# Help please. Am I going crazy?



## Swinca (Oct 27, 2014)

I am new to this forum. I was looking for a place to vent and also check if I am truly crazy and being obsessive about this issue like my husband accuses me.

My issue is with his family or rather with him about his family. They never, or at least this is what I feel, embraced me as one of theirs. We have been married for 13 years and the ONLY time his mother called was when she thought I had left for a conference overseas (I had postponed my travel date by one day)! I call her from time to time to enquire about her health, but she never calls back. Last summer, I called her and my daughter was sick so I told her. When she wanted to know whether my daughter was getting better, she called her son (my husband) a first time, then a second, but she never thought of calling me. Then my husband asked me to call her and update her on my daughter's health, which I did. About two weeks ago, my husband had to undergo a surgery to remove his perforated appendix together with part of his bowels because of the infection. That was the only time his mother and sisters called me. They contacted my mother to have my phone number and started calling me for update on my husband's health. I thought that maybe something good would come out of it all and his mother would finally embrace me as a daughter, especially that I was calling her every night to tell her what happened during those days. But the minute they learnt that the doctors removed his nasogastric drain and that he started eating again, they stopped calling at all. They started calling him on his cell. Never once did his mother or any of his sisters think of calling me again if only to know how my daughter, who was sick again was doing, nor to know how I was coping with a hospitalized husband, a very sick daughter and a son who just had to have an inflammation of sperm cords at the same time, all with no family around for support.

What drives me insane is not their behaviour so much as my husband's. He doesn't seem to be bothered by it at all. Today, he was talking to his mother and sister over Skype and of course they never asked about me or about the kids. They kept asking him about his health and how the "poor him" was doing with his food, and he replied as though he was a single man, with mo mention of how I am taking good care of what he eats and when, and how I am changing his wound dressing, driving him back and forth to his hospital follow-ups. They talked to him as though he was single and he replied like a single man. In fact, how can I blame them for not calling me when he never thinks of giving them my phone number? Last year, we moved to a new country and he never thought he should give them the home number, as well. When I think of it, and as far back as I can remember, he never ever brings me up in conversations with his family about "his" daily life. To listen to him, one would think he were a single man. Even when he talks of our kids, he talks as though he is raising them all by himself. I am nowhere to be found in the version of life that he tells his family. 

Please, tell me whether I am exaggerating or not. Whether I am just being obsessive and irrational about it. Is it normal for a husband to tolerate that his mother and sisters, after so many years of marriage, never think of making a phone call to his wife, under no circumstances, not even when she had her first baby by an emergency c-section in a foreign country? IS it normal for him to erase me from all conversations with his family, even when the conversation is about his daily life? Or am I just being crazy like he says?

Swinca


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## EleGirl (Dec 3, 2011)

This is apparently the culture in his family. They are self absorbed. 

You are probably best off just ignoring his family and the way they don't seem to interact with you or your children. You cannot change them. So just get on with your life.


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## Swinca (Oct 27, 2014)

Thank you, EleGirl, for your reply. I agree with you that I should just ignore his family. But it is HIS behaviour that drives me nuts. He does not seem to be the least bothered by his family's behaviour. Whenever we go back to our home country, he insists on me spending time with them. If I dare voice my discontent with their behaviour (I had once spent the night at his parents' place and when I left, his mother didn't tell me they were throwing a party that very day for his sister's engagement, let alone invite me to it. I only learnt from him later on. When I got upset, he got angry with me. It's like my feelings count for nothing at all for him. THAT is what disturbs me the most in the whole thing.


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## Anonymous07 (Aug 4, 2012)

Swinca said:


> Thank you, EleGirl, for your reply. I agree with you that I should just ignore his family. But it is HIS behaviour that drives me nuts. He does not seem to be the least bothered by his family's behaviour. Whenever we go back to our home country, he insists on me spending time with them. If I dare voice my discontent with their behaviour (I had once spent the night at his parents' place and when I left, his mother didn't tell me they were throwing a party that very day for his sister's engagement, let alone invite me to it. I only learnt from him later on. When I got upset, he got angry with me. It's like my feelings count for nothing at all for him. THAT is what disturbs me the most in the whole thing.


That is a discussion you need to have with your husband. Tell him what you've told us, that you are hurt by his behavior and want to know his thoughts on the situation. 

My in-laws never really accepted me fully into the family. I'm the only white person married into that family and I'm always seen as an outsider, but I will say that my husband always backs me up. There have been a couple times where he defended his family, but I quickly pointed it out and talked about us being married/a team. He married me and our son and I are his family. We come first, then the family he was born into.


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## SurpriseMyself (Nov 14, 2009)

Swinca said:


> Thank you, EleGirl, for your reply. I agree with you that I should just ignore his family. But it is HIS behaviour that drives me nuts. He does not seem to be the least bothered by his family's behaviour. Whenever we go back to our home country, he insists on me spending time with them. If I dare voice my discontent with their behaviour (I had once spent the night at his parents' place and when I left, his mother didn't tell me they were throwing a party that very day for his sister's engagement, let alone invite me to it. I only learnt from him later on. When I got upset, he got angry with me. It's like my feelings count for nothing at all for him. THAT is what disturbs me the most in the whole thing.


I'm not the least bit bothered by his family's behavior, either, nor his. If you develop a genuine relationship with one or more of his family, then that's great. If not, there's no reason (in my book) to call all the time. Of course, that's how I was raised. My parents rarely called me when I was off at college. I went back to see them every few months after I left home and no one in the family finds that odd. My siblings live all over the place now.

As for his mom calling me, I would in no way want my MIL calling me all the time. They used to visit us once a month and it drove me bananas. The less I see of his family, the better. And it's not that they are rude or mean or bad people, but they aren't people I want to spend any time with. It is what it is.

So... let it go, let it go...

EDIT: 
I want to add that I have overheard my MIL talking to her sisters when she is at my house. The sisters get a full run down of our lives: when I got a new car, if I just got back from a business trip, etc. It's not just what are her grandkids doing, it's every one of us. I find that odd and creepy since I see his aunts once every few years.


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