Our 5th visit to the Stately Home

[Nabster]

Here we go again.

My DD is at school and DS goes to nursery from about 9.15am til about 5.30pm (so very long days) two days per week, and I don't go out to work. My children started going to nursery for two days a week at 10 months old. I don't really feel guilty because I feel it helps to prepare them for coping with starting school. If they had cried all day and hated it I would have reconsidered but they enjoyed it.

OPO - you need that space to heal and ultimately be a good mother to your children (unlike your own mother). You are doing it for your children as well as yourself. The amount of time spent in nursery is not what hurts children. If my mother had put me in nursery a lot, but had been a good mother when I was around I wouldn't care about that.

Just as I wouldn't care if she had breast or bottle fed me or how she had birthed me. What name she had given me and whether she allowed me to sleep in her bed or not. These are the daily choices of early motherhood but what matters to me is that she hasn't been a good mother by putting me first and loving me for who I am.

She stood back and let my father say such awful things to me and rage at me. She even basked in his praise when he was using her so called good points to put me down e.g. 'look at your mother she looks great for her age, you look awful'. She is pathetically insecure and down trodden by him, to the point where she has sacrificed her relationship with two daughters.

I too need space sometimes to work through my issues but I am lucky in that I have a great MIL nearby who loves spending time with DS. She watched him everytime I went to counselling. I am very, very lucky for that and I know it.

AN - This book I am reading The Primal Wound is fascinating. It makes me even more angry at my parents, for their failure to recognise the impact of separation from the birth mother has on a child. That my mother wants me to adore her and has failed to recognise my feelings for my birth mother (who is her own daughter!).

However I must stress that this book can be applied to all people with issues with bonding with their family, especially the mother. It states that adoptive fathers must see the child for who they are and not live their dreams through this child (who is not biologically theirs and therefore might have different interests and talents). Indeed this applies to biological fathers as well.

So my father failed miserably there then! I really feel nothing for him at the moment.

Rose, I've read The Primal Wound too and found it incredibly painful from start to finish, as though I was 'remembering' things! It described so much, so acurately of what I feel/have felt, and things I know my brother (adopted separately from another mother) felt as well, that I feel the author is right about things. Are you finding it painful too? Strange how it should hurt so much reading it yet also feel reassuring that our reactions to what happened are normal, common even!

Yes I have found it painful but incredibly therapeutic as well. It justifies what I have felt all my life. That something has been missing and the lack of bond with my adoptive parents.

I was with my biological mother until I was three and she died when I was 19. I did have contact with her. So that separation is incredibly painful. My mother and especially my father have failed to acknowledge my pain and believe I should be grateful.

The justification of one's feelings is incredibly empowering as well as painful

Whoa so much. Maybe I shouldn't post. Feeling a bit pissed acutally so not particulary compus mentis. Thank you for the post who likened their experince to mine ....bully Dad/Mouse Mum. Difference is I learnt to blank/ignore any bullying and consequently, when I was bullied at school I 'ignored the bullying'. It didn't go away as expected but just continued. It made me so miswrable. My Mum taught me to put up and shut up.

I know my expereinces aren't bad on the grand scale but would like to share them:

One night aged 6-7 years old I felt poorly and thought I was going to die. I was so reluctant to go into my parents room for fear of the repurcusions but I went in anyway. I was inconsolable but my Dad, haiving a very short fuse, locked me in the toilet to calm me down I went balistic. Am suprised I am not claustrophoic!

One xmas my Dad went of on one (can't remember the reason...does it matter?) He banished evryone then afeter about an hour barked at my mum 'Bring them in to open thier presents' Tis the season to be jolly.

My Dad would usually kick off at the dinner table and end up shouting at my Mum and pointing at her with his knife 'And you...should have sorted them out, letting them do x, y, x' My Mum would sit, pursed lipped and not eat her dinner. My Dad would then go out to the pub all night. He'd drive home pissed. Now I realise that he didn't go out to the pub every night but probably to the current affair (of which he had many). When he got home, my Mum would say 'Do you want a sandwich' invariably he would say yes and my Mum would busy herself.

I didn;t know unitl my adult years that he had beaten my Mum a couple of times but it didn;t suprise me. He gave us a punch now and agian usually for answering back (obviously not half as bad as some abuse). This is not what riles me, it's all the other crap on a daily basis. He would be fine one minute but then one comment (didn't need to be much) and he was up in the air and you;d know he would be ranting and raving for 10-15 mins. It was like walking on egg shells.

My parnets relationship was soooo off key that I couldn't understand why my Mum stayed with him. Now I know it was her rock bottom self esteem.

Shit cant think much more, my brain has shut down but there is much more!

Todays script writers for Corrie should be shot.

A wobble today. Lost my temper with my DS who has been getting up before 6am more frequently and we are both fighting off a virus.

I am triggered when I am tired, I suppose I miss a proper mother in my life. To hug me and make me feel good again

I watched a film called Into The Wild. It is about a young man who rejects his dysfuntional parents (raging father, passive mother) and their fake materialistic lifestyle. He goes to live in the wild and connect with nature. It reminds me of a quote from Fight Club 'it is only when we have lost everything that we are free to do anything'.

In the film he talks about some people who never feel they deserve love and so they seek an 'empty space'. He is clearly deeply affected by his emotionally abusive parents. I identify with the feeling that you have to earn love rather than just feeling automatically and unconditionally loved. It is a terrible burden, makes you suspicious of everyone at times, and makes you hyper vigilant. That you don't do or say something that will make people reject you.

For me this is linked not only to my adoptive parents but the fact I was separated from my birth mother and that my birth father has never wanted to know me.

I have hugged my DS and apologised for raging at him. I want my children to be whoever they want to be and express their opinions in the knowledge that they will be loved unconditionally.

On a more positive note I am getting stronger in my own belief that my adoptive parents were abusive. My MIL asked after my father's health. She is a good mother and woman but it does annoy me that she will ask, as if I should be concerned. I just told her that I didn't hear much from him these days. Before I would have played along with the whole fake concern, yes I still love my father. But I have had enough of that and if people want to think less of me I will remember another quote in that film.

That sometimes truth is more important than love, society and acceptance.

Roseability I love this - "I want my children to be whoever they want to be and express their opinions in the knowledge that they will be loved unconditionally." This must be THE most important part of being a parent. And do you know what else - I don't think anyone else can do this for you, and that is why it is so sad and such a painful loss if you never had this from a parent as it remains missing in you for your whole life. At times it really hurts, like you said, when you are feeling particularly tired or ill or emotionally vulnerable and you want a proper mother but know you haven't got one/won't get one. It seems to be something we have to learn to accept and live with

It does make me determined to give that to my children, but I feel like I am failing today! I am just so tired and irritable. I had been quite energetic this pregnancy and doing lots with DS which has brought us closer. But I am fighting off a virus and 35 weeks pregnant. No excuse to lose my temper with him though.

Better go DS has just spilt a drink all over living room carpet. Will take a deep breath and keep cool! My fault for being on here!

You have got quite a lot to cope with at the moment then, I think you could give yourself a break!

Rose, don't beat yourself up about being a 'human' ie imperfect mother. You are already a far far better mother than your own mother. to your DS in the ways that are really important. We are all human and will not always do the right thing, even by our DC's, especially when we are being pushed to our limits and especially because we are having to draw on reserves of love and patience that we don't actually have within ourselves due to not having been given these by our mothers.

But to feel sorry and to apologise to your son after you realise you have not acted properly towards him, well, IMHO, that is the sign of a decent, empathetic, loving and caring mother. If my parents had voluntarily and sincerely apologised for their behaviour when I was a child or even now that I am an adult, i would have far more respect and feeling towards them than I do right now.

I have sometimes lost my patience with my DC's due to tiredness/illness etc and I always apologise afterwards and my DD's response is so heartwarming, she always says "it's alright mummy, i don't mind" but I insist on apologising to her. I think it an important lesson for my children to learn that their mummy can and does make mistakes but she is not too arrogant or uncaring to say sorry when she has done wrong.

"That sometimes truth is more important than love, society and acceptance" I love that, my counsellor used to say to me she 'loves the truth' but not everybody does or has the courage to know the truth even for themselves. Truth is the central theme to all of Alice Miller's work, know your own truth about your history and yourself.

I have had a nightmare weekend with MIL. I am getting better at standing up for myself when she comes out with her catty snidey remarks but it is not natural for me and I find it hard. I don't want to stoop to her level and be catty back but i don't want her to get away with her unacceptable comments. It's very hard when there are other people around as well as i don't want to cause a scene.

I wonder if i should give up trying to rely on DH to have a word with her which he clearly doesn't really want to do but has agreed to on my behalf and just have a word myself? I have been thinking it has to be done face to face but perhaps i could just do it over the phone? My heart is starting to thump right now just thinking about it. But i have to do something as i cannot avoid seeing her, there's probably years left in her yet so i have to set some boundaries for her. She is so opinionated and every conversation has to be about her, she interrupts and turns it into something about her and then drones on without making any aalient point or even any sense really and we all just listen because we are too polite to do otherwise. If there had been nobody else around this weekend I would have been quite rude to her but i had to bite my tongue and today i just feel so angry with her. I totally hate her in her own right, perhaps she is triggering me a bit but she is a nasty piece of work and my anger and hatred towards her is purely based on my experience with her, it's nothing to do with my childhood i'm sure.

OK rant over, sorry.

OPO - thanks for your post, it really helped

The MIL issue is a tough one. Lots of women who have had normal childhoods and good relationships with their own mothers, can't stand their MIL. So I am sure it isn't to do with your own childhood, but rather that she is just being a nasty piece of work sometimes. Maybe we are more sensitive to such behaviour because we hope our MIL can fill a gap that our own mothers have left. This is probably rarely the case. It is not your fault though.

I think you are within your rights to have a word with her. Make it known that you won't accept the horrible remarks. People such as us are vulnerable to being bullied I think. She probably has control issues about her son.

My MIL sometimes oversteps the mark in terms of opinions about DS. I let it go because she generally has been brilliant and supportive. However I would not accept what your MIL says.

On another note, if I ever have a DIL who has been abused by her family and clearly needs love and support, I would be more than willing to offer it. Although I know i could never make up for a birth mother. Yes of course my son will always come first, but his wife and kids will be the most important people in his life and thus they will be important to me. It is within the realms of possibility for a MIL to be nice to her DIL!

feel very low tonight- It has not been a good few days.

Told DH last night that I dont love him anymore .

Phonecall from DB tonight has triggered me badly as well.

When I feel this bad it is so hard to know what is real and what isnt, what is normal and what isnt.

Im completely at a loss when it comes to knowing my own feelings at all.

All I know is I am continually angry and irritable and it is mainly directed at DH and more recently toward ds. I feel really sad about it. I also feel guilty and ashamed.

I am turning into my mother. Full of rage and seething resentments.

I wonder if DH 'is' triggering me and if when I look at him the person I am seeing is me. I know that may sound odd but if I really believe on some level that it 'is' me that is bad to the core and that I deserved all of 'their' anger if deep down I still do believe all the shit my family fed me then perhaps I escape these feelings by offloading them on to the nearest person to. The nearest person being Dh.

Or perhaps I really just dont love him anymore? How can I know what love really looks like, when I've never had it.

Whatever the answer 'He' deserves better.

Smithfield, I am sorry you are feeling so sad. Maybe you just nave too much going on emotionally to know how you are feeling about DH. I hope he is ok, too.

I am a bit rubbish at the moment, too. AT my session today, I was telling him about something my fater had said about my artwork that had really upset me, and he said my father was probably being sarcastic- as if he was only making a joke. It has really got to me. No he wasn't making a joke, he was being very disapproving and dismissive of my hard work (it was quite a big show of a year's work).

My therapist also asked me how I describe myself to people- I said I didn't know- I don't- it's not something I really do- and he said I was being lazy. The only thing I could come up with is when people ask me who I am I tell them I am mrpinky's wife.
Bsically it has triggered the whole 'I'm blowing everything out of proportion' routine in my head. I feel as though I am making a big fuss over nothing and I am just using my parents as an excuse not to make an effort with my life. I feel like a crap person. A big fat loser.

My dad turned up at my house last week. And now he has rung DH to tell him that my mother is upset because I am not being available to her. Therapist warned me about this and to remember I have not done anything wrong but I really am at a loss for what to do next.

rosability you are doing so well. 34 weeks is very pregnant! Please cut yourself some slack.

Things are a little better here than they were last week. I got into a really, really dark place again, for a while, and I'm still not sure why it got so bad - wondering if I was maybe trying to face down too many demons at once. Felt like I had to clear up everything for once and for all, and that's just too much. Softly, softly... With the clearing out stuff that my mother has given me, I've had to call a temporary halt, I just can't do any more for now. So many things in our home come from her, quite a lot of really big or everyday things, and I really wanted to get shot of them all and move on, stop being reminded of her every time I cook, for example, and tons of other times. But I'm not ready. Maybe I still need to believe that dream that she does care in some way; the pain of feeling how little she actually cares was just making me unable to function for too much of the time, and DS deserves better than that. It does suck that so many of my possessions were given me by her - they're an indication of how helpless I was for so long, how unable to provide for myself, how dependent I still had to be on her. All the times she "helped me out", she never once thought to herself "why is it my talented, intelligent, loving, caring, competent daughter can't make a life for herself, can't earn her own money, can't be in a stable relationship, can't take her place in the world?" Yet she would say she thinks of me as all those things, and yet at the same time she could completely accept that I had the life of a total loser and do this double think thing where she could think of me as lovely and wonderful in theory somehow, and yet see me as someone for whom it wasn't remotely surprising that life just didn't work out. The workings (or non-workings) of my parents' minds are just too deep and convoluted to be able to sum up. Anyway, maybe I just had to go to this dark place to see what was there and now I'm gathering stength to take it on... the heartache is still there, every day, but at least I don't feel like I should never have been born any more, which is where I was for a good couple of weeks there. It's an old, old feeling that hadn't come up that strongly in a while.

Smithfield, from what you say about your feelings re your DH, to me it does sound like projection. Which is very, very normal. Like you say, you offload all those negative feelings about yourself onto him, because he's the nearest person to you, and that's what we all do to some extent in relationships - to some degree it's actually healthy, I think, although obviously not when it's this painful. It sounds also like maybe you're punishing him for loving you. When we don't get the love we need as children, we "learn" that people who do love us are mad or stupid, and we get angry with them for being like that. IMHO. Obviously I don't know you or him but I would guess there's at least a strong chance that you do really love him but this stuff is really coming between you. My opinion, anyway, fwiw.

Pinky, sorry to hear you were upset by what your therapist said. I would be upset too. It's good that's he's so on your side re the family situation though - it sounds like it's getting really heavy. Of course, in a "normal" family, the expectation would be on your mother to be available for you, not the other way round - not that I have much experience of normal families, but I try to imagine!!

OPO, so glad to hear my previous post helped you. We were at my MIL's this weekend so have been thinking of you and your posts - you know there was a bit of a turning point for me when I realised it was actually DH I was angry at because I felt so let down by him re his mother. This was before the row I had with her. Which probably sounds paradoxical but isn't. Anyway, he really let me down badly around DS's first birthday, let his mother completely take over and completely ignored all my wishes and totally ruined it for me. I was beyond gutted, just beyond, and after she went back home I just grew the most enormous rage I've ever had against DH (who is a wonderful, really loving man and a fantastic husband and dad in so many respects). I was even thinking divorce, I was so mad - literally mad with rage. It was all to do with not mattering, with not being listened to, lied to, ignored, being put second or third or last. He's always said I'm number one, and yet he was continually putting my needs after his mother's, and I just got to a point where I had had enough of it and I felt strong enough in myself that I deserved to be treated better than that by the man who has promised to "cleave only unto me" as it were. Anyway, not a lot changed on the outside, but he got the message, after a really, really stinking time, and I think that's why he sort of backed me up when I had the row with her, instead of taking her side. And I have found her a bit easier to deal with since then.Just thought I'd share that with you....

Walkinthewoods, what you said about your father and mother at the dinner table set a few bells ringing for me. Different scenario in many ways, but that thing of your father ranting - my father was always going on at my mother "you're too soft on them, pandering to them, blah blah blah." He's a bully too, and my mother is a mouse pretending she's a lion, which is very confusing. He criticised her endlessly, and then she would go on and on about him - to me. Great. She had such a lot for free from me. Sakura, you talked about being an unpaid counsellor - oh yes. Unpaid, unacknowledged and unthanked. Unvalued and unrespected. Just used, dumped on and then forgotten about - the effect it had on me was never ever considered, it really was like my mother never actually got that I was a real human being with real feelings and a real life of my own that exised in any way independently of her and her needs of me. She had me to plug up her pain and that was the beginning and end of my life in her eyes in some primal way. What a truly crap mother. I'm taking a measure of delight in writing that. I'm growing some more rage.

Just had a couple of terrible phone calls with my mother

I have been left feeling drained but also relieved that I got a few things off my chest

I have to go out now but will post later

Hello all.

Am sorry to hear how you are feeling smithfield. I was in a similar place to you not so long ago, I felt so detached from DH, there was no connection there at all between us and I also felt like I didn't love him and I even went as far as googling an exboyfriend and finding his email address. I didn't go as far as contacting the exboyfriend or telling DH how i felt, but DH found out anyway by snooping on here. It could have all been a complete disaster but somehow his snooping broke the ice between us and reopened the lines of communication.

I realised I was not seeing DH at all for who he really was, but seeing my father. I was reacting to him as if he was my father and treating him like he was my father ie being wary of him, mistrusting him and his motives, feeling like he hated me and always had the worst intentions towards me. I realised what i was doing and things improved for a while.

But now things are bad again. But in a different way which is not really making me depressed surprisingly. I have recently had this almighty realisation about DH that ever since we met I have not really seen him for what he is. I have created him in my mind as the person I want him to be, my ideal person I suppose, somebody with integrity, morals, who is honest and decent and who believes in doing the right thing and who values those same qualities in me.

But DH is simply not that person. I think when i met him I was very vulnerable, even though i didn't realise it myself as I was so used to putting on a confident front that i actually believed my own false publicity iykwim. Anyway, I think when I met him, the child in me saw DH as a parental attachment figure and the child in me has been attached to DH in an unhealthy way for years. I believed, because I so desperately wanted to believe, not because it was actually true, that here was somebody who would love and protect me, always do the right thing by me, be decent and honest, and act with honour and integrity at all times. Of course that simply hasn't happened and each time DH has acted in what i have thought is a dishonourable way, or has failed to stand up for me and protect me I have felt deeply and horribly let down.

But all of a sudden, recently, it's as if the 'scales have fallen from my eyes' and I can see him for who he is and not what i want him to be. It is a strange feeling in a way, and I am still piecing together in my mind his jigsaw as it were, the jigsaw of who DH actually is rather than the idealised illusion I have had of him all this time. I am sure none of this will make any sense to anyone, sorry.

Bop, thank you for your response re your MIL and I can totally relate to your feelings of being utterly let down and betrayed by your DH, I have felt this constantly with him. However, I have made some big changes in my mind about how I deal with MIL. From now on I am no longer expecting DH to stand up for me. I will be standing up for myself and telling her myself each and every time she makes one of her snidey, sniping, catty, critical remarks to me. I am planning on phoning her at some point and telling her that I will no longer tolerate her vicious tongue and constant criticism of me. I have realised DH is scared of his mother although he will never admit to it and so it is hopeless to expect him to stand up to her on my behalf in the way i would like him to. I feel so liberated since I have made this decision. I am not scared of MIL anymore (I definately was scared until recently) and I am not afraid of the consequences of standing up to her and standing up for myself. I think she is nothing but a bully and once you stand up to a bully they shrivel up and melt away. I am actually looking forward to calling her and telling her exactly what i think of her in no uncertain terms, I have no intention of sparing her feelings or mincing my words. If she can dish it out she should be able to take it is my motto.

I have also finally managed to detach myself from my sisters. I have known all this time that they are not good for me, every time I have contact with them I come away feeling hurt and upset. But all of a sudden I feel I have the courage to tell them exactly how I feel, how they make me feel and i am prepared for the consequences ie our 'relationship' may come to an end. If it does though i think it will be a good thing. I have a feeling it will free me to go out and find and make new real friendships with people who may eventually become like real sisters to me. I feel that by keeping in contact with my actual sisters, I am somehow denying myself the freedom to go out and find and keep friendships that are far more real, reciprocal and rewarding than what i have rignt now with my biological sisters.

It's almost like starting with a clean slate. Clearing out all the deadwood in my life to allow new growth to take place. It feels good, but this recent uplifting feeling was preceded by a very depressive phase during which I felt lethargic, listless, unwell, confused and unhappy.

I am feeling sooooooooo much better at the moment. Wasn't impressed when the GP changed my dose of ADs from 40 to 20 but he did it as he said there was no point being on a higher dose if I was no better on them. I was no better because of all the emotional pain wrt to him. On Monday I felt he was playing mind games over read/not read email receipts and something has clicked in me and I have no desire to contact him at all.

I have deleted all reference to him in my phone, his number is written somewhere I can bearly remember just in case but that just makes me feel nothing tbh. I feel stronger.

I have realised how much head space he has been taken up and how much he has influenced the depression.

Got loads done in the house so a real bonus.

Just wanted to post and give hope.

Will catch up with other posts once the kids are in bed.

My father was (is still, but not so bad) a narcissist and my family had lots of denial stuff with the children being forced into roles. There were rigid mind sets about things and some very strict rules (eg: no sweets or chocolates ever, not even Easter eggs because they are bad for your teeth) but in other areas hardly any rules at all. We all went a bit off the rails as teenagers as neither parent could cope with dealing with relationships in a mature way.

There was a constant denial of anything that might challenge a preconceived mind-set. For instance there was a perception that one of us was "the clever one" - and it wasn't me! So when the school head asked my mother if she wanted me to try for a scholarship, my mother showed complete disbelief and astonishment. When I had my IQ tested for a school entrance and it was found to be quite high, the sibling who was perceived as "the clever one" announced that it was well known that that particular educational psychologist always marked too highly. My parents agreed!!

My family were obsessed with money and with good looks and I was put into the role of the "good looking" one which meant I only got validation when I made a real effort with my appearance. If I put on weight or wore scruffy clothes, my father in particular would make cutting comments which would make me feel ashamed.

I have tried really hard not to repeat this type of behaviour with my own children and have, I think, done a good job. But I am still having to work through all this stuff myself. What a journey!

Smithfield, I agree with people who said it might not be your DH's fault, you just might be feeling this way because of a flare up of your emotional problems at the moment. The reason I think this, is because, similarly to OnePlusOne, I felt distanced from my DH when I was feeling my worst. I felt quite distanced from the kids as well. I felt bitter towards him for not being able to make everything ok when I had seen him as my rescuer because I had unrealistic expectations of him. Also I think when you are super sensitive to any small sign of something you could interpret as rejection because you have felt rejected and hurt as a child it is hard for our DHs to never upset us by accident. We find it hard to believe someone would love us and value us and hard to trust them not to abandon us anyway. They have to walk on eggshells. It is a hard job for them to convince us that they do love us.

When you don't feel loved and you don't feel good enough about yourself it is hard to love someone else. When you have lots on your mind and loads of unproccessed stuff it really gets in the way of feeling your feelings in the present moment. It is really hard to even see other people fully - what they are really like and what they are feeling. It is hard to get your focus away from inwards when you are preoccupied with making sense of your unprocessed feelings. It is hard work for your brain. I think it is like when your laptop freezes because you have clicked on too many things at once and it has too much information to handle. I get the impression you were feeling more balanced for a while and now a load of stuff has come up for you which needs to be processed - another chunk of the scrambled, unprocessed bit to be sorted. The more areas I've made sense of with Therapist the less clogged my brain has felt, and the more I can focus on the present moment and enjoy the present outside of my head and see other people more clearly. Our parents didn't get to grips with their stuff, their brains were clogged, they were inward focussed and so couldn't really see us fully and feel for us as much as an emotionally healthy parent should.

Pinky, it is so frustrating to read what your therapist has done, set your progress back by bringing your doubts back! Do therapists sometimes do this on purpose to sort of provoke you to get your feelings out of you?

You don't have a duty to be available to your mother but she does have a duty to be available to you. Her job was supposed to be to look after you but it sounds like she has made you feel she sees her needs as more important than yours and you don't feel that your own mother thinks you are important for who you are.

Bop, it sounds like your mother is controlling and manipulated you into feeling you couldn't cope without her because she wanted to feel important. This was all about her needs though, putting her needs above yours, and your need to learn how to cope in the real world and recognise your own qualities and be reassured that you can cope were neglected. Also, mothers using their children as counsellors but not doing the same for their children - it is so self centred of them and really is them only thinking about their own needs. Surely the point of parents is to look after their children's needs! I can see why your DH would have triggered some difficult feelings for you by putting his mother's needs/wants above yours around your DS's birthday! I think this is the type of thing that is really going to wind us up because we think "When will it ever be MY turn to be the most important one to SOMEONE?!" It feels like this someone should be DH and if he doesn't do it then what is the point of him? When you have been treated the way you have in your childhood though you are really going to notice any little thing like this that your DH does, and he probably did it unknowingly, without thinking or realising it was such a sore point for you. It sounds like he doesn't do this all the time.

Rose, it sounds like you have probably done something really important - said things you needed to say that have been in you for ages in your phonecalls. It sounds good.

OnePlusOne, it sounds good that you are seeing your DH for who he really is - and he sounds like a normal, imperfect, fallible human being - rather than the idealised version you had been looking for to rescue you from your old life. If you can see him and learn to love him for who he really is, warts and all, it sounds like you could have a new, even deeper phase in your relationship! My DH puts up with so many imperfections that I have and I had expected him to be perfect for a long time!

It sounds like you have got a load of things you still want to say to people. Are your MIL and sisters the main ones or are there still things you need to say to your parents? They aren't scapegoats for what you feel about your parents are they? If they are you could make a load of trouble for yourself and then feel you have unleashed onto the wrong people later on. Just checking. Or are the things MIL and sisters have done really bad completely separately to how you feel about your parents? It sounds like you have got to a point of can't stand feeling this way any more and it can't get worse and this is giving you courage to go for it and say it all. That is how I felt when wrote all my letters. I had put it off for years and held onto lots of bad feeling because I was scared to do it and feel so relieved now that it has been done. Would it be a good idea to write down all that you want to say first to get it straight in your head and find the right words to get accross what you are trying to say?

FabBaker, that sounds so positive! It sounds like you had had enough and thought "I'm not taking any more of this crap" - good for you! You do have a choice and you do have control! You can steer the direction of your life, you don't have to just have things done to you/have your life controlled by other people because you are not a child anymore with things going on you had no power over. You are giving yourself more importance by deciding not to let 'him' mess you about anymore - you are important enugh to be treated better than that. Your DH treats you better than that.

WildandFree, you don't have to be anything other than who you are. You don't have to be something else to please your parents. That would be about their wants/needs, not yours, and yours are the most important. They should be looking after your needs above their own. They should have valued their children for who they are and made them feel it is enough to be themselves.

AN I realised I am not responsible for his happiness and it isn't a terrible thing to just walk away. I do feel sad we weren't able to be friends and also that we had a row but I feel free and strong at the moment. I can see how much head space he has been taking up now that I am getting so much more done and have much more will to do stuff. He also was making the depression much much worse. I was thinking today how incredibly lucky I am that my husband is the man he is and has forgiven me and stuck with me.

AN, thank you for your AMAZING post. It makes so much sense, your insights and understanding of people's situations and feelings are so perceptive. Everything you have said in your post has helped me, including of course your response to my own particular current situation. Have you ever considered becoming a therapist yourself? You would be the sort of person I would like to have as a therapist, in fact you almost are like a therapist for me on MN.

I agree with you about writing letters to my MIL and sisters before actually saying anything. My therapist could see my blood was boiling the other day when i went to see her and she said I should wait til I had calmed down before saying/doing anything. So i am waiting and just mulling over in my mind what I am going to say to each of these people. I feel a strange sense of excitement at knowing that I am going to be able to tell these people how they have made me feel all these years. And I am also strangely not scared of the consequences. I always have in mind the quote from Dr Suess: "Be who you are and say how you feel because those that matter won't mind and those that mind don't matter". I have realised it does take courage to actually do what Dr Seuss advises and I have not had the courage until now. I think my brain/body knows I am ready to take this step that I have actually wanted to take for a long time but have always been too scared to actually go ahead with.

I don't know what has changed in me and what has caused the change but there is a definate change that has taken place and it has had hugely positive effects both on my emotional and physical state of health.

Wrt to DH the issue is complicated as whilst i realise now i have been placing unfair and unrealistic expectations onto him and also transferring a lot of feelings, including anger, hate and betrayal, onto him that I should have been directing towards my parents
he also has a fundamentally different approach to our relationship to myself. Eg. he thinks that because i have been neglecting him a lot more than both he and I would have liked over the past couple of years due to most of my time and energy and focus being on the DC's and myself, because he has 'taken up the slack' as it were and stood by me all this time he now feels I 'owe him big time' to use his own words. He thinks I have not been a good wife to him, even though he knows the reason for this and that I have not been neglecting him deliberately. I cannot relate to this as if the tables had been turned i would have been glad to help and support him as much as I could through a very difficult, painful and traumatic time and I wouldn't see it as a debt to be repaid by him. I feel he is treating me as if I have had an affair and he has stood by me and now I need to make a huge effort to make it up to him and to regain his trust and love and respect. But i haven't had an affair, i have just been dealing with the painful aftermath of an abusive childhood and i thought when i met him although it has clearly turned out to be wishful thinking on my part, that DH would have sympathy and compassion for me and would want to help me out of love and kindness. And I have not completely neglected him and my therapist said that in the early years of having children, most husbands are and feel severely neglected but my DH now seems to think I have to make up for neglecting him. I however feel nothing of the sort and I also think that as time goes by and i feel better about myself and the DC's are less demanding there will naturally be more time for me to focus on him.

DH also seems to think that I have suddenly turned into a raging feminist! This really confused me when he threw it at me but I have now worked out that he thinks I have become a feminist simply because I am now far more willing and able to stand up for myself and voice my needs to him instead of being rather like a doormat really. I have been very scared of voicing my needs and asserting myself with DH until now, of standing up for myself and now that I am doing all these things more and more, because I respect, like and even love myself which i have never done before, and will not allow anybody to treat me badly or disrespectfully, DH thinks I am suddenly a feminist. I am not a feminist, I am simply standing up for myself and my human right to be treated with respect and consideration for my needs and feelings. But DH doesn't see it that way!

I think I will have to write a letter to DH as well, I have a lot to say to him as well.

Sorry to end abruptly, DS wants me. Hopefully back later.