Scapegoat, whatever you choose for yourself, I beg you, dont do to your kids what my parents did to me. Its so hard when you can see the happily ever after in your mind and if you break up, then its *poof* gone forever. ), and Specific. I had a terminal disease that I was going to die from, I just didnt know when. There are rules/conditions about going out with said people. If he doesnt, then its not a good situation long term, which again you dont want to hear, but its still true. And I had to let myself feel all that. I was taking a lot on faith. Having a hard time balancing familial obligation, history, and your relationship all understandable. Let me suggest a few interim measures designed to preserve your own sanity. It has gas lighting and an extensive whine list. Disclaimer: Im white in America, obviously YMMV with the police. Which btw is NOT screwed up thinking, its pretty goddamned rational and an accurate risk assessment (ahem). Since then, they have both been much better about asking us first instead of assuming, but they still are pushy about things sometimes. CP never changed. My husband and I have what everyone would consider a good marriage with both of us having supportive families and being pregnant is stressful for us. Sheep is busy working Sheep has lacrosse practice Sheep is sick and I would be happily reading, taking a bath, watching tv, whatever I liked while he was gone. Long story short, we DIDNT make rent that month, were threatened with eviction, and would have become homeless were it not for a loan from a good friend. Your partner is not doing this. My partner and I had to use letters sometimes because I literally had issues talking about things and not getting caught up in a roil of emotions on some topics. I have some weird idea of love in my head that I cant explain to you. Maybe he will come up with an answer where BOTH of you have to commit to working to improve your interactions. But I guess my question iswhy not? If, for example, Mr. Other Becky developed a serious health problem, the attendant stress would make it impossible for me to be my best self, but I would stick by him and do whatever it took. But you cant stop communicating about it, either. But eventually, youre no longer doing things just to fit in, youre just doing them. Id be really angry and furious she didnt protect-ooooooh. and that was the moment he began to see his family in truth and not blind love. I dont ever have to see her sister normally, and if she is present at Thanksgiving and says anything mean we leave immediately. And this situation its not something that he did TO me or AT me and hes hurting from it too. Thanks for saving me the typing. Its a relationship I greatly value, but the fact that he could never address the faults in his family and acknowledge how they appeared in other areas of his life meant they just repeated. Not our choice. He got something out of helping you and holding your hand the joy of your company, the happy feeling of helping someone, whatever. What a bunch of utter arsehole his friends are, fucking oxygen thieves to say the least. Thank you for that I was wondering whether it was feasible or not. Hes stabbing you in the front like the rest of them, Im sorry to say. And most of the mom events in our city are either you have to pay to be part of the community center which is in this far away area you will have to drive to and all the classes are during the day when you work or theyre free playdates scheduled in the middle of the day on the week days, which is when I work (8-5). Maybe he will come with an answer where HE stands up to his family and starts enforcing boundaries with them (that would be awesome!). LW, I want to tell you about how much better it can be on the other side. turns back to what a bitch I am You did not even make an attempt, so no, move out. And he left and never spoke to me again. After 5.5 years you have all the information you need about how this will go and what is likely to happen. What concrete steps has your partner put in place to shield you from them? We had plans to do X today, were not available they shouldnt say things like that to you you can do exactly whatever the fuck you like and its none of their business Next time they start talking shit about me, tell them they should take it up with me instead theyre not showing you respect when they say that, Step 5: (this ones really important) let them know were both making the decisions From a therapists perspective: its normally not-really-done to move from individual therapy to couples therapy. Yes, there are many, many, many times when a woman has no help or support to get out. Cant sleep because Im crying? IMHO, him becoming fully invested in maintaining boundaries with his family has been the biggest change. Im sorry, but you keep acting like this conversation is still happening. My aunt and grandmother picked me up at the airport because both parents were working. he actually was not too happy about it. Basically, shes over here, the idea of leaving him is waaaay over there (on the other side of a great chasm), and she just cant conceive of herself getting over there. We have now been together for 14 years. The fact that he cant/wont provide basic emotional support, and wants a gold star when he does.? So I figure out what I can do each day, and do that. We live a couple miles from his family. When told that their son was on the brink of being a homeless person, his parents suggested that he seek therapy for his inability to accept blame for his own mistakes., However, every conversation I have with him about this always turns back to what a bitch I am, and how hard I make it for them to be nice to me., Hes blamed me for driving away the friends who broke into our home and partied in it without asking, when theyre the ones who chose to uninvite me from all their events. He finished up by telling me I wasnt allowed to speak in his house any more. The house was admittedly a mess I wasnt expecting company, so hadnt cleaned, and there was a gigantic pile of dirty dishes in the kitchen. I dont wonder about them. He was amazing and wonderful and really helped me work through my sexual abuse, but in the end there was too much emotional abuse left over from his family life. That is absolutely and completely ok. Theyre a very conservative family, and it takes a long, long time for new ideas to filter through, but the ideas are visibly filtering. Frankly, its even okay if I made a decision that actually was just a totally bad one. I know that it would be nice and idealistic to live in a world where everyone lives in a magic happy village, but thats not usually the case, and as much as Id love to be totally independent and never need help for anything and be moneybags rich so I could pay out of pocket for every conceivable expense, sometimes it really does help for family to be there for things like babysitting. They dont treat me very well and I dont think they treat you very well either. It was terrifying. I truly cant change any of the familial dynamics, most of which were there long before I was born (including money manipulations, explosions about politics and religion, badmouthing the scapegoat, among 100 other gross things). Not only.will.they be incredibly unsupportive of every pregnancy/infant care choice you make, you will also have to watch your partner enable them as they emotionally abuse your child. It ended, what, four years ago or so, and I had a spot of therapy about this but mostly for other things, and then a few key friends and random folks said what? at a few key moments and helped fix my head again. Make a list of what things your partner or his family did that caused those reactions. But see, I was reading this blog after spending two months away and it clicked in my head as to why. Perhaps at the groups start-up youd want it every 2 weeks instead of a month so youd get to know one another well enough to feel comfortable faster. My relationship with him, plus some other stuff from my childhood, made it really difficult for me to feel like I deserved to be loved. Dont begrudge him going, and dont feel like you are being left out or that your dream of one day getting one with your in-laws is being smashed (as someone said above, they are probably never going to accept you into their bosom as their new favourite daughter and HOO BOY THANK THE LORD). Advantages: You can walk away from it and come back. Redbird, your comment is spookily relevant for me right now. But in my mind, what makes the best relationships is when everyone involved is mutually interested in helping everyone become their best selves. It wasnt just that our relationship wasnt working, but that he couldnt play nice with my family and his mother wouldnt play nice with me. If and when they marry, shitty family are not invited. Why dont you ask Partner about that directly? It also means not getting upset with Partner for being mean to his mother, or vice versa. But if there is hope, it lies in the Get Them To Shut Up And Leave You Alone Program. I try to be optimistic, but making friends with parents for having children in common often feels like making friends with other brunettes just because we happen to share the same shade of hair. Does he spend a lot of time avoiding his mother, not because he's a forgetful man but because she creates anxiety or distress for him? How to handle the situation where your boyfriend's family loves - Quora saying you are responsible for his father eavesdropping on a conversation and then screaming at you and forcing you to be silent in his house for the rest of the day. My mom decided to put up with it and marry my dad anyway. When an aunt was ignoring me at an event, I challenged myself to get her into a conversation, however brief, and felt triumphant when she answered my comment about the weather. Could we deal with our other problems better if he werent so sick and I werent so resentful? I dont know. If you have something truly new to bring to the table, we can talk, but otherwise I think this is just hurting both of us more. 4 Ways to Deal With a Married Boyfriend - wikiHow Not coincidentally, the life decision his whole family kept trying to get him to make for years was to move away from me rather than in with me. In the spirit of this is what a workable solution could look like, I thought Id add my story. If so, under what circumstances? As a question. My sister is dating a guy, and there are toxic family problems there; so much so that they broke up over those stresses once and then got back together. Im not with anyone else right now and sometimes I do feel sad about that, but I know how much worse it felt when we were together and making each other unhappy. And I always will. If family treated my kids one-quarter as badly as your bfs family treats you? Logic didnt work. But as I see it, with the current situation, its no more likely to happen than if the LW walked out today. If a good friend is in serious distress and needs a lot of help, its possible that my best self would give more help than is currently good for me. Theres a lot of hippy-dippy outspoken Vegan/vegetarian/cloth diapering moms who dont particularly respect or care much for moms who make other choices (theres a lot of mommy war bullshit on the email list I have for the local moms here in the town where I live). He helped you heal from abuse and that is genuinely wonderful. SPP also had a ton of problems of their own, which I knew about; and SPP was very possessive and did other Not Cool relationship things, but they were the only person I had during a hard time. FWIW, I dont consider this kind of line in the sand an ultimatum. If they turned out not to be, we stopped dating. But I will always be grateful to him for the relationship we had., Scenario B: Well, married life with so-and-so is still a little rocky, but Im so in love with him. Hence taking out the stupid Twitter again. He doesnt meddle with my Moms family, or try to fix them. The only time I ever bring them out and dust them off is to tell cautionary tales. Wow, so many awkward partners family stories and so many great solutions. How did I lose sight of this?? That is the greatest summary of That Dude in the history of ever. It is hard to admit but at some point, you have to accept that the boyfriend is just as awful as the fam. You just have to be trying to find common ground, rather than grounds for rejection. If someone made me feel uncomfortable, I stopped communicating with them entirely. CB has been very encouraging about this, but I had a very difficult time figuring out how I was going to deal with both parents and CB in my life until I started more proactively managing the parents. One time, during a party at our house, Boyfriend had gone to bed but a lot of people were still around, we were playing drinking games and having a pretty great time. I had a friend in college who wound up staying with a relative who was not one of his parents for [genuinely good family-related reasons]. My therapist made sure to ask my parents about their perceptions of altercations with me (coaching them to use non-blaming I language, and sometimes rewording what they said to make it clearer to me), and did the same with my perceptions. As the letter progressed the things you were describing kept getting worse and worse, but way back at the beginning youd already started with the premise that leaving was not an option. See how strong and kind he is when life could have beaten him down.. The only way I can see this working out is if LWs parter entirely supports her in cutting his shitty family out of her life not necessarily his own. By the time there are kids, the woman has been beaten to a nub, mentally and physically. Leave. We generally have cut him out of our lives for various reasons, but one thing that we do when talking about him to help my husband avoid theyou are attacking my family defensive response is discuss the behaviors separate from the person. Partner looks pretty good next to abusive Ex. I am so sorry this is happening to you. The LW says his family comes first to him even when they are being beyond horrible, but hes getting married now. The thing is, and I dont mean to sound like an abuse apologist, he might not be awful. If you do have one, I hope youre talking with them about this situation. when the time came. The point of my story is was that what the goat diva described is not at all unusual in these totally fucked situations. TL;DR version: Nothing will change until HE extracts from the abusive situation. It actually makes me feel much better about my salt-the-earth solution. Think long and hard on that one. Im thinking Bay Area weather, perhaps, or maybe a Mid-Atlantic summer. I can get along with them on a superficial level, but close friends or like family? The funny thing is, Im an artist and poet and have gotten so much out of that one sentence that it damn near makes the 1.5 year relationship worth it. This. On her wedding night she was walking down the hallway of the hotel they were staying in & the sister walked out of one of my friends husbands room. I just had to TRY HARDER. While this is going on, its really important that you have Team You to stop you from being ground down into thinking that you deserve this kind of treatment. We need to go to the store before it closes We have to start dinner, Step 4: Reinforce boundaries they cant treat you like that My husband was on call and couldnt travel, so we thought it would be nice to invite those that were available since it was pushing it but small enough for us to host comfortably, my sister and her fiance had other plans. We think, But Ive worked so hard and built this relationship, and if I end it, I will have wasted X years of my life. You will not get this time back. Not for the same reasons as you we wanted different things put of life (entirely child-related I wanted kids snd he didnt) and that seeped into every part of our relationship until it just wasnt working any more. You need to ask yourself if you actually want to mend your DNA with this man, as what if you get the throw back? My fathers family behaves in a very similar way towards my mother, and I have to say, LW, if you have no commitment from your fiancee on the setting of boundaries its probably better for you to end the relationship. I know thats not quite right I did it for me, and I shouldnt feel guilty, but feelings do not obey Logic. Yeah, I did a serious double-take when I got to that part of the letter. The only one who makes you feel anything is you - by the way that you interpret a past event to yourself.". My boyfriend broke up with me 12 hours after meeting my family. It was Once cornered, my husband is a confrontational person, so from there, things escalated to the point where he blew up at his aunt and we are not on speaking terms with them anymore. Now the not-working things werent nearly as bad as your not-working things. There were plenty of those, too. Oh, LW, I have such sympathy for you. But imagine if the LW said I know it looks like my only option is to move to Texas, but the idea of moving to Texas rends my soul and breaks my heart, do you have any other ideas? and everyone said Duh, girl, you need to move to Texas! Not listening! I do pick my battles and occasionally engage his mom spanked our son, and told us about it (brave and honest!) Absolutely this. ), You shouldnt have to train someone to be respectful. That doesnt mean LW has to live with him and his therapy-refusing ways she can leave but she doesnt get to force or trick him into it. No reason to blame oneself. Yes, all of this. However, it eventually became destabilizing for me. (2) Leave. This just sounds like a hellish situation. You can stay with him. So, that would be my advice to you. I do not think it is at all fair or realistic to blame the parent who isnt abusing the kids for not doing enough when that parent and the kids are often penalized for trying to get out. The trick is to find enough distance that it doesnt wreck your relationship. I dont even know her sister, really. During my parents' divorce, I clung to my then-boyfriend's family. The behavior the LW is describing here invasion of personal space, yelling, name-calling, etc is intimately familiar territory for me. Even when theyre fucked up you love them. Everyone from the mean guy at the deli counter to his own parents should know that an insult to you is an insult to him. And it wasnt that I didnt love him, because I really did. Even knowing what they needed to do for their own wellbeing, for their safety, for my safety (yes, actual physical safety) leaving was HARD. Theres a narrative going around (mostly inside our heads) that If I leave after x amount of years, all that time will have been totally wasted! I am so sorry about how your terrible in-laws (scare quotes because I am not sure how you want them referred to) are treating you.
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