I feel so stupid and feel it might be too little too late!!
So I'm trying to get my husband to come back home after I kicked him out at the end of August. Yes he did have an anger problem and he did put his foot in his mouth several times. We have been together for 11 years through thick and thing. All along having major problems, but obviuosly not knowing exactly how to fix them.
Here was the major problem...My parents!!! My dad is controlling and even started fights with my husband. My mom put all these negative thought in my head for the whole 11 years. My parents used my husbands anger and any other weaknesses he had to try to put these thoughts in my head.
My marriage has been through some really really rough stresses leading up to my parents gettign what they wanted which was me away from him.
We have been going through bankrupcy which has been so stressful, we been struggling to keep our house for many years, we have been through husband being laid off, but that has not happened for a few years, we have a child with severe autism, a child with aspergers and another child who will be going through the autism screening process soon.
My parents kept putting these thoughts in my head...my mom said I should not settle and there were many other fish in the sea. She also kept saying she didn't know why I was hanging on so long....that I was doing my kids a major disfavor and not thinkinbg about the kids....
My dad never had anything nice to say about my husband...If I said anything to my dad that was good about my husband..It was well I beg to differ...and you know I love you with all my heart...
Heres another thing to add here about my parents..there is a history of child hood abuse I suffered by them and my mom has been emotionally disconnected. I have always been searching for acceptance and love by them...I didn't relize the abuse and pyscological termoil was happeneding to me even in adult hood.
Now my husband says he feels like I gave up on him.
My husband was trying really really hard to change himself. He admitted several times during the marraige that he was not doing things right and he was not treating me right.
Now I have been pouring my heart out to my husband trying to get him to give me a chance. He asks what is going to be different this time. I'm not sure if I am saying the right things. My parents are not in my life at all and so they can't interfier. I know my husband is my true love. I know that even though my parents don't think how my husband and I met is where true love comes from...it did for us.
I know the things I did wrong and now that I know them I can try not to do them anymore. I can't have the chance to change things if he doesn't give me the chance to really be a family again and to really live in the same house as husband and wife.
His birthday is coming up on DEc 10th and I don't know if there is anything I can do that will really make him think.
The kids are going to be with him this coming weekend.
I don't know what I can do to have patience and not push him too much. hes a type of guy that if you push too hard he will retreat and then I have to start all over.
Hes a sensitive guy that keeps a lot of his feelings in side.
Re: I feel so stupid and feel it might be too little too late!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dadof3
You might have to remove your toxic parents from your life.
My parents have been removed. Thats why I feel so much grief, sadness and lonelyness. I feel guilty for cutting them out, but I have relized the abuse I have suffered from my parents all these years.
I don't know how else I can prove to my husband that things will be different.
In another thread someone said to tell him it will be our life the way WE want it. I will be telling him that tonight. I don't think I have ever told him that in those words before.
Re: I feel so stupid and feel it might be too little too late!!
Hang in there. If you really want him in your life and you can really show him that things have changed, then you still have a chance. I hope he's good to you and that you're not getting played by both sides. I say this because I'm in a situation where both sides are using me as a tug-of-war rope (him on one side and my family on the other) and it makes it hard to see what I want because of it. Just keep your heart open so you really see what you want and what's best for you -- and, if that is keeping your husband in your life and distancing your toxic parents, then just keep it in your mind through the challenges you'll face ahead. All dysfunctional relationships present obstacles during the detachment process, but remembering what you want will help you stay on the path to getting it. Hang in there.
Re: I feel so stupid and feel it might be too little too late!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by desert-rose
Hang in there. If you really want him in your life and you can really show him that things have changed, then you still have a chance. I hope he's good to you and that you're not getting played by both sides. I say this because I'm in a situation where both sides are using me as a tug-of-war rope (him on one side and my family on the other) and it makes it hard to see what I want because of it. Just keep your heart open so you really see what you want and what's best for you -- and, if that is keeping your husband in your life and distancing your toxic parents, then just keep it in your mind through the challenges you'll face ahead. All dysfunctional relationships present obstacles during the detachment process, but remembering what you want will help you stay on the path to getting it. Hang in there.
Thanks Desert-rose!! I have distanced my self from my toxic parents. It does hurt me on both sides, although I don't feel like I'm a tug of war because I have not allowed myself to be. Once my parents controlling ways started into over drive almost instantly after my husband left, I was like wait a minute. I stood up to my dad, but he kept controlling. He was also telling my husband things behind my back. Tellling my husband that I was leaving the state and my husband would never see me or his own kids again. My dad was also texting me several times per day to tell me not to contact my husband in any way. My mom was worrying about me talking to my husband too. I dont't know why I had to remind them that I was a capable adult and that My husband would always be the father of my 3 children.
So right after I told my mom though text that I was reconsiling my marraige...the next day something went missing from the outside of my home. It was a sign hanging on my garage with my last name on it. It was purposly taken off the house. Lights were left on inside my home that I know I didn't leave on. I found out 6 wks later when I found the sign hidden inside the garage that it was my parents. I never told my mom I found it before I asked her where it was and she knew where it was.
NOw after all this..How can I ever trust either of my parents ever again????
My parents will always stay a distance away from me. I can't let them completly back in my life. They will get pics of the grandkids and a few visits, but our daughter-parent relationship will never be the same again.
My husband and 3 children are my family.
You are right that it is not too late for me and my husband.....We have communicated more and grown closer even since the day I origonally posted this thread. Thats not to say there won't be more bumps in the road, but as of right now...I don't think we will be turning away from eachother. Now is just a question of when he will be giving in and moving back into our family home.
Re: I feel so stupid and feel it might be too little too late!!
You also mention in your post that your husband has an anger problem. I wonder if they (your parents) have a basis for their objection at all? You say that there are major problems in your relationship, also. I think it might be easy and tempting to blame controlling parents and to hope that removing them from your life will solve the problems (and I DO think that you need to build up your own boundaries so that they aren't pushing you around when you don't want them to), but it won't on it's own. It's possible that through their controlling and manipulative (and wrong) behavior, they actually do care about you and are worried about you. I am not condoning what they did to you and manipulation is NOT okay. However, I am simply saying that in addition to setting some boundaries and distance between yourself and them, that you might want to think a little (honestly, critically, and without wishfullness in involved) about their concerns for you and why it is that they are pressuring you so strongly. If you are not in marriage counseling, please, please, please go to marriage counseling. And, while I think you should distance yourself from your parents, I don't think you should cut them off entirely, because that might just bury the issues that they've made in your life. I would encourage you to go to family counseling with them, as well, to see if you might be able to salvage some of that relationship and make it something better what it was before. I feel like there is a lot of gray area here in your story that you may or may not be acknowledging to yourself (and I say that because of how I'm experiencing my own situation and from other things that you've mentioned in your posts), and I think that you owe it to yourself and your happiness to find out what other dynamics are playing a part in this tension, too. Use this time to solve a little of both problems if you can, because they are feeding into each other. Family of Origin issues won't disappear, not even by cutting off the FoO. Thinking the whole problem's fault lies with one side dishonors the truth of your own experience, too, and you don't want to rug sweep your own problems. If you're cleaning up the messy relationships, why not try to clean them all up rather than sweep some of the mess under the rug? I'm not trying to be hurtful, but I hope you'll think about what I'm suggesting. Childhood dysfunction and abuse makes it very hard to notice subtle forms of abuse in adult relationships, sometimes, too. Counseling might lead to something better all around. Better relationships on all sides = a happier you, even if there's some hideous struggle on the way there. And, of course, if you are able to sort out some thoughts about your FoO, you will at least have some kind of resolution that might make problems in your own marriage and parenting (everyone has problems and they often stem from childhood experiences, so I don't mean to single you out), even if you decide to remove them from your life.
Re: I feel so stupid and feel it might be too little too late!!
I actually don't think my parents have a basis since they started this strong dislike of him as soon as I was spending more time with him than at home. I was 19 or 20 when I met him.
Yes he does have a bit of an anger problem, but my parents have made everything a bigger issue than it really was. They have threatened my husband though out our whole marriage nad I didn't know about it. My dad would call my husband on his cell in a drunken rage.
Some of my husbands anger was really frustration because I was pushing his buttons. Thats what I was raised to do I guess. During my Husbands and My seperation I was able to think about so much. I really could see a pattern in the way i react to things and the way my mom reacted to things with my step dad too. My parents put all these fears in me.
I also learned that my dad had told my x boyfriend right before my husband that there was no way he was ever marrying me or anyone else for that matter. My x boyfriend came forward contacting me through FB to tell me these things to get his closure after 12 years.
Right now I'm having a hard time even thinking of having a normal relationship with my parents. I really don't want to talk to my controlling step dad ever ever again. I feel very strongly about that. I have never known why i have been so afraid of him while I was a child or why I felt so uncomfortabel with him while I have been an adult, but now I know. My mom also goes along with whatever my dad says or feels. She says when my dad is angrly texting me "HELLOO!!" its because he is worried about me. AS a child I was physically abused by both my parents and as an adult they both have stressed to my husband how I have never been spanked at all. Its like they have brain washed me as an adult.
I'm for sure not sweeping any problems under the rug.
My husband has been going to his individual counselor for about 1 1/2 years and he is on medication that has really stabilized him. He has admitted his wrongs in the marriage and is still working on admitting recent wrongs I feel.
I have been going to my individual counselor and have been working through my parents issue and my marraige as well has my 3 special needs children.
Re: I feel so stupid and feel it might be too little too late!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by blueskies30
My parents have been removed. Thats why I feel so much grief, sadness and lonelyness. I feel guilty for cutting them out, but I have relized the abuse I have suffered from my parents all these years.
Best thing you could've done. I had to do the same and it ranks up there as one of the best decisions I ever made in my life. When I cut ties with my parents I started the long road toward recovery. It gave me the strength to deal with my marriage 7 years later.
With my parents, it was a similar situation as yours. Years of verbal/emotional abuse and distant, critical parents who hated my husband and did nothing but rile me up about him and my life. They weren't kind to my son, who has ADHD and resembles me in many ways in personality.
In 2003 I cut my parents out of my life and never looked back. My father died in '04 and I wasn't even told about it by my family. That sealed the deal as far breaking with them went.
My mother did see my kids and husband at the grocery store a few years back and left a message on my phone asking me to "let her back in our lives." I deleted it and am glad I did. Last thing I need is her in my life!
Regardless of what happens with your husband, you don't need toxic parents in your life as well. Just because someone is related to you doesn't mean they are good for you. You don't HAVE to deal with anyone in your life that you don't want to!
Over the years many have asked me "Don't you feel bad, sad, sorry, etc, etc about not seeing your parents?". My immediate response is "HECK NO!" Everything is better as a result of their not being around. No more criticism, lectures or guilt trips. Holidays are better too!
I feel your pain. I too had it on both ends..bad parents and a bad marriage. I'm just glad my kids are loving and great. It makes up for everything else.
__________________ D DAY: Monday, April 1, 2013 And now it's your chance to move on
Change the way you've lived for so long
And find the strength you've had inside all along
'Cause life starts now
Last edited by Freak On a Leash; 12-13-2011 at 08:08 PM.
I feel so stupid and feel it might be too little too late!! 
