.

I understand you don't want to lose even more time after he made you wait two years but that's the sunken costs fallacy- staying because of the time that has already passed rather than accepting having children with him will ruin you and your children probably.

What qualities does he have that make you want to have a child with him? What kind of life would the time you provide for a child? How do you think his family will behave when you have this child?

Yes this is what I was getting at

You seem to think only along the lines of right or wrong. Any half decent therapist will tell you that is a very limiting way of thinking.

Even by your way of thinking, I think i was about 10% wrong over time and the rest was them as well as my husband. There were times when he literally asked me not to get involved with his family and i withdrew (from hurt, humuliation and to meet his request) - "No one wants to see you, everyone is awkward around you!"; "You cant visit my dying uncle as you dont get on with his sister, that is my mum!"; "My siblings wont see you; its like they're worried about having fun without mum"; "please dont try to orghanise things with my family and friends; i will do it msyelf if i want to".

That very much seems like him though keeping you from his family

@Cocomummy - as in , are you saying my husband is south Asian? he is not. He is very much British and his whole family is.

Okay fair enough

I agree. The ostracism was not just by his family, it was by my husband himself too.