I have been married since 7 yrs,we are settled in England. Both our families live in Italy.Last year my sister came from Italy for higher studies and she stayed with us for couple of months, the whole time my husband treated her extremely well. Over the years I have sacrificed a lot for my husband which he acknowledged and appreciated. My sister and my folks used to feel very grateful to my husband for his kind treatment towards my sis.

At the end of her 1 st university year, she insisted she wanted to stay in hostel and not my place. She wanted space of her own and her freedom, she is currently 19 years old and I am 31.My parents, my husband and I were against the idea that she should be left alone in hostel as she was quite the wild kind and needed supervision. But she became very stubborn and said many statements of ingratitude. All of this made my husband against her as he felt that if she was ungrateful to my parents, she would also be ungrateful
to me and him. Hence he asked me to stop her from visiting us on weekends so that she should do things on her own and realise worth of family.

Basically I did not want to close the doors of my house to my sister as I wanted her to have contact with me atleast twice a month so that she would stay close to family values
As I was pregnant I couldnt travel to her hostel to visit her, the only choice was for her to come and visit me, but my husband closed our house doors for her. I was 5 months pregnant at the time and I lost control and began arguing with him to the extent that I told him that I could leave him but not her.
My husband made his family intervene,he made them tell me and my parents not to send my sister to my house. Hence my sister didnt come to my house through the remainder of my
pregnancy until my delivery last month. Through the remainder of my pregnancy my husband became verbally and physically abusive even when our discussion didnt involve my sister. I became very helpless because even if I was slightest in an unpleasant mood with him, he would make long distance call to his mother and involve his full family and he would say 'she isnt talking to me much just because I am not allowing her sister to come' He would pin everything to my sister and create a big issue involving both families each time

I now have a one month old baby, my husband says he hates the sight of my sister as he feels she is the cause of our arguments and that it is due to my sister that my parents dont like him in the same manner anymore.

But all of a sudden 2 weeks back he told me that he doesnt mind my sister to come and visit me 1-2 times a month. I am quite scared to call my sister over even though my husband has agreed. I would ideally like her to be kept away from his sight, but I have a very small baby I cant go to visit
my sister in her hostel.

I know my sister is not my husband's responsibility,it is sad that he cannot accept my first degree relative to come and visit me when she is the only one I have in this country.
Now that my husband has agreed for my sister to visit at times, I feel if I do so, my in laws will not like me as they will feel I went against my husband and their wishes.In their house it is considered normal to not see siblings or parents for years on end.
My husband is unfairly controlling me and my family,he used to be a gentle and loving human being and has changed completely in the past 4 months, he has been extremely rude to my parents at 3 occassions and each time he has apologised to my parents. At the same time he shows no remorse or guilt for the fact that he hit me during pregnancy and given me bruises.

I feel stuck, If I try telling him how abusive hes been towards or how unreasonable he is, he looses temper and gets extremely v. abusive. Friends say he needs reassurance from me that I love him because he feels I was ready to leave him for my sister, friends say he has become jealous of my sis. I am trying my best to be loving towards him altough I am hurt from inside. I keep recollecting what he has said and done during my preg, and if he sees I am being moody he again shows anger and says 'this is all because i am not letting your sister come over' I feel he is now controlling my mind and my moving about within the house.
i would have completely stopped seeing my sister in order to stop this violence but she is in England for just one more year, she needs to be supervised and guided, why should I be taken away the right of seeing my sister, or for my sister to be seeing her only neice? Why should my parents suffer thinking that their 2 daughters are unable to meet. I have made numerous sacrifices for my husband, I pay the rent of the house we live in and still do not have the right of admitting my blood relations to my house.

I could have temporarily separated from my husband to teach him a lesson for his abuse but he and his family would accuse my sister for our separation.What should I do? There is a friend of ours who wants to intervene and sit and talk to both of us together, should I allow that?

Hi Gina
I'm not really qualified to give you advice as I'm pretty new to MB myself but I saw your post sliding off the page and wanted to make sure you knew that you had been heard and read.

Sounds as if there have been some pretty massive love busters by you both over the last four months. You will have to start by eliminating these. The root of the problem is probably not your sister as I expect you know.

I suggest you print off the love buster questionaires from the site and try filling them in FOR EACH OTHER. That is, you work out what LBs you have been doing to him and he does the same for you. Then you can compare notes and see if you agree with your assessments of where you have gone wrong.

This would be a good moment to get help but your friend would need to be well versed in MB principles. If he or she is not, you may cause further damage.

It might be best to check back in here if you are not sure.
Best of luck and congratulations on the baby.

Have you snooped to verify whether your H is having an affair? It would explain a lot of your H's behaviors. It is also VERY common with men whose wives have just had babies. I advise you to check your phone records, texting records, and install a key logger on the computers at your home.

Thanks for reading my loooong post. I have now installed the key logger, lets see what comes out of it...had been thinking of the keylogger since a while now...

And lied_to_again, thanks for your suggestion, he avoids any such exercise or any discussions where I'd have the opportunity to talk my feelings out. He looses temper v quickly if I pursue on discussing the issue
I have no love left for him, the man didnt respect me when I was preg, he had no respect for my family either. but when i look back at how loving he was for yrs gone by, it surprises me how hes changed so much

Assuming he is not having an affair (if he is, we will advise you on dealing with that but this exercise will still be good), the point about filling in one another's Love Buster questionnaires is so that he does not feel he is discussing feelings but that you are solving problems.

Fill in his, show it to him and ask him if you have it right. That will start to engage him. Ask him to do the same for you. Turn it into a challenge 'let me see if I can guess which things about me bug you most'.

And I'm not surprised about how you feel. You both have empty love banks and this is how it is when you are empty. But love banks can be refilled. First you have to eliminate the love busters (and from your post, there are tons on both sides).

After that you can start on the emotional needs but make sure you talk about his needs first.

Past couple of days, I'm trying to fill in our love bank with little gestures of love, showing plenty of affection and bringing back our bedroom life which had been missing ever since I was pregnant. I feel as though the person I'd loved and married is slowly coming back.
Like you said....I'm focusing on his emotional needs first which at the same time is also helping me fill in my emotional needs as he tries to return my love with hugs,kisses and gifts too!!
A lot has gone wrong and we both have caused enough damage, more from his side though, but I want us to reach that comfort zone where he'll be able to reflect, realise and appreciate my love, my patience and the importance of respecting me and my loved ones.
Its working well so far, I will be highly disappointed if my efforts end in vain later on.

Good to hear! Take advantage of the time to open up the communication. Talk about stuff, any stuff, just get back in the habit of talking to each other like you did when you were dating. Politics, movie stars, tv shows, sports, vacations, global warming...stuff. That will go a long way toward helping when you start working on the important stuff.

Keep up the good work!

Hi, thanks you guys. Its working well so far, its been almost a month now, we dont argue about anything at all cos I think we both realise NOW is not the time to bring up any negativity, both of us are trying to fill in the love bank. I have also realised that by not respecting myself, I had contributed in making him Verbally abusive. The reason I am writing in here today is cos every single morning I wake up with the thoughts of how he was verbally and physically abusive towards me. A man I cherished and treasured, a man I was so proud of cos he was ever so loving and caring, he simply adored me since so many yrs. Why did he choose to cause me so much pain when I was pregnant!!! when I think of the horrible things he used to say, i want to pack my bags and leave. I also wanted to share one more thing, my H's developed a funny ego whereby he is quite cautious about his actions and words simply cos he feels his manhood would be threatened if he was caring like before, he has even told me a couple of times 'it was my mistake, I was a mouse all these yrs'
I feel pity when he thinks like that, it is a guy friend of his who has forged this soooo much into him that I dont know how to get these petty thoughts out of his system, I feel thats what is stopping him in becoming his normal lovable self again. What do u suggest? A part of me says to continue with loving gestures and counsel him out of it or just pack my bags and leave and teach him the hard way.
I have a 3 month daughter now, she startles at the slightest loud noise or sometimes even at a soft noise, I feel so sad about tht, I bet all the yelling during my preg has caused this to her.

You could try finding material at the library about what makes a healthy responsible husband and father. If he's religious, finding religious material would be more 'true' to him. Pick out passages that apply to him, and talk to him about it. "I read that many men think...but they're really doing it because...and if they did...they'd find this is what they need to do." Whatever works for you.

Also, if he listens to this man, find another man he'll listen to. His father? His brother? Your brother? Another friend? Ask that person to help him understand.

If your H is having an affair ...it is of no matter.

That he is rude to your family is of no matter.

The ONLY thing that should matter right now is getting away from a man that would beat his wife....and while she is pregnant to boot.

Get away from him before he hurts you permanently. Get away before he physically hurts your child. Just get away. Now.

fellow Mb'ers...STOP giving her advice about how to restore her marriage. The first priority is safety. Do you think for one second that Dr. Harley would be talking abouyt the "love bank" with a woman that is being abused?

Think.

You're right. Thanks for the reminder. Ginaa, listen to medc.

Hi,

Thank you all for your kind advise in the past 2-3 months. I have now re read my first post, and can see how weak I was then. I am back at work since April which has helped bring back my confidence and my self esteem which was literally zero.
I now want to pat my back for the fact that during my preg my H gave me such a hard time and when that wasn't enough he continued causing me pain after the baby was born. It had all come as a shock to me that a man whom I knew since 15 yrs, been married for 4 yrs, was such a gentleman all this while ..could change sooo drastically. I regret having to put up with his evil,nasty attitude wn i was pregnant.
He now says tht wn he reflects on the way he behaved, he realises how nasty he was. BUT to put it short and simple, he USED to be a well mannered,gentle and poilte person, and very very caring. NOW he is a man with a major temper problem who is just v stubborn when it comes to anything. He is constantly speculating my family and my actions and coming out with the weirdest assumptions.
Going bk to our history, I have always bn more intellectual than him and have helped him throughout in making his career. He often finds difficulty at work and doesnt like the idea that I tend to succeed better than him (though he is happy for me, BUT it hurts his ego) He now tells me tht the way he acted was mainly cos he's always bn looked down upon since uni,work and by his family and he couldnt bear the fact tht his views abt my sister came out into the open which made him look bad infront of my folks.
I could write pages on how horrible and mean he's been to me past couple of months, I'm strongly thinking of separating from him, give him the space to grow. I've minimised my communication with him and am spending more time with the baby, I dont know whats the best approach to this.