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’ve had ‘phone phobia’ before.

A mix of circumstances involving my grand father being ill and dying.
I was so scared of that phone call saying he had died that any time the tel rung I would go into panic.
This stayed for years afterwards.
Even now, I’m not keen on phone calls…

Just saying.

Your husband sounds like a arsehole who would want all that family in a tiny flat after just having a baby.. unbelievable 😳

Yes please do speak to your GP and ask to be referred to perinatal mental health (or ask your midwife).

I'm sorry you weren't able to see your mum.

Why couldn’t your husband phone his family and put his kid on video call? You sound like you went to see his family when your mum was in hospital.

speak to professionals about your phone phobia as you might need a job soon as he is unemployed

You need to absolutely read him the riot act @Hopee25 . How selfish is he? Berating you for not agreeing to totally impractical arrangements, while you didn't get to see your mum when she was dying.

You need to be much stronger and find your anger @Hopee25 . Do not allow yourself to be bullied by him and and his whole family. He needs to accept that HE made the decision to leave his home country and he is unable to provide somewhere for his family to stay.

You also need reassurance that his family are well intentioned towards you and that he is on your team, that will improve your relationship more than anything else!

I'm sorry about your mum.💐

Do you work @Hopee25 ? Do you have any other family? What would improve your living situation? Could you move to a different location (in the UK) that would enable you to live somewhere with more space?

This is an awful situation for you and your children to be in.
I understand the language barrier and phone calls, I’ve lived in a couple of other countries and could cope with the language face to face but the phone was much more difficult. It’s not on you to call his family anyway and expecting 6 adults to sleep in a one bedroom flat with a newborn is beyond ridiculous.
Your husband needs to go to grief counselling first but I can understand that this is probably not a thing in his culture, especially for men. You need to put it to him as a non negotiable before this baby is born.
Then ask the counsellors advice on couples therapy. Making you leave your dying mum was appalling, far beyond normal behaviour.
His behaviour is him —- what you are experiencing is his personality and his attitudes towards you. I think you should speak to your midwife or doctor about how your life is so they are fully aware of the care you need.