Husbands grief destroying our marriage

[Hopee25]

I’m so in need of some help and advice. Feel like we hit rock bottom.

My husband and I have been married for 12 years. We are from two different cultures, he is from South East Asian and im from Europe. Living in UK.
Due to language barriers we were only able to
interact with our families over then phone. I have a phone phobia and also because of the language barriers we had limited interactions with our families. My husband took this as a rejection from my part.
He only ever spoke to my mum maybe 2x over the phone throughout our marriage. I never made an issue out of it as I knew it’s not possible. We always had good times when being together in person.

The real problems started when our daughter was born. He wanted to bring his family over for the birth, we live in a small one bed flat and I felt bringing my mother in law, father in law, brother in law, sister in law to this tiny place with our newborn is too much. I’ve always said it it’s fine if they stay nearby in a Travelodge and come see us daily, etc, but no, I came out as the horrible person for not allowing them to stay in our flat.

Fast forward to now, I lost my dear mum almost 2 years ago. She never got to see her granddaughter, only very briefly before being admitted to the hospital. At this point we had flights booked to visit his family back home. I never was able to visit my mum in hospital, to hold her hands, even though her doctor was telling me she has bowel cancer and is poorly. Instead I was visiting his family, and according to him this waa the last chance for his father to get to know his granddaughter as he has Alzheimers. I left my mum to die, to fulfil his wishes. But I do understand our flight tickets were booked well in advance.

Then last year, my dear father in law died. My husband is keep bringing up old hurts about the never happened phone calls, to his parents not being able to see their grandchild ( nor was my mum but it doesn’t seem to matter as much to him) he is treating me like I’m the whole reason for everything, is rude to me on a daily basis, Mother’s Day, came and went. I’m hurting so much and find myself praying to my father in law to fix his son.

Last night he spoke to his mother over the phone and she was keep going on about how his father wanted to see his grandchild, again this turned into me being the reason, even though we live 10 hours flights away from each other and that was the real reason that we just live far apart. He came to blame me all over again.

Im 7 months pregnant right now, this is so much to deal with for me. I cry daily, I so want to make him understand that he is hurting me so much. Doesn’t seem to care. My husband also lost his job a while back. He felt awful about that too for a long time. Now, we have a few jobs on offer he seems to have turned back to grief. It’s like he blocked that out while searching for job and now that it’s better he is grieving again.

Im so tempted to contact our GP about this as I can no longer take this. I can’t make him understand the facts. I’m the bad guy and they, he, has done nothing wrong.

What can I do? I’m so sad all the time. I just want to fix our marriage for our future, for our children, I don’t want to lose what we could’ve had.

I'm very sorry for the loss of your mum and how difficult things are. You're not going to change him, in all cultures there are people who recognise the bad/unhealthy traditions and don't follow them and others like your DH who are weak minded and blindly follow what their families say is right. I'm from a similar culture and have strong boundaries with my own family and when I lost my dad, I never treated my DH like this, because I respect him. And my parents raised me to treat my partner with care and kindness - interesting isn't it that so many cultures apparently only preach respecting your family of origin, rest of the world be damned!

You won't change him as it sounds like he's always been this way but now you have a child, his mum is more demanding of him - he's too scared to challenge her so challenges you.

The best thing you can do is ignore him completely, and focus on yourself and children. Leave him to sort himself out and grieve but make it clear you won't tolerate being treated badly as a result. You treat him like you can't live without him and he knows it - if you leave him, he won't be finding anyone else in the UK to put up with his crap, or a girl in his culture who's family will make his life hell. He needs you more than you need him.

Find your backbone and stop worrying whether he loves you or not (he isn't worried you'll stop loving him!).

He's treating you very badly. Frankly, I don't really understand why you're bending over backwards to please him. I can't believe you weren't there for your own mother when she died because of him. Where is your anger? You are a grown woman, being manipulated and worn down by this horrible man.

I say this to be kind because I know men like this wear you down: you need to take control. You have to own your choices. You cannot change him, ever. People do not change and actually they get worse as you are showing him that his behaviour is ok. Only you can change what you do from now on.

That is a very accurate description, and also the fact ‘elders’ are considered far more important and powerful than everyone else. Very different from our culture, that unless you are actively contributing to GDP you are nothing!

His father saw more of your child than your mother did. I would point this out. A lot.

You're 7 months pregnant. This is the first priority.

You also have a small child. Also a priority.

Your husband was an idiot expecting you to agree to seven people (basically strangers) in your flat after you'd given birth, and resenting you standing up for yourself. Where would they all SLEEP? In bed with you both?? Twit.

(Well done.)

Now, your phone phobia - deal with it. Seriously. Your pregnancy, your children, their health, education may be badly affected if you don't. Sort yourself out.

https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/conditions/phobias/treatment/

Your and husband's grief - deal with it. Your suffering WILL impact your marriage and your children's wellbeing. Fix yourselves before you can fix or raise others. It will take time, which starts now. The children are your priority.

https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/feelings-symptoms-behaviours/feelings-and-symptoms/grief-bereavement-loss/

I’m south East Asian and I married an Englishman. Your husband is controlling you and considers you less important than him. Sadly, you’ve allowed it…I would never choose his family over my own dying mother, you’ve set a precedent by doing that. Some Asian cultures value men over women and to me, that’s what your husband is doing. Either discuss it with him, stand your ground and demand change…or leave…

I am sorry for your loss OP and I am sympathetic to your husband’s grief also. It is painful for both of you to have been, and still be, far from family. I don’t pretend to really understand the specific cultural backgrounds.

The thing is that you both including your husband chose to marry someone from another culture, to live in a new country, to have children together. When that happens you always pay a price, there is always a loss of contact or living by traditional cultural standards. Especially when finances are stretched. There is also a commitment to a new family, in a new place, with its own mix of cultural influences. It seems like your husband has struggled to accept that shift, which of course is harder for him in time of grief.

I think it’s possible there is not a woman on this website who would have had so many people staying in a one bed straight after giving birth, in any case it’s not something unreasonable even though it may seem odd by their standards. It just isn’t fair to continue blaming you for that. If it mattered so much they needed to make a compromise too and stay nearby. Why is it all put on you and now become a blame trap? Not fair. Equally your husband has also prioritized his family in ways that you could resent, such as not seeing your mother when she was so ill. The only possible way to move forward is to agree that everyone was under pressure, and all these past resentments be put aside so you move forward focused on the future for the four of you.

The problem is I am not sure that your husband doesn’t have controlling tendencies that mean he has gone beyond just doing his best under pressure, and/or is unable to move forward in that way.

You lived in a small, one bedroom flat with a newborn. Refusing to have people staying with you was not unreasonable; the compromise was they stay nearby which they refused to do. That's on them.

I wouldn't tolerate this treatment any longer from your husband, tbh. Yes, you love him. But if he loves you, then he needs to find a way to move past this. All of this. Or your marriage won't survive his anger. You need to make this clear.

Have you asked your Gp for treatment for your phone phobia? For the safety of your children, if you need to use the phone? Or have you managed other ways to contact healthcare professionals and emergency services?

Hi OP,

I think that marriages from different countries can be complicated, but your DH needs to find a private therapist and talk it through with them.

If you can find a private specialist whose job title includes "clinical psychologist" and "integrative therapist" than that would be the ideal person to help.

Going to the GP might help a bit but NHS waiting lists are long and you might not get a therapist who is a good match for your DH. You would be much better going to someone privately and you can find someone like that online by googling.

It will cost about £100 an hour but someone like that could absolutely solve this problem for you. You can't do it yourself. It really needs someone who is qualified and experienced to help your DH through his grief.

Good luck there and I hope all goes well in your pregnancy.

Can you seek help for your phone phobia?
Can you go to the local library and regulary facetime with your overseas family?
Do you have a language or cultural barrier which is stopping you obtaining grief counselling? Your husband should get help to understand his grief. It is not your fault that his father died.

I don't know how you can still love him when he let you prioritise his family over seeing your dying mother. I don't care what culture he is from, or what airline tickets were booked. A decent loving spouse would have insisted you go to your mother.

I would also like to know where these in-laws were meant to sleep when they all squeezed themselves into a tiny flat ?

Your DH does need grief counselling, as he seems to be taking his guilt about not having been closer to his family out on you.

His parents could have visited to see the baby at some stage without SIL and BIL, or you, him and baby could have visited them, with them helping with fares if necessary. He doesn't sound like he made much of an effort to be honest.

You need to do some work on your phone phobia, so that you can engage with school, doctors appointments etc for your kids, and for yourself.

As you have both chosen to live in the UK and to bring up your children here, may I gently suggest that you both need to adjust to UK cultural norms for the sake of your children.

I say that as a woman with a German Jewish father and a Russian Orthodox grandfather. They got over themselves having both married English women.

Your husband to me is a horrible man-that is what is destroying your marriage.

The pressure of walking on eggshells trying to keep him happy is too much for you.

His culture is not more important than yours.

He couldn't even consider you when you had just had your daughter!

We did that - 4 people from my family slept on airbeds in our 1-bed flat on our wedding. But I don't think I would like them all when I was having a baby. Adjustments could have been made though, OP. I've been married for 15 years and we are from different cultures/faiths, too. It's not a walk in a park. Compromises need to be made all the time and there are 'suprises' on the way at every life stage, especially when children grow and we actually discover that we want to do things differently. If you have serious difficulties in your relationship when children are so little, you either need to come to an agreement soon, or there will be bigger obstacles on the way when your kids grow. Lack of money doesn't help - frequent travels and an active interest in your in-laws family and their culture help to nourish the spousal relationship, especially in very family-centric cultures. Effort needs to be made on both sides, though. I hope your DH recovers and comes to some senses soon as his second child is born. All the best.

I think having language barriers after 12 years of marriage is poor. Did neither of you want to learn each other’s language so you could each communicate with both sides of the family? And also maybe get help for the phone phobia. It must be very difficult coping with not ever using the phone. I appreciate there is more to the situation than the above, but I feel if you had learnt each other’s language, even just the basics, things might not have got to this stage.

I read your post and I thought life is too short to have all this emotional shit piled on you.

Prioritise your children and yourself (in that order) and tell everyone else to fuck off.

@Yellowtulipsdancing i do make phone calls when needed, it’s fine, it does give me racing heart, sweaty palms but I do make them. Much much prefer emails. The issue with the phone calls to in laws was the basic language barrier plus the dislike to making phone calls as well as 3/4 more relatives joining in to the call suddenly.

You should not be expected to entertain anyone right after giving birth. They want to come, fine, a few weeks after and they're staying somewhere else.
There are rules in pregnancy and postpartum and the main one is, you make the rules.
Your husband should indeed that.
Why is he saying is your fault your FiL passed without knowing his grandchild?

@Hopee25im from a culture where it is considered less polite (certainly to the older relatives) to put guests in a hotel if they’re visiting from abroad. HOWEVER, your husband has to put you first and recognise that A you’ve just had a baby and need to be comfortable and B he made a decision to marry a western woman. He should have explained to his family that he doesn’t have the space and he’s sorry but he’s booked them a lovely hotel and he will pick them up every morning bla bla. OR he could have suggested giving them your apartment and you and husband and children stay at a comfortable hotel. This guilt isn’t fair. Best of luck

This is actually abusive how he is treating you, he sounds awful, I’m so sorry you are being treated this way

Facetime?? Would that not work? ( surely "phonephobia is not a real thing, it's just that you don't want to talk to that person and wouldn't want to if they were standing in front of you?)