PM, I know exactly what you mean here:"When he was leaving I said to him why do you say these things when they hurt my feelings? And why , when I tell you that they hurt my feeligns is your response to defend your position rahter than show concern for the fact that you hurt my feelings?"
This is the argument I seem to have constantly with DH. When i tell him something he has said/done has hurt my feelings he always seems to come up with reasons/excuses/justifications as to why he said whatever he did. He doesn't seem to care that my feelings were hurt and i would expect him to be concerned about that. It makes me feel like he just doesn't care about me. I am simply somebody who is there to do the housework. shopping, have sex with him, etc etc. To him I am not a human being with my own thoughts and feelings, just a robot whose job is to be a housewife/mother.
Even as I'm writing this I'm wondering whether the way he is is just the way men are. Women always complain that men just see them as objects not people and that is exactly what DH seems to do with me. But this seems to be very common so is it unrelated to childhood? I have no idea. I thought it was due to the fact that he was cut off from his own feelings due to his own repressed emotions from childhood, meaning he could not empathise with me when i said i was hurt by him.
Right now I just feel so angry and also worried about my situation. I really feel like i need to start all over again, with a clean slate, and form brand new relationships from this point forward. That means cutting ties with my sisters and divorcing DH.
I could cut ties with my sisters, although then i would be consumed with guilt about denying the DC's the chance of having a relationship with their aunts and cousins. But divorcing DH would be even worse than that. It would devastate the DC's. They probably would hardly notice if i cut ties with my sisters as we don't see them very much anyway, but of course they would definately notice if i divorced DH.
I can see so clearly now all the ways in which DH has manipulated me in the past. He was trying to do it again last night, trying to reel me in and get me close so he could feel he still had some power and control over me. But it didn't work, something stopped me from falling into his trap and I am so glad i didn't. We didn't argue at all last night, just chatted a bit quite pleasantly, but I am sure that because he was unable to reel me in last night, he has gone off to work today without even saying goodbye or even good morning first thing. I have always thought that he married me, subconsiously knowing he would be able to control, dominate and manipulate me to make sure he always got what he wanted from me and to ensure i would always do things his way, to his timetable. I'm sure he just didn't bargain for the fact that i would change in the way i have. That i would recover my self confidence and self esteem and be able to assert myself and stand up for myself. He doesn't know what to do now that i am being assertive wrt my needs and feelings. He is trying every which way he can to regain control over me but none of it is working. I have no idea how it's going to end up. At some point surely he will have to accept that he has lost his control over me because i am no longer so needy and desperate for love that i would have done anything to keep him happy. All of his friends are how i was when we got married and that is precisely why he is friends with them. They all have the same things in common, they all lack self confidence and self esteem and they are all the sort of people that DH can dominate and control. I know DH thinks this is just to do with the fact that he thinks he is an 'alpha male' whereas his friends are not.
Anyway, the issues with DH can wait for now. It is my sisters I don't know what to do about. I am supposed to be going to youngest sister's place this weekend but have not heard from her recently in response to a couple of texts i sent. Of course that doesn't mean our weekend plans are cancelled. But middle sister wanted to come along to younger sister's place as well at the weekend and originally she was not going to be there. But she seems to have invited herself along thinking i won't mind. But i do mind and for the first time in my life i have told her that i do not want to do along with her idea and that i would prefer to spend time with younger sister alone ie without middle sister being there. I am sure this has thrown both sisters into a state of confusion as i have never asserted myself with them before. I realise now i was so needy that i would go along with whatever they said as i was so desperate to be included as opposed to excluded from their little twosome. Now that i have said i will not agree to middle sister's proposed change of plan, i'm sure neither sister can cope with it. Ultimately the whole situation is not of great importance, i would not be hugely upset or angry if middle sister did turn up at younger sister's place at the weekend, but it was important for me to make sure middle sister in particular knew she could not push me around at her convenience anymore.
Middle sister i realise now has been a complete bitch to me over the years, i just have not been able to see it because at the same time she has sometimes been quite nice. So of course all these years i have held onto the nice stuff and completely ignored the nasty stuff. She has hurt and upset me so many times and each time i have not said a word, either to her or to my parents when we were younger, instead i just accepted all her rubbish, took it all in, accepted it all without saying anything. I ignored my feelings of hurt and pain, buried them and when she had finished being nasty to me, happily continued my relationship with her. She had the confidence to be nasty to me because she was in a position of safety and security. She knew if not our dad, our mother would always be on her side if i ever spoke up about how nasty she was being to me.
Youngest sister whilst rarely the instigator oof the nastiness would be like middle sister's little sidekick, she would stand alongside middle sister, or behind her, whilst middle sister dished her rubbish out to me. Youngest sister might not join in with handing out her rubbish as well, but she would never tell middle sister to stop and if I ever criticised middle sister, youngest sister would stick up for her. Things changed when youngest sister met her now DH when she was 18. His family fully accepted her and so she then felt she was in a position of safety and security which she did not seem to have felt before, and then it was her who was also attacking me at times; she was no longer just a sidekick or accomplice, she was now also an instigator. But her sense of safety and security which gave her the confidence to attack me came from her family in law, not our parents. During all of this time, i never once felt safe and/or secure enough to at least fight back when attacked by my sisters. I realise now this was because i knew my parents did not want me or love me and so knew they would not support me if i protested at my sisters attacks. I instictively knew not to bother saying anything about my sister attacks on me as i knew i would either just be ignored, told to shut or that the attacks were justified and my own fault.
I am glad that i have been able to see things more clearly in relation to my sisters, but i still don't know what to do about them in the present. I suppose i could maintain a minimal and superficial relationship with them for the sake of my DC's, whilst always remaining vigilant and not letting my guard down whenever i am in contact with them whether face to face or on the phone. Also if i make sure i speak out each and every time they treat me badly, perhaps they will one day get the message that they will have to find another rubbish container.
I am really annoyed though that they have not responded to my recent texts. I suppose deliberately ignoring somebody is also a form of control and attack. I'm sure also they simply don't know how to respond to me. They can't create a fuss and say i am being unreasonable in what i want, I think they know i am not being at all unreasonable. But they just cannot deal with the fact that I have not simply gone along with what they want like i normally do. It's a bit like a game of cat and mouse, but whereas before i was the frightened mouse and they were the big nasty cats, i am now the cat and they are the mice.