I've typed this up several times and ended up deleting it after rugsweeping the issues with my DH. I started lurking DWIL due to issues with my MIL, and after reading for the past year, I know that a lot of the issues I have are also with my DH. I created this anon account because my SIL knows my BBC username. I'm at a complete loss for what to do at this point and I know I've made some really questionable decisions in the past. *Triggers* within BG.
My MIL is my BEC after years of narc/judgy behavior on her part. I moved in with my DH and he never told her because she's a strict Catholic who approves of nothing. She found out and confronted me in our house while DH was at work and I was going out the door to a job interview. She called me a slut and made a bunch of other accusations and was a total bitch, blocked me from leaving the house, and started crying / wringing her hands / telling me all about how God saw what I was doing etc. I told DH and he came home early - I left and he claimed that he nearly threw her out of the house (please note, "nearly"). (Oh, and also, she lived with FIL before they were married, so what the fuck? Do what I say, not what I do.)
Other past issues with her include:
- She was in charge of the seating at BIL's wedding - she did not have a seat for me even though I had been living with DH for a year
- She constantly comments on my breasts - how large they are, and how in her day in order to get a job the boss would determine who would pass the 'pencil test' (where your boobs can keep a pencil from falling on the ground) and how I would totally pass and could probably hold multiple pencils, yadda, yadda (seriously, wtf)
- Brings up extended family drama CONSTANTLY even though we don't engage, ask her to stop, or leave the gathering to get away from her
- I have a form of IBD and she always talks about how 'so-and-so' died of that (EVERY time I pass on the meals that she makes, which make me sick every time I take a bite, to the point where I seriously thought she might be poisoning me)
- Greets our LO while I'm holding him, but ignores me
- Tries to take LO away from me even while I'm wearing him, and immediately walks away with him if she succeeds
- P/A remarks about not seeing the baby enough, not holding the baby enough
- She's jealous that we spend more time with my parents (who live across the country, so...no we don't)
I don't know - there are so many past issues and I did a great job of recounting them all the first few times that I typed this up, but after writing it down that many times I know we just need to do a TCO or ITO. My DH agrees, but I've also heard so many excuses, and he's yet to shut her down in the moment:
- It's just the way she is
- She's just excited about the baby
- She's getting older so we have to be more understanding
- How would I feel if he didn't want to be around my parents (uh, if they treated you like the way MIL treats me, I'd be fine with CO)
- She's hurt because she thinks I don't like her
- "I thought you were over that by now"
- "I'm misinterpreting what MIL says"
BG on why my normal meter is fucked up: FOO was hit by a truck who didn't stop at a stop sign and it messed up his frontal lobe - he is unable to control his emotions at all if something stresses or upsets him. My MOO stayed with him and he has been in therapy and on medications since (I was 5 when it happened). While I am amazed that she has upheld her vows - 'in sickness and in health' - I really question if it was the best choice. I didn't know about the accident until I was in my late teens - I always thought he was just an asshole to his family and everyone else liked him because he seemed like a standup guy to the outside world. 90% of the time, he's fine, but if something stressful happens, he has no filter and explodes. He is always apologetic after it happens, but I've altered how I deal with stress by shutting down or walking away to let everything simmer down. Then we all rugsweep, and the cycle continues. I've been working on being more assertive and communicating better.
My parents also CO all of their family for every sort of abuse imaginable - I did not have extended family growing up, save for one 'safe' uncle and aunt. I don't really remember my childhood.
DH BG: I met my DH online 6 years ago. We went through a ton of issues in our first year together that all should have been red flags/reasons to break up - I had moved cross-country to start a life with him and I decided to stay to give him another chance way too many times. He said he was a different person and maintained that he wanted a different life with me.
He continued to contact another woman online once or twice after I had moved in to start my life with him. This was a married woman he had had a past relationship with (not sure if it's an affair if she was seperated from her husband at the time) - the messages were sexual in nature (i.e. 'I had a sexy dream about you last night,' etc.). I found out by snooping, because I'm a snoop, and he ended up coming clean about a bunch of other things I didn't know about. For example, he was supposed to come to my university graduation (before we were dating, but we were talking about making a serious committment and he was calling me his girlfriend to his friends) and didn't make it because he was spent the night with another girl (no sex, but they would have had she not been menstruating, TMI, but at least he told me the complete truth?). I let it go because we weren't dating and he told me about it instead of hiding it.
****TRIGGER****
I started to get over my trust issues, but ended up snooping a few more times and looking through his computer. I found a lot of Asian porn (I'm not Asian) and two videos ****trigger**** of underage/incestual porn ****trigger**** - I found these the day of BIL's wedding (the wedding where I did not have a seat because MIL was in charge of the seating list). I packed my bags, confronted him, and was about to walk out. He broke down completely. He had downloaded the videos years ago (time stamp of last opened date was 8+ years before I had met him), he thought that he had deleted them, he was part of some illegal downloads group for movie-sharing, etc. and saw them and just clicked download because he wasn't thinking, he watched them and after realizing what they were, "deleted" them, and it was a horrible mistake. He also told me ****trigger**** that he was molested by a male teenage neighbor between 11-13 - that the neighbor and his sister were being molested by their father. And that he had a teacher who caressed his thighs during one-on-one meetings. He had never told anyone, he had never sought therapy. MIL was a SAHM and beat them with belts/spoons/whatever was in reach if they did anything "wrong" and he was afraid to tell her. ****trigger****
****TRIGGER****
I should have demanded that he go to therapy regardless of whether or not I stayed. I still don't know what I should have done in that situation. We ended up reading a lot of literature together about abuse, and I stayed.
I've since overcome my trust issues and he is living the life that he always wanted - where he is a "perfect" husband with the perfect family. He has not done anything questionable since the first year of our relationship. He does not have porn, he does not spend time on his phone or computer, he is completely open about everything. He is a completely different person, and has been that way for 4+ years. We married two years ago, and we have a LO who is coming up on his 1st birthday. All of our friends think that we have the perfect life and consistently tell me that they are jealous of me because my DH is a good father and husband. He does not over-drink like their husbands, he is respectful and a gentlement, he is essentially the perfect husband, but since LO was born, his personality has been changing - he says due to lack of sleep.
There have been a few times since LO was born that we've had arguments where I've considered whether divorce might be a better option that working on our relationship. I don't want our LO to grow up in a house with a father who raises his voice. A few months ago I pointed out that DH's personality has changed since LO was born - he's short tempered, and talks to LO like everything he does isn't good enough (why won't you sleep, why won't you eat like the neighbor's baby, can't you just play by yourself so I can get chores done, etc.) and seems to half-ass things like getting LO down for a nap, and feeding LO so that I have to take over doing things (after I prep everything he needs, pump milk, etc. so I'm exhausted too). Granted, our LO doesn't sleep well, and my DH doesn't operate well on interrupted sleep.
BUT - I'm up the same amount of times during the night, I work 50 hours a week from home, and we don't have a nanny at the moment so I'm also taking care of LO full time, and I have a huge milk oversupply and exclusively pump a freaking gallon of milk a day. And I can't eat dairy/eggs/caffeine because of LO's allergies, so I can't cope with tiredness with coffee like he can. I suck it up, and I never take it out by complaining and huffing and puffing at the baby, moving around quickly and with agitation while holding him, etc.
We had another arguement today - over the fact that LO doesn't want to eat off a spoon and he should because the neighbor's kid does. I said it's more important that LO eats, and if he's only going to eat off of a carrot stick right now, then that's how I'm going to feed him. He raised his voice and kept talking over me from across the room while LO cried because he was hungry. I was in the middle of pumping and he kept telling me to stop cutting him off while he was talking, and I kept cutting him off to say lower your voice, and try talking to me WHILE you're feeding LO so that his needs are met.
I've been seriously thinking about everything in our past and whether what I've done by getting over past issues is wrong. I feel like 90% of the time, he's a great husband, and the other 10% of the time is him having a unicorn for his asshole mother and fucked up FOO, raising his voice even though he knows that's something I don't want in our lives, and complaining about LO's needs.
I don't know where to go from here. I've purchased some of the books in the sticky, but have yet to read them because I literally have no time ever - technically I do, but the downtime I have while pumping, I tend to read DWIL instead, and I'm realizing that my ILs are only part of my problem. I know I need to read the books that I have.
I think that if I stay, we need marriage counseling, and I think that my DH should address past abuse with a therapist as well as how he currently treats me and LO when he is upset/stressed/tired. I think we need to severly limit contact with ILs - I would rather CO fully.
I don't know if what I found on his computer is enough that most people would have ended the relationship and would never consider staying/therapy. I don't know if I should consider aligning my water fowl for that alone. (The only reason I thought about it is because while thinking about divorce I worried that maybe when our LO is in his pre-teens, my husband would abuse him...I don't know if it's just too much L&O SVU and the thought that the abused will turn around and abuse, or if I'm being ridiculous since nothing has happened ever, and he downloaded the videos 8-10 years before I even met him, while he was in his late teens/early 20s). Please help. Tell me what you would do. Tell me if my normal meter is way more fucked than I thought, or if I'm freaking out because my judgement is still clouded by our arguement.