# Was I wrong to do this?



## wild_irish_rose (Aug 6, 2011)

My husband and I were separated at the time of my father in law's last illness and death 3 years ago. I was living with my parents, he said he was living with his parents but he may or may not have been living with another woman instead. I'm not sure if he was actually with her at this point in time.

My question is - when I found out about FIL being in hospice and not having much time left to live, I asked my H if he wanted me to come up and visit and bring our son with me, what with our son being FIL's only grandson and his only other grandchild living out of state and not coming back b/c FIL and MIL were estranged from their other son and daughter in law at the time. Husband told me (in no uncertain terms) that I was NOT to come, I was not wanted and also that FIL didn't want our son, who was only 3 at the time, to see him in as bad of shape as he was in. He made it VERY clear to me that he and his mother didn't want me there. So - I didn't go. I didn't want to get there only to have them be nasty to my face and quite likely ask me to leave or even refuse to let me in to FIL's room at the hospice.

My mother says she believes my husband was hurt by the fact that I didn't show up anyway. She thinks I really should have gone to show him and them that I still cared about them all. She thinks this might be part of the reason that he pretty much cut me out of his life after his dad's death and funeral a few weeks later. Which, by the way, he didn't tell me until 2 entire weeks had passed since the funeral took place.

Did I mess up? Should I have gone anyway, despite being told by my H that I wasn't wanted? Did I hurt him by not being there for him during this time?

How would you have felt if you were in my H's shoes in this situation? Who is more at fault here, him for telling me to stay away, or me for not going anyway?


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## that_girl (Jul 6, 2011)

You followed your husband's wishes...you can't blame yourself for that.


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## turnera (Jan 22, 2010)

You did nothing wrong. Is he treating you poorly now?

Without knowing you, it sounds to me like your mom has taught you to be 'responsible' for other people's issues, which is bad enough. But if you married the kind of guy who takes advantage of that, it's a fair bet you're going to be held responsible for everything, because you've never taught anyone to expect anything else from you.


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## COGypsy (Aug 12, 2010)

Okay, so if I have this right from your other posts, by the time this happened with the father-in-law, you'd already been living apart for about 4 years, right?

So then it seems like he was making it pretty clear that he actually didn't want to have you there. Otherwise he would have asked you to come/reconciled etc....

I think you're looking for some pivotal event that you can pinpoint so you can blame yourself for this whole turn of events. 

Don't. 

*HE CHOSE TO LEAVE*. It's that simple. Did you choose to have a sandwich for lunch because the soup was too beefy? No, you wanted a sandwich, or you didn't feel like soup today. "They" didn't have anything to do with it and couldn't have done anything to make you choose otherwise. I know it's kind of a ridiculous comparison, but do you see what I mean? Just because there are two people in a relationship doesn't always mean that there are two people working on a relationship. He quit. It's hard to accept things you have no explanation for, but it really doesn't sound like you're going to get any closure from him, so you'll just have to decide for yourself that he's lost out on a good thing and move on. 

Because he has lost out!  So forget the coulda, woulda, shoulda, if-only, maybe-he's...and focus on the wonderful woman and the beautiful kiddo with the whole world ahead of them!


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## uhaul4mybaggage (Jul 20, 2010)

Gypsy is on the money.
I recommend you read CoDependent No More (amazon search the title.) It will resonate.


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