Defending his ex!
It is one thing for dh to defend his despicable daughters, but quite another when he chastises me over innocuous comments regarding his ex! Needless to say, I am feeling quite differently about "dear" husband this morning. I feel like my eyes have been pried open fully with a crow bar! His ex and a co worker share the same name.........we will refer to them as "Mary". So yesterday, dh says"Mary just called and she was so nice!" He then talked about work. My comment was I laughed and said for a minute, I actually thought he was referring to his ex. I thought he would laugh, but instead says that god loves us all the same and we should not judge.. I got very angry and told him that his non judgemental attitude got him daughters who can't stand him, aside from his money, and he should have judged them and his ex years ago. I also told him, and I do believe, that she is one sick chick to leave a guy so gaga in love with her. I gave it thought....obviously he still cares for her in some twisted way. Can my marriage go forward? I know that widows/ widowers still love their dead spouses and remarry.. It was very cold between us last night. I feel like a part of my love for dh left..
I should add that his ex has
I should add that his ex has gone out of her way to do some awful things to hurt me. She also has written terrible letters about me to dh in the past and of course dh never said a word about it to her.
We have no contact with any of them, so I do not need to discuss them further. However, I do feel very angry, but more importantly, I do question dh's level of love toward me. In one word.........trust is gone and I know I better not leave myself vulnerable to him having to choose. All money is separate and will remain so.
I do pull that card out and
I do pull that card out and then I feel like I am an abuser to his being a doormat....which he really is to a lot of people. I did not mince words either. But you are right. He has a crazy relationship with his ex.....not sure what that was about, other than he took heaps of shit from her..
Well I have told him that
Well I have told him that both he and his family's attitude regarding his ex beloved and daughters have helped make them what they are today. Monsters, though and though. He knows this is the case deep down. I realize at this point he has deep issues...he is not changing. I will say he is much better with my kids and myself. I do want to continue with my marriage. Warts and all.....let's be real, at our ages, we all have them! And I do believe that likely he is not in love per se with his ex.......it is as stepaside said.......he still seeks her approval.. That I can live with. It was never a normal loving relationship. She would get him daddy Christmas cards.......I saw one old one in fact! I am not threatened by that. Any thoughts? I am confused....
No....she had lots of kids
No....she had lots of kids all back to back and his father was always gone working. I get the sense his mother was a saint, always taking care of kids and house, never ever bad mouthing father. Dh was never a kid......always crazy super responsible.
A few years ago My DH and I
A few years ago My DH and I went to a reunion where his ex was present. For some reason she was hostile to me but made all sorts of sweetsie, sweetsie gestures to DH. Little hand waves, etc. DH smiled and waved back. During the event I was even blamed by people I had never met for breaking them up. I had to tell them I didn't even live in the area when they got a divorce. She was the one who wanted the divorce also. I wondered what his real reason was for staying with me. But there have been times in our marriage that men have approached me, and he went ballistic. It does give you a strange feeling like you are being manipulated and undervalued.
Sometimes we want what we can
Sometimes we want what we can not have, and I think dh's ex is flashy, seductive and makes you think you have won the lottery by being in her presence. She is a whore to boot! Lol......she got under dh's skin when he was a poor nobody in high school and she was a goddess cheerleader. You can write the rest.........
Your frustration is palpable.
Your frustration is palpable. I feel for you. What a difficult situation to be in.
This is the kind of relationship i have read a lot about: narcissistic woman/co-dependent man.
Emotional abuse is written all over it. My DH had the same thing going with his ex. On some very deep, neurotic, level it worked: somehow he internalized the message early on( not sure from whom? His dad? Not his mom, she doted on him) that he is not measuring up. He had ADHD, his ( brilliant) mind wandered. His Ex seized on his insecurities, and magnified them, harped on them, told everyone who would listen he is a horrible husband ( now she adds that it was him who made her gay - if he had been a better husband, she would have never turned gay!! I cannot even keep a straight face typing it). The sad truth is, he believed it. For years. He believed every nasty thing she said about him. She was GOD in the universe she created and he was hypnotized by her. Skids still are.
In your case, "Judge not and ye will not be judged" is his super-ego talking. Religion is great for that. He is the super-responsible one, the one who took on adult-size tasks early, as you said. Impulses of the Id must have been frowned upon, banished. Anger is something my DH has a real problem with. Some-how some-time anger became taboo. Getting angry was unacceptable, so he developed amazing empathy and understanding of others - at his own expense. That is why he is so ready to see things from the skids' perspective - it frees him from feeling justified anger at them for treating him so shabbily. Thank god he does not have a problem getting mad at the ex anymore.
Has your husband had therapy?
For whatever it's worth: In
For whatever it's worth:
In reaction formation, anger is denied and counterbalanced by increased efforts to help others. Interpersonal and intrapsychic issues that are creating the anger, however, remain unaddressed, further fuelling rageful feelings and fantasies. As noted above, identification can be employed to reduce a sense of loss of an important other (absent father perhaps??), but angry feelings towards the other can become directed towards the self (Freud 1917).
In identification with the aggressor, the person links their self-image with someone who is aggressive and has made the person or others feel disempowered. Although this may help the individual to gain feelings of power and control, it frequently triggers guilty feelings about wishes to control or abuse others.
--end of quote. So to avoid guilt about abusing others, he just becomes a doormat.
Sound familiar?
http://apt.rcpsych.org/content/15/4/271.full
It is amazing how reading
It is amazing how reading your answer I am confused over my husband versus your husband. It is the same type situation. Dh just can not allow himself to be angry and that is what I find maddening! Because 99 percent of the population would have found their behavior intolerable and he does not utter one word! Nada..
Thank God they want nothing to do with him. The real fear will be if they return because they are extremely cruel and manipulative and they do hate me. I did get dh to set some small boundaries when I entered......so they are to be feared, in all seriousness. I often tell dh they could kill him for his money. They do have family members in and out of jail.....it is in their genes as well.
It is amazing.. kinda ...
It is amazing.. kinda :-)... amazing because psychology is not an exact science, and even using the same ingredients, you are not guaranteed the same results every single time. In our two situations it seems like the same qualities in the parent produced the same outcomes in the kids.
Interesting about you fearing your skids could kill. I do not think mine could but their family roots are in Sicily. At the risk of sounding politically incorrect (cut me some slack, please, some of my best friends are from Sicily), i believe this tight Italian famiglia, us-against-them mentality, is at the root of how skids view the world. They have always excluded outsiders. The walls of their unit are high and impermeable. They have cut DH out like they cut out his parents years ago. They are ruthless, self-important bullies. Mama rules the roost. What Mother Superior says, goes. Dissent is not allowed.
I feel for my DH missing them terribly, but like you, i am not in any hurry to see them return. They hate me too much.
Again, your description could
Again, your description could be mine! This clan also comes from Sicily and the women going back a couple generations rule the roost. The men seem only for impregnating them.....and then they marry the women.....happened to dh and his ex sis in laws. They all targeted nice guys, got pregnant to get married. That was ex's sisters. All divorced. I do look at the girls FB pages.......can only see their main pic. I was shocked tonight to see youngest daughter. Last I saw her she was overweight, and not into makeup..Today's photo shows her going the way of her mother and sisters........lots of makeup, very busty, she lost weight, and wearing tight dress with lots lots cleavage.. That is who they are......thoroughly narcissistic..interesting saying she had.........."it's funny how sometimes the people you would take a bullet for are the ones pulling the trigger." I am sure she is referring to her mild mannered father........that is such a classic victim line.....
And yes pilgrim soul, they hate me. I readily admit I fear them......their relatives are convicted felons, small town hoods.
That is unbelievable! Are
That is unbelievable! Are yours related to mine? You made my day! It's all so formulaic... it's so cultural. Can they help it, i wonder? Step outside the circle?
Mine have the same attitude to men - to a T... Targeted is the word. BM's mother made her dad miserable all his life, according to DH. Is that where BM learned her cruel ways? We suspect DH's late MIL was a closeted lesbian too, just like her daughter, hated men. If you read about Sicily, there are accounts of woman tearing men to shreds in ritual dances - back in the day. That mentality is very deeply rooted. Men are of no further use - sperm donors and money donors. When it comes to dollars.... Gimme gimme gimme... never enough. BM had hoped her sister would also divorce - she never did. SDs are both either in relationships with women now ( YSD) or have been - OSD. Hatred of men is front and center. SS22 must be drowning in this sea of estrogen. He has never expressed an interest in any one - male or female. He could be their next lesbian waiting to happen. In the meantime, I cannot wait for him to get a GF ( which is unlikely) to see how his female relatives will hound her to death.
Your YSD seems to be embracing her physical assets. My YSD is the opposite - tries to be as dull-looking as she can. She is moderately cute, but will wear any color as long as it is grey, any potato sack as long as it is shapeless, and avoid male attention like the plague. She chopped her hair off to look like a boy. Can't decide if she is really gay or trying to conform to the horrendous pressure the mother and the mother's GF are exerting. Come with us, hate, hate, hate men!!!
Wow......you nailed it! And
Wow......you nailed it! And spot on about the abuse. Early in our relationship, dh's phone dialed me unbeknownst to him........I was privy to horrible rants toward him, by both his ex and daughters then....he if course told me he never recalled the arguments! Ha!
And even dh's family told me of the verbal abuse he endured, from all of them. Why he took it, I do not know. But yes he is not able to show anger.......just becomes more responsible and like superman. He unfortunately does spout this crap about not judging......so it led to his abusive highly narcissistic daughters who have no empathy........quite honestly they are damaged goods.. I think it drives him nuts be uses he realizes on some level he fostered the atmosphere. Of course he would make them do chores, but emotionally, he just couldn't navigate........still can't. He falls back on striving to be the kindest person..