Hi, i know i have the other thread going and i still intend to go back to it. i took DD out today all day so i've still not been by a computer much yet.

right now though i need some help.

DH hates my family. He never has liked them. Yes, my family is very disfunctional but they are not horrible people. I'm not sure how many details to give....

background: My mom was not the best mom. very self-absorbed, neglectful single mom. struggled emensly with depression my whole life. My one sister is very mentally unstable. I don't even like her anymore. she has a saint of a husband (second husband). She has one daughter from her first marraige who is very sweet. i have one other sister who was the only one he didn't totally dislike, although he totally disliked her husband and righfully so as he was an alcoholic. She has two boys. i have one brother, the oldest, who DH believes is very self-centered. He is married with 2 boys. All of the kids are nice/good kids. When they were small, they were a bit noisy. 7 kids in all will fill a house, not to mention all the adults. DH comes from a small family. It was always too much for him.

connection to my behavior: the unstable sister did not know what was going on. my one attempt to talk to my brother about marriage troubles resulted in him telling me to cheat on DH if he is going to be so distant with no desire to better the marriage. VERY BAD ADVICE!!! my other sister, knew what was going on and did not try hard to stop me, never tried to tell me i was wrong. wanted my happiness above anything else. certainly did not even consider telling DH what was going on. my mom, didn't know until afterwards. when she saw that we were having major marriage problems she asked me if DH cheated on me. that was a huge insult to DH. I immediately told my mom it was I who did the cheating. she was very disappointed in me. (my dad cheated on my mom, divorced her and then married the OW).

the issue: my unstable sister has 2 dressers that belong to my other sister. she wants them out of her basement. my other sister has no room for them. it was the unstable sister that asked me to take them. not the other one. The one that owns them does not want me to put myself out for her. however, i wanted to be able to do it for her anyway. not for the unstable sister, she is just basically a jerk the majority of the time. we have the room. it would be no impossision. her boys would carry it up to the attic. nothing is needed of my husband except his blessings.

he really just cannot stomach the idea of doing anything nice for either of them.

i'm not mad at him for not being able to do it. i'm really not.

but i am left feeling very bad. Like his hatred for them out measures his love for me?

historically i have struggled with his dislike of my family. because i am part of that family. i have a hard time seperating myself from them. if my family is so worthless, why does that dislike not extend to me too. i'm cut from the same cloth. i'm not dramitically different.

i want to be ok with his answer. i just need help not feeling so bad right now.

i have told him that it hurts. he said he knows and he really did consider my feelings when he decided, because he knew it would be hard on me. but in the end he just needs to say no.

really what i need from you guys is comforting. i don't want to be told he is wrong, if you do think that, keep it to yourself. it won't help me. i want to be married not right.

i want to be convinced he does not mean to hurt me, and he does not look down on me as he looks down on them.

maybe this is just a stupid post. but there it is anyway.

thanks.

Hey FL,

I don't think that your H's disliking your family has anything to do with you...

It sounds like you have some issues with "leaving" your family and "cleaving" to your DH... That doesn't mean that you stop loving your family, no matter how 'disfunctional' they are, but it does mean that your primary focus should be on YOUR family with your DH and your children.

Semper Fi,

RIF

my primary focus is on my marriage/family.

why does it have to be a choice?

but you have given me something to think about and i will think on it.

Hey FLT2H - It should be a choice... Your DH should be your primary focus. I suspect that this could be one of the reasons that he is wary of working on the M... he needs to know that your loyalties and focus are 100% on him and not your family.

This does NOT mean that you stop loving your family... it just means that regardless of what your family wants or says or does, that your priorities are decided by you and your DH... they shouldn't have any influence on your M.

Semper Fi,

RIF

hi rif,

thanks for the posts. DH and i went for a walk and talked a bit more. i asked him his opinion regarding my priorities, had i, in fact, not put him and our family first. he said no, he would not say that. rather he just never could understand why i would want to be close to them given the negatives.

i explained a bit more about how i was feeling. including my lingering thoughts about how he said i've never made him feel special. he didn't really say much.

then we watched the cubies pull out a win.

time for bed.

Hey FLT2H,

One of the things that Mrs. RIF used to do that irked me to no end was to always call her mother for 'advice'...

We would talk, and come up with ideas and I thought that we were tracking together, but she would eventually call her mom 'just to get her thoughts'...

I know that Mrs. RIF was committed to our M, but it still bothered me that she had to have her mother's "approval" on decisions that "WE" made...

That's great that you and your DH spent some time together and talked...

Anyway, think about this some and see if any of your actions might be hindering your "oneness" with your DH...

Semper Fi,

RIF

Hi again RIF,

big storms here so i am up. i have some work i needed to deal with at 6am, might as well just do it now instead.

seriously, i do not now nor never have had a close relationship to my mom such that i would talk to her about anything personal nor seek her advice. the only reason she discovered we were having marital issues is because when we went to Retrovaille, we needed her to watch the kids. i was up front about where we were going. i didn't give details, she didn't ask. but sometime later she tried coming up with her own conclusion which was 100% wrong so i felt strongly about setting it straight. it was not right to let her think the wrong thing.

as for my siblings, we have a bond due that ties us together very strongly i believe because of the childhood we shared. it's not the type that results in us talking on a daily basis but it is the type that, for me anyway, results in me wanting to help any of them in any way i can.

but there are also negatives, mostly my unstable sister, would always need something. she was hospitalized many times due to mental issues. and then she would just cause troubles and fight with me on the phone and i would get upset and DH hated to see that happening.

she was normally the one that would need some sort of help.

my other sister was not able to help most times because of her alcoholic husband. my brother, well, he was good at distancing himself from her.

i know DH only wanted me to distance myself from my family in order to protect me. but he could never understand that the bond i felt with them would not allow me to be able to be distant. even with all the problems they are my siblings and i love them.

i think it's cuz i watched my dad ex-communicate his own siblings and i lost my cousins because of it. and then my dad ex-communicated my brother. i watched him literally throw him out of the house because he mouthed off to my step-mom one night. but my brother was so fed up with the way my dad and step-mom treated him. he didn't care and he never came back, he went to live with his fiance's parents until the wedding.

then my dad ex-communicates the unstable sister for a while.

i HATED all of that. and so family ties became very strong in me.

i would never do anything without first talking to DH. But i would lobby hard to always help with whatever issue that arose. and the more i pushed to help the more DH would push to not help. we were not good at finding any sort of balance. to me, he was NEVER willing to help. to him, i would ALWAYS want to help. neither was true but that is how we each viewed it. my desire to help was unreasonable to him. his refusal to help was unreasonable to me.

see what i mean?

i believe we were both guilty of not hearing each other.

i know i was guilty of being pushy.

so yes, my own past actions hindered my "oneness" with DH. i don't believe my current ones are though. and given what DH said to me last night, he agrees.

anyway, this will all blow over.

we are still together and i do believe we communicate better so that is good.

FL hope you got no storm damage and all is ok

I have been thinking about your post and ... welll you know .... I do think your H is not out of line with refusing. I mean he obviously thought about it and how you would feel, he didn't just make a off the cuff decision, but he just can't get past what is obviously previous unpleasantness. And POJA is about enthusiastically being in agreement. He just can't agree on this occasion.
Frankly its not worth a battle over a probably haphazard request from your sister.

In the bigger picture it would be nice if he could work on being more accepting of your upbringing due to the particular circumstances and understand or at least accept that the big family thing is very different from small family inter-relationships. But it may be he will never understand it, people don't, they are not selfish or anything they just can't GET that type of upbringing. I mean I can't understand Aussie's at all. I come from a big loud family of cousins aunts, uncles, grand parents, sisters coming out of the woodwork, brother , 34th cousins etc and so on.. stacks of family who get together to this day on the slightest excuse. We can live in each others pockets
Aussie? well he is one of those rare people who does not NEED anyone, he may like to share with people and happy to have them around, but he doesn't need them, his sister & brother tend to be the same. They can not see each other for years and take up discussions a decade old as if it was the day before! I don't get it. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> but they seem ok and happy with it. I mean I talk to them more than he does.
Are you wrong to feel different on this ? NO Is your H wrong ? NO
Its not about you or him perse, its about how each of you feel about others.

I wonder if they would not support him when the M was in trouble and thats rendered any future interactions to very distant wary ones????? Aussie probably would feel the same about my family if they had not been behind him 100%

So I say its not about you at all!! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Hi AW!

thanks for the post. storms were not that bad here, just enough to wake me up is all.

i did feel somewhat better after we talked because he said he did think about my feelings too. i honestly believe he considered everything and then honestly related his need to not do it.

bottomline, he continues to tell me he has told me what would make the biggest impact on him. losing the extra weight. because he knows how hard it is. it would be significant to him. it would also be evidence of me being healthier, not just physical, but mentally. not losing weight says to him i am not mentally healthy. another thing he wants is for me to come to terms with my dad. my sister says my dad sexually molested her. supposedly while i was in the room too, possible sleeping though. she also says she is sure he did the same to me. i have no memories however i do wonder if it is possible. i know i show some signs of unhealthiness regarding sex even now. i am guessing he would like to see me back in IC. he has not directly said that. i'm just guessing.

i very strongly do not want any more IC.

i'm tired of being told i'm not ok as is. i'm not interested in digging into my past. if i have hidden away memories then that is where they should stay. i don't want them.

i don't mean to be dramatic but i don't think i would survive it. not unless i had DH strongly on my side to help me. he is not capable or willing. not sure which. but it doesn't matter. i'm not putting myself at risk of falling apart again!!!

Try "Brief Solutions Focused Therapy" to deal with what is currently bothering you as form of IC instead of what you have experienced with other types of IC. It's more a coaching thing.

I won't let anyone delve into or analyse my childhood, and especially will not discuss my parents with strangers in a negative way.

FL, I lost all the negative memories of my parents after they died. I chose to keep only the good. It was for my own happiness... I had to.

weaver,

don't think that approach will be ok with DH.

at this point he says he will go with me to C to talk about my dad. or we can forget the whole thing and just have the type of marriage we have right now. he is fine with the level of closeness. i am not but maybe i should force myself to be. i went into a full panic attack while talking to him. i think i'm finally pulling out of it.

"Bad Childhood, Good Life" Dr. Laura Schlessinger

Do I always have to repeat myself? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

Perhaps you can POJA a specific length of time for C or IC so H will be satisfied and you don't feel like it will go on indefinitely.

You know I love ya, FL <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

obviously you do and i love ya too.

prob won't like my answer..
but it's opinion only..so take it or leave it...

but good heavens...

all this emotional baggage tagged on to your husband not wanting to have the dressers...

your husband doesn't want to have to deal with the dressers...

NEXT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

seriously....

your plan is to ask your husband what he thinks
he tells you what he thinks...

and then you are off and running...


but i am left feeling very bad. Like his hatred for them out measures his love for me?


i want to be ok with his answer. i just need help not feeling so bad right now.

he never stood a chance in he## on this one unless his answer was yes....

you don't want to feel bad..
then don't feel bad...

this is psycho babble minutia that KILLS relationships...

If your one sister is as off based as you say...then who would want ANYTHING that puts you in the middle of those two...ie two dressers now in YOUR attic...

talk about inviting the banshees in to roost...

i want to be convinced he does not mean to hurt me, and he does not look down on me as he looks down on them.

uhh lets see..
he married you
he has built a world with you
he loves you...

not enough though eh?

gotta prove it by putting dressers in the attic...

and since he said no..which you asked him for his answer
now he has to PROVE he doesn't mean to hurt you...

is this post too tough...
or can you see how crazy making it is...
how too short life is to NOT say..

hey honey can I put the dressers in the attic....

he says..

nay

and you say..
Ok dear...please pass the sugar, sugar...smoochie smoochie...

ARK

ARK.........

That is THE best advice I have heard in ages. I mean that sincerely....no deep analyzing, just straight up, common sense, helpful stuff....BRAVO!


NOW

ark, this is not about the dressers.

hi now.

yes it is..

to your husband....it is exactly about dressers...

not about proving his love
not about hurting you or not hurting you
not about anything more than dressers...

he doesn't want them in the attic..

there is NO great emotional anything about that...

you asked
he answered

now he needs to prove a list of things

it is exactly about pieces of wood...nothing more....

unless you continue to make it so..

your husband loves you...

inspite of where the dressers are...

people drown in the minutia of self analysis

ARK

no ark, even DH is smart enough to know this is more than about the dressers. true, if he had said yes, we would have had nothing to talk about. actually it would of been a huge love deposit that i would of been extremely thankful about.

even still, it was not a love withdrawal to say no.

but yes, it had a very negative impact on me.

now if we normally say smoochie smoochie to each other, then it would not of had this bad of an impact.

however, our relationship is no where near smoochie smoochie so the situation changes.

our relationship is one of distance and silent unhappiness.

but go ahead and shake your head and say it's insignificant if you want. that is certainly your choice.

Two guys out to play golf, friends for years. They both go home and each wife asks, "What did the two of you talk about?"

Answer, "Golf."

Women don't understand that. Men do. Since High School, I have heard women ask each other, "What did he mean by that?" Uh, try what he said, please. If you still don't understand, ask why. Most likely, he will tell you exactly why.

Larry