# Does your spouse regress when they spend time with their parents?



## Hope1964 (Sep 26, 2011)

Mine does. He just came back from a week vacationing with his father and I swear to god he's forgotten every single thing he's learned over the last 7+ years of IC, MC and 12 step group.

Do you have to deal with this? What do you do? I've decided to take the bull by the horns and call him out on it, but gently, and ask pointed questions. I can tell he's dealing with some inner conflict because I think he's discovering that his parents aren't the perfect specimens he's always made them out to be, and by extension perhaps HE wasn't and isn't as perfect as he's always thought himself to be. He isn't ready to admit that yet though. I can VERY CLEARLY remember when it hit me that my birth family wasn't perfect - I was in my early 30's and it was gut wrenching. So I know what he's dealing with. I can't decide if I should suggest some IC right now or not - he might just hear me saying he's defective and not that I'm trying to help.

Last night after sex I asked him if he doesn't feel like he's circling around something and needs to figure out what it is because that's how it seems to me. He also can't express his feelings any more - he's always had a hard time doing that but right now it's EXTREMELY bad.


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## peacem (Oct 25, 2014)

I believe that my husbands mother is narcissistic and his whole childhood was very dysfunctional.

When we first got together he was absolutely convinced that he had an idyllic childhood and his parents were perfect. It was only when we had children of our own (and he wanted to parent in a very different way), and his brother was going through therapy, whistle-blowing about childhood abuse and dysfunction, and spending time with my own family that he began to accept that his parents were likely to be personality disordered - it was a gradual progression.

Before he had accepted that things were not right in his childhood and that his mother was a very toxic person, he would visit and come home like a stroppy teenager; sulking, complaining, argumentative, hard-done by. I could time my watch by it. It was awful. I hated him visiting her because I knew I would have to deal with this BOY for the rest of the evening and sometimes several days afterwards.

It turns out she was trying to convince him to leave me, that his life was really bad, that I had ruined his life, that nothing was fair. She would also make him feel guilty for not having a good-enough job, or criticizing his appearance, or how often he had visited. She was basically treating a 30+ year old man like a naughty school boy who was playing with the wrong kids at school.

I had to remind him every time he came home 'you are taking it out on me'. He now stands up to his mother, or completely ignores her because he knows her mischief, if she complains about me he completely blocks her opinion, he also cut the visits down to once a month because that is all he can cope with. Things are a lot better.

I don't know if this is any help to you.....but just to say I understand the frustration.


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## Celtic (Apr 7, 2017)

My EXGF did very much. Her father was a horrible influence on her so whenever she'd come back from a visit (at least twice a month) she would mimic his same arrogant, competitive, rude and inconsiderate traits and use them to sabotage our relationship in some shape or form through her own behaviour. Of course she wouldn't ever see it as sabotage, more that if her father thought that his behaviour was cool (it really wasn't but like I said, his arrogance was way out there) then it must be cool for her to copy that too! There was also the subconscious issue of wanting his approval so she never saw what she was doing as a bad thing but more hoping she would prove worthy of him. Forget about proving worthy of me of course! 

We would then spend the following days trying to dispel that influence, having an argument or two along the way, only for her to slip back into nightmare mode after the next visit. Like with @peacem husband, my ex also thought that she had an idealistic childhood (even though it was wrong even by crazy standards) but as much as she preached about bringing up her kids the same, she never really did so deep down somewhere she must have seen how bad it was. Hell would freeze over before she would admit that though.


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## FeministInPink (Sep 13, 2012)

My XH definitely regressed while we were visiting his parents, or if his parents visited us. It got to the point where I refused to go with him to visit his parents. No way was I wasting my precious, limited vacation time with his miserable parents and my regressive surly-teenager spouse.


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## Taxman (Dec 21, 2016)

It used to bother me when we'd go over to my in-laws and one of my MIL's less endearing qualities was self-infantilization. In other words, they like to talk, baby talk. It grated on my nerves forever, and I happened to ask my kids if they noticed. They both did, and they believed it to be a familial character flaw. Not everyone in the family does this, but it included my wife, her mom, one sister and her brother. 

After one particularly awful family dinner, I flat-out asked my wife to stop doing that. Doing what? She asked. I gently explained to her that infantilizing one self is not endearing, it is, at least in my opinion, highly obnoxious, and does not speak well of those who practice it. Ok, so now I am the bastard who won't let them play their silly game. I said, go right ahead and do so, but before you do, ask our kids how they view the baby talk.

My son did not mince words: It's retarded mom, and it says that the whole family are idiots. It is not cute, it is the furthest thing from cute. It is off-putting. 

She no longer does the baby talk thing.


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## Hope1964 (Sep 26, 2011)

Have any of your spouses done IC for this type of thing? how do you tell someone you think they need to deal with their childhood issues?


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## peacem (Oct 25, 2014)

My husband (probably more money saving than him not wanting to talk to someone) cancelled his appointment and instead talked to a sibling who was going through therapy with similar issues. The idea being that shared history has more understand than having to explain weird **** to a stranger. 

It actually was a brilliant thing and they really bonded and have been close confidants since. 

Has your husband a sibling he is close to?


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## Hope1964 (Sep 26, 2011)

No. She's more dysfunctional than their parents.


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## FeministInPink (Sep 13, 2012)

Hope1964 said:


> Have any of your spouses done IC for this type of thing? how do you tell someone you think they need to deal with their childhood issues?


My XH may have... our MC continued to do IC with both of us after we separated, him more than me, I believe. She moved to Las Vegas six months after we aeparated, so I don't know if he continued or not. I hoped he worked through his issues, but I doubt it. The counselor told me that he had so much work to do to fix his issues, and he wasn't going to change. 

Sent from my SM-G930T using Tapatalk


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## frusdil (Sep 5, 2013)

I haven't seen nor spoken to my inlaws in over 2 years now, and it's been at least 6 months, probably more since my husband has seen them.

He had the cheek to call them out when they disregarded a request from our daughter while she was in hospital. They've not spoken to him since. He got a card in the mail and a text message for his 50th birthday. Not even a damn phonecall. I'm disgusted with them.

He asked me why they would do this and I just said it's because they've lost control of him and they don't like it. They don't get to tell him off like a naughty child, he's a grown man with his own family ffs. 

Of course it's my fault that he doesn't see them, and I "put him up to" calling them out (I didn't). It used to really bother me, that they blamed me but it doesn't anymore, I know the truth and my husband knows the truth and that's all that really matters.

When he did see them things would be very tense in the lead up to it - he'd become very stressed and then be "strange" when he'd get home. We'd usually argue until I realised that we were giving MIL exactly what she wanted so I put a stop to that.


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